Was it really only 16 months ago? In July 2000 BBC2 screened I Love 1970, the first instalment of what turned out to be a 30-part series – and whilst it’s almost too neat to refer back to this first edition as I Love reaches its climax (at least within it’s current format), it is instructive to measure how far the series has come (or fallen) since then.

“From start to finish I Love 1970 showed much the same sense of an attention to detail and careful research that there was on the Top Ten shows – no tired old clips wheeled out for the 100th time, no tired old celebrities wheeled out either.” That summation from OTT’s review of I Love 1970 has almost taken on its own quaintness – its own nostalgia. Since then the I Love strand has exhausted itself (and so it seems has the now lacklustre Top Ten). Where once it was an entertaining curio it is now a cliché – a recognisable franchise ripe for parody (cf. the upcoming TVGoHome series on E4). It’s the new “docu-soap”, the new Driving School, destined to be remembered as “what everyone was watching in 2001″.

Moreover, as I Love has charted out the 1990s, it’s transformed itself into everything it once wasn’t. The clips are now tired. The celebrities have become the same-old faces, now placed as sign-posts signifying what we are about to see/are seeing/have seen. Although in part it’s been a victim of its own success – establishing a durable format that has now became over-familiar – the ’90s series has lacked the depth of research evident in the ’70s and ’80s editions. It seems that there is no longer much love for the source material.

And whilst we’re dwelling on the problems of the series as a whole, it is worth noting that documenting the ’90s has proven deeply problematic for I Love as many predicted. It’s plainly the case that the recent past eschews being catalogued in terms of trends, crazes and moments shared en masse. We’re happy enough to reformat our childhood years into recognisable, communal touchstones, but when it comes to the recent past it’s all too much a part of who we are today. We don’t want our present selves sub-divided into neat little sections. We don’t want our current preoccupations or interests defined for us by Gregg Proops – it’s too complicated, too personal and grown-up for that. The process undermines our own sense of individuality and its irksome. Whilst we’re happy to have the ’70s dished up in the form of sub-headings that trigger happy memories, we’d rather the recent past was left to mature a bit before it enters the catalogue.

Thankfully I Love 1999 proved to be a slightly more stylish foray than recent episodes, but still failed to throw much at us that would stick in the mind after the credits had rolled. Building the programme around The Blair Witch Project proved to be a sound decision providing the episode and, more importantly, the year with a firm identity. Indeed, the section on Blair Witch was quite interesting, chiefly in that it featured a pundit getting dewy-eyed over a website – a TV nostalgia first perhaps, and certainly a juxtaposition that will surely be used somewhere to lambast this final edition.

Whilst the appraisal of Britney Spears was run-of-the-mill, the section on The Big Breakfast was slightly odd due to talk in the past-tense about the programme’s poor ratings – yet that’s the state of affairs in the present day too. However, it was great to hear Kelly Brook’s side of the story regarding her ill-fated tenure on the programme. Her recollection of telling her mother (upon joining the show) that she was going to be herself and everything would be “OK” was quite endearing. Best of all, for those of us who’ve grown to loathe the BB, was that the programme was by common consensus held to have acted contemptuously in its treatment of Brook.

For Russell T Davies it was a busy night as he bobbed onto screen here to contextualise Queer as Folk and would repeat the act just an hour or so later on Channel 4′s Top Ten. Alas there was little here to satiate those who already had more than a passing interest in the programme, bar the revelation that Davies equipped the character of Stuart with a jeep because a gay character in Byker Grove had driven one. It seems Davies’ long background in children’s telly has continued to advise his work ever since. Gina Yashmere, meanwhile, wanted to tell us that Stuart was a “cool guy”.

A section on Red Bull was business as usual and then we had a surprising finale centred around Baz Luhrmann’s hit Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen). This mawkish and overly sentimental track received a nicely taut summation, taking us from its origins in a Chicago newspaper to its realisation by Luhrmann as a tribute to his dying father. Throughout this sequence flashes from I Love the Seventies and Eighties began to appear. Drawing from what now must be a large cache of Super 8 style footage, I Love 1999 suddenly became self-reflective. Married to the music it flashed up various idents from the first episode onwards marking its own tribute to the I Love series as whole.

Faced with a footnote like this we could only reflect upon the history of the programme itself. It was a nice touch, an appreciation of the common ground shared by us and the programme. A history that spans back both 30 years and 16 months.

The I Love series, taking in all 30 episodes, has been a fantastic achievement even if the final 10 did cause us some concern. BBC Manchester should be congratulated for one of the most enjoyable TV “events” for a long time. However, with TV nostalgia set to eat itself here’s hoping this is where the story ends.

Do you remember I Love 1998? It wasn’t that long ago, but don’t worry if you’ve forgotten stuff because part of the fun is half-remembering something, then humorously recalling what really happened while wondering what you could’ve been “on” to generate such side-splitting amnesia. Coming up over the next 1600 words: Lisa Snowden stating the obvious, Mark Steel being irritating, a fussy list of errors and gaffes that the programme makers could’ve avoided, and some abuse about Cornershop. “Was it good for you too?”

Just because the end is in sight doesn’t make the warped logic of I Love the Nineties any easier to tolerate. If anything the nearer to the present we get the more arrogant and cack-handed the production becomes. It’s perverse that there seem to have been more factual blunders and inaccuracies within the programmes covering the events of the last five years than any of those stretching back to 1970. I Love 1998 included a section on South Park introduced with Blur’s Beetlebum (released January 1997), and one on combat trousers introduced with All Saints’ I Know Where It’s At (released September 1997). Yeah, splitting hairs maybe, but these are elements that are all the more annoying for being so unnecessary and trivial and which would have been easy to correct. As it was we didn’t hear half the most important, popular or successful music of 1998, including Cher’s Believe, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On or anything from B*Witched, Billie, Aqua, Madonna and The Spice Girls: perhaps not a bad thing, but again, that was what you heard everywhere on the radio and on telly in 1998. Or so I thought. Well, it was three years ago.

Once again with I Love the Nineties the programme had doomed itself instantly through its choice of presenter. Dana International was not the face of 1998. Her micro-bubble of national fame popped after about a week, and the event she remains most well known for is falling over at the Eurovision Song Contest of 1999. Her one hit never made the top 10 so while she may have deserved a passing mention her victory and the concurrent media frenzy over her (already ancient) sex change seemed undeserving of so much attention. After all previous Eurovision winners, let alone contests, have not had much of a look in here. Handing her the spotlight, meanwhile, did her no favours, merely exposing further her musical shortcomings, vanity (“I wanted to co-operate with everyone!”) and poor sense of humour.

More puzzling was the way the programme didn’t even begin with Eurovision, instead opting for another dodgy film. There’s Something About Mary was once more no way emblematic of 1998. The problem of using films as elements within nostalgia based formats was effectively nailed in the review of I Love 1997; but if anything that situation became worse here. Having seen neither this or the other film featured – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – I found the programme’s attitude glib and patronising, alternately presuming too much then talking down at me for not understanding enough. But even in my relative naïveté I somehow failed to appreciate having Lisa Snowden yet again pop up to describe clips we were about to see. In fact everyone was at it. Joining Lisa in a roll call of serial stating-the-obvious offenders were Ed Byrne, Jenny Powell, Jeff Green and the particularly snide, over-knowing Marcus Brigstocke (who merits a special mention for going that extra bit further and impersonating the voices of characters we were just about to see).

