Television

To my mind I have only seen four or five really great drama on television, these are: 'The Singing Detective' and 'Pennies From Heaven' by Dennis Potter, 'Edge of Darkness' by Troy Martin Kennedy, 'Black Mirror' by Charlie Brooker and 'Taking Over The Asylum' with David Tennent.  These dramas all reach the level of great art and they are few and far between.  Why I feel that these are great and that most television is not is because all of these dramas engage with despair, facing the meaning of life and struggling with it.
  'The Singing Detective' is about Philip Marlowe, a detective writer who is in hospital suffering from a severe skin condition that leaves him bed bound.  In the hospital he is rude and challenging to the staff while he writes his book in his head and recalling his childhood in the Forest of Dean.  'And all the time, there is this canopy over you'.
  'Pennies From Heaven', also by Potter, is about a sheet music salesman who loves music but hates the shops.  He is unsatisfied with his wife and desperately yearns for more.
  'Edge of Darkness' is about a detective whose daughter is killed and in trying to find the killer he finds himself deep in a corporate conspiracy involving nuclear power.  A green text.
  'Black Mirror' is a series of one off stories that deal with technology that shapes human relationships, reality justice and political angst.  The three I saw was about a woman who loses her husband and gets a robot that acts as a replacement, a game where criminals believe they are living in a post- morality world and a comedian who thanks to a animation he voices becomes a political figure that gets out of control.
  'Taking Over the Asylum' is about a man who works at a radio station in a psychiatric ward  while doing a door to door sales job.  He wants to be a full time radio DJ and struggles with the aggressive selling culture.  The patients he meets are trying to get well while dreaming of their future.  It's about trying to do what you want to do when it goes against the idea of settling with less.
  These are all brilliant, rare examples of how television can deal in big ideas and big feelings.  I don't watch much television as like Robin Ince once said, I would watch more television but I don't think I can afford to buy a new television after chucking it out of the window every night.  There is also Chris Morris' stuff, I would think what he does as great art.