Farewell Sky One

[steveh]

Sky have announced that after 32 years they're retiring the Sky One name (it was around a few years earlier as The Sky Channel). They are replacing it with Sky Max for general entertainment, doing a best-of channel called Sky Showcase and moving the UK original comedy to Sky Comedy.

This got me thinking back about some of the not exactly great shows they have had. The cheap music video fillers under the name Sky Trax with the likes of Pat Sharp. Those terrible paid-for religious programmes they used to show on Sunday mornings. The endless Kirsty's Home Videos and the increasingly diminished returns on the Ibiza Uncovered franchise. Rob Grant's The Strangerers, which after its first and only series vanished never to be repeated or appear again anywhere.

Any more?

[buttgammon]

Other than The Simpsons, I'm not even sure what they show anymore. Is it fair to say Dream Team never gets repeated?

[frajer]

Sky One showed Buffy back in the day, then stopped showing it because no-one was watching, then Buffy did great numbers on BBC2 so they started showing it again. But that was 20 years ago. Time to die.

[holyzombiejesus]

I used to enjoy Prickly Heat in the nineties and there was a really rubbish programme called something like Hex that was kind of enjoyable too.

[JamesTC]

It was a great show, but was Time Gentleman Please often repeated on there?

[peanutbutter]

Asides from Time Gentleman Please and Dream Team, the only original Sky1 programme I know of is There's Something About Miriam, which was basicallly the Bachelorette except the lead was secretly transgender.
Can only imagine how horrific that show must seem now. Surprised no one has tried making a podcast or documentary about it tbh.



As a kid I envied the kids with Sky1 massively. New Simpsons eps (this was when BBC was repeating the same few seasons for ages) and (iirc) a repeat of Raw is War on Friday nights.

[BeardFaceMan]

Shasta McNasty.

Asides from Time Gentleman Please and Dream Team, the only original Sky1 programme I know of is There's Something About Miriam, which was basicallly the Bachelorette except the lead was secretly transgender.
Can only imagine how horrific that show must seem now. Surprised no one has tried making a podcast or documentary about it tbh.

Whatever you do, don't go back and watch TV Burp from around that time.

[Custard]

They've never topped the DJ Kat Show

[Custard]

Shasta McNasty.


Whatever you do, don't go back and watch TV Burp from around that time.

Sadly Miriam commited suicide too. Bleak

EDIT - Sorry, apparently she died in "mysterious circumstances". Her husband believes she was murdered, though it looked/was made to look like suicide.

[peanutbutter]

Shasta McNasty.


Whatever you do, don't go back and watch TV Burp from around that time.

Man, might go back watch that TV Burp episode actually. I remember it seeming fucking horrific last time I watched it and that was probably a decade ago...

That show had a real issue of excessively doubling down on some of its worst bits, didn't it?

[BeardFaceMan]

Man, might go back watch that TV Burp episode actually. I remember it seeming fucking horrific last time I watched it and that was probably a decade ago...

That show had a real issue of excessively doubling down on some of its worst bits, didn't it?

Yeah, it wasn't just one episode either, if i remember rightly it was in a few episodes, with the same 'joke' every time. It makes Bananacunt's IT Crowd episode look enlightened.

[Sebastian Cobb]

You could've called this thread Sky Gone, I am disappointed.

Never had Sky as a kid but used to go round a mates to watch The Simpsons. Outside of that no idea, maybe some scifi stuff but that was all US syndication stuff.

The only genuinely good thing that springs to mind is Sick of IT, Idiot Abroad was ok but I'm glad I downloaded it for nothing than paid for it as a subscriber.

Their Brave New World scifi was ok, it looked stunning and was entertaining but like a lot of modern 'cinematic' shows it falls a bit flat because they struggle with good storylines and the ability to write good characters, it also felt a bit bandwagony with similar themes in stuff like Snowpiercer coming out around the same time. It had a bit too much gratuitous shagging, I thought we'd moved on from this since GoT. It has now been axed, which is a slight shame.

They had an ok shameless-esque thing going on with Brassic but that suffered a bit from the above as well, it relied on "we're all simple northern blokes who like a laugh and a pint" narration that felt like it was made more or less entirely by people in London that have never spent any time in the north.

[steveh]

They've never topped the DJ Kat Show

Had forgotten that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNdaK4doGTg

Was originally a Dutch production when Sky was a pan-European channel.

[BeardFaceMan]

God, I just accidentally remembered Baddiel's Syndrome. *shudders*

[Sebastian Cobb]

It seems like some of the more ambitious programming (excl Heil Honey I'm Home) came from Galaxy which Sky bought and murdered.

[confettiinmyhair]

Sliders and Dream Team were favourites of mine. It was fair to say that Harchester United were cursed.

[Glebe]

Farewell Sky.

