The telly

If you're an exile who loves British TV 'dramas' - Downtown Abbey, Fetch the Midwife (is that what it's called?), Sherlock, Taboo, Silent Witness - I apologise in advance.

In my opinion, TV is in the middle of a massive slump. Nothing new has emerged for years. We have police procedurals, nostalgic nonsense and mysteries. Characters are paper-thin. Plots seem to have no sense to them or follow a pattern that most of us could write ourselves. The test is this: record something, leave it for a week and then watch it. Do you care what happens the characters? Leave it another week and then ask yourself: who were these people and what happened to them? I swear to gawd you won't remember and you won't care.

The Midwife thingy went to Africa over the Christmas holidays. I don't know why. Maybe just to give the cast a foreign trip? Use up a budget? It was dire. Only fit for people vegging out on the settee after Christmas dinner. I hope its era is over. I can't take Vanessa Redgrave's croaky voice for much longer.

I'm also glad Sherlock is over. It was such hokum, you could have flung a set of clues in the air and whatever fell to earth would have been a better plot than what the BBC actually came up with. What a waste of really talented actors. Maybe that's better than watching and thinking: for FFS, I know at least 3 people who could play that part better.

If we're not being offered this dross, we're getting re-makes of ancient comedy series. Now why would that be? Isn't modern life funny any more? Don't we all meet 'characters' every day in life? It's not as if there are no writers out there desperate to get their work on the telly. Despite all our complaints about BBC Scotland, we still have Two Doors Down, Mrs Brown (discovered and nurtured in Scotland), Scotsquad, the Limmy Show, etc.

Sadly, US telly is the same. For the past few years, I've been waiting for a series that would replace - and update - CSI, Special Victims, NCIS (what the hell happened to Tony, eh?). Or a new comedy like Friends or Frazier. What happened? Did US telly companies run out of cash? Or get scared of taking risks?

No wonder I've been switching off the telly and reading books. Well, I would have done anyway but these days I wonder if my Sky subscription is worth a damn. I could just go to the library more often.