Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Literature, Music, Art & Entertainment => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on January 31, 2023, 12:10:45 PM
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On TV, streaming or other media?
I've started watching Dad's Army from the start on Britbox. Not sure if I've seen the first series before. It's really very good. The 5th episode The Showing Up of Corporal Jones is a stand out.
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I've just signed up for BFI Player which has a host of goodies on it to watch. Just saw the Almodovar-produced portmanteau film called "Wild Tales". I found it very, very funny.
On terrestrial TV "Happy Valley" remains consistently brilliant as well as being brilliantly acted.
Somewhere at the other end of the scale of my viewing habits, I have a liking for "quirky" US sci fi/horrror TV series. Although more accurately I should call them Canadian as that is where they all seem to be made. SO don't judge but "Haven", "Eureka" & "Supernatural" all of which are about a decade old now and more latterly a programme called "Upload". All of these float on and off Amazon. They are, I have no doubt, undemanding tosh, but I enjoy them.
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On the basis of liking your other 'tosh' will look out for Upload.
Haven't managed to psych myself up for Happy Valley. The first 2 series were brilliant but it's a proper oxymoron.
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I've just signed up for BFI Player which has a host of goodies on it to watch. Just saw the Almodovar-produced portmanteau film called "Wild Tales". I found it very, very funny.
On terrestrial TV "Happy Valley" remains consistently brilliant as well as being brilliantly acted.
Somewhere at the other end of the scale of my viewing habits, I have a liking for "quirky" US sci fi/horrror TV series. Although more accurately I should call them Canadian as that is where they all seem to be made. SO don't judge but "Haven", "Eureka" & "Supernatural" all of which are about a decade old now and more latterly a programme called "Upload". All of these float on and off Amazon. They are, I have no doubt, undemanding tosh, but I enjoy them.
Undemanding tosh is my go to genre!
I'm currently watching Haven.
Prime have had some great IMO series.
The Boys, American Gods,. Reacher(done properly with a tall lead!).
My favourite up to now is Preacher.
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Watching the Murdoch Mysteries which fits Aruntraveller's undemanding Canadian tosh. Others that qualify in the datedmgory are Lost Girl, Sanctuary, Continuum, and Regenesis
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Watching Comfort and Joy - available on iPlayer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_and_Joy_(1984_film)
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And watched The Banshees of Inisherin. Hmmm... Really not sure. Of his three previous films, I've loved one - In Bruges, disliked and was bored by one 7 Psychopaths, and thought 1 was good - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and this I think fits into third place, some good bits but didn't fully work
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An 'alternative' view of Happy Valley. Rather it feels like a use of Happy Valley to promote an already touted viewpoint. I think that it makes valid points that some of the praise is over the top but it does it while praising the acting and the writing, and indeed holds up another series with the same actor and writer as being worthy of the praise.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/arts_ents/23307695.happy-valley-sums-wrong-british-tv/?ref=twtrec
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I think that it makes valid points that some of the praise is over the top
About the only thing it gets right.
Don't want to put out spoilers as I know NS hasn't watched this yet, bu the ending was so unexpected, given all the speculation beforehand, that it was brilliant. It was not "car chases, doors getting kicked in, hard-boiled cops, and two-dimensional bad guys."
The ending was intimate, two characters interacting, and anything but two dimensional.
This is a hack playing devil's advocate. Badly.
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Been watching A Touch Of Frost on ITVX.
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Been watching A Touch Of Frost on ITVX.
I never quite warmed to Frost.
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'Mandy', with the brilliant Diane Morgan, whose other alter ego is the equally great Philomena Cunk; 'Call the Midwife', which is always entertaining, especially for old farts like me who are old enough to remember 55 years ago. I love the late-60s look. I wish they'd give Vanessa Redgrave her P45, though: her glutinously sentimental voice-overs at the beginning and end are deeply irritating, and, since young Jennifer left years ago, having her as old Jennifer is increasingly silly.
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'Mandy', with the brilliant Diane Morgan, whose other alter ego is the equally great Philomena Cunk; 'Call the Midwife', which is always entertaining, especially for old farts like me who are old enough to remember 55 years ago. I love the late-60s look. I wish they'd give Vanessa Redgrave her P45, though: her glutinously sentimental voice-overs at the beginning and end are deeply irritating, and, since young Jennifer left years ago, having her as old Jennifer is increasingly silly.
I think you can hear how frail Redgrave is in the voice-overs. I suspect the BBC don't want to axe her a week before she dies. I also suspect that the next series will be the last. We are approsching the time where Nonnatus House will be an anachronism as has already been flagged in recent episodes.
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I never quite warmed to Frost.
Me neither. But then I'm the only person in the UK who doesn't like David Jason's acting.
So both this and that supposedly funny show "Only Fools and Horses" leave me cold.
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Started watching this - excellent.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0dm3cbt/the-us-and-the-holocaust
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Me neither. But then I'm the only person in the UK who doesn't like David Jason's acting.
