It has long been my brief to focus as much on popular cultural roots for a Humanistic philosophy as to anchor our views on renaissance and scholarly historical works. Humanists may quote Voltaire and Alex Comfort, who have tremendous merit, but few of us dare to look at the television, or listen to the radio, or the comic books our children read. I do. I was raised on TV, (like the Hero of US. Sitcom, Dream On) and in cinemas. I am a working class Humanist who was fortunate enough later to receive a traditionally middle class education and degree. Part of me still clings to my roots. Andy Warhol said art was to be found as much on a tin of Condensed soup as in a major art gallery. The same goes for Humanism. Here's some of my conclusions about the television I was raised with. I shall try not to be too indulgent here.

What does and doesn't make a good television programme for a Humanist to watch when s/he is behaving like a couch potato? It might be said that any programme from the weather forecast to Noggin The Nog (apologies to readers outside the UK for this fond childhood memory) can be made to sound Humanistic if we think about it. After all, even dross like Baywatch has a 'humanitarian element in that its lifeguards rescue people from drowning, but there is much more to being a Humanist than being humanitarian. Baywatch sadly spoils its chances of inclusion by being over-glamorous, its obsession with close up shots of women's wet cleavage, and for its indulgence in high speed chase sequences and also for being utter codswallop.

SOAP OPERA

Soap operas largely fail to be Humanistic too, though I see no reason why any Humanist shouldn't watch them for what they are. We should not be puritanical in our viewing, reading, music listening behaviour. Soaps try to be focussed on Human interest and 'real-life kitchen sink drama, but they come across as formulaic, and incredible for the sheer number of traumas and tragedies their heroes face. One story arc will feature a character in a messy divorce, a passionate love affair, and then throw them into drugs or the discovery of another character being a long lost son or daughter. The hero rides through these traumatic life changing conflicts far too easily. Most people would find their whole lives affected and changed irrevocably by any one such incident. Soaps come across as preordained, which of course, they are, (like any kind of programme) by the script writers and programme producers. In real life our fortunes and misfortunes are not dictated by ratings.

Another factor that eliminates soap opera from Humanistic consideration is that of the characters often becoming confused with the actors playing them. This is nothing new of course. Many people absurdly write to Sherlock Holmes, at 221b Baker Street, even though a/. he was never real, and b/. He'd be long since dead even if he had ever lived.

I am tired of opening newspapers to see soap opera storylines flashed as though they are genuine news articles, while some real real-life earthquake or small war is shunted to the inner pages of the tabloid rag in question. When a soap opera actor gets in trouble, as Gillian (Eastenders) Taylforth did, in being arrested for illicit sex in an unauthorised car parking area (in a car), it was her character's name that was used more frequently in the reportage.

Actors who play hard-line villains in the soaps often face retribution from the public who confuse them with their characters. One Coronation Street actor was beaten up by angry fans when his character hit one of the popular female leads in the series. The actor was enjoying a quiet night out with friends. Often the lives of real people are reduced to soap operas; particularly the royal family, who's every exploit is paraded for our entertainment whether the royals (or us) want it so, and I for one, don't.

The worst time for soap opera haters like myself is when the time comes to renew actors' contracts or when a soap is sliding down in the public viewing ratings. This is when characters are due to get killed off, or some major tragedy is promised. The hype begins weeks in advance. The 'closely guarded secret' ending of a character's life is usually leaked tot he press (often with photographs of the death scene itself appearing in the press). The story starts showing ominous teasers and pointers to suggest the tragedy is pending. By the time it comes, the eager fans are hardly surprised but watch anyway like the bleating sheep they are. Who can forget the 'Who shot JR?' hype when it's star (Larry Hagman) was shot (only to survive) in Dallas? When Dierdre Barlow in Coronation Street was falsely arrested for fraud, newspapers launched a Let Her Go campaign that even sparked questions in the English Parliament. Real life miscarriages of justice have come and gone with less intensity.

The worst case of exploitation has to have been the British Emmerdale Farm soap opera tragedy stunt that involved the village setting being hit by debris from a plane crash, killing off several regulars in one swoop. The tragedy rightly angered the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie tragedy.

