Shows that people forget or get lost in time

Over 15 years before the Australian drama of the same name hit UK screens, Granada produced its own daytime drama called Home and Away:



I don’t think there was a surfboard in sight.

The whole lot was scraped in a bid to save alot of money, A few member of staff left because of it, Alas the live replacement was more popular.

Ian Hislop and Nick Newman's political sitcom My Dad's The Prime Minister, first series aired on CBBC in 2003, the second series was bumped up to prime time BBC One (which only ever had one airing in 2004 and was never seen again).



This show also featured inserts filmed on the Newsnight set of the time as seen here:

And a shame such a training ground for young talent no longer exists.

I still dont see why ITV couldn't try out kids series like Dramarama or Children's wards. Maybe put it out on CITV but also give it airing on ITV around 6pm on Sunday?

Classic CITV show Knightmare had various spin-offs over the years with varying degrees of success, including this production for BSB's Galaxy Channel, entitled The Satellite Game:


This apparently ran for 38 episodes and even Tim Child later admitted that it was dreadful as he tried to set it as far away from Knightmare as he could and the graphics just weren't up to scratch, it probably inadvertently saved Knightmare from going down the same route.

Only Thames, Central and Border broadcast this series: Central killed it off and give the slot to Shortland Street


This is another doc series but on BBC ONE in mid 80 in that nice 17.35 slot.

Nothing's more obscure than this, but it was a forerunner to "slow TV": The Shortest Night on Channel 4 in 1993.

One night only, live coverage of the sky going from dark to light! Filmed at the Hayward Gallery using James Turrell's "Air Mass" installation, which was a poignant study of the nature of perception, and a useful arty timefiller for C4. shown from 3.30am for 3 hours on the solstice, 21 June.



Watching as a young 'un, I remember a (taped?) spoken intro in the room, maybe by Turrell himself, before the camera panned up. Apparently there were short spoken 'poetic' lines occasionally, but apart from that it was just literal Sky TV. The best bit was when two birds flew past the skylight. I got my dad to rewind and pause it. We all laughed. And yet somehow I grew up to be weird

For obvious reasons, only 2 websites mark the show's existence: there's a library copy and some astronomers who were annoyed it wasn't space-themed (p7 in the PDF). There are a couple of links about Turrell's art, as he's built more projects in Britain: articles by Hugh Pearman and Ritchard Allaway.

Another addition to the list - Bob Mills' In Bed With MeDinner:


Ran off and on with gaps at some unGodly hour - I dunno about midnight-ish I suppose.. Described on a fansite as "entertainment for the very very tired or possibly drunk viewer".

Post-pub TV. Nowadays Barshens and WILTY fill that gap.

In Bed With Me Dinner was followed up by Still In Bed With Me Dinner (with titles and set based upon The Avengers) both of which as I recall also ran on the Paramount Comedy Channel. TV Burp seemed to be Harry Hill's version of what was essentially the same format.

More from that 17.35 BBC1 slot.