So both this and that supposedly funny show "Only Fools and Horses" leave me cold.
Everyone has their own opinions, obviously. I'm not an expert on acting. For me, David Jason is part of my childhood. Watching Open All Hours, OFAH, Darling Buds Of May, and Frost brings back memories. I'm not one for getting too upset with the deaths of celebrities but when his time comes, I think I'll be genuinely gutted.
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Call the Midwife renewed for two more series.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64618977
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Started watching this - excellent.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0dm3cbt/the-us-and-the-holocaust
The bits on Germany are great but as it's covered the US there seems to be a lot of blaming the US more than seems rational.
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The magnificent Edge of Darkness is available on iPlayer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001j61k/edge-of-darkness-series-1-1-compassionate-leaveinto-the-shadows
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So more out of hope than expectation I watched the first episode of the third series of "Star Trek: Picard" yesterday.
Given the complete mess of the previous two series my expectations were not high. However, pleasantly surprised thus far.
A return of familiar faces and more humour certainly leavened the sticky doughy plotting and underlit sets that the current showrunners think constitutes Star Trek.
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So more out of hope than expectation I watched the first episode of the third series of "Star Trek: Picard" yesterday.
Given the complete mess of the previous two series my expectations were not high. However, pleasantly surprised thus far.
A return of familiar faces and more humour certainly leavened the sticky doughy plotting and underlit sets that the current showrunners think constitutes Star Trek.
I made it to the end of the first series and couldn't raise the enthusiasm to watch the second.
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I made it to the end of the first series and couldn't raise the enthusiasm to watch the second.
You really did not miss much. An overplayed sub plot about his "mother issues" was deadly dull, and the main plot, which had potential, was badly handled.
I do think this third series is worth a punt though, it feels much more Next Generation-y. That's not only due to the returning cast, but a lightest of touch that wasn't on offer in the first two series.
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You really did not miss much. An overplayed sub plot about his "mother issues" was deadly dull, and the main plot, which had potential, was badly handled.
I do think this third series is worth a punt though, it feels much more Next Generation-y. That's not only due to the returning cast, but a lightest of touch that wasn't on offer in the first two series.
That sounds like I can just skip the second series? If so, might give the 3rd a try as the trailers looked ok.
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That sounds like I can just skip the second series? If so, might give the 3rd a try as the trailers looked ok.
As far as I can see so far there is no need to know anything about the second series.
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I wouldn't know.
I was disappointed that the first series ignored the fact that Data had been Lucasian Professor at Cambridge. And I don't think that I made it to the end of the first episode of he second series.
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I always find Britain's Lost Masterpieces fascinating but never notice when it's on - so catching up with series 4.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0009trk/britains-lost-masterpieces-series-4-1-oxford
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Back from Bonnie and Clyde at the Glasgow Film Festival. It stands up quite well and though thought shocking for the time is mild by today's standards - but then it's 56 years old
Intetesting introduction to it about the trials of getting it made including the abortive attempts of Godard to direct. One possible casting for Clyde was Bob Dylan, and for Bonnie, Cher!!!
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Paul Waterhouse's: Our Troubled Rivers on on BBC2, tonight at 8. It can be found on iPlayer as well.
There are entire series of Bob and Paul going fishing as well(still iPlayer; I suspect they may be a bit more relaxing than watching an hour of shit floating into the river. (Although on education or information, this PWOTR maybe better.)
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Paul Waterhouse's: Our Troubled Rivers on on BBC2, tonight at 8. It can be found on iPlayer as well.
There are entire series of Bob and Paul going fishing as well(still iPlayer; I suspect they may be a bit more relaxing than watching an hour of shit floating into the river. (Although on education or information, this PWOTR maybe better.)
It seems that the campaign against this has been outsourced to celebrities with Paul Whitehouse and Feargal Sharkey's excellent
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So more out of hope than expectation I watched the first episode of the third series of "Star Trek: Picard" yesterday.
I seem to be one of the few people who actually liked the first season (the second was okay but I always found stories about Q to be a bit too silly and lazy).
As far as TV science fiction goes, most of it is silly escapism - and there's nothing wrong with that - but I've often wished somebody would adapt some of the better books for TV or film. Well, they did. Probably one of the best TV science fiction series I've seen in ages was The Expanse (Prime), which, even though I'd read the books first, I found very enjoyable. For once they managed to stick pretty closely to the books, although they only hint at some things that are properly explained in the books (like how come there seems to be reasonable gravity on asteroids). I've also yet to talk to anybody who's watched that didn't like it - no doubt somebody here will disagree. ;) Unfortunately they didn't finish the whole book series, though.
Also the first season of The Peripheral wasn't at all bad. Prime again, and from a William Gibson book (although, from memory, I don't think the plot was very similar, they just seem to have taken the main idea and characters).