The American comedy Soap was a brilliant and savage satire on all things soap. Its characters, the Tate & Campbell families go through torturous relationship changes, often to the confusion of the viewers (a fact exploited to the hilt in each episodes' recap of events to date). In the end the stories became increasingly far fetched and one member of the Campbell household was eventually abducted by aliens and taken off in a UFO. That was in a comedy, but months later the same scenario was played out in a real life soap, Dynasty, which completely missed the point of Soap's use of the idea - Soap Opera is contrived emotion, and contrived formulaic drama. Sooner or later it runs out of ideas and gets new, more far fetched ones and loses credibility and ratings plummet..

Soaps don't reflect life. They try to dictate it. They make their fans feel a compulsion to watch and empathise in the conflict of the week. Humanist TV is about breaking such moulds and boundaries.

What should be considered a good Humanistic programme then? 1/. It should be out of the ordinary, and non-formulaic, if not downright dangerous and unpredictable. 2/. In dealing with religion, it should have some characters who are critical, and sceptical of what is believed in as well as ardent believers. 3/. An open, honest, frank willingness to challenge major issues such as racism, environmental concerns, sexism, feminism gay rights, etc.

Soaps rarely touch on religion, unless it is to show a character starting an extreme religious cult, as happened in Brookside, in a suburban variation on the Waco tragedy, (now played for ratings and sensation), or in Coronation Street, where a character took up spiritualism, only to drop the idea as soon as producers thought up another story line for her.

Far more plausible was the cult featured in the children's soap opera, Byker Grove, (produced for the BBC in Newcastle). which was modelled closely on Scientology. This works for not being hell-bent on apocalyptic conclusions, and focuses instead on a girl's liberation and freedom from the dangerous sect concerned.

CHILDREN'S TELEVISION

This brings me to children's television, which often outdoes its adult counterpart in quality. The Demon Headmaster features a school run by a tyrannical literally hypnotic headmaster who has the prefects reduced to brainwashed, unquestioning, dogmatic dolts. The story concerns his efforts to convert the one girl in the school unaffected by him and unafraid of him. The programme is very much one of the individual against the system, children learning to challenge adult preconceptions, a battle between good and evil, and where knowledge and courage are essential qualities in the struggle of the individual to remain that - individual. The headmaster himself is a terrifying creation (even for a kid's show this can send shivers down a grown up spine), and the disciplinary regime he imposes on his pupils may seem far fetched to some, but not those old enough to remember when school really was that bad.

Programmes showing children outsmarting, or messing up the adult world show a healthy sense of anarchy, inherited from Punch and Judy shows where children can laugh at Punch's evil acts (i.e., beating a baby and his wife repeatedly with his stick). This is why children like programmes in which grown ups get gunned and messed up, especially if they get to pull the necessary levers themselves. After all, the next generation will inherit our mistakes. Maybe we should grant them more opportunity for painless revenge through such escapism.

The Simpsons is a wonderful cartoon series that often shows smart children proving that their parents are unbelievably stupid. In the episode called Lisa The Skeptic, Lisa Simpson uncovers a hoax that has lead her family and the rest of the Springfield Town community to think they have unearthed the skeletal remains of a holy angel. It is actually just a publicity stunt for new shopping mall. The programme features the voice of Stephen Jay Gould as a scientist who offers to help crack the case. Gould is a leading Humanist and exponent of evolutionary theories. His endorsement of the episode gives it a tremendous credibility rating. Other episodes of Humanistic note are that in which Homer Simpson joins the Freemasons, that in which he (and others join a cult), and the classic end of the world as we know it (nearly) piece in which the town of Springfield is due to be hit by a meteorite. Here the priest they all turn to for comfort (Reverent Lovejoy) runs for the hills screaming 'We haven't got a prayer people'.

RELIGIOUS BROADCASTING

What of religious broadcasting itself? Few Humanists could ever appreciate a show like Songs Of Praise, or Stars On Sunday which show an Anglican church with a full congregation singing hymns in perfect harmony for some thirty minutes interrupted only by Bible readings. You wonder how many of them bother turning up the following Sunday when the camera crew is elsewhere. Programmes that interview people about their personal beliefs are much more interest to us along with shows that challenge our beliefs in some way. Such viewing tends to come as one of documentaries or a short run series, such as the late Brian Redhead's excellent Not On Sunday (one of the few such programmes to break away from the Sunday slot traditionally given to such presentations.