OK, it’s very easy to knock such contributors, so who would go in their place? Who’s left to oil the wheels of the nostalgia industry now Stuart Maconie and Peter Kay have packed up and gone elsewhere? Fear not, because I Love 1998 saw a return to peak form of Jamie Theakston, standard-bearer for cheap shots from reviewers ever since the I Love franchise first began. Even at this late stage in the day Theako delivered the goods, casually chuckling over how he thought Dana International “looked just like a fella!” and how the dreadful Brimful of Asha by Cornershop tickled him because the line “Everyone needs a bosom for a pillow” made him keep “thinking of Claire Rayner – for some reason!” He must be aware of how his contributions to this series have made him look, and how he’s become a byword for the art of talking about a topic and still appearing confused despite having watched a clip on the subject 10 seconds earlier.

However even his performance paled alongside that of Mark Steel. Never a man to make it easy for you not to dislike him, Mark has cleverly used the whole I Love the Nineties series to set about cultivating even more reason for viewers to become consumed with irritation the second his giant face looms onto screen. His pompous comments boom out thanks to the way he’s filmed (like Fi Glover) in ultra-close up, which also amplifies the degree to which everything he says is so unfunny (ditto). There’s Something About Mary, therefore, was like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s, except Audrey Hepburn never had spunk in her hair!” During a section on the Coronation Street storyline involving the wrongful imprisonment of Deirdre Rachid, Mark helpfully reminded us how foolish we all were for confusing fiction with reality: “I hope they never go to see Shakespeare – they’ll be running on in the middle: ‘That’s murder!’”

Even though he later he faced stiff competition from Paul Ross (telling us about a trip he made to Leicester), Vanessa Feltz (trying to remember when she remembered something to do with the papers) and Peter York (looking at a bottle of Sunny Delight), on balance Mark has to rank as the most useless, counter-productive element of any I Love the Nineties programme. He’s one of those who’s done the most to drag this series so far downwards and belittle the fine work done by his forerunners in I Love the Seventies and Eighties.

The inevitable lewd content came in the form of an officially “lewd act”. George Michael’s arrest for indecent exposure was a big event of 1998, but typically mis-handled here. We had to endure a whole stream of “careless Wispa” style gags reeled off by “comedians”, and the chance for a bit of insight into George’s career up to that point (the wilderness years during the court case, the comeback LP), or even previous celebrity scandals was swapped for the sight of a George Michael impersonator listing his diary engagements for the week his alter ego got banged up. It was interesting hearing about how the video for Outside was made, but it felt out of place and sat awkwardly amongst so much trivial conjecture. The end was botched as well, as Johnny Vegas fluffed some pointless joke about Panini stickers, for which Panini then got a credit at the end.

Goodness Gracious Me began life on Radio 4 but this wasn’t mentioned once during the short section designed to convince us it was the most important programme of 1998. I’ve always found it a rather patchy series, with fantastic sketches rubbing shoulders with really banal, obvious ones. Being reminded of all the dreadful musical pastiche sequences was not pleasurable (nor enduring the requisite bit from “Going out for an English”). Intriguingly, though, the song Vindaloo was played during the background: a very popular hit, of course, and to do with the World Cup, though again neither were properly mentioned. We stayed with TV for the bit on Deirdre Rachid, a segment memorable for Margi Clarke confusingly describing her on-screen relationship with Deirdre as being “like Ronnie Barker to her Porridge.” It was somewhat bemusing to see the programme making so much of this age-old tactic of involving the press in soap opera storylines. Don’t they remember “Give Us Our Crossroads Back”? Owen Aaranovitch also appeared, complaining about how nostalgia programmes are holding his career back. You didn’t have to show up, Owen.

Combat trousers were laughed at for having so many pockets. All Saints wore them, so they were mentioned, not because they had some of the biggest selling singles of 1998. Gangsters were praised to the skies in the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels section, making me not want to see the film even more; and to demonstrate the controversy over Sunny Delight we saw a child putting orange make up on his face. Brimful of Asha – a song that has less chords, and imagination, than Three Blind Mice – was causing a problem for Marcus again: “What’s a brimful of asha?” he asked. “I should imagine it’s something to do with drugs,” suggested Wayne Hemingway (nice to see him back). But it was good to see the song’s eponymous hero – Asha Bhosle – interviewed, and let’s not forget Cornershop’s fine work in providing backing music for Mark Radcliffe’s Radio 1 shows for the last four years.

Finally we had South Park, a show, it’s true, you either “love or hate”. I fall into the second category, and I knew nothing I Love 1998 was going to say would persuade me otherwise. So again, here was something I’ve never really “got” being presented to me as obvious, and my bemusement made a source of humiliation by implying I was just the same as the fusty expert who didn’t like it because of all its swearing. A really miserable end to a deeply unsatisfactory, instantly forgettable programme.

Anyway, I Love 1998 – was it good for you too?

A few hours before watching I Love 1997, I went on Friends Reunited and sent an e-mail to a mate from college I hadn’t seen since, yes, 1997. As I was writing the e-mail, it struck me how much has changed which I wanted to tell him about – since I last saw him I’d been to university, made a bunch of new friends, started full time work and had at least three different haircuts. 1997 was the first year of adulthood for me, and so I Love 1997 should have had extra resonance. I should have done everything that this programme told me the nation had done.

At the start of the series, I appeared to be the only person outside the production team who thought that it could have been worth making. I based this idea on Goodbye to the Nineties, an excellent 90-minute show broadcast on 31 December 1999. Produced by BBC Manchester, it expertly married together brilliantly-chosen clips with amusing, wry commentary to effortlessly entertain. If I Love the Nineties was half as good as that programme, it would have been well worth doing. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

While I Love the Seventies made you go “Ooh, not seen that clip before”, and I Love the Eighties made you go “Ooh, great to see that clip again”, I Love the Nineties is simply spawning resigned “I knew they were going to show that clip” comments. With this run, you can tell that the production team have got a few back issues of newspapers and magazines, a couple of reference books and some tapes of The Sunday Show and other topical programmes out of the archive, and based their selection of topics on what was included. Maybe it’s because the production team weren’t experiencing the topics first hand anymore, but making programmes about them at the time. It’s a view of 1997 based on what was on the telly, not what people were actually doing. You could see this throughout the hour. Too often it’s the sort of programme you could make yourself.

With a few exceptions, I’ve not enjoyed any of the sections about films on any of these programmes, right back to the early ’70s shows. If you went out on the street and asked members of the public when, say, Indecent Proposal came out, you’d probably get answers ranging from 1988 to 1998. Films very rarely sum up the year they were made in, unless they were massive blockbusters that spawned acres of merchandise and publicity (yet neither Jurassic Park nor Batman, which really were big deals, have appeared). The Full Monty could have been made any year, and to me they don’t belong in this series as they weren’t ephemeral. Anyway, I’ve never seen The Full Monty, as I was sick of people telling me to when it came out, and the clips didn’t make me want to rent the video either. The piece therefore passed me by, except to note that Lisa Snowdon demonstrated punditry at its worst when she just described clips we were about to see.

