I remember an advert in an open access magazine ( This being a sort of magazine where people could write in about anything from bizarre new age philosophy to politics or to draw a self portrait in crayon and send it in . With the exception of porn nothing was out of bounds , but the market collapsed when the internet spread ) for people to make short video films and send them into a new show called TAKEOVER TV . I loved the concept of open access television so I made sure I was going to watch the show but was severely disappointed with it . TAKEOVER TV seemed to be composed of people getting a camcorder and recreating scenes from films like TERMINATOR 2 or TV shows like DOCTOR WHO . In short the show lacked any kind of wit and often seemed like tabloid TV at its worst
I do remember that it received one very angry complaint on Channel`s four`s RIGHT TO REPLY from a viewer`s mother who`d sent in a video drama . Apparently the lad - who was too truamatised to appear on camera - had made a video drama and received a letter from TAKEOVER TV`s producer telling him when his video drama was going to be transmitted on a certain edition of the show . According to his mother the whole family sat down proud that there was a budding film director in the family and were shocked at the content of the show . What really devastated the family was watching a porn film featuring a Barbie doll having a threesome with a couple of bisexual action men ( The British version of GI Joe ) . After satisfying Barbie the action men got down to some boy on boy military positions causing the mother to switch off the television which meant her son never got to watch his drama . Britain may not have the best film industry ( No surprise hearing about that complaint ) but when it comes to plastic dolls having sex on television I`m sure you`ll agree Britain leads the world
