Once, television viewers were shackled to the questionable taste of programmers, who chose for us what we would watch.
Oh, but how long ago that seems.
Now, we can watch most anything we like any time, though remember, it is of supreme importance that we do this legally.
Of late, Remotely Interesting has been taking advantage of this new media environment to take in some great but not widely known British comedies that appeal to our deep love of both the absurd and the surreal.
Both have links to the disturbingly hilarious English comedian, writer, director and producer Chris Morris, and should immediately be accessed somehow by you (DVDs of both are out there).
Nathan Barley is a six-episode series written by Morris and Charlie Brooker.
The latter created the very excellent dark drama series Black Mirror, which screened here at some point recently and looked at the disturbing possibilities of new technology.
Nathan Barley, on the other hand, looks mainly at digital media and people who are complete ... a word starting with ''d'' springs to mind, but idiots will have to do.
Nathan Barley, played by Nicholas Burns (Benidorm and The IT Crowd), is a self-styled ''webmaster, guerrilla film-maker, screenwriter, DJ and self-facilitating media node''.
He runs the very stupid website www.trashbat.co.ck website, in a show that quite cleverly satirises the rise of digital media.
What helps take the 2005 series to some heights is its cast of very good people.
They include Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh.
Barratt plays Dan, a writer for Sugar Ape magazine who struggles with his ethics in a deeply shallow publication.
Nathan Barley also features the mighty Benedict Cumberbatch, who stars in just about every television show or movie people like.
It's well worth watching for its satire of superficial new media types.
Morris also directed the pilot of Big Train, a two-series sketch comedy show that first broadcast in 1998, though the show is the creation of Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan (Father Ted).
Big Train features Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), and begins with a sketch about a woman whose car has broken down in France, and stops a passing cyclist (Pegg) to ask if he speaks English.
''No I don't sorry,'' he responds.
''It's one of those things really; I wish I'd paid more attention in school.''
Ha ha.
But it is mostly worth watching for two sketches: one about a gaggle of showjumpers who want to be firefighters, and another about jockeys, grazing on the African grasslands and being hunted by the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.
Brilliant.
- Charles Loughrey
