I was looking forward to this as a fan of all things scrap-heap-esque, and also as a major fan of Major Dick Strawbridge - and not just because of his more than excellent name that’s fun to say in a Kenneth Williams voice.

If you didn’t see the show, it centres around the idea that Major Dick and his ever-so-slightly-wet chum visit successful businesses in their own right and offer them an environmentally friendly solution to some problem they may or may not have. Tonight’s problem was a modern-parents style sandwich shop in Bath that needs to deliver their mung bean wraps before their customers pass out from a lack of essential nutrients, but of course don’t want to contribute to global warming by use of traditional transport. So, put up The Dick Signal!- its time for the planet mechanics to save the day and save the planet!

Now, its TV so I’m prepared to forgive almost anything really, as long as its entertaining. Except this.

The thing is, to ‘action’ the above problem (using words in this way apparently makes enviro-science sexy) our Dynamic Duo have to travel to a scrap yard on a smoky old Royal Enfield (lending instant TV characterisation only slightly less quickly than Morses’ Jag), buy a smoky old Bedford engined Horse-Box to create a travelling sustainable eco-friendly workshop for sitting near but never in and writing on a whiteboard, add expensive almost-certainly underpowered solar panels and tiny beach-novelty style windmill, then travel to bath slightly-needlessly in their largely-empty-save-for-the-white-board that’s apparently-not-hurting-trees-now-its-running-on-60%-friendlier-bio-diesel despite being as efficient as- well- an old horse box, travel to France via plane and car to learn about air-powered motors, get the motor delivered (presumably by road) as there’s no time to make it, call in several mobile plumbers in their vans to make it work, then drive it to VOSA in the ECO- Truck to get it inspected, whilst all the while being followed around by a support crew of TV folks (I’ll bow to others knowledge here, but I’m guessing this requires at least 1 vehicle, not to mention post-production resource needs). All of this furious, never-hypocritical moving about the place culminates in them creating an air powered bike, that cost a fortune, is highly-dangerous, and will on occasions need some pedaling to make work, but doesn’t pollute.

Now, the fact that that what they got out doesn’t even begin to equal what they put in, either in terms of money, saving the planet, effort or any other criteria doesn’t bother me all that much. If cars are responsible for all that’s wrong in the world (and they aren’t) then another way makes a lot of sense. Even I can accept that. And, I’m not even that angry that Tarquins request for alternative transport wasn’t just responded to with ‘buy a bike and employ some one with enough strength to cycle it’. That’s fine too, as I said, this is just telly, right? What bothers me, is that it wasn’t even good fun or even good telly. Not even remotely.

What you saw was a tiresome quest to create something we already have in a more efficient form, and two presenters having to use cars, planes, vans, motorbikes, trucks, generators and plant to do it, all the while with a dreadfully preachy and cloying voice-over trying to convince us that everything they have to do has a tiny angle that could be construed as a bit environmentally friendly. Ignoring the fact that they largely fail in their quest or contradict all of their green principals, I find this need to bolt on a world-saving angle infuriating. Must everything be about the environment now? Why cant anything be worthwhile in its own right? I’m confident this show would have been more rewarding and enjoyable- hell, maybe even beneficial- if it wasn’t done in that slightly-cross tone of all things environmental, and had maybe just foregrounded the interesting engineering, technology and science involved. To make what they do worthy, they’ve made it dull, and that’s really, really bothersome. I was the only person still watching the program by the end, and those that flounced off to scrap fridges on RSPB sites in Wartburg’s weren’t very complimentary.

Media types- I know your there- talk to your people in telly-land. Please tell them that reducing carbon emissions doesn’t mean reducing the fun. And please, let them know were not stupid- you just cant hope we wont notice the difference between what they’re saying and what they’re doing- I’m prepared to bet the number of people who drove to the shops to buy hob-nobs as an alternative to watching this has more than cancelled out the zero-emissions of the bike powered by compressed air and self satisfaction.

Moreover, thanks to shows like Mythbusters et al, young folks watch lots of programs like this at the weekend. They look forward to them- it’s an event to be talked about in school on Monday. However, if what they see isn’t fun, worthwhile or interesting and simply preachy, flawed and dull I’m doubtful they’ll continue to do so. This does none of us any good, and possibly does us harm.

If nothing else, Major Dick has made the list. I’m off to leave a 7.0 litre Mustang running outside the National Geographic production offices. Its ok though, as I’ll cycle home again.

[Discuss this topic HERE]

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Film & TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.