What I Often Wonder, Watching PBS

Tune: Jean-Joseph Mouret's "Rondeau" ("Masterpiece Theatre" Theme)

What I often wonder, watching PBS, is, how the hell they define a "masterpiece"? If a book's not downright dull, it's a candidate for Death by Slow Episode. I would not begrudge 'em dusting off a trilogy, if only they made a faster piece—but the thing drags on so long, it's like sitting through the whole Napoleonic Code. When they're not breaking out in Cockney, dropping every "H" like a hick who hasn't heard of Henry Higgins, then they speak with an Oxbridge accent, dropping every "R," till you simply want to scream! Then the theme song's not exactly rock 'n' roll; it couldn't pass as a ghetto-blaster piece—play it ten times through, and bang! Leroy Anderson is swearing off the major mode.