Roger Moroney: Viewing brings on case of the bends

Why would anyone need a curved screen, wonders Roger Moroney.

I'm not sure I completely understand the notion of progress, or technical innovation and evolution.

Now I can understand flat screens for the display of broadcast images but can anyone tell me the reason behind the latest fad the manufacturers are all battling to get out there in increasing numbers?

The curved screen.

What's that all about?

Apart from the slight curvature of the Earth you can see when looking out to sea on a great day, life is not curved.

Everything is just there... in front of you.

Why do I want to see Zac or Izzy darting towards the try-line when they will appear to be moving away as they near the centre of the curved screen, only to appear to get closer even though they are, in reality, moving towards the corner flag.

Crikey, the rules of the great game are bewildering enough without having one's vision tested.

This is kind of like 3D television.

Well, that really took off, yeah?

I watch television to escape reality, not to emulate it.

The only sporting reason I can think of for curved screen television would be motor racing as the distance does lack quick movement while the tracksides and grandstands flash by to one's left and right.

But Deal Or No Deal or Doc Martin?

Television has come a long way since the valves took their time to warm up. Now they're as flat as a pizza and some have curves ... gosh.

But it's not what they look like, it's what's on them, of course.

So, harking back to that line about escaping reality, what could be better than a full grown man with a teddy bear as his best mate.

A mate who shares his slightly hedonistic attitude to life.

Little kids talk to teddy bears and they dress them up and have tea parties with them.

Somewhere stored in a box is a now largely hairless bear which I had when I was 5 ... so it has passed the half-century mark.

It's actually a koala, but trying to explain the concept that what looked like a bear actually wasn't and that it, in fact, was a marsupial was never on the cards when you're 5.

And most little kids would wish their teddy was alive, as John, the character played by Mark Wahlberg in the appropriately titled Ted, did when he was 5.

Thing was ... it worked, and they are chums into adulthood.

Ted is a hard case and is as streetwise as his human chum, so you can imagine the situations when a team of scriptwriters start stretching the boundaries.

This went down well at the box office because, I suspect, it is sheer escapism although it has to be said not for kids.

It wears an AO label.

Which in understandable when John arrives home one evening and discovers Ted entertaining four ladies of the night, so to speak. Crazy, true, and not in need of a curved screen.

-Ted, TV3 at 8.30pm Sunday: John and his girlfriend, Lori, get along sort of fine. Sort of, because John has a close friend in his life who pretty well rules it. His close friend is a large teddy bear and they have been inseparable since John was 5, which was when (thanks to a shooting star) Ted came alive. Escapism, with an edge.