Sunday Night Television

Just what is it about Sunday night TV?

Just now, it’s almost 9pm. As far north as it gets in Northern Ireland, it’s almost dark. The blackbird which sees our garden as his garden, and sings about it every night, is reaching his last verse. It’s so beautiful that I should have written about it as a song that makes me happy, earlier on. Time to watch a bit of TV before going to bed. And what uplifting treats does BBC1 have to offer? ‘Antiques Roadshow’ followed by ‘Waking the Dead’. I’m not joking. Why is it that, on the most depressing night of the week, the TV has to be depressing too?

For years, Sunday Evening Syndrome used to set in in my mind when I heard the theme tune to ‘Heartbeat’ after ‘Coronation Street’ ended on a Sunday night. It’s such a clear sense memory. ‘Heartbeat’… and its jolly little tune, and the feeling of my heart sinking. That ‘Oh God…’ feeling of Sunday night and the dread of what lies ahead and all I have to do. That looming sense of inadequacy… no matter what I watch on a Sunday night, I can never seem to escape it. People call it ‘the Fear’, but all I know is that I never, consistently, sleep as badly as I do on a Sunday night…

But it’s quite some time since either ‘Coronation Street’ or ‘Heartbeat’ has been on TV on a Sunday night. Now it’s ‘Countryfile’ followed by ‘Antiques Roadshow’ and then ‘Waking the Dead’, following in a solemn cavalcade like the solemn saloon cars driven through the winding countryside by Sunday driving pensioners all day. People like the serious pair I saw sitting by the sea in their desert beige Rover, windows down, at 10:30 this morning, reading their newspapers and drinking tea from their flask. Even though there were numerous bright and cheery cafes open nearby… and even though empty bench space was plentiful so early on such a perfect spring morning.

It’s Sunday night, the logic seems to go, so it has to be solid and serious and worthy and slow of pace. It’s got to be age-appropriate for people who remember what Sundays used to be: we can’t have too much fun, we’ve still got to cast an eye to the time when the swings were chained up and the only book to be read was the Good one. So we’re offered the joys of ‘nice family entertainment’ like ‘Dancing on Ice’ - enough to make the blood run cold, especially on a winter night if you’re dreading a treacherous journey on slippery roads the next morning - or that God-awful drama about the vet and his family, set in Africa, with a cast of thousands including giraffes and elephants and ‘friendly natives’ from some kind of colonial time warp. As though the thousand looming spectres of the demands of Monday weren’t enough, we get this sincere mediocrity of worthiness which does nothing to comfort or distract…

It always makes me want to search the schedules for a marathon of ‘Sex and the City’ or something, or a controversial film or a good political argument. But it never seems to work… somehow the theme tune of ‘Heartbeat’ always seems to get through. The gates to the park of relaxation have been locked and chained and the dark figure in the uniform of the Caretaker of Duty is standing there, shaking his bunch of jangling keys, so many of them that even he will never be able to count them, waiting and warning and jangling, in a memento mori of reality…

But no more of this. I’m off to watch ‘Lewis’. On Sky Plus, so I can zip through the ad breaks. It’s slow, it’s a tiny bit thoughtful, and most people I know think it’s a bit boring. But the scenery is beautiful and it brings back happy memories and…

… oh God. It’s happening, isn’t it? I’m starting to like Sunday night TV…