Religious programmes of any kind are generally poor ratings grabbers, and often get axed in favour of feature films or cartoons. Stars On Sunday of course, was axed over the sexual high jinx of its popular star presenter, Jesse Yates.

Satellite Television now sadly gives us American Televangelists who come over as rather sad, like double glazing salesmen with a love of the sound of their own voices. It's worth tuning in to one just to see how long you can watch without wanting to throw up. It's particularly sad when you see their converts lining up to present their hysteria induced testimonies of becoming born again. It ceases to be funny when the evangelists denounce homosexuality and then start promising (directly or through innuendo) that they can cure the sick. They actually make me sick. It's worth tuning into the Music stations VH-1 and MTV to watch out for the pop video to Genesis's Talking To Jesus which is a brilliant Mickey take at the expense of televangelism.

COMEDY & SITCOM

Religion played for laughs is a rare thing, as no one wants to give offence. The fact that so many people go to tarts & vicars parties suggests that few of us care in that way, but English sitcoms like All Gas & Gaiters generally showed humorous priests (invariably played by Derek Nimmo) , in a safe, conservative variation on the stage farce.

Issues related comedies are quite good in Britain in particular. Porridge showed that prison life can be made funny without offence (strangely the programme never introduced a chaplain to its regular cast). Dad's Army did have its Verger, who regularly clashed with the war time home guard division who used his church hall for their training.

A clever comedy like Love Thy Neighbour, in which a white middle class bigot and racist finds himself living next door to a black Jamaican family would never be made now, as it would come over as politically incorrect in the extreme, even though the prejudicial white protagonist was always proved wrong in the end. We lack such brave programming innovations these days.

Sketch and lampoon based programmes often get away with more. Britain's Who Dares Wins (pinching the motto of the SAS as its title) went too far by showing Jesus falling off the cross reaching for a last cigarette), and almost got taken off air after its own pilot show.

Father Ted, the anarchic British TV comedy about priests is in many ways the ultimate anti-clerical sit-com, depicting the antics of three very silly priests, (a schemer, a Forest Jump like simpleton and an angry old drunkard, given to drinking spirits, toilet cleaning fluids, lighter fuel, and shouting 'Arse, fleck, Girls, drink' a lot. (Feck became the shows catch phrase, a swearword that wasn't swearing because it was made up word, even though everyone knew what it derived from). In a classic episode, the priests are visited by three bishops, who aim to bless and officially consecrate a small phallic rock as a holy relic. One bishop is killed by Ted's failure to fix a lavatory, another becomes an atheist in his efforts to explain the Bible to the simpleton, while the third Bishop foolishly angers Father jack, the drunkard who rams the holy stone up the Bishop's backside. As the bishops leave in a hearse, a hippie convoy and an ambulance respectively, Ted sighs with relief that things went so well for a change. The show features another wonderful character, Mrs. Doyle, the housekeeper from hell, who refuses to let anyone turn down her hospitality sandwiches and cups of tea. Their efforts to refuse result in such tantrums that they oblige her just to shut her up from begging them.

The king of UK comedy at the expense of belief has to be Irish Comedian Dave Allen, who's dry monologues often target religion.

"What if you got to Heaven to find the only people in there were a handful of druids going nah nah na na nah at you?" he said once.

He always ended his shows with the catchphrase "Goodnight and may your God go with you." He never indicated his own beliefs and is widely taken as 'agnostic' at least. His catchphrase has implications of 'Don't leave your beliefs here with me. I don't want them."

