In common with the other authors of this series of blogs, I am a regular user who knows first-hand the importance of the BBC’s Written Archives.

Roughly a decade ago, Netflix’s then–Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos made a pessimistic remark about the future of reality TV on the platform at an investors’ conference, calling the genre “disposable,” and something that Netflix is not really invested in making.

It’s always bloody Doctor Who isn’t it? The show about the police box that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Fig. 1. Still from S3E1, ‘Tomorrow’, The Bear (FX on Hulu, 2022–) There is nothing new about filler or bottle episodes; when I hear the latter term, I always think of Abed (Danny Pudi) from the NBC sitcom Community complaining about how, in ‘Cooperative Calligraphy’ (S2E8), they (the characters) are becoming stuck in a bottle episode. It is a trope so common it can be used for comedy – and that was 15 years ago.

Booking is now open for the Screen Two at 40 symposium at BFI Southbank, London, on the 12th November 2025.

In a previous academic life, I was trained as an historian and archaeologist, particularly regarding representation of heritage.  While this has proved unexpectedly good training for eventually becoming a media theorist studying representation (amongst other things), it also means I often have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with documentaries about history, archaeology and/or culture.

I was asked to write an op-ed piece saying why I think the BBC’s Written Archives Centre (WAC) is a unique and brilliant resource, which I can do because it’s both – and why, therefore, the BBC’s slimming of its services is a Bad Thing.

This article was first published on WFTHN on the 17th October 2025. Warning: This article is divided into two parts, but both have detailed descriptions of sexual violence in the book and TV series, Rivals. Author’s Note: This essay was written before the death of Dame Jilly Cooper.

Archival work (photo courtesy of Helen Wheatley) People following the last few weeks of the Critical Studies in Television blog will have seen my brilliant colleagues discussing the essential work that they have been able to do thanks to the previous researcher-led access arrangements at the BBC Written Archives.

Margery Wace in 1935. With kind permission of Cecilia Johnson. My first visit to the BBC’s Written Archives Centre was in 2002. I was working as a producer on Woman’s Hour and had applied for a three-month attachment to what was then the Diversity Centre, to research and write a history of women at the BBC.

Those of you that have been reading CSTonline for a while will know that I have been in the USA for the past 6 years.  I was employed (as an American TV scholar) to write a Master’s Programme in TV Studies.