On seeing the section about Chumbawamba, I was reminded of Stuart Maconie’s “Commandments For Modern Living” that appeared in the great but short-lived Deluxe magazine in 1998. One of them was “Thou shalt never admit you bought a copy of Tubthumping”, which I’ve adhered to ever since. Yes, somewhere at the bottom of a drawer in my bedroom is a copy of that single, and I haven’t played it since about a fortnight after I bought it. Still, I wasn’t alone, and the best bit about this section was seeing the band at a Radio 1 Roadshow with Simon Mayo instructing the audience to “go and buy it”. The other good bits about this section were some clips of the band backstage at Top of the Pops, which I’d never seen before, and the fact that they didn’t play Amnesia, which is an awful record. Unfortunately we also got the first of tonight’s appearances from Mark Steel – like Mark Thomas only even more irritating and unconvincing. In many ways he’s the Chumbawamba of comedy.

We quickly sped through features on the “Diet Coke break” advert, which I don’t think is from 1997. A brief glance at the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles – no doubt often taken off the shelf in the production office – shows us that I Just Wanna Make Love To You was released in February 1996, presumably to cash in on the advert. So what was it doing here? Melinda Messenger’s section was basically a retread of the Sam Fox appreciation from I Love 1986.

And then it’s the Teletubbies. I will not hear a bad word said against this series, as when it began I was slap bang in the target audience – which was, of course, aged between 16 and 22 – and I watched it, and genuinely enjoyed it, practically every morning. I knew this feature was going to be full of comedians regurgitating all their 1997 material about the series, so I didn’t hold up much hope for it . In fact it all started off really well, with a bunch of kids in the pundit’s chair. Best quote of the night came from one of them, saying “Such a long time ago, it was my favourite show”. Unfortunately, this couldn’t last, and then we had Dave Thompson still riffing on his dismissal from the role of Tinky Winky, four years on. And then … Sheryl Garrett said it was “on drugs”, Claire Gorham said it was “on acid” and Mark Steel made reference to “a giant E” that Laa-Laa held up, pretending he hadn’t seen the clip five minutes earlier.

The section on Bridget Jones included clips from the film, which is all wrong. Then it was the viagra section, which was bound to be rubbish. Kevin Day talked about how comedians did loads of rubbish jokes about it, which was a bit rich as last week he’d recycled all of his “Posh Spice isn’t very posh” material from 1996. Oddly, Terry Wogan showed up, who was good, though I thought this was a bit too “dumbed-down” for him. Though I knew we were going to get that Richard and Judy clip, and sure enough it showed up again. Mark Steel seems to be the only person in the country who hasn’t seen this clip several hundred times, so he must have been in a cave for the last four years. Though given his stand-up act, maybe he has. There was nothing else of interest in this bit, save an amusing clip of Richard Madeley letting slip a “bloody” and immediately apologising.

Then we got a piece on The Prodigy, which was initially baffling as surely 1996 was the band’s biggest year – they had two number ones, for a start. The reason why they were here were because this was the year of Smack My Bitch Up. In fact, as I didn’t own the album and Radio 1 didn’t play the single during the day, I don’t think I actually heard this song until a year or so later. Still, this segment did offer up an interesting demonstration of how times have changed since just four year ago, as we got to see practically the whole of the video. I remember that on its original release, the video was only shown once on terrestrial TV, on a pilot chat show with Will Self at midnight on Channel 4. This whole section, though, seemed to concentrate on something that was big amongst the media, but made little impact on the general public. Oddly, series regular Leeroy Thornhill didn’t comment.

Last up – thankfully we didn’t get the promised Titanic feature – were docusoaps. Make no mistake, Driving School was a killer of a series, a real talking point. Indeed, I put the timer on for two episodes while I went on holiday for a fortnight. The clips are still fun to see again, as well. Thankfully this section was spared the likes of Arabella Weir making pointless, outdated and unfunny comments on how “they’ll make docusoaps about anything now”. Jeremy Spake wasn’t involved, though, which is odd given that he’s commented on loads of other things, but not the one he’s qualified to speak about.

On the whole, this programme is becoming a real chore to watch, and the only reason that I – and no doubt, many others – are sticking with the series is basically out of brand loyalty. I’ve watched all the others, and I can’t stop now. There are some plus points – Miranda Sawyer’s still good, and it’s nice to see Jenny Ross on telly again, but that’s about it. You really could make an entertaining and amusing programme about 1999, I really do believe that, but it’s becoming obvious that this strand isn’t going to deliver it. It’s a shame what was once a great series is becoming dull and uninspired viewing.

Does anyone want to appear in my new nostalgia show – I Love I Love the Eighties?

1996 was a fantastic year for me. I was in the first year of the Sixth Form, enjoying the new-found freedom of free lessons, going to the “biggest fee-paying concert in Britain”, laughing with my friends about the Brit Awards incident between Michael Jackson and Jarvis Cocker, falling in love with wonderful bands like Kenickie, watching Animaniacs, and listening to Radio 1 religiously between the hours of 7pm-12am. After watching I Love 1996, it became clear that I must have been living in a parallel universe for those 12 months.

After the 15-20 second preview of things to come, backed by Beck’s Devil’s Haircut, we start the show proper with a look at the beginnings of The Spice Girls. Or rather, a brief discussion of the video for Wannabe, an even shorter look at the video for Say You’ll Be There (which provides the segment’s only real insight with the director of the video describing the looks of the girls when he showed them what they would be wearing, and Emma Bunton’s contradictory statement immediately following), plus a mention of Girl Power. The talk seems to end before Geri’s departure, which may be followed up in a later episode, depending on how desperate the producers of the show are to fill the final shows. Once again, the American talking heads (Greg Proops and Ice-T) manage to be more entertaining and enlightening than most of the British contingent.

This Life is one of those shows that I never saw, mainly because I spent Thursday nights listening to Collins and Maconie’s Hit Parade on Radio 1. Still, I do remember people going crazy about it during its second series, and the furore that surrounded the decision not to do a third – so its inclusion is probably justified. The creator of the show and the cast were called upon to talk about the characters, and we were given the answer to the not-often asked question: “What happened to Louise Wener since Sleeper spilt up?”, as she turned up as one of the talking heads in this section. I was surprised that there was no discussion about why the programme didn’t go into a third series, but overall, this segment was fairly good, explaining things well enough for someone (like me) who had never seen it before.

The Toy Story segment failed because it didn’t devote all of its time to clips from the film and John Lassiter. Most of the ground covered here was familiar to me already from Andi Peter’s excellent Toy Story documentary of two years ago, and so this five minutes of the show passed by fairly quickly without generating much interest, despite the brilliance of the film itself.

My abiding memory of Mark Morrison is Mark and Lard’s “Hello Mark!” routine that they did while he was in prison, so I was surprised to see him treated with such reverence by the programme. Despite my initial unsympathetic feelings towards his arrest (and I think that most US states do have concealed weapon laws, despite the protestations of his video producers), Mark did have a point when he complained about how Eric Cantona was made to teach football skills to children as punishment, but he was made to clean up a school, rather than – say – teach music. It didn’t justify sending a double to do his work for him, but I understood his reasoning behind the action. Next up is …

Euro 1996. No mention of the abysmal England vs Switzerland match, but the inclusion of Kenny Daglish’s anti-English commentary did prevent it turning into the standard “We would have won, if it wasn’t for those pesky Germans” look at the tournament. Uri Gellar continued his campaign to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes, full of his own self-importance, despite being best known for bending spoons when he thinks no-one is looking. Kevin Day’s brief diatribe against “new” football fans was interesting, but quickly forgotten about, something that seems to happen often with this series.

