Adequacy Under Siege

During April 2008 a four part series, History Under Siege, aired on Radio National’s Hindsight. While the content was quite interesting, I was concerned that the producer failed to exploit many of the opportunities possible when working in radio. I only listened to the first part fully, which was on debates in Japanese history, and ten minutes of the second part, which was on debates in Argentina. The use of music and movie clips in the first part was quite sloppy, with music starting and then abruptly stopping for no apparent reason. What was the most soul crushing, however, was the theme music. I only realised that it was the theme when I listened to the second part. The music did not suit the documentary itself, or the documentary series as a whole. What is more, I could not understand why the producer decided to include theme music at all. Do listeners need to feel safe by returning to a familiar theme every week? Or was it sheer laziness? This series seems to be a work that simply happens to be a radio documentary, as opposed to being a work that exploits the medium in which it was created.