SCIENCE FICTION

Quantum Leap - I'll start with a show that tries to be both Humanistic and mystical and ultimately fails at both despite a damn good try. While most programmes about time travel involve stopping a time traveller from meddling with possible futures, Quantum Leap positively encourages it. Sam Beckett, the main hero, is sent whisking through time, during his own adult life span (1950's to late 1980's) trapped in the bodies of various other people, usually at critical turning points in their lives, which he changes irrevocably for the better before zapping off to other adventures. We usually get a taster and a cliff-hanging tease at the end of each adventure to lure us into the next one. Sam's first leap in his desperate bid to get back to his own body, (his main ambition), puts him in all sorts of dilemmas; i.e., he's a test pilot, a boxer, a singer, with, at least initially, none of the talents required in such professions. The mind of the real person Sam is trapped in the body of, is locked away in suspended animation at a centre run by Sam's friend Al, who can only go with Sam in the guise of a hologram.

What makes the story Humanistic is the nature of Sam's struggle to both be himself and also be the person he is trapped in the guise of. At first, all the guises were male, but as the series progressed it got more daring and ambitious; Sam finds himself trapped in the body of a woman many times. On one occasion he realises he is in a dress again, and moans, 'not again'. Only when asked by the policemen with him if this means he has been raped before does he realise the nature of the very serious predicament he is in.

Sam tackles real issues alright, especially racism, as in the leap that makes him a small town Ku Klux Klan leader, but the Humanitarian agenda ultimately comes over as a syrupy feel good factor, not seen or endured since Little House On The Prairie (not Humanistic TV by any definition, please). Sam is an insufferable do gouda. He begins increasingly to see his leaps as a preordained mission. The premise that his time machine experiment cast him randomly into these predicaments is slowly diluted away by his sense of being a herald guided by a divine being (yeuch). In the episode A Single Drop Of Rain, Sam becomes a travelling rain maker, promising rain-making predictions to a drought stricken town. Realising he cannot do what is genuinely impossible, (making rain fall from a clear blue, cloudless sky) Sam simply prays to his unseen guide, and lo, it rains. The introduction of a rival leaper with an evil agenda made Sam's work a struggle against the forces of evil. Some leaps were clever; and others stupid, none more so than that in which Sam leaps into a Chimpanzee's body instead of a Human one. In a special edition he becomes Lee Harvey Oswald, but this is another lost opportunity, which fails utterly to consider the JFK conspiracy theories the public are so taken by. Sam, finding himself possessed by Oswald's dominant mental personality does change history though., by stopping Oswald from killing Jackie Kennedy too. The man in the grassy knoll; no mention there I'm afraid.

Sam becomes Marylyn Monroe's chauffeur in one leap, playing to an actress who in no way resembles the star. His mission is to stop her from committing suicide so she can film The Misfits. This seems pointless when we know she killed herself (???) so soon after wards. It might have worked better to make Sam come back as Marilyn Monroe. After all, he did once come back as Dr. Ruth Westheimer (who also plays herself).

Sam's most bizarre leap (other than as a Chimp) is his last, Mirror Image, a Kafkaesque piece of allegory in which Sam is estranged from his hologram friend and also learns to control his own leaps instead of being a total pawn in the hands of some divine agency. Sam, we are told never actually gets to go home though, despite a suggestion that he could do so now any time he wishes.

A brave bold series torn between radicalism and conformity to formula. Quantum leap almost makes it, but not quite.

The Prisoner - The story of a depersonalised individual in a very open prison, stripped literally of name, identity, home, country, friends, lovers, and freedom and his struggle to maintain his individualism and the secrets that the powers that be would have brought out into the open. The Prisoner, made in the 1960's is truly unique, and never equalled or bettered in its philosophical originality. As main star Patrick McGoohan said, "The series was posing the question, "has one the right to tell a man what to think, how to behave, to coerce others? Has one the right to be an individual?"

Humanists would say "No!" to all but the final question no doubt.

The premise of the series was simple enough despite its often mind boggling conceits and confusions. A never named secret service agent resigns angrily from his job and goes home, to plan his future. He is clearly packing luggage and passport for a journey in this silent sequence (from episode one, Arrival, and used in the shows opening credit sequence ever after) . Is he going on holiday? Is he defecting, and taking valuable secrets to another country? We don't find out because he is kidnapped and gassed into unconsciousness. He awakes in what seems to be his own house (everything is in place down to the last ornament), but when he goes outside the front door he appears to be in a small Mediterranean town, (filmed in Portmerion, in Wales, a town designed as a folly based on Mediterranean architecture). on the coast. Everyone there is happy. They greet him with 'Be seeing you' and cheery smiles. When he asks where he is, the hero is informed merely that he is in 'The Village'. No one can or will tell him more, until he meets Number Two that is. Number Two tells him that he is their guest until he confesses to why he resigned from his job and that he is now to be known merely as Number Six. The hero refuses to offer the information and announces defiantly, "I am not a number. I am a free man!" It is a speech he will repeat many times as the series progresses.