It seems that we’ve skipped The Word, so instead we get The Girlie Show, which managed to extract the few noteworthy features of its predecessor, leaving a rotten mess of explicit and attention-seeking items, and not much else. The only redeeming feature of the whole enterprise appears to be Lisa Rogers, who despite her general “Oh my God! Did we do that?” approach during this series and I Love the Eighties, shot up in my estimation when she told the story of how she tried to prevent the “naked apes” from fouling the Blue Peter garden. For once, she seemed earnest and caring, something normally lacking from her appearances on these clip shows.

The segment on Trainspotting highlighted the frustration in watching this series. When people who are actually involved in the film are talking, like Kelly Macdonald remembering the time when her mum visited the set, it is interesting. When a bunch of almost-famous celebrities talk about the film, the programme quickly becomes boring, as they seem to repeat themselves quite often, and have no real insight to shine on the topic. And anyway, I’ve always thought A Life Less Ordinary was the best of the Hodge/Boyle/McGregor films, despite the critical mauling it received. Still, at least they didn’t bring up the “subtitled” US release (a long standing urban legend).

The Macarena feature was similar. Los Del Rio helpfully explain the origin of the song and the dance, we see some clips of people performing the dance, and the talking heads have a good laugh, although I imagine that most of them were doing it at the time. It was good to see Al Gore at the Democrat ’96 Convention, displaying some self-deprecating humour, which seemed to disappear in 2000.

Finally, we have Tomb Raider. And Lara Croft. Despite the male-dominated image that computer gaming has projected over the years, female characters have been around for decades. After a bit of history re-writing, Lara becomes the first time computer games players have ever seen women. Toby Gard’s dissatisfaction with the way that Eidos portrayed Lara Croft to entice publicity seems to go unsaid, and the show peters out into the advert for next week’s I Love 1997, playing Slight Return by The Bluetones.

The overall feeling I’m left with is boredom. Did I really just spend an hour watching a programme that didn’t even manage to excite me about Toy Story? Although watching the past five shows lowered my expectations quite considerably, it was still a disappointment. I have even less desire to see the fun drug-related comments that the celebrities will undoubtedly make about the Teletubbies next week.

Instead, I’m going to break out my tapes of The Evening Session from 1997 and have a good time…

On 31 December 1995 me and a few mates decided to commit ourselves to a suitably non-hedonistic activity. We sat down and made some lists. The last 12 months had been the midpoint of the decade. What had it told us about the 1990s so far? What records and films would we rate and which would we rubbish? Would we still think the same in another five years time? While much of the ensuing round table debate focused on what should be the last song we put on the stereo in 1995, we hammered out some conclusions. We then sealed the documents in various envelopes, all of which we promptly lost within a matter of months.

Just as well, perhaps – because I can imagine shuddering with embarrassment reading again the kind of things we thought worth celebrating just six years ago. It was therefore a relief to discover that nothing from our “In” column showed up in I Love 1995. That nothing from the “Out” column did either is not a surprise. Expectations seem to have now fallen so low with this series that each week’s offerings, no matter how ill chosen and badly explained, don’t register that great a shock. It is not worth the energy shouting at Johnny Vegas or Natalie Casey anymore.

Still, trying to fathom the logic behind the bizarre choice of subject matter sets up one kind of viewer-programme relationship, and one has to be better than none at all. Because there are neither means, nor ends, to I Love 1990s, you can get by trying to second guess the series and outwit its production team. So Alanis Morrisette is on – right, who’s going to do the “she didn’t half carry on with that moaning” line, or the one about “nothing very ironic in the lyrics to Ironic”? The programme trades on using those objectionable celebrities as mouthpieces for nationwide-shared reminiscences, but it would be more affirming to see those punch lines delivered competently and with an essence of timing.

Halfway through 1995 I was at the Glastonbury festival and someone walked by with a sign proclaiming “John Major Has Resigned!” which later proved to be both right and wrong. It has stayed with me as the most immediate image of that year and even now triggers off many associate memories about music, people, television and current affairs. Maybe some were connected with the ones being aired on I Love 1995 – but it’s hard to tell seeing as how I was being told on screen first how great the year was, then how bad, then all about the ending of the film The Usual Suspects which I’ve never seen and now don’t want to. “What sort of sick twisted person does that?” Thanks to Emma Kennedy there.

That there weren’t any television programmes as such featured in this edition was suggestive either of rushed production work or the fact there really was not any weathervane telly in 1995. Instead a few archive tapes of The Sunday Show seemed to have come the BBC’s way and which provided footage for both the Dennis Pennis feature and “The Guinness Man”. Those Guinness ads with Joe McKinney flailing to the sounds of Perez Prado and his Orchestra always left me even less inclined to touch a drop of the black stuff. Was the ad ever intended to change minds, or simply to reinforce drinking habits? This kind of debate was passed over in return for a few minutes airtime of McKinney complaining about being recognised and being made to do the dance for years afterwards. The Dennis Pennis clips were too familiar, probably because they were only last repeated a year or so ago. Pennis wasn’t that big a deal, a one-trick pony that was continued for too long. It was irritating to hear Paul Kaye laughing at how it was just all made up in the pub, clearly amused that something so tatty – “punk rock TV” – was now being celebrated as something so fine.

Instead of more on television we had another advert (for CKone – Jamie Theakston said that 1995 “stank” of it) and another film (Braveheart). Six years is a long period, but can so much time have passed to make me forget how important and influential these topics were? The various pundits and clips did not adequately make the case. I Love the Nineties has got increasingly puerile and this week’s filth and fury came in the guise of Club 18-30 ads. Yes, they were always bound to be controversial and yes, they must have made the ad people laugh. And so here were all those phrases again, including two that were vetoed, and once we’d seen them all, well, time to move on again. Unexpected clips from Working Lunch cropped up in both this and the feature on alcopops, which revolved wholly around celebrities moaning about drinking too much and getting hangovers. The poor loves . And was that “Comedy Dave” appearing for just two seconds?

Weird amateurish linking material from an uncomfortable-looking Edwyn Collins in a fake nightclub again suggested the programme had been put together in a rush. One thing this series has been singularly lacking is an accomplished host. Every edition has been blessed with something of an unconvincing turn, and Collins was unfortunately no exception. His “own” segment at the end of the programme was certainly the highlight of I Love 1995, and a reminder of how rarely you hear the word “metaphorically” in a Top 40 chart hit. But everywhere else he could not avoid looking bemused and unconvincing, strumming his guitar and uttering a few half-sung lines cueing in Damian Hirst. Edwyn’s contributions in other sections – such as his thoughts on Hirst, “A proper artist is someone who cuts their ear off” – were actually pretty decent, it was just a shame about the bits in-between. Was he a last minute replacement? It’s unlikely that anyone could have really turned the show into an absorbing hour of television, and that has to stand as the greatest condemnation.

Maybe the programme makers are aware of this. Maybe they are complicit in engineering each edition to aid the gentle onset of tedium, and help us on our way with as bland a selection of talking heads and clips as possible. I came away from this programme sensing that I had been treated rather disdainfully and with contempt. We cannot disturb these few viewers now, the suits say, they have stuck with us this far, it is late in the day, and look – here is a chance to use that footage about alien abductions we couldn’t fit in the other week.

I believe there could be fantastic, totally absorbing programmes to be made about 1997, or 1999, but the fact I feel like we’re not going to get them is frustrating. Meanwhile I couldn’t remember what was the last song on the stereo in 1995 until after the show had finished. It was Don’t Look Back In Anger by Oasis, which wasn’t in the programme. Tch. Couldn’t they even have mentioned the New Year’s Eve party down our road where the police had to come and turn down the noise?

