What We Were Watching

2018 - 2024

Christmas 1988

23rd December 2018

Episode 1

Looking back to 1988, Grace Dent explores both how TV changes over the festive season and how the nation's viewing habits have changed between then and 2018.

Christmas 1979

23rd December 2019

Episode 2

Grace Dent explores how well the televisual fare of Christmas 1979 compares to what we enjoy today, 40 years on.

Summer TV Classics

Episode 3

Join Grace Dent on a televisual trip of a lifetime as she explores the sights, sounds and schedules of the great British summer.

Song and Dance Spectaculars

20th November 2020

Episode 4

Grace Dent invites you to lose yourself on a joyful journey back through the BBC archives, celebrating the broadcaster's song and dance extravaganzas of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Christmas 1995

19th December 2020

Episode 5

Grace Dent embarks on a televisual trip back in time to December 1995, serving up an irreverent look back at the festive viewing options that faced the nation in the past.

Christmas 1991

20th December 2021

Episode 6

Writer and broadcaster Grace Dent takes a televisual trip back in time to Christmas 1991, as she immerses herself in the sights, sounds and TV schedules of the past.

Christmas 1984

28th December 2024

Episode 7

TV critic, writer and 1980s addict Grace Dent unwraps the TV schedules for 1984 and finds it was a case of Orwell that ends well, on another festive fun-packed dash through the BBC’s archives, examining all the small screen content that viewers were glued to four decades ago.

Christmas 1985

21st December 2025

Episode 8

Broadcaster, writer and critic Grace Dent travels back in time through the BBC’s television archives for a light-hearted look at What We Were Watching 40 years ago, over the Christmas period of 1985.

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Join Grace Dent on a televisual trip back in time.

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