The next technological advance we’re promised is 3-D television.  By the end of next year, apparently, we will be able to experience this new technological innovation.  Sky Television and even Channel 4 are planning to inflict this upon us. 

The initial reaction to that would be why

The majority of the dross offered up looks bad enough in 2-D but then of course, that’s the idea isn’t it?  To dazzle us with technology so that we ignore or at least temporarily forget the lack of quality put before us.

There seems to be little doubt that this explains the plethora of 3-D films that have clogged the multiplexes lately.  We’re all so busy shrinking back in our seats as debris flies towards us or ducking so we don’t get poked in the eye with a sword, spear or whatever else might be hurtling towards us that we don’t bother to critically perceive the film we’re watching.  Personally, I think the only type of film that would actually benefit from 3-D is a porn film but that’s just me.  Ducking a stray sword is taxing enough, imagine the hazards of what’s swung around in porn.

If you listen to people spilling out of the screens after a 3-D film you hear words like “amazing”, “brilliant”,“incredible” but, if they’ve just staggered out of something like “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” or “The Final Destination” then you can be pretty sure they’re not referring to the quality of the picture (unless they happen to be the film critic for The News of the World or Radio One of course).  More of these multi-dimensional treats are on the way so it looks as if we’re all doomed to spend many of our cinema visits with cardboard glasses propped on our faces resembling an audience of deformed Woody Allens.

I certainly don’t relish the thought of seeing Jordan in 3-D on television (it’s bad enough watching her in 2-D) and the thought of a three dimensional Jonathan Ross is positively alarming.  Will his salary be even more obscenely inflated to match his newly corpulent image courtesy of the obligatory 3-D glasses? 

Instead of lavishing money on gimmicks, why don’t the TV companies spend it a commodity that seems all too thin on the ground these days.  Namely, quality. 

No chance.

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