In The state of British TV (Guardian), Mark  Lawson examines the health of UK drama, comparing it to US TV. British viewers often consider British television inferior to US programming, but Lawson offers a balanced argument, despite not even noting that Brits tend to forget that we get the better US TV over here, rather than the crap. (Conversely, we get to see all the worst of British TV along with the best.)

However, I think he’s dead wrong about one of the listed ‘weaknesses’ of British TV:

American TV companies have the courage and funding to back the big vision: committing to 20-episode runs with quick-fire options on further runs. In the UK, partly because of the tradition of single authorship rather than team-writing, commissioning is too often short and cautious, so that when a hit emerges – Sherlock, Downton Abbey – enthusiastic viewers/advertisers have a very lengthy wait for more. Yet, paradoxically, once a franchise is established, we’re too loath to let it go, even when (Taggart, Silent Witness, Midsomer) the central actors leave.

There are three key elements in that paragraph.

American TV companies have the courage and funding to back the big vision: committing to 20-episode runs with quick-fire options on further runs.

This is sometimes but not always true, and it tends to be more common for the run-of-the-mill (or tried-and-tested) formats that Lawson gets angry about elsewhere in the same piece. It’s quite rare for US networks to go out on a limb for something truly innovative.

In the UK, partly because of the tradition of single authorship rather than team-writing, commissioning is too often short and cautious, so that when a hit emerges – Sherlock, Downton Abbey – enthusiastic viewers/advertisers have a very lengthy wait for more.

I don’t like the wait, but I do like single authorship. One of the biggest problems in many US shows is how weak the characters are, and this is most often the case on shows written by large teams. Conversely, the best short-run British shows are often written by single writers or very small teams. There’s also the problem of filler. The best UK shows tend to be extremely densely packed with plot. Waking the Dead has been consistently tight in this regard, with each two-hour story driving arcs on while also providing a great story in itself. Long-run US dramas tend to be more prone to driving arcs every few episodes, but packing the rest of a season with things that don’t really matter. When you could feasibly remove half a season’s episodes without detriment, something’s wrong.

It’s interesting that Sherlock is one of Lawson’s examples of how these issues negatively impact British TV, too, because that in many ways showcases how things can go terribly wrong when the creators aren’t more directly involved. That miniseries had a great opener, a truly terrible second episode, and a decent finale. The bad middle episode wasn’t written by either co-creator. And, personally, I’d sooner have three great Sherlocks every two years than 22 episodes of watered-down crap every year.

Yet, paradoxically, once a franchise is established, we’re too loath to let it go, even when (Taggart, Silent Witness, Midsomer) the central actors leave.

However, this bit I entirely agree with. Hit UK shows do tend to drag on way past their sell-by dates. Spooks is a series that clearly needs shutting down, with its increasingly absurd plotting, diminishing budget and rapid cast-turnover all contributing to the downfall of a once reasonably good show. And while I’m sad Waking the Dead’s done next weekend, at least that’s a UK show that’s getting a rare chance to go out on a high.

Sagely advice from Wil Shipley on his blog post Success, and Farming vs. Mining. Although primarily about software (not least the difference between those who create to sell out and those who simply want to produce great software), the conclusion is something people in all creative disciplines should be mindful of:

All ideas suck, because they are just ideas. They’re worth nothing.

My success is because I worked to make the idea real. A lot. All my life. Starting when I was 12, I learned to program, and I’ve programmed every spare moment since. I didn’t become a millionaire until I’d worked at it for eighteen years. There was no genius idea I had. I just kept working, hating what I did before, and working some more to make it better.

And when you’re done with Shipley’s piece, read Austin Kleon’s How to Steal Like an Artist (and 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me), an excellent essay that advocates just getting on and creating stuff, rather than mulling things over and doing nothing

Unsure on the upcoming referendum on the UK voting system? If so, The Observer’s Do we want a fairer election system? op-ed is well worth a read. It’s a balanced, fair piece, addressing most of the major concerns. Not least among them, the argument that coalition would be more likely under AV and OH MY GOD THE CURRENT COALITION IS EVIL ON TOAST AND FULL OF LYING SCUMBAGS. The Observer points out:

Lib Dem U-turns hardly advanced the public’s faith in politicians’ promises. But it is absurd to blame the fact of coalition, as if every manifesto of every winning party before 2010 was fastidiously implemented.

Coalitions are here to stay even under the current system. A hung parliament was elected because neither of the two biggest parties commanded enough support to be trusted alone in government. The idea that they should seek remedy for that decline by propping up a system that helps them cheat is lazy and arrogant.

And for the pro-reform people who are, bizarrely, considering ‘abstaining’ (i.e. not voting) or even voting for FPTP, because they’re not being given the option of AV+ or STV, or because AV has major problems of its own, The Observer has this to say:

AV is not perfect. No system captures the will of the people with photographic realism. The goal is a fair approximate, and FPTP fails utterly. It distorts, obstructs, obscures and perverts voter choices. It causes tens of thousands of votes to be wasted; it forces people to endorse candidates they don’t like, just to punish ones they like even less.

AV will not solve all of the problems of British democracy. It will not undo the harm of the expenses scandal, nor provoke a renaissance of civic participation. It is only a reform. It promises one thing: by taking account of multiple preferences, it would elect a parliament that more accurately describes the political complexion of the nation. That is a start.

Colin Barrett on the Twitter dickbar:

What about Twitter for iPhone’s existing mechanisms for notifying users about things happening outside the home timeline? Anyone who uses Twitter for iPhone has seen the blue dots underneath the tabs in the tab bar. And they will also be able to tell you Twitter for iPhone can’t keep track of which direct messages you’ve read to save its life — even ones you read in Twitter for iPhone.

Twitter should concentrate on fixing its existing notification mechanisms before adding new ones.

Right on target, I’d say.

I’m also sick of Twitter going on about coherent user experiences as an excuse for starting to lock down its API and mothball third-party clients, considering all of its own experiences lack coherence. It’s one thing that the Mac Twitter client differs somewhat from the iPad one. But when the iPad client—a universal app—wildly differs from the iPhone version (the same app, remember) in terms not only of interface but also basic functionality, Twitter’s talking out of its arse.

Yesterday, I flagged buckets of stupid poured on to the internet by Dell and Microsoft execs who should know better. But someone then had to go and tell me about Brett Arends and his WSJ SmartMoney masterpiece Is That iPad 2 Really Worth $2,000?

Now, the smart people among you will have noticed the slight problem with Arends’s argument, in that even the most expensive iPad is a smidge over $800, and the cheapest model is $500. Aha! Arends has you there:

If I don’t spend that $500, I’ll invest it.

Right. In the stock market, which NEVER FAILS. And by the same token, we should all stop buying anything and invest the money, because there’s never any benefit in leveraging new technology, thereby investing in your life, rather than the stock market.

By all means argue that the iPad 2 is overpriced if you can back that up with an argument that isn’t “but a cheaper and better Android device will probably be released within six months”; similarly, if tablets aren’t for you and you prefer netbooks, fair enough. But don’t respond to someone asking whether you’re getting an iPad with “even if I did, I probably wouldn’t want to spend $2,000 on one,” because that makes you sound like a dick.