Deadly Ernest, fuck's sake. And that crocodile and seal, friends of DJ Kat no doubt.

[jamiefairlie]

Sadly Miriam commited suicide too. Bleak

EDIT - Sorry, apparently she died in "mysterious circumstances". Her husband believes she was murdered, though it looked/was made to look like suicide.

It did make for quite a final episode though.

[Psybro]

Rob Grant's The Strangerers, which after its first and only series vanished never to be repeated or appear again anywhere.

I swear until recently this wasn't on Wikipedia and there was scant evidence that it had ever existed, I thought I had imagined it.

Sky One was a huge part of my childhood/adolescence. Star Trek: TNG at 5pm, Simpsons at 6 or Married...With Children first then Simpsons at 6.30, then Dad would get in from work and I got bumped.  TNG being replaced at points by Quantum Leap.  Recording first run Friends episodes for my aunt when she was working overseas.

Also a few random bits like Space Precinct, and ALF at a time UK TV sci fi was dead as doorknob, and the aforementioned Buffy. I'll go to my grave thinking Season 2's highs were the peak of the TV medium.

I think it's Sky One's fault I am obsessed with the US and its culture despite it being objectively shit. I think I mainly have a degree in American History because I watched the Lee Harvey Oswald episodes of Quantum Leap while I was impressionable.

[Malcy]

Rob Grant's The Strangerers, which after its first and only series vanished never to be repeated or appear again anywhere.

I downloaded it a few years ago. Really odd show but enjoyed it.

Trollied deserves a mention as one of their own produced shows. Really good. Was essential in the 90's for Trek. I can still remember that little ident they used to have. Little tune followed by a really serious "This is SKY ONE".

[ProvanFan]

JAG

[Alberon]

Probably one of Sky One's best was Yonderland. What the original Horrible Histories crew did between that and Ghosts. It's just turned up on the torrent sites and is well worth checking out.

[Cloud]

Last time I actively watched Sky One was as a kid trying to watch DS9 in the stupid random order they were airing it.  Eventually gave up and only watched through it about 5-10 years ago.

[petril]

God, I just accidentally remembered Baddiel's Syndrome. *shudders*

never forgiven for slightly ruining the one Cud track I sort of remembered

[Echo Valley 2-6809]

It seems like some of the more ambitious programming (excl Heil Honey I'm Home) came from Galaxy which Sky bought and murdered.

Keith Allen's sketch show 'I Love Keith Allen' was on Galaxy the year Sky merged with BSB - I don't know if it was shown on Sky later or was already history by then.

Anyone here see it? Actually, did anyone not here see it? Doesn't seem to be much trace of it left.

[Ignatius_S]

Sky has announced plans to revamp its portfolio of TV channels, with Sky One being replaced by two new brands.

After almost 40 years on our TV guides in various forms, Sky One is being axed and two new channels are being introduced – Sky Showcase and Sky Max.

Sky Showcase will be a linear-only channel which will "curate a selection of the best TV shows from across Sky's portfolio of entertainment brands", while Sky Max, both a channel and an on-demand service, will become the new home for Sky original dramas and entertainment shows.

As for how Sky Max differs to Sky Showcase, Morris said that the new channel will be "a little bit more laser-focused" but bares no resemblance to HBO Max in the US.
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sky-one-scrapped-new-channels-exclusive-newsupdate/

Nothing like a straight answer to a straight question.

[Uncle TechTip]

It's interesting whether this is a prelude to them losing the Simpsons, as there's been little mention of where it will sit long term, and it was announced that Channel 4 have retained rights, but nothing about Sky. It's almost like if Sky One can't show the Simpsons, it ceases to exist.

[dissolute ocelot]

Really not surprising. Sky One repeated the hell out of Modern Family for a while, but that seems to have gone so it's just Futurama and Simpsons now. Most of the original comedy-dramas were offloaded to other channels a while ago. These days original content is lots of spin-offs of A League of Their Own (a sports quiz that manages to be even more pointless than the one with Lee Hurst) and a bit of Rob Beckett, and a film panel game that might be a film version of A League of their Own. Plus a wide range of middling US imports (Arrowverse, Hawaii Five Oh reboot) and 20-year-old films. This is your flagship channel?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Nothing like a straight answer to a straight question.

They're trying and mostly failing to make an additional best-of channel sound interesting. It's only 'linear-only' because all the content is sourced from other Sky channels that presumably have their content on vod anyway.

I thought the days of this sort of thing (and numerous +1 channels) had peaked with vod, although I suppose given sky's position running an automated channel with stuff that's already in playout won't cost them much if there's spare capacity on the satellite.

[steveh]

Secondary channels are largely added or removed according to how much ad inventory there is available. There's still a lot of people stuck in the linear TV habit even if we're past the peak in channel numbers and Sky are probably also counting on a post-pandemic boom.