Apparently Netflix is adapting The Three Body Problem, which is the first part of an excellent trilogy by Cixin Liu. No idea if the adaptation will be any good or if they'll have the courage to do the whole trilogy (which would take us literally to the end of the universe and beyond).
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As far as TV science fiction goes, most of it is silly escapism - and there's nothing wrong with that ...
The best selling I've ever watched is (the reboot of) Battlestar Galatica. As far as I know, it's not available on any stream. I remember the first episode I ever saw was 3 (called 34, IIRC) There loads of paranoia and claustrophobia, until it drifts away a bit towards the end but well worth watching (& thinking about).
I am Legend isn't 'normal' sci fi, but the book is far, far better and the film is rubbish. The only science is about a virus (or bateria?) contaminating (nearly) everyone. It's well worth reading, just not the book.
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P.S. These days, I'm watching StarTrek, Enterprise but no books.
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The best selling I've ever watched is (the reboot of) Battlestar Galatica.
I have seen that, and as far as I recall, it was better than most. I'd still rate The Expanse as better, though.
Something that I didn't expect to like, but thought I'd watch the start of after reading good reviews, and am now enjoying is The Last of Us (Sky Atlantic) - not really science fiction (except in the loosest sense) but not your usual zombie apocalypse mindless gore-fest either.
Don't think we'll ever get the very best science fiction books (the ones that really make you think) on TV or film because they would be very hard to film and probably be too demanding for a wide enough audience to be worth trying.
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Off to see the 'World Premiere' of Cassius X now. I was invited because of being the undefeated heavyweight champion of Babbity Bowsters. Looking forward to it. The book by Stuart Cosgrove was brilliant.
https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/cassius-x-becoming-ali-nc-15
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Off to see the 'World Premiere' of Cassius X now. I was invited because of being the undefeated heavyweight champion of Babbity Bowsters. Looking forward to it. The book by Stuart Cosgrove was brilliant.
https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/cassius-x-becoming-ali-nc-15
Excellent, thoroughly recommend.
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Been rewatching Endeavour because of the new series and think it stands up well. Roger Allam is brilliant in it. I think though the perfect end was this episode.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8700024/
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And the last episode so far screened in Fake or Fortune is about a painting that I have seen, though many many years ago, in Port Glasgow.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001c26z/fake-or-fortune-series-10-4-flemish-old-master
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I've just come across a series called "Four Weddings and a Funeral" on All4. It is a kind of sequel to the film.
It is entirely what you would expect. Very clean London Streets. Americans. Quirky Brits. The particular brand that is so identified with Richard Curtis. This time though it is not a totally white affair.
It is very soporific, except that the saccharine injected into the series fights off those effects.
And yet, I enjoy it. Go figure.
(It was made in 2019 so it is possible people have already seen it if its been on tV before, I wasn't aware of it.)
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The past is a different country, thank feck!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001gznc/come-dancing
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The past is a different country, thank feck!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001gznc/come-dancing
Terry Wogan? What happened to Victor Sylvester, the dancing weather forecaster (snow, snow, thick thick snow)?
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Terry Wogan? What happened to Victor Sylvester, the dancing weather forecaster (snow, snow, thick thick snow)?
He appears to have done Dancing Club - which I don't remember.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Silvester
To.be fair, the lack of celebrity razzmazztazz made it quite touching. Tonight's edition was from the Locarno Ballroom in Glasgow in 1977 which only three years later was Tiffany's where I went to see gigs at. The youngest dancers were 16 so would be 61 now. They looked in their mid 30s then.
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The last of us.
Series finale in a few hours.
I hope it's as good as the rest of the series!
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Last episode of Endeavour over. Suitably elegiac.
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Last episode of Endeavour over. Suitably elegiac.
Rather good review of the last of Endeavour
Warning - Spoilers Galore, Sweeties
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/12/farewell-endeavour-what-a-perfect-end-to-one-of-tvs-classic-shows
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Watched the first couple of the original Van Der Valks. 1. Very little happens. 2. They drink seriously. Indeed the first one seems to revolve around how can Van Der Valk drink while working.
And a rounds of genever and Amstel Red at lunch...
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And this delight appeared on my timeline elsewhere
https://youtu.be/jHCsOFWuIb4
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Watching Beat The Devil with Bogart trying to work out when he is being dubbed by Peter Sellars
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Torchwood, again. It's deeply silly, but gripping - like its parent, Dr Who.
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Torchwood, again. It's deeply silly, but gripping - like its parent, Dr Who.
The third series was the one I liked best. The fourth series....
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Just seen the first episode of 'Great Expectations' - very atmospheric. I was quite chuffed to recognise the bridge over the Thames at Marlow in the opening scene, though I don't remember Pip attempting suicide in my reading of it, many years ago. Olivia Coleman is of course brilliant, but a bit more well-nourished than I imagined Miss Havisham.
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Back to the Canadian tosh and rewatching Sanctuary. Incredibly patchy but lots of interesting ideas. To have such a series based around a woman was something of a thing in Canada tosh of the same era.
