What We Were Watching - Season 1

First aired: 12/23/2018 8 episodes

Episodes

1. Christmas 1988

Aired: 12/23/2018

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.

2. Christmas 1979

Aired: 12/23/2019

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

3. Summer TV Classics

Aired: 7/29/2020

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

4. Song and Dance Spectaculars

Aired: 11/20/2020

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.

5. Christmas 1995

Aired: 12/19/2020

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.

6. Christmas 1991

Aired: 12/20/2021

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.

7. Christmas 1984

Aired: 12/28/2024

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.

8. Christmas 1985

Aired: 12/21/2025

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.