Competitive Telly!

 Yes it's that time of year again; I am watching all the Ps; potters, painters  and professional chefs. 

I'd like to say that I'm glued to the programs they appear in;  The Pottery Throw Down, Landscape Artist of the Year and Masterchef the Professionals, but the best I can do is semi-attached. Maybe the formats are getting old, maybe my boredom threshold is lowered, but whatever it is  I'm only half watching the programs.

I think the pottery one is the worst offender; I find a lot of this year's tasks quite boring which  doesn't mean that the contestants aren't producing some amazing work; they are. That said I'm not convinced this years are as good as last years overall either. Maybe it's just that in the first few series I was learning lots, since when it started I knew nothing about pottery but now that I do know some,. it's not quite so interesting. I'll watch  until the end of this series but whether I'll tune in next time is another thing. 

Landscape Artist of the Year has had a change of judge. They have lost Kate Bryan who the OH used to describe as The Cute One (!) and who, despite that,  was my favourite. I have yet to warm to her replacement and I have seen references on social media claiming she is 'too good' for the show and wondering what she's doing on it! Again I am finding the process of watching the paintings develop less compelling than I have in previous years but I am still enjoying it. Since I cannot draw I am always amazed at the talent some people have for reproducing landscapes, sometimes quite busy and challenging cityscapes, and I generally love  seeing the way the same scene is interpreted differently by the different artists who are competing. 

What can I say about Masterchef The Professionals? Well first off it's a damn  sight better than it was, now the loathsome Greg Wallace has been ditched. Long term readers here will know that I have loathed Wallace since Day 1 and I have to say that all the revelations over the past months  about his behaviour towards women have not surprised me one bit. The new judge is obviously still finding his feet but seems pleasant enough and he is at least a professional cook which Wallace never was,  so that's  an improvement. The Professionals was always my favourite program in the Masterchef stable because it showed people who were mostly already very good and watched them improve and progress and develop and I always found that heart warming. We're not very far into the current series but already there has been some amazing talent on display and some mouth watering looking food. 

While I'm here I suppose I could take a moment to write about Game of Wool: Britain's  Best Knitter. I did not like this program for al the reasons that many knitters I know, both on and off social media didn't like it. Too wide a spread of contestants ability at the beginning, the constant presence of crochet even though that's a different skill ( I have nothing against crochet but if you call a program the search for Britain's Best Knitter then knitting is what they should be doing, some bizarre judging decisions, and actually now I've used the bizarre word, let's work it a bit harder and apply it also to Di Gilpin's headgear and Tom Daley's outfits and presenting style. It could also be applied to some of the challenges, like knitted swimwear and the decision to make members of Britain's swimming team model it, and deckchair covers. Finally it became very obvious that what the judges were looking for was not a knitter but a designer; that being the case the fact that there was a contestant who was a designer with a textile background tipped the contestant's plating field so far from being level that it was practically vertical. Will I watch Series 2? I'll maybe give it a go to see if it has had any improving tweaks, but I'm not holding my breath. 

It feels strange to be doing a blog post about tv programs again; there are so many things  I| used to write about that I don't any more. This is basically because life in general is just busier and I have more interesting things to write about than television. For example we have a super, actually stupid, busy weekend coming up, so that should  keep the fingers typing next week.