Saturday night, Saturday night… and I’m sitting in front of the television, recalling a conversation with a colleague at work. “Everything came back in the ’90′s, so the decade never really had a style of its own,” I was informed. So I Love the Nineties was always destined to be problematic. Not in terms of execution of course. We’re used to the arbitrary exclusion of items we feel sum up an era more succinctly than those the programme-makers have chosen, though one can imagine the spectacle of an unimaginative pundit drooling over “having an old friend for dinner with a nice Chianti” or emulating Whitney’s warbling over always loving Kevin Costner and breathe a collective sigh of relief that these did not materialise. The problem lies more in the programme’s basic raison d’être.

The great strength of the ’70s and ’80s shows were their affectionate pop bluster, looking at our shared past and where necessary, exploding our assumptions about “the good old days” by revealing that certain fragments (Sodastream, Cabbage Patch dolls) were every bit as crap in their contemporaneous contexts as they are now. Many of the cultural talking points of the last decade remain too fresh in our collective consciousness for any significant reappraisal or reinvention as kitsch. How is it possible to trawl nostalgically back through a decade that was itself so intertwined with notions of irony, parody, revival and retro-rehabilitation? Now I’ve got fond memories of 1994 – the year of A-levels, leaving home, starting at university. Though suffused in an alcohol-fuelled haze, my recollections of student life are abundantly clear so the programme did not engender rose-tinted remembrances or wistful trips down memory lane. There’s scarcely any warm glow to be gained from the programme anymore so why bother? But since I am watching, let’s examine BBC Manchester’s take on 1994 without further ado – after all, it’s party time and not one minute we can lose.

“Britpop” was one of those nebulous terms, like “Cool Britannia”, I never much cared for. Touted as a bright new broadside against the dominance over grunge and indie by America, the work of Blur, Oasis, Supergrass and Suede (linked by the media with The Kinks and the Small Faces) did not so much hinge on anti-Americanism but rather revealed the British tendency to cling to traditional icons whilst endeavouring to innovate. Recounting the saga of Blur vs. Oasis was an entertaining piece – reminding us that when Country House beat Roll With It to number one it was ultimately a pyrrhic victory, yet respect was shown to both bands. If excerpts from the Parklife video showcased Damon and co’s keen sense of irony and playfulness then the equal emphasis given to backstage belligerence and the wonderful Wonderwall admirably encapsulated Liam Gallagher’s budding duality. Where did I stand on this all-important question? To lay my cards fully on the table, as much as I appreciated both bands, actually I spent most of the mid-1990′s listening to ’60s/’70s/’80s music at the student union discos. Ah, nostalgia …

There’s not much that can be usefully added about Four Weddings and a Funeral other than to echo Johnny Vegas’ spot-on summation that the film was made by the chattering classes about the chattering classes. The raw poignancy of the funeral scene atones for this however, and Four Weddings was indeed that rare thing in 1994: a British hit movie amidst a slew of multiplex dross, demonstrating that British cinema could be a commercially viable proposition in the international film market. There’s certainly a valid argument that without the success of Four Weddings, we might never have got Trainspotting, and therefore I’m happy to cut Hugh and Andie some slack.

Having spent the bulk of the programme regaling us with memories of such frivolous ephemera as the Wonderbra and Tommy Hilfiger fashions, the arrest and prosecution of OJ Simpson seemed somewhat incongruous. Ice T (one of the series’ most reliable contributors) was on top form here, reminding us that the biggest drawcard during the “trial of the century” was not Orenthal James himself, but the charisma and verbal dexterity of defence lawyer Johnny Cochrane. Rather too complex an issue to be adequately addressed by the programme, the contemporary comparisons made between the trial and the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of white police officers of the assault of Rodney King introduces debates about the disparities between races, the invocation of celebrity status, the institutional procedures of the police force and the inequalities of the legal system that the subsequent “media circus” (thank you, Sarah Cawood) of OJ’s trial may have endeavoured to conceal. Much of the defence’s emphasis did indeed lie in arresting officer Mark Fuhrman’s inappropriate use of the word “nigger” – sadly, a rather more under-used word throughout the trial was “Nicole”.

Swiftly moving on to more trivial matters, the crispy pages of Loaded magazine saw the neutered New Man reclaim his balls. This was a publication always shrouded in a layer of irony that suggested us blokes were all so modern and self-aware we recognised the macho tomfoolery therein for what it was, but James Brown waxing lyrical about the “champagne and cocaine” lifestyle that came with the editorship of the mag perpetuated the old adage that boys will be boys after all. Nevertheless, if the lads thought they were going to have it all their own way, their ladette flipsides would soon manifest themselves. The presence of Eva Herzegova confidently asserting her sexuality, the apotheosis of Elizabeth Hurley and jumping, gyrating Whigfield acolytes hinted at a nascent Girl Power that will presumably be explored in greater detail in I Love 1996.

And so, we’ve had The Simpsons and The X Files, let’s look back at yet another show still in production … let’s make Friends. Once again, the top-notch selection of clips we’ve become accustomed on I Love was in evidence as we witnessed David Schwimmer, Matt Le Blanc and Matthew Perry all looking alternately bored and uncomfortable being interviewed by Gaby Roslin. The fact that this segment focused on little more than the theme tune and Jennifer Aniston’s hairdo spoke volumes about the stunningly shallow nature of the programme as a whole. If M*A*S*H and Cheers reached high watermarks of intelligently written American ensemble sitcom (even The Golden Girls had genuine pathos from time to time), then Friends‘ slickness can be very neatly equated with its utter charmlessness.

Finally, after its coverage of Reservoir Dogs just two weeks ago, it seemed that I Love the Nineties was beginning to resemble a Tarantino fest, as once again we have the pundits and gratifyingly bit-players from Pulp Fiction lining up to praise the director’s deconstruction of cinematic convention through the presentation of violence as primarily comic in form, stylised dialogue and interrogation of the hollow façade of machismo. Talented Tarantino might have been, but original he certainly was not. Nevertheless, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny’s raid of the coffee shop remains one of the funniest openings to any movie, and there’s much wry cynicism present as Uma Thurman’s character regales John Travolta with her memories of starring in the tragically undeveloped pilot Fox Force Five, five foxy chicks who were a force to be reckoned with. Despite being sassy, provocative and generally worthwhile, Pulp Fiction crucially lacks a core depth that genuinely draws me to engage with its characters and the milieu they inhabit. Still, one Pulp Fiction is worth a dozen Jurassic Parks or Forrest Gumps, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s cool enough to posit Jackie Brown as being Quentin’s finest.

It was always highly unlikely that I Love the Nineties would come up with a fresh slant on the established format and so it was just a matter of whether the individual programmes would produce some diverting material. As perfunctory and workmanlike as this series is, I Love 1994 was one of the better efforts so far and does exactly what it says on the tin. So let’s not be too harsh if Thelma and Louise, Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves and Marcus Tandy fail to turn up to the party and just see things through their natural course. We’ve all invested too much time in the I Love strand to give up now.

Then again, we could always bring out the Gimp…

I love 25 August 2001. I remember it clearly because I was stuck on a bus.

