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Enjoyable start. I was too young and not living in London at the time so couldn't comment on how accurate its writing of the origins was but some decent footage of the pub rock acts.

I assumed it would just be the same old stuff so I watched 8 Out Of 10 Cats instead...

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My two pence worth:
I really liked the program as the pub rock story tends to go somewhat untold, but there is an inherent difficulty in making a program called Punk Brittainia as a lot of the strongest influences on the early punk bands came from America (Stooges, New York Dolls etc). That's not to say that the pub rock story is in any way irrelevant to punk.
Pub rock did open up the whole concept of the pub venue, many of which The (Hope & Anchor, The Nashville etc) became key venues for punk and post punk bands and of course a few punks, notably Joe Strummer played in pub bands before coming punks. The role of Stiff & Chiswick records is also relevant as both labels started as pub rock labels that went on to relaese some of the earliest punk records. Dr Feelgood & Eddie & The Hot Rods certainly provide a link but I'd bet most of the younger punks wouldn't have been that aware of the pub scene beyond it's few more popular bands. Even the cooler glam rock acts (T.Rex, Bowie, Roxy Music etc) seemed to have a more direct influence on punk than the likes of Eggs Over Easy

Looking forward to the other two episodes and to watching the TV Smith program which I was too tired to watch last night.

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I agree. I tend to dislike the notion of Punk being a very British thing when bands in the US had been making the same music for years before. Of course the big British punk bands put a distinctly UK slant on it (White Man in Hammersmith Palais, Anarchy For The UK etc) and it did become an explosion here at the time but it wasn't anything like as original as these nostalgia shows make it out to be.

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There is a programme dedicated to the Punk Tale Of Two Cities (I guess London & New York) this coming Sunday on six music on this very topic.

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Thought the 2nd episode was a bit lacking. Probably hampered by the need to pack the whole of the peak period into one hour, but none of the interviewees were that interesting and the archive footage was inevitably familiar.
Interested to see how episode three goes. Will it follow the left field post punk bands that followed on from PIL & Magazine, the Oi bands that took their cue from Sham 69 etc and the anarcho punk scene as exemplified by Crass? My prediction is it will follow the former two and all but ignore the anarcho scene.

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It was a bit bold crushing the entire output of 77 and 78 into one programme. I doubt 'punk' will be the right word to describe much of what they try to cover in the net 4 programmes.

I remember really liking this documentary when I saw it in the early 90s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg5vKaukc3U

Jerry Nolan's description of the New York Dolls' music made a big impression on me.

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It covered mainly the first ones as I guess you now know but did touch upon the other two and quite a lot of others too that I never really thought of as being in that bracket. Thought it was excellent.

Incidentally when did the term post punk first get coined? At the time I remember new wave tended to be used a lot more but then I was more into the powerpop stuff of the Undertones, Buzzcocks and the Jam and the quirky arty stuff of Monochrome Set, Devo, Talking Heads and early XTC rather than the reggae or funk influenced stuff that is now termed post punk.

Although it wasn't exactly in common usage, I seem to remember post punk being used in the early 80s in the literal sense for anything that followed or evolved out of punk, long before it was considered as a term denoting a specific genre, as typified by the likes of The Gang Of Four; a bit like the term indie started as a broard descrirption of a bands's staus and attitude before it becoming used as denoting a more narrow genre.
The narrowing of the meaning of 'post punk' was, I'm sure, only applied in hindsight some years later.

Liked the third program, but it suffered, like the second, by having to cram too much into one hour. I think as punk had a much stronger social context and diversified into so many strands, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to make this a longer series than, say, Prog Britainia.

Also remember liking, at the time, the Arena doc that Simon mentioned as well as the book it was based on.

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Ah so I wasn't living in a little bubble. There was another type of music that wasn't referenced last night. It could be new wave I guess but the original shoegazing long mac wearing stuff of 79-81, like Teardrop Explodes, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Cure, Comsat Angels... It wasn't powerpop and had similar, mainly northern industrial roots to Joy Division, but it shook my world and got no reference on Punk Britannia. Think you're right, needed 90 minutes but entertaining series anyway.