[interestednovice]

David Lowe's music doesn't even correspond with the visuals in the slightest in this. I'm nit-picking but the alignment of the 'Future' and 'Earth' could have sat better with where the split circle comes to rest. And it's already been said but the way they didn't remove the lower thirds, hence masking the 'News' bit of the title card was sloppy - but very, very typical of the merged channel's lowered standards.

True, the intro went slightly wrong too as the presenter’s mic was left up during the sting and we heard some quite loud paper shuffling. Quite often now, UK NC and global feed NC get the same back half hour programmes at weekends, I think (although sometimes different edits with sponsorships removed) so why do they persist with global feed viewers having continuity and UK viewers getting the strange *goodbye, hello again* sting with the presenter you’ve just left saying “Now on BBC News, X programme”. They don’t even bother to say anything like “I’ll be back with more news in half an hour, but first here’s X programme”. It feels really staid and totally low-energy. Why not have the presenter introduce items across both feeds if they are the same and drop the continuity announcement and sting? Or give everyone the same continuity announcement (I realise they can’t because Red Bee don’t do the UK feed, but that’s almost a separate technical point).

Anyway, the Washington studio looks nice and it is a bit of a reminder of the old days when back-half hours sometimes came from other places around the world (like Talking Business in Singapore). I actually like the titles compared to other recent efforts, but as others have said that is not saying too much. At least they aren’t a block of red.

Carl has also dressed a bit less formally than usual, on-theme with the dark green trousers and a casual but still neutral shirt. I like it!