Egypt's Lost Cities: BBC1 Bank Holiday Monday evening telly

The BBC spent more than a week airing a trailer for what appeared to be a new programme exploring brand new cutting edge technology linked to archaeology. What they didn't say was that it was the same technology the west used to identify Osama Bin Laden's weapons of mass destruction, which failed, which had been adapted to identify areas of historical significance across Egypt's vast and desert-ridden landscape. By pointing satellites down into the open sandscapes, and using infrared filtering, Egyptologist Sarah Parcak claimed she was able to point out undiscovered buildings, roads and harbours underneath the surface of the sand. This was the most exciting bit of telly I'd heard about in months and I waited eagerly for its transmission, saved up for a Bank Holiday evening on BBC1 primetime.
Brian Viner, from The Independant, writes of the BBC's recent Egypt's Lost Cities programme that thanks to Tony Robinson's absence the viewing public was saved from his "excitable high-pitched shouting". Instead of Robinson's apparent vase-smashing powers of what must only be telekinesis, Viner claims viewers were instead treated to the supposedly enhanced sexed-up presenting prowess of Dallas Campbell and Liz Bonnin.
Now I'm as much for change as the next black President of the USA, but in this case I can't help but feel confused and distanced from the Big British Castle. Where Robinson would have taken time to direct his excitement straight into the camera lens loaded with factual reference, objective speculation and informed opinion, his new slinky replacements proved themselves bone idol to the point of simply cooing at the site of four thousand year old graffiti. Without too much trouble you could easily work out the BBC has seen how popular Brian Cox is, and thought it should use Cox's cutesie bedside manner in this show too. What they clearly overlooked was that although Cox comes across as a softly spoken mild-mannered boffin who charms the pants off all the world's MILF, he's also one of the brightest of sparks and knows his ox-bow lakes from his longshore drift. Campbell and Bonnin burst out of the traps without the faintest idea of why they were in Egypt - their voice over narration betrayed the simple fact that they added all the substance and fact when they were back in the studio, surrounded by Wikipedia and a team of researchers.
It wasn't just the presenters that failed to hit the mark either. The BBC has decided to go all Radio 1 on its viewers and force us all to put up with an overbearing and over-dramatic musical score in all its latest productions. Not only does this prompt me to anticipate the arrival on screen of Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington, but it reminds me that no I'm not watching something with a nourishing intellectual content, I'm watching something for children suffering from ADD. I would dread having to be a fly on the wall in the production meeting; having to listen to some idiot pursuade a room full of executives and creatives that the programme's too boring without a Hans Zimmer-esque score filling every single moment of what was once quiet. It was in those moments of quiet that a viewer could once make his or her own mind up about a show without being spoon-fed the appropriate emotion the director was desperate to put across. Why aren't we allowed to think for ourselves anymore??!
The scientific content put across by Parcak was touched upon lightly, but in no real depth. No doubt so as not to offend the supposedly low-brow BBC1 audience of today. But why oh why not make a decent show and get some real substance going with the presenters and voice-overs? Take a chance and put it out on BBC4 - leave the prime channel to Graham Norton and give new scientific ventures a chance to find their audience elsewhere.
Akin to the British and American reporting of the effects of Japan's recent tsunami (news crews were more concerned with finding a Japanese resident who was actually distressed than they were in reporting how calm and mayhem-free the people were), more effort appeared to be put into showing Sarah's dismay at not discovering a hidden pyramid than all the work that went into making the discovery in the first place.
Sadly it seems likely that by snipping the purse strings of the best television production establishment in the world, we've unwittingly paved the way to joining our American cousins at the firey gates of entertainment hell.

No doubt soon enough we'll all be sat in front of the telly of a Bank Holiday evening to hear Les Dennis say, "And so for final jeopardy can you answer this question? This is the state of British cultural entertainment since its own public complained the flagship provider was over-financed".
On-the-ball-contestant: "What is dumbed down to the point of dribbling?"