Last time out, I told the story of a middle-aged man (spoiler: it was me) doing a mostly inept job of navigating a world that had sneakily moved on – and indeed, moved online – while he was busy doing something else. And I’m aware that the march of time has become something of a preoccupation in these columns. I make no apology for that – sorry kids, but it’s coming to you too one day. Then you die.

But I’m also wary of becoming one of those people who believes that everything – and I mean everything – was better in the old days. Evolution, having moved in a consistently forward direction since the days of primordial soup, snapped abruptly into reverse at some point when they were in short trousers, and it’s been on a backward path ever since. Which seems improbable when put like that.

Yet it’s a fiction that’s easily maintained. All you do is pick out a few things that are noticeably worse than they were a few years ago – which isn’t too tricky just now – and judiciously ignore all the things that aren’t. In no time at all, you’ll believe that all progress is bad, and that anyone who says otherwise has been brainwashed.

A popular source of ammo for the hell-in-a-handcart brigade is the perceived death of old media: linear TV, printed newspapers and so on. And of course, it’s true that the media landscape has fragmented at a rollicking pace, for good and bad.

The days of 30 million people watching Eastenders at the same time are long gone. But it’s less than four years since that many people tuned in to watch a football match. Event telly still exists, but for live or as-live events, not drama series. For those, now that we have the technology, we expect the right to choose when we watch stuff.  

Anything other would make no sense – it would be like being told that books had to be serialised weekly rather than published in full, or that we could only listen to a particular album between 8 and 8.30 on a Friday.

Linear TV was the product of the medium and its limitations. With those limitations removed, it was always bound to morph into something else. We can get all misty-eyed about old episodes of Bullseye – and trust me, I do – but as changes go, there’s nothing remotely regressive about it.

All of which is a roundabout way of expressing my solidarity with our new(ish) streaming overlords – and an even more roundabout way of saying that, after it had passed me by for ten years, I’ve just binged the entirety of Shetland in a few weeks. In a way, it makes sense that it took me a while to discover it, as crime drama isn’t really my genre. In another, it makes no sense at all, as staring wistfully at wild landscapes and tootling ferries very much is my genre. But I’m glad I got there in the end.

And there’s a part of me that would have liked to have seen it at the time, and in a less fragmented world. I’d cheerfully have had a good natter around the water cooler, as I’m pretty sure nobody has ever actually done, about the previous night’s developments.

Who do you think did it? Obviously not the incredibly shifty-looking prime suspect – it’s only episode two. How much do you think you’d pay for the amazing house, with the island kitchen and sweeping sea views, where that fella got shot in the head?

Does Billy ever get a day off? (Or even an hour off?) Will Sandy ever add to his single apparent skill – the ability to look determined and bewildered at the same time – with a second, such as being able to find his arse with both hands? Is the local population somehow unaware that, over the past decade or so, the death rate has mushroomed to Midsomer or Cabot Cove levels? And most importantly, how has nobody at the station yet noticed that the big blackboard of suspects and theories is clearly visible from the public reception desk?

In the absence of a time machine, and indeed a water cooler, I’ve been having these conversations with my partner, who has happily shared my epic island journey. And crucially, we’ve been able to watch the next episode at the touch of a button, rather than having to buy or borrow armfuls of box sets. How people in creative industries are compensated for their work in a streaming world is a live issue (and one that affects me directly). But that’s not the same as saying that a world of art on demand is a retrograde step. It’s a positive one – and an unavoidable one – so it’s up to us as a society to make it work for everyone, and to make ourselves heard when it doesn’t.

In the meantime, though, I’m a bit annoyed at having to find something else to watch. I’m all caught up, and the next series won’t be out for ages.

What do they think this is, 1987? ■