British tv's loss of ambition | thearticle

I have just been re-watching the BBC’s brilliant adaptation of _Wolf Hall _on BBC iPlayer. Superbly cast, with Mark Rylance, Claire Foy, Anton Lesser and Damian Lewis, among others, and

brilliantly directed by Peter Kosminsky, it was one of the best BBC dramas in recent years. There is one curious thing about _Wolf Hall_, however. _Wolf Hall _is an adaptation of the first

two books in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Together, the books come to over 1,100 pages, brilliantly adapted by Peter Straughan and Kosminsky in six episodes. Why only six?

Each book could easily have sustained six episodes on their own. This is part of a bigger problem in British television: a strange loss of ambition. This is a new development. Between the

1960s and 1980s British TV produced huge, ambitious TV historical documentaries from _The Great War_ in 1964, which marked the 50th anniversary of the First World War, to _The World at War

_in 1973-4, both 26 episodes; _Civilization _(1969) and _The Ascent of Man _(1973), both 13 episodes. Drama series were just as big. _The Forsyte Saga_ (1967) and _The Pallisers_ _(1974)

_were also 26 episodes. During the 1980s ITV started making ambitious, high-prestige drama series like _Brideshead Revisited _(11 episodes, 1981) and _The Jewel in the Crown _(14 episodes,

1984). It wasn’t just the sheer size and cost of these series, it was the range: historical documentaries, dramas and series about culture and ideas. During these twenty years, British

television was hugely ambitious. What has happened? Most prestige drama series are now just a few episodes. Those big series about ideas — _Civilisation, The Ascent of Man, _Alistair Cooke’s

_America _and Carl Sagan’s _Cosmos _(both 13 episodes) _The Shock of the New_ (8 episodes) — used to be a regular, almost annual event. No longer. Now they have vanished. _Civilizations

_was shorter and worse than the original. _The Great War _and _The World at War _were just the beginning of a number of big, ambitious documentary series. Others included _The End of Empire

_(14 episodes), _The Dragon Has Two Tongues_ (13 episodes), and — the last hurrah — _Cold War _(24 episodes) and _Millennium: A Thousand Years of History _(10 episodes). Compare these huge

history series with the BBC’s output to mark the centenary of the First World War, a number of smaller projects with different presenters, including Jeremy Paxman and Niall Ferguson. The BBC

and ITV have given up on big series. Simon Schama’s _History of Britain _was fifteen episodes but split between three series. Andrew Marr’s various series on history and modern politics

were between three and six episodes. Niall Ferguson’s historical series for Channel 4 tend to be about four episodes each and are there to sell the books. There’s another twist. The decline

of big series on British television has coincided with the rise and rise of ambitious new series in America. The last two big historical documentary series shown on the BBC, _Cold War _and

_Millennium_, were produced by Jeremy Isaacs but financed by Ted Turner. Since then, the Americans have made their own hugely ambitious series. In particular, during the last thirty years,

big historical documentary series by Ken and Ric Burns have taken on big subjects, from _The Civil War_ to _The Vietnam War_, from the history of _Jazz _to _New York_. Big series like _The

Wire_, _The Sopranos_, _Breaking Bad_ and _Homeland_, have changed the nature of TV drama. From the opening episode of _The Sopranos _to the final episode of _Homeland,_ these series have

ranged from Italian-American tough guys in New Jersey to Mexican drug dealers in New Mexico, from inner-city cops in Baltimore to terrorism in the Middle East and Pakistan. These are huge

series, ranging between sixty and ninety-six episodes. Of course, there are British drama series like _Spooks_, eighty-six episodes over ten seasons. But, by and large, the best TV dramas

are shorter: _Sherlock_, _Broadchurch_ and _Line of Duty_ are all under thirty episodes. But many of the best drama series — Stephen Poliakoff’s _Shooting the Past _and _Relative Strangers,

_Hugo Blick’s _The Shadow Line _and _The Honourable Woman —_ are just a few episodes. This is all part of two huge changes in television. First, how American cable TV has overtaken British

television in ambition since the 1990s. Second, the loss of ambition in British TV. We no longer think big.