TV Eye: Switching and signing off

BRILLIANT TELLY, BURIED: TV One played the brilliant <i>Red Riding</i> trilogy, starring Sean Bean, on a Sunday after midnight, much to the dismay of this reviewer. Photo / Supplied

Hello! And goodbye. This is my first and last TV Eye for the year.

I actually quit my reviewing duties at the end of last year but the TimeOut editor has agreed it might be a good idea to bid farewell and introduce you to the person joining the hard-working team. Because, honestly, reviewing TV can be bloody tough.

My efforts to back away from TV have been a long time coming, partly because my job as books and arts editor keeps me pretty busy anyway, but two recent vexations have cemented my decision.

Way, way back, I used to be an avid TV One watcher. Old habits die hard. But I hadn't realised how much I had drifted away until last month when I got a letter from Sky advising that all TV One series booked on MySky would have to be re-set.

Panic. I rushed to the MySky planner, and discovered not one single TV One show was booked.

This is quite something for a person who used to assume - at one stage, back in the mists of time, rightly so - that TV One was the state broadcaster motherlode of reliable, "quality" programming.

Now it is a source of frustration, its primetime slots a limp salad of repeat movies, formulaic US crime drama, shallow "current affairs" and shows about obese people with sex issues and/or deformities. Nothing I want to watch, let alone review.

The second thing that made me realise One's programmers have no respect for decent drama, let alone viewers, was the accidental discovery, also last month, that they had snuck the Red Riding trilogy into a Sunday night slot, after midnight. AFTER MIDNIGHT! Just one of the most brilliant, savage, well-written, well-acted series to come out of Britain in recent years, and the winner of numerous awards.

Well, I managed to MySky the second and third episodes - about the eye-watering level of corruption and murder within the West Yorkshire Constabulary during the time of the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. But, crucially, I missed the first episode, starring Sean Bean, a hideous white polo neck sweater and Rebecca Hall. Damn you, One. That's it. Splutter, splutter...

I'm not alone in thinking that Prime has morphed into the new One, no-fuss, steady, grabbing the quality documentaries, the great drama series (wait till you see Downton Abbey: coming soon). So a big thank you to Prime programmers Karen Bieleski and Kathy Wright, who treat their viewers as though they've got brains.

But let's not get too airy-fairy. My MySky lights up red every Wednesday night when TV3's tough-nut Sons of Anarchy plays, a series which has become so popular in the office we have formed our own little club, complete with enforcer (useless), prospect (wimp) and moll (class act).

So happy days: now I only watch TV I want to watch. It has changed my life, freed me up to do other stuff on the weekends, like that quaint, rewarding pastime of reading.

The lovely Rebecca Barry is coming on board, bringing a fresh outlook to the TV Eye team.

Soon, if she watches closely, she might see a certain TV One current affairs host in London covering the royal wedding, where no doubt, he'll be bellowing, "LOOK!" But I won't be.

-TimeOut