Glued to the box

There’s a story about the very early days of cinema, when the Lumier brothers were showing footage of a steam train pulling into a station. The audience thought the train was about to run them over and fled as only startled French people can do. Looking back on this event, which is often used as an example of the shock of the new, one might be forgiven for using the term ‘quaint’ as possibly the most charitable response.

A century later and I’m in an electrical superstore, tinkering with the notion of a new telly. Naturally, one cultivates the reputation as somebody who entertains themselves via a good book or, if push comes to shove, the wireless. The truth is that books may furnish a room, but a 50 inch plasma telly would, in my opinion, enhance it still further. The problem, I discovered, is that I’d have to sell all of my books and possibly a kidney in order to afford such a telly.

But it was fun to browse. Many tellys these days come with a pair of dark glasses, not, as I thought, as some sort of ‘Blues Brothers’ gift pack, but because you can get three dee tee vee in your home. Some were better than others but, bloody hell, the LG one was something else. They were showing a showreel of various three dee things, like a baseballer hitting the ball at you, aeroplanes shooting past you and so on. And yes, I was dodging and shrieking like a girl, pointing and trying to swat away butterflies. This must have looked, to the casual observer, as hilarious as any fleeing Frenchman and trumped my previous triumph of making an arse of myself in a shop, which involved X Box Kinect and no sense of restraint.

The success of three dee tee vee is going to depend on the programming. Anything wonder of nature related is probably going to be good in three dee, especially if they rig up some sort of cheeta-cam fixed to the front of a big cat, although maybe the sight of running into a wildebeast’s arse at sixty mph is not tea-time viewing.

Sports events would be good in three dee. Sky already broadcast footie in three dee, to make the event immersive. Of course, to make it truly immersive, they should send round a hot pie at half time. Likewise, the final of Strictly was shown in three dee in cinemas. I really liked this idea, not the three dee but the idea of gathering together strictly fans in darkened rooms – it’s like the heyday of the gay club scene in NY, and the very definition of ‘fabulous’.

Indeed the future of television may not lie in three dee, smell-o-rama, rumblevision or any other gimmick, but in the collective experience of event television. And why stop at simply gathering together to watch your favourite programme? The next logical step is to develop the already established showing of certain films in certain locations and site specific theatre by developing site-specific screenings, or at least augmented screenings. For instance, which of the following would enhance your enjoyment of ‘Downton Abbey’; big tee vee? HD? 3D? Or watching it while wearing formal dining attire sat in a drawing room being served cocktails and repressing sexual longing for the girl in the flimsy dress who keeps stealing glances at you? Or no adverts?

Or maybe the future lies in interactivity, mashing up television footage with a games console. Can we really be that far away from a nature programme that shows us the wonders of the deep which and comes with a virtual fishing rod? Or the wonders of the veldt that comes with a virtual elephant gun? Actually, Ray Bradbury wrote an excellent short story about the interactive nature programmes which indicate that they are not always a great idea.

Of course, collective viewing of favourite television programmes might also mean that when somebody asks ‘what’s he been in’, an answer might be forthcoming without needing to fire up IMDB. This is especially useful in Dickens adaptations, where even the most familiar face can be buried under more whiskers than is sensible.