This may be a bit unfair but I can't help wondering if ITV look at 63 Up and either begrudge it as an obligation or whether they wonder how everything else went wrong...
As mentioned previously there is certainly no obligation as ITV didn’t show 42 Up in 1998 and Granada produced it for BBC One.
I also seem to remember previous instalments being single episodes, rather than series, so if anything, they have actually increased their commitment to the series.
Er, it depends. 35 Up was a single episode, but it was over two hours long (delaying News at Ten) when it was shown on ITV in May 1991. 42 Up (on the Beeb as we know) was two episodes of just over a (BBC) hour, and 49 Up was two episodes, but ninety minutes long (this in the era when the news was at 10.30). So there's probably pretty much the same amount made each time, about three hours, but shown in differing formats.
7 Up 2000 is mentioned on another thread - the Beeb have shown it in 2000, 2007 and 2014, although it's never really caught on as the original did.
Just turned this on, and then saw this post - must admit I’ve never heard of it.
So they filmed ever 7 years for 56 years?
Yes, the original was a World In Action special, based on the quote "Give me a boy of seven and i will show you the man", and also that the seven year old of 1964 was the executive and shop keeper of the year 2000.
The same director Michael Apted has revisited them every seven years since, although some of them have opted out at times.
I went to a BFI event tying in with ITV50 where they screened (I think) the original 7 Up/World in Action programme and there was a Q&A with Michael Apted. It was mentioned that the 1998 edition was on BBC1 and he said this was due to it being packaged with the international version(s), which ITV at the time didn't want. True enough last time around I think 7 Up Russia went out in a post-news slot around the same time as 56 Up. No sign of any this time (yet).
The Russian and South African versions (both usually on either the same or following year as the UK one) are really fascinating as they begin in completely different eras for the countries, in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It's astonishing to hear 7 year old Russian kids intelligently discussing life under communism and predicting the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union, and South African kids unsettlingly talking about attacking people with a different skin colour to theirs.
In the 28 Up installment of both a few years ago, both had several eye-opening examples of participants admitting they missed the old ways of the country they were brought up in. One interview in the Russian version simply consisted of the participant sitting down, immediately saying he didn't want to be interviewed anymore, and leaving the room, the camera staying focused on an empty chair.
Does anyone know why the end credit music is so dramatic and sinister? Is it relevant to the older editions or something because it sounds really unfitting.
Does anyone know why the end credit music is so dramatic and sinister? Is it relevant to the older editions or something because it sounds really unfitting.
Isn't it the original World in Action theme music?