death of an Archer's fan

I have pretty much given up on The Archers, after following it since 1983, when I moved in with an Archers fan.  If it's on now I'll listen without providing an unfavourable running commentary on the proceedings, or sighing heavily or rolling my eyes, but left to my own devices I don't switch it on any more.  On the fateful evening that Vanessa Whitburn pushed Nigel off the roof my eager willingness to suspend disbelief crashed with him, and I haven't recovered it since.  The whole thing now seems so depressing, and so silly.  A farmer is insisting on running a stately home with no experience or expertise in the sector while neglecting his own business, his wife is under pressure to cope without him on their farm, their marriage will suffer, there will be rows and breast-beating displays of guilt, the grieving widowed stately home owner will continue to refuse to get a manager in and the business will run into difficulties, she will start to blame her brother for the accidental death of her husband and the Archers family will be split, the bereaved children will go off the rails (oh no, we did that plot line last year), the widow will be targeted by a fortune hunter who drops her when he realises the stately home is in trust, she'll go bust, the house will be bought by a millionaire footballer, local families will be plunged into crisis as they lose their jobs, woe woe is me.  I can't be bothered.

The same thing happened with Gardeners' World but over a longer time period.  I adored the Geoff Hamilton days, and enjoyed Alan Titchmarsh's reign.  I liked Monty, but it always showed that 'Berryfields' wasn't the presenter's own garden.  It never felt quite real (the name seemed phoney, for a start).  Then I was waiting for Joe Swift to explain how the rest of us could get given a load of scaffolding planks free and gratis and keep an allotment weed free after rotavating masses of couch grass into it without making it our full-time job.  By the time they got to 'what's hot and what's not' I'd stopped watching, and since the BBC management threw up their hands and admitted they'd screwed that one up big time I still haven't been back.  Now that LOVEFILM is on the scene there are more interesting things to watch on a Friday night.