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Slow Horses - not quite what I was expecting but very good
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5875444/
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Just seen the first episode of 'Great Expectations' - very atmospheric. I was quite chuffed to recognise the bridge over the Thames at Marlow in the opening scene, though I don't remember Pip attempting suicide in my reading of it, many years ago. Olivia Coleman is of course brilliant, but a bit more well-nourished than I imagined Miss Havisham.
I can only imagine that this bizarre version of Great Expectations was based on an initial transcript which Dicken's publisher rejected because it was too woke for prevailing Victorian sensibilities.
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Not so much watching but watched. Was a bit confused to hear an advert for Why Didn't They Ask Evans? on ITV the other day, and thought but I thought I watched that about a year ago on the BBC.
Turns out I did watch it about a year ago but on Britbox but this was its first outing on 'terrestrial' TV. Have to admit surprise that it was presented as 'new'. The impact of the various streaming services and their own productions still seems uneven and unsettled.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14829590/
ETA I thought it was perfectly enjoyable.
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I can only imagine that this bizarre version of Great Expectations was based on an initial transcript which Dicken's publisher rejected because it was too woke for prevailing Victorian sensibilities.
I've lost interest. They seem to have used Dickins' framework and filled it with their own imaginings. So, mostly a waste as they could just have produced a completely new work, with their own story, to get across whatever ideas they wanted.
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I've lost interest. They seem to have used Dickins' framework and filled it with their own imaginings. So, mostly a waste as they could just have produced a completely new work, with their own story, to get across whatever ideas they wanted.
Great Expectations was my "O" level English Lit set text. I loved it and was pleased to hear that it was going to be serialied (again). But then when I saw the opening sequence - with Isaac Newton being being rejected in exactly same way as he had been by Nigel Pargeter's death in The Archers ... my heart sank.
... And did I hear correctly? "Carmichael" Jaggers is a QC?
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Watched The Gold - very good if very preachy throughout and guilty of glamourising Kenneth Noye and others.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_(TV_series)
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Great Expectations was my "O" level English Lit set text. I loved it and was pleased to hear that it was going to be serialied (again). But then when I saw the opening sequence - with Isaac Newton being being rejected in exactly same way as he had been by Nigel Pargeter's death in The Archers ... my heart sank.
... And did I hear correctly? "Carmichael" Jaggers is a QC?
Yes - he's been upgraded !
If you haven't seen it already you might enjoy Armando Iannucci's "Tale of Charles Dickens" on iPlayer:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0195pt7/armandos-tale-of-charles-dickens
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Ripping Yarns appearing on BBC 4 tonight and going forward and on iPlayer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007ls8p/broadcasts/upcoming
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Carmichael Jaggers QC
Yes - he's been upgraded !
But it has already been stated (in the programme) that he is a solicitor.
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Enjoyed Blue Lights on BBC. Not quite up to the hype I'd heard from some people but strong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0f2cxpr/episodes/guide
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Carmichael Jaggers QC
But it has already been stated (in the programme) that he is a solicitor.
How to tell if that was a misleading part of the story or a random production error?
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How to tell if that was a misleading part of the story or a random production error?
Good audio adaptation here on BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/b00g2v6p
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Good audio adaptation here on BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/b00g2v6p
No doubt. Just watching the Steven Knight series now to see how how they have "enhanced" the story.
Watched "The Diplomat" (Debora Cahn) on Netflix - watchable if not to be taken seriously. Like that it is "up to date" on world events.
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New series of Inside No 9 started. Not sure about the newest Mother's Ruin. Had all the elements including good guest stars but felt not quite up to the best episodes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lf98/inside-no-9-series-8-2-mothers-ruin
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And just watched last night's Inside No 9, really liked this one, and it has the fabulous Amanda Abbington
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Watching Clive Myrie's Italian Road Trip, enjoying it immensely but none more so than the episode of Barga, the most Scottish town in Italy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fds186/clive-myries-italian-road-trip-series-1-11-barga
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Watching Clive Myrie's Italian Road Trip, enjoying it immensely but none more so than the episode of Barga, the most Scottish town in Italy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fds186/clive-myries-italian-road-trip-series-1-11-barga
Enjoyed the first two episodes, very calming with great scenic shots and nice people. Long way to get to Bargo episode but good that episodes are only a half hour each.
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Been watching the second series of The Avengers, not much left of the first, seen some of them before but many not. There are hints of the magnificent madness that it was to become but the changing partnerships, and tougher writing make it a very different series. It's a pity that so little of the first series exists to see how it developed.
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Been watching the second series of The Avengers, not much left of the first, seen some of them before but many not. There are hints of the magnificent madness that it was to become but the changing partnerships, and tougher writing make it a very different series. It's a pity that so little of the first series exists to see how it developed.
I'm a bit or a fan - I remember watch this is my teens, and watching them film an episode in St Albans.
