Thank goodness for digital TV. I'd have to live here for quite a while before my German could cope with extensive idiomatic and dramatic conversations, so for a lot of TV programmes only an outline gets through. Without, that is, the option for subtitles - "German for the hearing-impaired" (which, in German, I suppose I am). They might not run exactly in synch with the dialogue, but at least I can now work out what someone was actually saying a little while ago. I have to say, though, it doesn't actually improve the basic quality of the programmes themselves: subtitles or not, slow and drippy romantic soaps and formulaic cop shows are still the same.