Is it true? Has Channel 4 finally decided to stop screwing with the West Wing schedule? No more “Oh, we can’t show any series on E4 over the summer, it would interfere with our 24/7 Big Brother shite”? No more putting WW on C4 at 3.20 in the morning? Holy fo’schnizit.
And whats this? A whole channel dedicated to sensible shows, like West Wing, the Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm? Is that not what E4 was supposed to be, before it became totally FriendsTV/BigBrotherTV?
And what is this post doing? I can count seven silly questions so far. That’s totally unnecessary. And must be stopped.
But yes. This new channel (More4) looks interesting. It’s just a pity that they start showing series six of the West Wing two weeks after it came out on DVD. A small lack of business sense there, Channel 4. But we’ll forgive you. Just because you’re opening your new channel with a quick session of kicking Uberstamfurher Blunkett. With quotes about it like:
“Tory ministers used to find scandal in low places. New Labour prefers to get its trotters into the top trough. This film explores how Blunkett became a metaphor for Tony Blair’s decadent regime.”
C4’s never really known what to do with West Wing – a pity, but kind of understandable. It’s a show that’s not really had more than 2m viewers in the UK, and that was in the first two seasons.
Hence, from S3 channel 4 messed around with it, first to try and find a slot that suited it where it got the audience it deserved, and then (particularly for S5) just because they’d bought it and didn’t know what the chuff to do with it. So, scheduling hell.
Having it on More4 is an interesting move, although flawed in that a) most of the fans have already bought S6 on DVD, and thus won’t watch it on TV and b) it’s narrowing the potential audience of West Wing even more.
I wonder if S7 will even make it onto TV over here…