This is a good reference site for all things Avengers.
http://www.theavengers.tv/forever/
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Watched a film called "Homeward" on BBC4. It is available on Iplayer.
It is a Ukrainian film about a Crimean Tartar family and is basically a road trip movie, albeit very bleak.
An impressive film imo.
Worth watching but not if you are feeling down already!
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I'm a bit or a fan - I remember watch this is my teens, and watching them film an episode in St Albans.
This is a good reference site for all things Avengers.
http://www.theavengers.tv/forever/
And another show that Sydney Newman had a big hand in
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Yesterday, I watched the first Dr Who featuring the weeping angels, from 2007, featuring David Tennant and Freema Agyeman. It was quite moving, in a way.
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Interesting episode of Inside No 9. Not sure how it will play for those not followers of the show.
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Watching the David Lean Great Expectations on BBC2 - is excellent. And will be available on iPlayer I assume
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Watched this, Annika, over the weekend, quite enjoyed it. A lot of people struggled with the breaking of the fourth wall but it worked for me. It does portray Scotland as rather more diverse than it actually is.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fjh17b
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Yesterday evening I watched the last University Challenge with Jeremy Paxman presenting. Here are some of his best put downs from the past:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/29/jeremy-paxman-memorable-lines-from-a-master-of-the-scathing-put-down
I'll miss him, although Parkinsons is clearly beginning to affect his speech so he couldn't really continue.
Not sure how I will take to his replacement, Amol Rajan. Going on what I have seen of him elsewhere I'm not a huge fan.
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So this week I've watched Shane Meadows new period drama "The Gallows Pole". As ever, it takes a while to get accustomed to his style (at least it takes me awhile) but it looks wonderful although the first episode was mighty slow. I also watched it as an old, old friend of mine has a part in it, in my unbiased opinion he was very good! Still undecided about it though, but intrigued enough to keep watching.
At the other end of the scale I watched all six episodes of "Changin Ends" on ITVX which is Alan Carr's sort of childhood autobiography. It made me laugh out loud several times at situations I identified quite closely with. OK it's cheesy and camp, but it is done with enough panache and good humour to overcome any shortcomings.
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Been watching Minder on ITVX. Loved this as a kid. I like watching these types of programmes. I get a bit nostalgic, seeing London as I remember it.
Also got HBO Nordic and am going to watch Rome and Leftovers again. Leftovers touched me. The storyline is out there (but good, in my opinion) but anyone who has had to cope with loss will understand it.
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Been watching the second series of The Avengers, not much left of the first, seen some of them before but many not. There are hints of the magnificent madness that it was to become but the changing partnerships, and tougher writing make it a very different series. It's a pity that so little of the first series exists to see how it developed.
Finally onto series 4, and Emma Peel. The year gap, change in production company, and Diana Rigg, add up.to ot moving into a different show.
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Watched the film "Living" on Prime last night.
Bill Nighy, as ever, was excellent.
The story of the film is apparently inspired by "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Tolstoy, via a 1952 Japanese film "Ikiru" directed by Akira Kurosawa. In addition the screenplay was by Kazuo Ishiguro.
It is a good film. Understated, but surprisingly effective and affecting.
The seaside town Nighy visits at one point in the film is Worthing. Not the Worthing I recognise, it looks altogether more exotic and exciting in this film!
Thouroughly recommended.
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The second episode of series 4 of Thr Avengers is packed with actors who are well known, Wanda Ventham, Caroline Blakiston, Steven Berkhoff, Ronald Fraser, and Bryan Mosley.
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Been rewatching Still.Game on iplayer. It's often extremely dark for a comedy show, and sometimes quite moving. The episode Cairds though is my favourite, and up there with the best episodes of comedy ever.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007czj6/still-game-series-3-3-cairds
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Just started watching and re-watching (because I haven't seen all episodes previously) 'Red Dwarf' from the beginning. Brilliant concept, brilliantly realised. Interesting spotting the 35-years-younger versions of well-known actors, some in minor roles because they were not so well-known then, such as Clare Grogan, Robert Bathurst and Mark Williams. I'm sure Chris Barrie is a lovely bloke, but he seems to specialise in playing humourless, petty-minded pompous types, eg Arnold Rimmer and Gordon Brittas.
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Started watching "The Sixth Commandment" last night on BBC.
As fine a piece of television as you could wish for. Timothy Spall is outstanding.
Note of caution, it is a harrowing watch.
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'World On Fire', a drama serial following the lives of various people of different classes during WW2. Sean Bean plays a bus conductor who's a pacifist who hawks 'Peace News' round the streets in his spare time; Lesley Manville is a posh woman who comes to know him because her son is dating his daughter; etc. Lots of people getting shot and things being blown up, and a very realistic depiction of the Dunkirk evacuation, so it's very gripping, but it's a bit cliched in some ways: dead bodies always have their eyes open, for example, one of the sillier modern video conventions: no doubt dead bodies can have their eyes open, but I think normally they'd be shut. There are a number of black characters, including two Senegalese soldiers, but everyone studiously avoids the word "nigger", though back then it was common currency, not necessarily even used derogatorily. Also, this being 2023, there has to be a gay relationship being conducted surreptitiously.