What follows is Number Six's battle of wits with his captors, as he tries to escape and they try to get the truth out of him concerning his resignation. Neither side gives any quarter. Then there is the question of who Number One might be. Number two's come and go frequently, (each time they fail to break Number Six they are replaced by a successor. In one episode (Free For All) Number Six himself is elected to a Number Two, and tries to free his fellow villagers, who don't want to go. His power, he realises is non-existent and he remains a pawn in the hands of his captors. The utopian looking village and its inhabitants quickly take on sinister overtones. They never come over as fascist dolts, but as mild mannered English citizens of polite charm and elegance. Fascists is nevertheless undoubtedly what they remain. Number Six learns after various betrayals to trust no one. After a while he comes across others trying to escape, but fails to convince them that he is to be trusted himself.

In the classic episode The Chimes Of Big Ben Number Six is led to believe he has escaped by boat and sealed furniture van to London, where he tries to tell his former bosses about the Village and almost discloses the reasons for his resignation, until he realises he is still in The Village and his whole journey home has been staged around him.

The programme posed many questions and answered few of them. Many ardent fans were becoming exasperated by the lack of clear clues and answers. McGoohan, becoming late on, the programme's producer as well as star, promised the end episode would reveal all. If it did, it was concealed in one of the most bizarre, spectacular, allegorical, and ultimately meaningless episodes of any television programmes ever transmitted. In Fall Out (episode 17) , Number Six finds himself granted the right to an audience with Number One. First however, he is invited to a meeting held in honour of his victory (The Village dictatorship have admitted defeat in failing to break his spirit, so they claim, and the last Number Two (played by Leo McKern) is apparently dead from their last attempt at attacking his individualism. (It is never explained why they never tried giving him a good old fashioned kicking or used basic torture chamber tactics),.

The meeting is a series of speeches in honour of the new individual, who the crowd (all dressed as death and wearing masks and cowls), are applauding him no longer being referred to as Number Six but having attained the right to be called 'Sir'. (a variation of one letter, and no name forthcoming).

Sir is granted the right to speak for himself, but the crowd clap and cheer so loudly his words are utterly drowned out. Number Two, apparently resurrected, is also applauded for rebellion (trying his own initiatives instead of following Village procedures in trying to crack the enigma that was Number Six) and another rebel, the hippie-like Number forty-eight, is also due for release. He represents uncontrollable youth and passion for unpredictability.

The appearance of three malcontents causes mass panic, in which Sir steals away to visit Number One, and ends up looking into his own face. It's over with that quickly that many viewers miss it altogether. As he returns back down, the meeting has erupted into a war. Machine guns blaze as a juke-box loudly plays The Beatles song, All You Need Is Love. (This came at the height of the Vietnam war and serves as a strident protest against that conflict) The Prisoner, Number Two and Number forty-eight escape the anarchic, exploding village in a prison cell, on board a truck, driven by a mysterious silent butler who has appeared in every episode of the show. They go home to London, free but seemingly sad.

Fans either loved the complex finale or felt betrayed by it. I loved it. The Prisoner remains a true expression of Humanistic courage, freethought and individual spiritual temperament. Our world is The Village in many ways and we all have the potential to be more than numbers. To this day, Patrick McGoohan remains tight lipped about what he was up to. Perhaps we should avoid pressing him for information, or we would be no better than Number Six's prison guards.

