ABSTRACT
I think there is now enough evidence to say that the present controllers of television, after the difficulties of the Sixtiesdifficulties of genuine growth-are turning more and more to the received values of other forms. A work like Jude is too resistant for them, it still cuts directly into their own consensus. But the Grand Tour, the Edwardian bourgeoisie, the rollicking and colourful Eng" lish courtly past: these are static experiences, ready to be upholstered, given the tickets of prestige. A younger generation can do little but mock them, for its own original work is forced out more and more to the edges. The parodists survive, the makers just hang on. But if this is the sequence, I do not see, given everything else that is happening, how it can last much longer.
