I make no excuses for focusing this week on BBC Four’s TV on Trial.

The concept was a good one, to screen a selection of shows from each decade and allow viewers to decide which was the “golden age of television.??? It was also a good idea in theory to have two people arguing for and against each decade and hence providing a commentary to put the shows in context.

I say in theory because in practice this didn’t always come off. Where they didn’t take the defence and prosecution line too seriously, we got interesting discussion but some of the participants were blinkered and one so overly analytical that he nearly disappeared up his own backside.

The Fifties

Roy Hattersley had the thankless task of defending this decade and unhelped by an array of distinctly stilted programming, it’s to his credit that he didn’t try very hard. Unfortunately this left Kathryn Fleet with little to do to counter his arguments and I was left wishing she’d been given a different decade to tackle.

We began with Life with The Lyons. Apart from how terribly false the piece seemed, it was also incredibly slow paced, with very little cutting between cameras to up the tempo. Family sitcoms remain a staple of television now and I’ll admit that they aren’t really my cup of tea but this was really stilted and the “laughs??? were telegraphed well in advance.

If that seems a little unnatural, Phyllis Digby Morton’s performance in Can You Tell Me had to be seen to believed. No, that’s not right, I’ve seen it and I still can't believe it. This incredibly up-itself look at etiquette and fashion was obviously from a time where only those with plumy tones in the Home Counties were expected to own televisions. Appalling.

Independent Television was in its infancy in those days but Double Your Money, a simple but entertaining game show, seems to have stood up really well against the ravages of time. It forced me to reappraise my views of Hughie Green who I remember as the rather scary host of Opportunity Knocks.

Some kids used to hide behind the sofa to escape the Daleks; me, I was hiding from Hughie.

By the seventies this genial host had become a parody of himself and developed a rather pompous air, hosting a talent show in which he seemed to think he was more important than the acts. It was interesting to see just how funny and relaxed a performer he was back in the fifties.

The Sixties

Chris Dunkley was supporting this decade and its detractor was Mark Lawson. This was the most effective of all the pairings and we got intelligent interactive discussion.

We began with a very political episode of popular sitcom Steptoe and Son, which managed to make some pretty salient points regarding our democratic process while still remaining true to its core characters and keeping the laughs flowing throughout. This was a quality script performed by two consummate performers and I’d argue that comedy has never been as good or as powerful as this.

Harold Wilson once famously had the transmission of the show moved until after the pools closed on General Election day and seeing this now, you can see why he’d be worried. Excellent stuff.

The high quality kept on coming with an extremely well-crafted episode of Coronation Street. This didn’t come across as a production line produced piece of soap opera but as quality drama, caringly shot and directed and with some very moving playing from the performers, in particular Pat Phoenix as the unsinkable Elsie Tanner.

I’d gladly go back to two episodes a week of our top soaps if the resulting standard was this high.

The Seventies

The world has certainly changed since the Seventies and I’ll admit to being shocked by Love Thy Neighbour, a sitcom I used to watch when I was a child.

Apart from just how unfunny it was, the racist comments were so overt, so unsubtle that it’s difficult to understand now how the thing was ever broadcast. I’d imagine that the thought was that as the black guy gave as good as he got it was somehow acceptable.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

It was interesting to see That’s Life again. The juxtaposition of serious consumerism and naughty vegetables actually worked quite well, the quirkiness of the funny bits drawing in a bigger audience for the moments of deadly seriousness. I think the time may be right now to resurrect the format.

It really didn’t seem that dated, Kieran Prendiville’s haircut aside.

As for The Sweeney, I loved it then and I love it now. It’s easy to forget that this was groundbreaking stuff at the time and if it seems clichéd now, that's merely because it has been relentlessly imitated.

The Eighties

I remember when the chosen episode of EastEnders was originally broadcast. This was a watershed moment for the fledgling soap and was the first one where they really could say that everyone was talking about it.

This was the reveal of the whodunit regarding Michelle’s gymslip pregnancy and unlike today, the majority of the audience were unaware of which of the suspects it would be until Den Watts emerged from his Rover.

This was a seminal moment in eighties television, the moment that Den became Dirty Den and what really surprised and impressed me on watching it again was just how pedestrian and matter a fact it was.

No sensationalism, just good honest drama.

I really hope today’s programme makers have watched this week’s retrospective.

As for the other eighties entrants, Tom Sharpe’s Blott on the Landscape worked much better on the printed page than it did on screen, a view I held twenty years ago and retain today, while Spitting Image had hit its stride in terms of the writing and the technology behind the puppets by 1985. Unfortunately it’s difficult to find a topical comedy funny twenty years on but it worked well at the time.

The Real Lives piece looking at Northern Ireland ultimately cost the BBC a director general. Such a fuss was made about the broadcast at the time that it could be argued that the debate over its screening did more harm than its content ever could have.

The Nineties

I never really got caught up in all the fuss over Pride and Prejudice at the time though it’s easy to see now why it was popular. What really surprised me was that it’s ten years old now. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?

Paul Morley got incredibly sniffy over Men Behaving Badly, seemingly blaming it for all society’s ills. I didn’t catch all his comments because I was laughing over some of them.

I really enjoyed seeing J’Accuse and Modern Times again. The Modern Times piece on Brockwell Park Lido was the sort of Reality TV I could live with while Jonathan Meades attack on vegetarian was as engaging as it was outrageous.

The Noughties

All I say about that was I never ever thought I’d end up seeing an episode Footballers' Wives on snooty BBC Four!

Dek’s Verdict

It would be unfair to judge entire decades on the basis of the shows chosen for this week, especially as some were better represented than others.

In terms of the quality, craft and care taken by programme makers, the sixties seemed to come off best but there’s no way I’d want to go back to three channels in black and white, thank you very much.

The sheer amount of television available leads me to think that now is the golden age as we have the best of technology - and the opportunity, given the sheer volume of channels, to see the old stuff.

We’ve never had it so good.