Civilisations BBC 2

[Serial_Apologist]

....Schama in the RT this week writes an article telling us anyone who disagrees with him is wrong.... I have only watched the David olusoga episodes after 3rd schama.....

Then I recommend the last, eighth - for the contemporary art, much of which is extraordinary, if not the presenter.

[ardcarp]

I watched the final episode. Unless I'm subject to a massive deja vu surely the sequence near the start, where Scharma was looking at pictures done by children (mostly gassed) in Concentration Camps, has been screened before? Was this patched in to the series from a previous programme?

[Belgrove]

I enjoyed the first episode and thought it could herald something important. But then it fractured, with Beard's two appallingly produced efforts weighed down further by her hackneyed themes, and Schama's dodgy theses and squirming before the camera - I liked the gunpowder man in the last episode though. It only really gelled into momentary coherence in Olusoga's two episodes, not least because much of the art was unfamiliar and he had interesting things to say about them. Let's hope we see more of him. No single programme attained the critical rigour, penetrating analysis or visual flair of Robert Hughes' Shock of the New. A repeat of his TV essay Goya: Crazy Like a Genius would also be especially welcome.

Latterly individual programmes on a single artist or theme have been more enjoyable to watch and achieved greater depth than Civilisations managed, especially when fronted by the likes of Andrew Graham Dixon, Alistair Sooke, Tim Marlowe (especially) or even Waldemar Januszczak (an acquired taste admittedly, which nevertheless I have acquired).