Crikey, as I always say, shortly after posting an image that was considered high resolution in 2005 – how did that happen?
Time has flown again. The Medium Is Not Enough emerged blinking into the world on 21 June 2005, and basic maths tells us it is now 17 years old. It feels all grown up now, now it’s doing its A-levels and is working out which universities to apply for. But we still all know that it’s basically still a bit childish and not yet ready for anything too important.
This year in review
Despite claiming to have got my my mojo back this time last year, following seemingly endless lockdowns, I can’t pretend year 17 was that much better than year 16. There’s definitely been more TV reviewing going on, but between my lack of daily commute, the introduction of yet more streaming services and a backlog of productions made during and before Covid all getting released en masse, I’ve not exactly been providing comprehensive coverage of the world’s TV, I’m afraid, have I?
Is that even possible any more? I doubt even someone who was paid to review TV could watch everything new that’s come out, there’s just so much of it now. Which is good, since it gives people great variety and all tastes will ultimately get catered for. And it’s not like everything’s been rubbish, either is it? There have been some great new shows from everywhere, even unexpected quarters (eg Peacock’s Bel Air), and AppleTV+ has finally got its act together, too, becoming alongside Disney+ one of the two streaming services you should probably subscribe to if you want all the best new shows – sorry, Netflix, you’re making too much that’s not good enough now.
But it does mean TMINE’s USP has gone. Ultimately, I think TMINE is becoming once again what it started out as: a personal blog that looks purely at what I’ve been watching on TV, without pretending to be anything major or important. The time of the blog is pretty much gone, though. There’s Substack for those who want to write and make money; Twitter and Insta for people who want to beam their thoughts out into the world to be read by the most amount of people possible.
A blog is now pretty retro. In my mind, though, this is just me chatting to you guys who still read this, trying to entertain you and maybe let you know about things I’ve found that you might like.
One big thing we did try this year was to open up TMINE to cover film far more comprehensively and make it more collaborative: to make it not just one regular voice but two. Unfortunately, that didn’t work quite as planned, with our new movie reviewer in residence ending up getting signed off with work-related stress – hopefully not because of TMINE but because of her evil megacorp employers but entirely possibly because of both. And maybe that thing that’s happening in Ukraine as well.
I’m hoping she’ll be back whenever she feels up to reviewing again (we have a ‘return to work’ plan, but maybe these birthday celebrations may prompt her to return sooner), since I feel she did bring both a new but compatible voice to TMINE, as well as fewer references to getting old and far more animated GIFs of Scarlett Johansson. We all have our styles of writing, I guess.
Thank you!
As always, a great big thank you to all the hardcore regular TMINE commenters: Mark Carroll, JustStark, and Adam Bowie. Bless your hearts for sticking with me all this time! Thank yous as well to the commenters on the TMINE Facebook page. You’re the ones who keep me going.
But thank yous as well to anyone who’s left even one comment this year, either here or on Facebook – it’s been great to hear from you!
Same time next year everyone? I say that every year, don’t I? Anyway, there’ll be cake, albeit the same photo of a cake as last year, so bring your friends.