Out in the desert

For a good half of January, the main TV channels preferred to rest and fed the public with old Soviet and new glamorous Christmas tales, as well as endless repetitions of their monotonous New Year's entertainment. The January premiere, of course, is “Big Difference” (“The First”) - a parody television show, noted by all critics and enthusiastically received by television viewers. The creators and participants of this magnificent product clearly showed both the audience and their colleagues what high professionalism in the field of laughter is. Compared to them, amateur comedy clubs - from KVN to Nasha Rashi - look pathetic vulgar. Another significant premiere of the same channel - “In the World of People” - made, on the contrary, a monstrous impression. The once popularly beloved presenter Nikolai Nikolayevich Drozdov very strainedly plays the role of a shepherd, calling for mercy and love against the backdrop of the most vile television stories from the lives of stars and monsters. Looking at an elderly person shaking with sobs after yet another vile story is awkward and shameful. And if such yellow bad taste is appropriate on other channels and would fit perfectly into the concept of the same NTV, then here, on “First”, it looks like a “false tooth”, and even rotten.

There are fewer and fewer people - in the high sense of the word - on our TV. After the New Year, the evening “Details” disappeared from the STS broadcast schedule: Renata Litvinova and Kirill Serebrennikov, who started so successfully as presenters, for some reason did not suit the channel’s management. I do not rule out that these programs did not boast high ratings, they were valuable to others - precisely for their elitism, uniqueness, and absolute absence of fanfare and empty chatter. With the same bitterness we said goodbye to the program “Looking at Night” (“First”), which appeared out of nowhere and sank into nowhere. But such presenters as Berman and Zhandarev can be counted on one hand on our TV, and throwing away such unique personnel is the height of waste. Apparently, the interview genre today is especially “armed and very dangerous” - people of the level of Ulitskaya, Tarasova or Gaft are able not only to speak clearly and sharply, but also to remain silent no less eloquently. Who will be allowed to do this?!

It’s good that in such a “desolation” there is still room for Vladimir Vysotsky. Many good, high-quality programs and documentaries were shown - both new and old. And Channel One, although it slightly mixed up the dates, moving the poet’s birthday a day ahead (Tatyana’s day, it’s a holiday after all!), but spent its Vysotsky Day with dignity and respect. Although “Anniversary Evening” could have been less pretentious and more attentive. A lot of things confused me - the selection of performers, a large number of random, albeit media persons, and the somewhat detached, at times careless direction of Vladimir Pozner and the crumpled “Own Track”, as if glued to the editing table.. But Vysotsky will survive this too.

Ksenia LARINA, Echo of Moscow