Watching Dutch TV

After not having watched TV for a couple of years, and with my family on a long holiday in Ukraine, I spent a few hours this rainy afternoon watching some Dutch television. I was really impressed by the Dutch major public channels Nederland 1 and 2, which one can watch without any cable subscription, which we deliberately gave up 2 or 3 years ago in order to have some more quality time for ourselves and our little daughter.

So today there were a number of top-quality Dutch and Flemish productions definitely worth watching:

1. The Philosophical Quintet http://www.filosofischkwintet.tv/): a philosophical debate about the rule of law and religious freedom;

2. A programme about Shostakovich and how the realities of life in the USSR were reflected in his music;

3. A documentary about the controversial issues of development help in Africa;

4. A really great film The Bardsongs about the ancient wisdoms of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam (http://www.bardsongs.com/);

5. A Flemish documentary The Way to Mekka (De weg naar Mekka: http://www.nederland2.nl/programmas/3043-de-weg-naar-mekka) about Islam in the present-day Iran;

6. Beagle Revisited: a wonderful documentary that reconstructs Charles Darwin's 5-year trip, but this time in the course of one year on board of a Dutch clipper Stad Amsterdam: http://beagle.vpro.nl/#/talen/item/12/

And I am still looking forward to the late-night documentary Homeland by the Jewish-Dutch-French film director George Sluizer, in which he follows two Palestinian refugee families: http://www.hollanddoc.nl/kijk-luister/documentaire/h/homeland-.html

So it's good to watch some public television from time to time, just skip the ads in the beginning and the end!