A couple of years ago, a friend of mine acted in a couple of episodes of the American television show 7th Heaven. At the time she told me that there was no danger of it ever being shown in the UK as it was a very American show and British audiences would hate it.
But she reckoned without the large number of dodgy British cable channels that will import any old crap from the US. And recently I noticed that the Hallmark Channel had started showing old episodes of 7th Heaven. A few minutes research with Google showed me which season they were showing and it just happened to be the one that she was in.
So last night I watched the first of her two episodes. The second is on this evening.
Now I’ve seen some pretty bad TV shows in my time, but this is horrible. I’m not sure what was worse – the ridiculously simple plots that were only there to hang obvious moral points on, or the stereotypical portrayal of a British person (my friend’s part). It’s a bit like the Waltons – but contemporary and more christian.
Obviously I’ve only seen one episode. But I’m really not sure that I can stand watching the second one tonight. Maybe I’ll just record it an fast-forward looking for Jules’ bits.
I can’t believe that something this bad was ever made. Oh, no, that’s not fair. Lots of bad television shows get made. But most of them don’t last very long. This one had been running for eleven years. There must be people out there in the US who are lapping it up. And that’s very worrying.