Dark Skies - With more than a nod to the X-files, Dark Skies tries and fails to be an occult and politics conspiracy story. Unlike The X-Files it tries to tell a linear story in which the two conspiring forces (alien invaders, and the Majestik & CIA (so secret even the president doesn't know) opposition movement, fight and also stage elaborate cover ups to prevent the people of the US finding out the truth. Thus, when President JFK does find out he is assassinated. (Yup, that's the motive behind it alright, aliens). Various other real life people and events become involved in the battle, The Beatles, Jim Morrison, Charles Manson. History as we know it is a lie, the story regularly tells us, and so it seems. Vietnam's costly ten year war was started just so Majestik could get at an alien spaceship that was in the region. The scale of the conspiracy, the slow pacing of many of the stories, poor acting,, all made Dark Skies dull. The worst thing about it was the real life 60's celebrities who were played by actors who looked nothing like the real person. The John Lenin impersonator has to be seen to be believed. The ultimate insult however was the depicted of scientist, Carl Sagan, a Humanist and ardent critic of all such mumbo-jumbo as UFO believers would have us swallow, being seen as an active and enthusiastic member of Majestik, happily perpetrating the very lies he worked so hard to refute in real life.

Third Rock From The Sun - A family of aliens come to Earth and pass themselves off as an American family in an observation participation sociology experiment. They try to grasp the concept of what it means to be human. That's the whole plot really, and it has been tried before, badly in Alf and Mork & Mindy. Third Rock does it well for a change. The aliens regularly get confused over meanings, take things literally and invariably cause chaos for each other and all around them. We never see the alien family in their true form., and for a low budget production, Third Rock works beautifully. On arriving on Earth one of them moans about why she has to be the woman. 'You lost', the others say without a shred of sympathy for her. When they catch human colds and convince themselves they are about to die, one of them sits with a blanket over his head and his feet in a bowl of hot water. Told chicken soup might help relieve his symptoms, he puts his feet in a bowl of chicken soup instead. The humans are often as funny as the aliens and there are some wonderful cameo appearences, notably from John Cleese as another alien visitor to our shores. Delightful, inoffensive stuff. When a human (who is a compulsive liar) tells them he saw a UFO, the alien family believes it has been exposed and panic like hell to cover their tracks, even though they've left none in the first place.

Blake's Seven - Freedom fighters in a high-tech battle-ready space ship called appropriately, the Liberator) battle against a fascist Space Federation. This was a bleak story of a fight against the odds, in which characters have a habit of getting killed off just as you get to like them. The main hero (Blake) goes missing for much of the series, leaving his crew in the hands of Avon, who is not averse to contemplating killing them, if it saves his own skin. Despite some very cheap special effects, and costumes this was a series that made you care, and took extraordinary risks, such as making the good guys lose and die so often. (In the final episode, Blake, the whole cast dies).

Survivors - In a world wiped out virtually overnight by a mysterious plague, a small band of survivors struggle to rebuild civilisation, but face set backs from angry mobs,, mercenaries and each other, before a more upbeat third season shows civilisation finally beginning to assert itself. A low budget actually helped to make this series convincing, in making the squalor of a society reduced to the feudal past overnight becomes quite plausible.

The Changes - Obscure, neglected variation on Survivors, made largely with children in mind. An alien intelligence causes an overnight fit of luddite fever to affect everyone and machines, cars and any kind of mechanical devise is destroyed overnight. Evacuated from London, the heroine, a school girl, gets separated from her parents, and faces various adventures and betrayals before confronting and overcoming the alien entity itself, and reuniting with her family. This story is made more Humanistic by having our central character aided and assisted by a family of Sikhs, who remain true to their faith throughout, and come over as the last civilised rational people left in the world.

Doomwatch - Ecology group uncover various problems that Greenpeace still warn us about to this day, but advocating green politics from the 1970's onwards. The best episode was the first in which a plastic eating virus has to be stopped before it destroys plastic in all its forms. In one scene it goes from melting the top of a pen in a man's pocket, to dissolving a plastic raincoat on the back of a nearby passenger on the same commercial passenger plane, and then gets into the plastic insulation wiring of the aircraft controls with inevitable consequences. This episode shows the extent of our dependence on plastics in modern society, and how literally helpless we would be now without them.

I don't see Humanist TV getting its own channel as The Weather & even GOD TV have done, and I wouldn't want that. TV is about diversity. We should watch something of everything, to get a mix of different views and ideas.

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