There had been an accident of some kind. The bus driver claimed that the car had careered straight into him, the driver of the car recalled the incident somewhat differently, and so it was a dispute over who had recalled the details most accurately that found us sitting, and waiting whilst these two men tried to piece together an accurate reconstruction of what had actually happened. To pass the time away, I cast my mind forward to the prospect of watching and then subsequently reviewing I Love 1993. I tried to recall what had happened in that year, and what would likely appear in that episode. Take That perhaps? The first series of Cracker? What had I been doing in 1993? What memory could I take from the year to sum up my fondness or distaste for that 12-month period? It was only on 26 August 2001 (a day I remember well because it’s the day I wrote this opening paragraph on) that I realised I could begin with a personal recollection, not of 1993, but of my experience the day before. After all, a nostalgia programme based on the ’90s won’t work because it’s just too soon, isn’t it? Anyone remember limited edition champagne Crunchies? Yes, I can thanks – I still buy them at the shop round the corner.

Yet as I Love 1993 unfolded, there were moments of genuine nostalgia – not any sudden reconnection with one’s distant past of course, but there were a few inward exclamations of “God I haven’t heard that in a while”. I Love 1993 seemed to cover national obsessions that have only just fallen off the agenda. Popular culture then seems to have been much like popular culture now, only not quite as refined. In some ways that year – less than 100 months ago, is very similar to today (wherein Coogan is the only comedian in town, and tattoos remain de rigour), however at times I Loved 1993 seemed to be telling the story of a whole other world; a pre-Spice Girls, and pre-Diana world – open to the lure of a good conspiracy theory.

The best bit about the X Files piece that opened I Love 1993 was the brief glimpse of Sue Cook presenting Out of This World. After this, not one person mentioned how nauseatingly weak Mark Snow’s X File‘s theme tune is. Instead, there were signs of a conspiracy of sorts, as each pundit was coerced into discussing the series in the past tense. Whilst imbuing I Love 1993 with a certain timelessness, this was rather irritating, and meant that little discussion could be had on the current health of The X Files. A brief clip of a season one story about a pyromaniac set some memories running in my mind. My first exposure to the programme happened – appositely – after an evening spent attending a lecture by David Icke. At that time he was still suffering in the wake of his infamous Wogan interview, and I – like many others – had been drawn to attend, simply out of a desire to learn what madcap schemes he had in mind now. His appearance then, on I Love 1993 was an act of serendipity that has happened few times in this series, but occurred relatively frequently throughout the previous two. Surprisingly in the midst of this there was little mention of The Fortean Times. This publication had seemed to me to be at the very heart of the pre-millennial angst that we had all supposedly been suffering from throughout the early ’90s.

The section on John Wayne Bobbitt was I Love at its worst. “Amusing” shots of phallic symbols and pundit after pundit re-heating all their favourite Bobbit jokes might have been evocative in the truest sense (evoking the coverage the incident had received at the time), but was obviously borne out of an attempt at genuine humour and not of historical recreation. Thank goodness then, for East 17. A lot of the I Love series have stood or fallen on the basis of their access to key eyewitnesses. Here, the four Walthamstow chaps all turned up to retell their story. Their approach was honest and interesting (although we could have done without yet another tale of fanmania and its effect on the band). “Deep” was always a great song, and it didn’t require the craggy Rick Sky to tell us so. Yet he was quite correct to point out the incongruity of four such ugly lads producing such a well-written pop classic. The other highlight of this section had to be the inclusion of Tony Dortie, who – considering this all happened “yesterday” – looked ancient. Football fans are said to have long, unforgiving memories, but I bet there were a few “boos” when the troubled ex-Top of the Pops presenter popped up on screen. Finally this section afforded us a chance to hear again Brian Harvey’s “pro-drug” statement, and then that was it for one of those finely carved segments that the I Love series can still produce (albeit less often on recent programmes).

Mr Blobby was a shoe-in for inclusion in this series. Like most other ironic comic creations (e.g. Loadsamoney), Blobby has long since become disconnected from his origins, and so it was a useful exercise to reshow moments from his original outings on Noel’s House Party. That this section refused to pass comment on either Noel Edmonds’ output during the last decade, or indeed the impact of House Party on light entertainment as a whole, is indicative of the BBC’s reluctance to acknowledge the great man’s importance now that their relationship has become strained. Instead then, we were to focus exclusively on his spotty creation, and unbelievably here we encountered that most hackneyed of nostalgic clichés as Mr Blobby’s designer confessed that a colleague had actually asked her if – when coming up with the Blobby look – she had been on acid.

The section on tattoos was pretty useless and arbitrary in the extreme: could you really isolate this trend to just those 12 months? This was to be another chance for the pundits to recycle some of their best material. Purveyors of comedy tradition would have been delighted at the inclusion of the joke about someone getting a Chinese word tattooed onto them without knowing what it means. Archive footage was again to be the saviour. This time a series of vox pops from 1993, and a chance to gaze again upon a pre-diet Vanessa. Such footage is included only to add a little historical authenticity to the piece, but often serves to evoke the most nostalgia in the viewer. This was certainly the case for the next section as we were treated to a montage of introductions to Eternal. Much was made of the band’s potential for longevity, as well as their ability to mix pop and gospel, yet I found myself wondering how they would have survived should they have stuck around long enough as a foursome to take on the Spice Girls. There was nothing in the footage shown that made me think they would have retained their dominance as the top girl group, and I was left feeling that perhaps there had been quite a lot of water under the bridge (certainly for pop music at least) after all.

A brief tour through Middle America and Greater Manchester allowed us to meet some of the faces (and voices) behind Beavis and Butthead and the Boddingtons ad campaigns, and then it was a whistle stop trip back through the career of Steve Coogan. Having all our pundits recite “bag of shite” was a typically predictable moment, yet Beavis and Butthead’s attempt at Paul Calf’s catchphrase did at least raise a smile. Condensing the career and comic creations of Coogan into five minutes of Saturday night easy nostalgia was always going to be a formidable task, particularly as The South Bank Show devoted an hour to the same subject matter just a few weeks ago. I Love 1993 chose to let the pundits make obvious statements concerning Alan Partridge’s ineptitude and Paul Calf’s irrational hatred for students. Yet, there were some choice moments here; particularly Gail Porter’s genuine fondness for Coogan’s work and the inclusion of little snippets of insight from some of Coogan’s co-performers. Felicity Montagu – like Dortie before her, reinforced the distance between now and then by looking absolutely nothing like the character she played in I’m Alan Partridge. Amidst this uncritical reverie though, I think I detected a slightly barbed comment from Paul Morley, who somehow managed to imply that perhaps Steve Coogan is no good anymore.

“Booty shakin’” and “bump ‘n’ grind” are phrases that have only just fallen out of common circulation. Hearing them again was like finding an English pound note in your pocket. Yet there was little else to be said about the invasion of Ragga into the British charts, and thus I Love 1993 ended with the obligatory film section. That Will Carling should claim that everyone talked about Indecent Proposal when it came out, perhaps says more about the circle of friends he orbited at the time then the impact of Adrian Lynne’s controversy-by-numbers movie. Lynne is an exploitive director, and throughout the ’80s and ’90s we let him shovel rubbish like this down our throats. Lest, we had any intentions of finally forgiving him, he turned up on I Love 1993 with a sweater draped across his shoulders and spouted forth about the tantalising questions that Indecent Proposal raised. In truth it’s a terrible film, with a garbled message and a story that quickly runs out of steam, yet no one else seemed to mention this. There was scope here to consider that whole run of American films addressing sexual politics in a crass, tabloid style (Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Disclosure) and especially the British public’s seemingly endless appetite for such fare. However, this opportunity was studiously avoided, and instead I Love 1993 had one last dose of nostalgia: back to I Love the Eighties and that piece on Flashdance – only here the “shock horror” body double for Demi Moore was not even interesting enough to be a man.

