To be honest that distinction between highly trained military pilots and modern day 'button pushers' is a rather poor generalisation that in Europe at least is simply irrelevant even if there is some truth in it.
As the programme mentioned it used to the case in the US that the vast majority of pilots came from the military. It simply worked out like that because the military supplied enough pilots and retiring to the airlines was a logical progression for many.
In Europe though there have never been enough military pilots and today that is the case more than ever as air forces get smaller and airlines bigger. Non-airline jobs that the old 'self improvers' under the pre-JAR system might have conducted prior to airline jobs have also largely disappeared with the exception of instruction which while a good option cannot be a pre-airline job for all because there simply is not enough demand for instructors.
In the face of this the European airlines and the airlines of other states which have limited GA activity to recruit from have turned to integrated training providers like CTC and OAA and with the launch of the MPL a few years ago the trend is only increasing.
The challenge of getting a safe pilot out of system which now has very little hand flying in real aircraft prior to airline employment is certainly a different one from those challenges of the past but my sense is that the industry is actually getting a lot better at dealing with this than it was even just 10 years ago. The standard of pilots coming out these integrated courses onto major European airlines is actually very good in general and the selection processes for them are quite rigorous.
I mean would I want some ex-Navy pilot who put down F-4s on carriers for years in control when landing a 747 in a 40kts crosswind on a dark night with two engines out and low fuel? Of course. But the industry has to work with the reality of the pilot supply and try and tailor its training to that. Judging by the safety records of the major European airlines I think they are doing very well on the whole. Airlines now go for decades without hull losses which is a big improvement if you think what the record was at the dawn of the jet age.
There is of course still much to be done. It would be nice to see more union strength on issues like fatigue and training that goes above and beyond the regulatory standards. The war to better understand the relationship between man and technology is slowly being won but there is still a lot of space for improvement. There are also issues like pay to fly on public transport which I think should simply be banned...I'm not holding my breath though on that one.
Although interesting, programmes like the one being discussed irritate me a bit because they take a sort of 'we are all going to die' mentality without really explaining the evolution of all these safety issues and what is being done about them. I bit more of a historical perspective on issues with newly certified aircraft would not have gone amiss. I know it wasn't the intention of the presenter but without any historical perspective on safety issues it did feel like a bit of an insult to all those who have worked for decades and even sometimes died in pursuit of making civil aviation safer.