Still, despite those quibbles, all jolly good fun.
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'World On Fire', a drama serial following the lives of various people of different classes during WW2. Sean Bean plays a bus conductor who's a pacifist who hawks 'Peace News' round the streets in his spare time; Lesley Manville is a posh woman who comes to know him because her son is dating his daughter; etc. Lots of people getting shot and things being blown up, and a very realistic depiction of the Dunkirk evacuation, so it's very gripping, but it's a bit cliched in some ways: dead bodies always have their eyes open, for example, one of the sillier modern video conventions: no doubt dead bodies can have their eyes open, but I think normally they'd be shut. There are a number of black characters, including two Senegalese soldiers, but everyone studiously avoids the word "nigger", though back then it was common currency, not necessarily even used derogatorily. Also, this being 2023, there has to be a gay relationship being conducted surreptitiously.
Still, despite those quibbles, all jolly good fun.
That is the first series. They've just started showing the second series. They have dropped the Americans from it, and Sean Bean has been written out, presumably he had better things to do. You'll be pleased to know the gay element has gone too. Of course, as everyone knows there were no homosexuals until the late 60's :P
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Somehow completely missed this when it was shown in the 70s, don't even remember not watching it.
Wings (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_(1977_TV_series))
It's available in its entirety on Youtube, and the first episode was good. Great cast.
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Somehow completely missed this when it was shown in the 70s, don't even remember not watching it.
Wings (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_(1977_TV_series))
It's available in its entirety on Youtube, and the first episode was good. Great cast.
I watched it avidly as a child. It got a bit silly later on though.
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Looking forward to the second season of Good Omens being released this Friday
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Just to.note that the magnificent The Ascent of Man is available on iPlayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001p2xc/the-ascent-of-man-1-lower-than-the-angels
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Binge-watching various classic comedy series from their beginnings - as mentioned before, I watched all of 'League of Gentlemen', and am now working my way through 'Red Dwarf', 'The Catherine Tate Show' and 'The Fast Show'. I've just started series 2 of the last-named, and Swiss Toni is yet to make an appearance, but most of the other regulars have appeared. I'm impatiently looking forward to the return of hot weather, so that I can post "Scorchio!" in the weather thread. Also, "How very dare you!" Derek hasn't yet shown up in the CT Show.
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Watching documentary from the Chronicle series from 1973 on Piltdown Man. Fascinating generally, and also because of how documentary presentation has changed in 50 years.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p018c7rb via @bbciplayer
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Saw a documentary about Jacqueline Du Pre some time ago, and realised that the upper-class English accent has disappeared in the last 50 years. Modern upper-class types just don't have a regional accent, but then they had an accent all their own, as some old interviews from the 60s with Sir John Barbirolli, other classical musicians of the era, and JDP herself revealed: to modern ears, they sounded quite bizarre.
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Saw a documentary about Jacqueline Du Pre some time ago, and realised that the upper-class English accent has disappeared in the last 50 years. Modern upper-class types just don't have a regional accent, but then they had an accent all their own, as some old interviews from the 60s with Sir John Barbirolli, other classical musicians of the era, and JDP herself revealed: to modern ears, they sounded quite bizarre.
One of the bizarre things in the Piltdown documentary is there is a bit where a ridiculous German accent is adopted to read out a translation from a German work on evolution. It's quite hard to understand and given the lack of mention in the credits, I assume was done by the narrator, Geoffrey Hinsliff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hinsliff
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So currently watching "Wolf" on BBC IPlayer adapted from Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series of books. I've read some, although not this particular one.
On line the series seems to split people into two groups either very much liking it, or very much hating it. I fall into the former group, I love it.
Once you get over the fact that it is a second cousin to the book series and that the main character is somewhat underplayed (imo) it is fine on its own merits.I have spotted one or two plotholes - but minor ones, so not enough to spoil the ride.
One thing though, the books are written in order, so it seems a little odd to take the last book as a starting point, some of the previous goings on need a fair bit of exposition which wouldn't have been necesary if they'd started at the beginning of the series, but I guess they thought this was the best storyline for a series?
It is tense, moody, quite grisly (so not for those who don't like a splatter of blood) full of black humour and moves along at a fair old lick after the first episode.
Not seen the conclusion yet so can't give a fully rounded impression but it beats the hell out of Midsummer Murders.
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The Ascent of Man is back on iPlayer so rewatching. The first episode has some computer graphics of skulls that would was groundbreaking.
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.Little Britain'. Watched the first-ever episode last night. It's classic comedy, and very funny, but a bit problematic inclusivity-wise: two well-off, well-educated, upper-middle-class men taking the piss out of the disabled, the working-class, etc.