1992: the year of Europe, the Single European Act, the Treaty of Maastricht, Black Wednesday and the Barcelona Olympics. In short, one of the most momentous years in recent European history. But, wait a moment, this isn’t 1992 – it’s I Love 1992. Here it’s Take That, Gladiators, the Femidom, The Shamen, Absolutely Fabulous, Wayne’s World, Reservoir Dogs and The Tango Ad With The Fat Orange Bloke. And that’s because the purpose of the I Love … series is not penetrating analysis of the shifting plates of political and sociological history, but to take a snapshot of what was happening in the world of pop culture.

Unlike some of the Hollywood-based presenters of previous shows, Mark Owen could at least “get” most of the references within the programme, even if he did seem rather subdued about the whole affair. Although we can’t deny that this was an observer with a stake in the unfolding narrative (and being a member of the biggest boy band of the ’90s makes it a pretty big stake) his delivery suggested a boredom with his limited role in the programme.

Onto the first item, then and it seemed shocking that Take That could be discussed in such elegiac terms. It is a measure of the abiding affection for this apparently throwaway pop group that they are still well remembered nine years on. Nine years is a couple of eons in pop music terms. It was also amusing to see them all so young and fresh in their early videos, and in particular Gary Barlow’s ill-advised bleached blond hair. In addition there was the hackneyed story of the rise and fall of the group (getting together, paying dues, chart success, “artistic differences”, the split) and one or two personal memories from Howard Donald, and Mark Owen himself (Barlow and Robbie Williams were predictably notable absentees). The furor caused by the split up was touched upon briefly, but had been covered better on Channel 4′s TV To Die For a few weeks previously. The personality clashes in the group were alluded to and then, maddeningly, glossed over. But it was really in some choice clips from various daytime television shows that we got a true flavour of what Take That were all about – five fit, likeable lads who could sing and dance a bit.

Unusually, this edition covered not one but two films; Wayne’s World and Reservoir Dogs. This, I guess, was due more to the fact that 1992 presented little else to major on in the I Love Universe, rather than the intrinsic merit of either film. Reservoir Dogs probably had the best claim as the film of the year, however, due more to scenes and images which have entered the public consciousness rather than any depth of characterisation or plot. The myth that this is a particularly depraved flick was usefully taken apart (Barry Norman’s comments on Film ’92n otwithstanding) and the point was made by Chris Penn that this was a film that relied chiefly on dialogue for effect, rather than onscreen violence. Greg Proops was also quick to point out the debt Quentin Tarantino owed to the Hong Kong gangster movies he’d consumed whilst working in a video store.

Come the feature on the Tango advert (joyously featuring both the original “slap” and re-shot “kiss” versions) and some thorough research was evident, turning up the actor who had played that orange “Tango man”. Advertising executive John Hegarty was also on hand to lend us some insight into the development of the ad. This was actually one of the better parts of the show, with one unable to escape the feeling that the I Love production team were more comfortable with the material. Although a particular advert has been featured in every one of the ’90s series so far, for once the coverage avoided the unfortunate psychobabble which often surrounds discussion of television advertising. Instead it concentrated on the previous, conventional Tango campaigns (the “The Whole Fruit” which I recall seeing on Night Network) and the chip shop connection before telling the story of the campaign which has gone on to influence soft drink advertising ever since (cf. Sprite, Pepsi Max and even Fanta).

Other features were less inspired. Absolutely Fabulous was featured in a rushed item which failed to pick up on the one-dimensional Ab Fab‘s saving grace – it’s inspired casting (June Whitfield and Julia Sawalha in the supporting roles). Inevitably, the words “gay icon” were used to describe the Patsy character (played by Joanna Lumley), although at least she has a better claim to that appellation than say, Tinky Winky or Bob the Builder.

As we reached discussion of The Shamen and Ebenezer Good the shock horror revelation that this song was about Ecstasy was less surprising than the realisation that the programme had lasted three-quarters of an hour without any references to recreational drugs – a major achievement for this series. The most interesting part of this segment was the comparison with the Mike Read/Relax controversy of 1983. Simon Mayo was convinced that the Beeb had realised what Ebenezer Good was about, but this time couldn’t be bothered to ban it.

The best part of I Love 1992 involved Ulrika Jonsson and John Fashanu discussing Gladiators. There was a sublime piece of editing, contrasting the wildly differing views of Jonsson and Fashanu as to each other’s merits as a presenter. Fashanu’s massive ego was also on open display with clips from some of his interviews where he demonstrated his awesome technique (“What’s a typographer?”) Some of the internal production politics were also mentioned, such as the worries at the end of each season that this would be the last. Gladiators was rightly proud that it managed seven seasons, particularly being one of the most preposterous game shows ever broadcast in Britain.

Two other features – about the Femidom and For Women magazine – were covered, but seemingly to provide light relief from the machismo of Reservoir Dogs. Being about sex, both items were covered humorously (as is the British way of these things). Yet, it was amusing to hear Gail Porter’s remembrance of having to ask a man in the newsagent’s to pick up a copy of For Women from the “top shelf”. The ensuing penis gags were less so, being predictable and boring. The reason given for showing only flaccid penises (the infamous “Mull of Kintyre” rule) somehow neglected the not-unimportant legal reasons as defined by the 1957 Obscene Publications Act.

So, that was the distinctly post-watershed 1992. A programme which contained more sex, drugs and violence than any of the preceding shows in the series. A sign of the times, or a desperate attempt to maintain interest in an idea rapidly losing steam? I would tend to the latter. As Andrew Collins pointed out in his review of I Love 1988, the arc of this series is aimed squarely at that thirtysomething demographic who were kids in the ’70s, young adults in the ’80s and adults in the ’90s. Tastes change as you grow older and so has the focus of this series – from Space Dust to Ecstasy. More adult themes are now being explored, but the viewer is left to their own conclusions. Mine is that this was one of the weakest of the I Love strand, with the reduction in running time back to 60 minutes never more – erm – timely.

I have always wondered what nostalgia was. Sure, I can look it up in the dictionary any time I want, but what does it actually mean to me? As far as I am concerned, it is the ability to look back fondly on something. Whether it be personal or shared memories that everyone had, like Aberdeen winning the Cup-Winner’s Cup or how the Moon Landings must have felt, we can look back fondly on these events and say, ” I remember that, and it was alright.”

Of course, it’s hard to look back at something that’s right on your shoulder. The 1990s have just finished and by the time this series ends it will be looking back on events of two years ago. How can this work? At this stage that isn’t so much of a problem, as a lot can happen in two years, but later editions could turn into the most pointless piece of TV I have ever seen. We shall see …

I tend not to think that 1991 was “alright”. 1991 was the worst year of my life. Horrible, horrible times I shudder to think back on – you don’t need to know the details. I have few fond memories of 1991, but perhaps this was why I was so keen to see this edition – and to review it here. Perhaps this is a kind of growing, healing process. If I can find some good in here, the dark days of my middle teens may be partly exorcised.

