tastyonions wrote:Heh, once I got to a decent level in French and started on my third language, I naively expected that I would easily be able to find equivalents in Spanish, Italian, and so on for the quality radio programs you can hear on France Culture and France Inter. Fat chance!
Well, I guess there is a reason why France and more specifically Paris used to be the intellectual centre of Europe. For philosophy it is still the most important source of new ideas. My brother also told me stories about meeting farmers somewhere in the sticks in France who were more well-read than some of his university educated friends in Germany. I actually grew up with Arte, which is French-German and in my opinion it's the pinnacle of educational TV, there is nothing quite like it in any other language. Arte was actually the only reason I had a TV for the longest time and I remember some great evening programs. There was that one evening when one TV channel was showing Teen Wolf and right afterwards Arte was showing a documentary about the history of the werewolf myth and then An American Werewolf in London. That was an exceptionally fun evening that is carved into my memory. And who on earth remembers what they watched on TV 10 years ago?! I was very sad when I couldn't watch it anymore after moving to England. I don't know whether they still screen IPs since their content has been finally available in Spanish and English too for a few years. Here in Spain I occasionally binge watch a whole lot of documentaries on their website. It's like France Culture with video. Might not be available in the US though, don't know.
As for Spanish content: There used to be some very good Argentinian programs under the old government, most of which are defunded now I believe. So, since the last Argentinian elections I can't really recommend anything from there anymore either. It's a shame, there was some really interesting stuff on over there. One or two things about politics might still be on since they were independent, but of course they are super depressing right now. Those last elections not only ruined our plans for moving to Argentina but also totally derailed my Spanish engagement thanks to this major defunding of all the educational TV initiatives of the old government. Yep, we shouldn't talk about politics, but government funding and good educational TL content go hand in hand. And agreed also on Italian sources. This is the reason why I haven't kept up with my Italian at all, I just couldn't find any TV or radio worth my time. I will probably reactivate it at some point when I finally find the time and money for my Italian art history road trip, but until then I literally have no reason to engage with the language.
Systematiker wrote:I mean, it's not the height of what the medium can be, to be sure, but it ends up far from bad, especially in comparison to many many other things.
Not as bad as the worst of the worst still isn't really good though! Phew, good to hear that it gets better at least! And yes, the guy who is playing Nacho might be the only real actor in the series. The rest are just so stiff and "I'm supposed to be worried, so I better make a stereotypical worried face". My husband calls this the Arnold Schwarzenegger school of acting
Of course there are also American series with acting that is this bad - Sarah Connor Chronicles for example where only the girl playing the Terminator displays any kind of good acting, Caprica, some truly unbearable actors in there that we still mock months after watching it, + many of the generic cop shows -, but in general local TV is often as bad or worse than the worst American TV. I remember German daytime cop shows were truly the worst of the worst, even worse than Bergdoktor. But then there is stuff like Deutschland 1983 and Tatort too, so I don't know. There must be something better to watch in Spanish too! Or maybe not ...
I immediately think of En Tratamiento, an Argentinian version of In Treatment which is actually very good and worth watching. But again, not continental ...!