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Looking forward to the second season of Good Omens being released this Friday
So now watched this. It's charming but not as good, unsurprisingly, as the first series, given that it is effectively a bridge from the book to the further story that Gaiman and Pratchett had talked about.
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The BBC series of Oppenheimer is now on iPlayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0g3j9cp/oppenheimer
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Just watched all four episodes of this on iplayer, about an allegedly haunted farmhouse in North Wales - and if that sounds familiiar, there's a good reason, as you'll discover if you watch it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0g31444/paranormal-the-girl-the-ghost-and-the-gravestone
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Just watched the first-ever episode of 'Life On Mars' from 2006. Even the (then-) present-day episodes look dated now, with big, clunky computer screens and ordinary, non-smart mobiles. Very convincing recreation of 1973 Manchester, with the garish orange SELNEC buses I remember from my early 20s in Stockport, and other things.
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Rewatching Person of Interest and see Julian Sands appearing and feel quite sad
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series))
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Found the first 3 series of Rumpole are on Britbox.
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There are a few Aussie comedies on iPlayer.
I've finished off Colin from Accounts, now watching No Activity. Both have good amounts of dead pan humour.
IIRC, there was a series before based in a mother and daughter living together in an Aussie Australian suburb, but I can't remember its name. It might have been some kind of Oz predecessor (or I could be wrong).
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There are a few Aussie comedies on iPlayer.
I've finished off Colin from Accounts, now watching No Activity. Both have good amounts of dead pan humour.
IIRC, there was a series before based in a mother and daughter living together in an Aussie Australian suburb, but I can't remember its name. It might have been some kind of Oz predecessor (or I could be wrong).
Kath & Kim?
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Watching lots of recent episodes of 'Casualty', which, prior to this binge, I hadn't watched for years. It's shite, but oddly addictive. I was amazed after the latest episode I watched to discover that the actress playing an old woman who'd accidentally taken a double dose of beta-blockers was Amanda Barrie, 60s siren and occasional 'Carry-on' star.
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Watching lots of recent episodes of 'Casualty', which, prior to this binge, I hadn't watched for years. It's shite, but oddly addictive. I was amazed after the latest episode I watched to discover that the actress playing an old woman who'd accidentally taken a double dose of beta-blockers was Amanda Barrie, 60s siren and occasional 'Carry-on' star.
She is older than Judy Parfitt, Sister Monica Joan in Call The Midwife, whom I have seen at much earlier times on The Avengers, and Rumpole, recently
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Kath & Kim?
That's it. I kept thinking it was Mel and someone, so I looked it up and the (production) location was Melbourne.
Thanks NS.
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That's it. I kept thinking it was Mel and someone, so I looked it up and the (production) location was Melbourne.
Thanks NS.
And there was Mel and Kim.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_and_Kim
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Watched the first part of Laura Kuennsberg's "State of Chaos" last night. Thoroughly engrossing in a nightmarish sort of way.
Not generally a fan of LK but her access to top level civil servants and advisors is impressive.
Really worth a watch if you can stand the pain of being reminded of the last 7 years of Conservative shitshow.
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Rewatching Ancient Invisible Cities.
At the end of the one on Cairo, the presenter reminds us that the when the Romans took over Egypt, they were closer in time to us, than they were to the people who built the Great Pyramid. One of those things that while true seens barely comprehensible.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b0bjj8x9/ancient-invisible-cities
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I haven't watched any yet, but last night I found Dr Who is on ITVX. It's every episode from the very beginning up to Eccleston's re-vamping.
I looked at it a bit and every Dr is available, all the way back to Hartnell.
When I was looking every episode seemed to be 1/2 and hour and most series (1-20something) had about 13 episodes.
So watching it could take quite a while...
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I haven't watched any yet, but last night I found Dr Who is on ITVX. It's every episode from the very beginning up to Eccleston's re-vamping.
I looked at it a bit and every Dr is available, all the way back to Hartnell.
When I was looking every episode seemed to be 1/2 and hour and most series (1-20something) had about 13 episodes.
So watching it could take quite a while...
The early series have 30 to 40 episodes but some are missing. Some of the missing episodes are replaced with animations which are pretty good.
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I've been watching a number of true-crime murder documentaries recently, most from Scotland {where they call it "mudder"} but one about the notorious murder of Lin and Megan Russell, mother and daughter, in Kent in 1996. All very fascinating, if a bit depressing.
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I've been watching a number of true-crime murder documentaries recently, most from Scotland {where they call it "mudder"} but one about the notorious murder of Lin and Megan Russell, mother and daughter, in Kent in 1996. All very fascinating, if a bit depressing.
