Last night BBC4 showed Morgan Matthews documentary Scenes from a Teenage Killing. It was a bleak, brilliant and powerful commemoration of all the teenagers who died a violent death in 2009. But why was this shoved away on a week night on BBC4? Surely the place for this magnificent programme should have been Saturday night on BBC2. I'm showing my age, but back in the day, it would have been.
This made me think, what is the role of BBC2 these days? All the eye catching stuff goes to its much younger siblings BBC3 and BBC4. They get the hip and the heavyweight. While poor old BBC2 trundles along with endless Coast and Top Gear. Just looking at the nightly line up shows it's a channel that seems to have lost its way. Most everything on it can be moved to other BBC channels and no one would bat an eyelid. It has lost its identity which, in its hay day, was an intelligent, entertaining alternative to the other terrestrial channels. But, perhaps there lies the problem. As channels multiplied and everything spread out, things slip away.
Now BBC2 is just there. But I remember its salad days with fondness. The Saturday night Midnight Movie. Where an entire generation was introduced to Si-fi greats like The Incredible Shrinking Man and Roger Corman's Gothic Edgar Allen Poe adaptations. Not to mention all the great Hammer Horrors. But here I go, middle-aged, pining for long gone days of channel loyalty and identity. I'll be wanting the Testcard with music back next so I can sip me Horlics and have a nap.
Whatever the fate of BBC2, if you get the chance to see Scenes from a Teenage Killing, jump at it. You won't forget it in a hurry.
Over.
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