Unfortunately the first item has nothing for me – except confusion. The Chippendales have never really been “my bag” and unless I go through a major lifestyle change (that my wife may not agree to) they probably never will. I see no attraction or enjoyment in watching grown, muscled, oily men jump around on a stage – but then I did once go and see live wrestling. Go figure. I am also confused because to me this was a late ’80s thing. I feel like all my memory has been shunted forward slightly; a feeling I will relive several times tonight. Particularly if there are any Irish soul bands involved.

Right on cue, The Commitments hove into view. I have a friend, who loathes this film with a passion, which I think is a shame. It’s rather nice, although it’s overblown in places. Is it the Irish Gregory’s Girl? Maybe, if that isn’t to poor a comparison. I am surprised to discover, though, that Andrew Strong was only two years older than me at the time. Bloody hell, I must be old. Again, I thought this came out in 1989. Shows how much I know.

I am then confused in a different way. What does ice cream have to do with 1991 in particular? It’s been around for ages. And then some Haagen-Dazs bloke comes on and talks about making ice cream “sexy”. I hated Haagen-Dazs. It had nuts in it and cost a bloody fortune. Give me raspberry ripple any day.

While the next segment on grunge may not be the best in this show, at least we get to hear some Nirvana and have a laugh at Richard and Judy doing a makeover to make people look “grunge”. Hilarious. One of them looked like Alexei Lalas, famous ginger-headed US footballer who once scored against England. With a Davy Crockett hat. I was never into grunge as a whole, but the music was passable. This section tells us nothing particularly new – once a style is assimilated by the mainstream you kill it, be it punk or grunge. However, some good Nirvana clips and an interview with the the cover star of Nevermind make this all worthwhile.

In 1991 Vic Reeves was a God (although his links here are – ahem – “shit, sir”) and the Big Night Out was must-see TV for my peergroup. I won’t pretend I understood what was going on, but it was funny stuff all the same. At least here Vic (or Jim as he is captioned) and Bob are talking sense, and to see Fred Aylward (Les) again is great. What’s interesting to examine is how their act has changed in 10 years. It’s been refined, and mutated into something similar yet utterly different at the same time.

Bloody Right Said Fred! One hit wonders I say. I’m Too Sexy was fun, but after that you began to wonder what the point was. They’re still around as well. I wish they weren’t. I’d rather see more of the Bernard Cribbins video they showed at the start of this slot. What I find amusing is that they describe themselves as “candy floss twats” who were reduced to “waving for a living”. Hey, stick to what you’re good at, that’s what I always say.

I never had a Sega. Or a Nintendo. The best my family had was a Colecovision. We were poor but we were happy. However, that doesn’t mean this whole computer games rivalry passed me by. This was big stuff at school. Hordes of children arguing over which system was best. As any fool will tell you, the Megadrive was king and Sensible Soccer still rules.

I have no interest in “Superstar DJ’s” I also have no idea why this is particularly concerned with 1991. I thought this was a recent phenomenon. Obviously not. What the hell is Piano House? Rozalla? Chrystal Waters? I thought these people were dead. This music is horrible and even though it’s only 10 years old seems to have dated far more than a lot of ’70s and ’80s stuff.

Sex is always worth a cheap giggle, so here we have a quick peek at The Lover’s Guide. And not even a giggle. I have never seen this, or any of the many sequels – or rip-offs. I was 14 in 1991, I couldn’t even buy porn. But that’s not important right now.

So that was 1991. A curious mix of the ridiculous and the actually quite good. It’s still the worst year of my life, but now there is some comfort in that there was some good stuff dotted around. What was strange was how much has changed. Music, fashions, even TV has all altered. 10 years is a long time and you can never go back.

But how I wish I could.

With the clip show format arguably starting to go off the boil, if we need anything at the moment we need a sense of strangeness, otherness, distance, among programmes of this genre. I Love the Nineties therefore seems rather unnecessary and pointless, and to have come too soon.

That said, this programme was better than it could have been: as a summary of 1990s pop-cultural trends it was pretty good (with the exception, of course, of the Manchester “baggy” movement and, unforgivably, craze of the year Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which had been shoehorned into the late 1980s editions). With Sheryl Lee fronting the show, Twin Peaks was an inevitable lead-off, and I wouldn’t argue with the inclusion of GoodFellas. The lengthy feature on supermodels – Linda Evangelista, Elle Macpherson et al – revealed how much the culture of obsessive style and marketing of the self so characteristic of the ’80s had embedded itself in modern life (remember here that, in 1990, much was made of “The Caring, Sharing ’90s” and some kind of notional shift away from those values).

Other sequences were fun but didn’t tell us anything new: the sequence on “New Man” imagery in car adverts smacked of filler, though the advert featuring “God Bless the Child” sticks in the mind, and top marks for tracking down the actual girl who appeared in it, complete with her mum. But we’ve been told too often how iconic Gazza’s tears in the 1990 World Cup were, how great New Order’s World in Motion was, and how the tournament was the turning point for football away from its ’80s image of hooliganism towards its 90s success and fashionability. Hearing all this again can only bring on a “Yeah, so what?” sort of reaction, though the Des Lynam clips showcased the man at the peak of his game. And I was never much of a fan of Nick Park’s Creature Comforts, though the excellent research that has always run through these programmes (more so than with any other nostalgia strand) was in evidence when some of the “men on the street” whose voices were featured in the films turned up.

There was some great music on show: Adamski was, briefly, the great pop star to come out of the acid house scene (itself already covered in the 1988 programme), and the clip of his Top of the Pops performance of NRG in early 1990 with its anachronistic Legs and Co dancers brought out of retirement showed how out of touch the programme – like daytime Radio 1 – was becoming at this point. Killer remains an awesome single (shame that, apart from Crazy which we also heard, Seal never did anything to match it). It was fun to see his amateurishly keyboard-smashing Smash Hits Poll Winners Party performance of the punky flop Flashback Jack as well.

MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were both hugely popular for a brief moment at the start of the ’90s, and fit the remit of these shows to capture the ephemeral and fly-by-night, their success having been incredibly short-lived but symbolic of a particular time. Both were unable to make any significant comeback and neither could regain credibility with hip-hop audiences after their pop stardom – although both had their part to play in hip-hop becoming the world’s biggest-selling musical style. Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U is still brilliant, though, and the video can never be shown enough. The vogueing sequence was justified for me simply by its featuring one of Madonna’s best ever singles.

The Simpsons sequence underlined the problem of these short-term nostalgia shows – great as the programme is, and necessary as it is sometimes to be reminded of the poorer, Bart-centric early episodes (“Don’t have a cow, man!” etc.), how can you have a whole sequence of nostalgia for a show that is still running today? Obviously most references were in the present tense, and this is something which will clearly become more and more common as the decade flows on and we cover more and more phenomena which are still with us, therefore taking the I Love format well away from its original, purest form.

I felt the same way about the sequence on Baywatch (which amazingly only finished last year) and seemed fairly pointless – though well done to the producers and pundits on avoiding the same old “joke” about David Hasselhoff being a big pop star in Germany (ha bloody ha).

In the absence of the familiar pundits we heard more from the likes of Jim White and, alas, Chris Moyles, who was thankfully almost invisible here but who I fear will take a more prominent role as the decade wears on. And far too much from Paul Ross.

Overall verdict, then: decent and often entertaining stuff, but it seemed slower and more plodding to me than the ’70s and ’80s editions, and I reckon the short-termism of this series’ starting principle will become more and more obvious, more of a hindrance, and make it less and less interesting.