"Cash cows" and eternal values

The beginning of the new television season is marked by several returns, significant losses and absolutely useless movements. The humorous show of Channel One “Big Difference” lived up to expectations: the new episode of the program turned out to be no less incendiary and witty than the previous one. The team of writers and actors is a real boon for television producers. Accuracy and ruthlessness of observations, an impeccable sense of proportion, dynamism and sharpness of dialogue, plus a bright grotesque form of expression - these are the qualities that, when used skillfully, give a win-win result. In parodies of some presenters, the real face of our television is reflected as if in a mirror: complacent, well-fed, selfish, envious, cynical, greedy and indifferent. Eyewitnesses claim that it was precisely these “rare” qualities that were demonstrated by the participants in the TEFI ceremony, which ordinary spectators did not see. The ceremony was not broadcast this year, which means it didn’t seem to exist for a mass audience. In live broadcasts on the news of Channel One and REN TV, one could notice half-empty tables in the hall and hear sad muttering on the stage.

A certain despondency can also be observed in the returning entertainment “cash cows”: “Ice Age”, “Minute of Glory” (both “First”) and “Star Ice” (an updated ice show on the Rossiya channel). Once again there is no desire to listen to praises and praises addressed to TV bosses and Tatyana Tarasova, admire the “mind game” of presenter Zavorotnyuk and root for unknown serial artists. “Minute of Fame” was unpleasantly surprising with the composition of the contestants: it seems that most of the numbers migrated to the Moscow airwaves from provincial corporate parties. A lot of money is visible in the costumes and decoration, and restaurant frenzy in the execution. It seems that the box office leaders of previous years have exhausted all their resources. The milk has run out.

The same cannot be said about the show “Superstar” (NTV): the appearance of hooligan and clown Lolita Milyavskaya as the host introduced a feeling of unpredictability and cheerful confusion into the ordinary format. I don’t know how this long-running story will develop further, but the four-hour presentation of the project turned out to be dynamic and exciting.

“School of Scandal” (NTV) also slightly changed the format and design (both of the studio and the presenters), but still remained strictly dependent on the quality of the guests: interesting ones are interesting, boring ones are boring. I remember the artistic and passionate Dmitry Vodennikov and the incredible Vera Millionshchikova, director of the first Moscow hospice, who, with her inherent wisdom and ease, turned the conversation about the terrible into a conversation about the eternal.

The return of Mikhail Osokin (REN TV) to the news broadcast is both pleasing and sad at the same time: Osokin is in brilliant form, his comments, as before, are sharp and ironic. But his appearance, his free style of presentation, his liberal approach to persons and events - as if from another time. And his news seems to come from another country.

Ksenia Larina, radio “Echo of Moscow”