Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be – though Sky’s new Jones! channel makes it superficially tempting.
Depending entirely on one’s demographic, here are either the television treasures of childhood, or the embarrassing dross. Some of these shows haven’t been seen for so long, it’s risky to predict which will still charm, and which simply appal.
But already sentimental points go to Dad’s Army and The Beverly Hillbillies: gentle, innocent humour and vivid dependable characters. Nothing too cruel or arch. The theme tunes alone are like a mug of hot chocolate.
The cult classics Star Trek and Mission Impossible, which seemed so impossibly expensive and glamorous in their day, now have that cardboard-and-tinfoil feel of early Doctor Who – but like it, they created a deathless mystique.
The Brady Bunch remains a cornily engaging caricature of itself. Other oldies, though, like Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, take themselves far too seriously, while at the opposite end, The A-Team and The Incredible Hulk seem almost camp in their self-sendup.
It’s always salutary to visit the series one viewed with great earnestness as a young person, and sometimes dismaying to find all the tinsel has rubbed off. Even the shows we couldn’t possibly have taken seriously, like Dallas, can seem shockingly venal and one-dimensional. With most of these shows, one or two revisitings will prove more than enough.
A few, though, will be a reliable source of comfort viewing. A few rounds with Ar’fah Daley and his lockup or Uncle Jed and Ellie May with assorted critters are great restoratives.
Meanwhile TV One, Sundays, has the far-fetched but enjoyable new series of Whitechapel, starring Rupert Penry-Jones as Chandler, a health-conscious, toffy and altogether ill-placed London police inspector, who uses Buchan, an oddball amateur crime historian, to help him solve modern murders.
They began with a modern Jack the Ripper, later progressing to an update of the Krays’ atrocities. By now, echoes from the past are growing rather more obscure and, frankly, ridiculous – but nonetheless engrossing, given that the main characters are so appealing.
A toney tailor’s entire atelier is slaughtered, for no other reason than that they specialise in Victorian and Edwardian-styled suits. Chandler again employs the infuriatingly rude Buchan to find a link to Victorian/Edwardian murders. Amazing to think that’s even further back than Columbo and Kojak.
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