We actually call it murrrrrderrrrrr
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Because I got a free month of Apple TV+, I've been binge watching Foundation (based on the famous Asimov trilogy) and Silo (based on a trilogy by Hugh Howey). So far, both are actually very good. They've messed with the story quite a lot in Foundation but I guess that's to be expected with an adaptation for TV (and to bring it up to date, it was written in the 40s and 50s). Same goes for Silo (mostly lots of details about characters that wasn't in the books) but still enjoying it despite knowing the answers to the story's biggest mysteries (assuming they don't change it from the books).
There does seem to have been a marked improvement in TV science fiction recently, especially noted in the magnificent series The Expanse (based on the first six of a nine novel series by James S. A. Corey). Also The Peripheral (based on William Gibson book) was rather good but seems to have been cancelled after one series due to the ongoing US strikes.
Also planning to catch up with War of the Worlds (2019 adaptation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2019_TV_series))) which I watched the first series of before it disappeared to Disney+. I'm again taking advantage of an offer of a very low subscription for three months. Don't intend to pay for either service after the offers end.
For information: technical note if you want Apple TV+ and don't (like me) have any Apple devices.
You must do things in this order, otherwise it can all go horribly wrong. First, create an 'Apple ID' at https://appleid.apple.com/ and add some payment method. Then, use the ID to log in to iTunes (there's a Windows app on the Microsoft store); you don't have to pay and you don't have to listen to anything, just log in so you have an account linked to iTunes (don't ask me why you need to do this but it complains otherwise). Then you can sign up to TV and claim any offer code you may have, or just pay.
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Was in the mood for some 90s fairly mindlesss action films yesterday so started off with Point Break. One of the all time great endings for such films.
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I've been watching a number of true-crime murder documentaries recently, most from Scotland {where they call it "mudder"} but one about the notorious murder of Lin and Megan Russell, mother and daughter, in Kent in 1996. All very fascinating, if a bit depressing.
News on the case
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-67038913
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As it's miserable weather as mentioned elsewhere, decided to watch a musical as is my wont on such dreich days. Going to Verona in November so Kiss Me, Kate - Now TV seemed to have the 1953 film version with Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson but despite saying that, it's a filmed performance of the 1999 London revival which is all to the good. Anyway here is Rachel York from it singing So In Love
https://youtu.be/i31KAYUWRSc?si=310vRiOqhD2A--S2
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Series 5 of 'Ghosts' on iplayer. I was very pleased to discover yesterday that the whole series has just gone on it - I was beginning to fear that it'd been cancelled. Also 'Ashes to Ashes', which I think has also only just gone on.
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Series 5 of 'Ghosts' on iplayer. I was very pleased to discover yesterday that the whole series has just gone on it - I was beginning to fear that it'd been cancelled. Also 'Ashes to Ashes', which I think has also only just gone on.
They have also added Cardiac Arrest recently. Worth watching.
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Series 5 of 'Ghosts' on iplayer. I was very pleased to discover yesterday that the whole series has just gone on it - I was beginning to fear that it'd been cancelled. Also 'Ashes to Ashes', which I think has also only just gone on.
Make the most of it. Series 5 is the last one.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0791mqd/shakespeare-live-from-htm (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0791mqd/shakespeare-live-from-t) Moore-rsc
Most of it is v worth watching, after an hour or so Ian McKellen reads a Tom Moore speech https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ianmckellenshakespearethomasmoore.htm (also (https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ianmckellenshakespearethomasmoore.htm(also) found after I checked how to spell his name). The speech itself is excorriating and I doubt whether IMcK is acting at all.It might be easier to look it up by searching for RSC, on iPlayer;I'm rubbish at links.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ianmckellenshakespearethomasmoore.htm
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60s versions of The War of the Roses plays.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r3hj
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4 hours of Joan Armatrading tonight on BBC4 from 10pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008rm4
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60s versions of The War of the Roses plays.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001r3hj
Thanks for the tip-off. I've saved Dick 3 to watch when I've got 2 1/2 hours to spare.
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Thanks for the tip-off. I've saved Dick 3 to watch when I've got 2 1/2 hours to spare.
So it's parked for now. Well he is used to it.
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And they are reshowing the 2012 versions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bqgjn
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This was enjoyable as a podcast, be interesting to see if Uncanny translates to TV.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rckl
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And they are reshowing the 2012 versions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07bqgjn
It is part of this season to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the First Folio.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/shakespeare-first-folio-400-anniversary-pan-bbc-season
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And as part of the 60th anniversary for Doctor Who, all the available classic episodes being put on iPlayer.
https://www.gamesradar.com/doctor-who-60-year-anniversary-800-episode-archive/
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Not so much watching as encountering when I switch on the TV for Strictly is Picture Slam. In contrast to many quiz shows now which seem utterly baffling with random rules and rounds, this is say what's in the picture. It's like Catchphrase without the Catchphrase part. It is quite the most boring quiz I have ever encountered.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qpqh
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Quelle merde! I'm allergic to Alan Carr anyway.
I'm watching 'Our World War' on iplayer, three hour-long dramas. The first was about the battle of Mons in August 1914, the first battle of the war, and the second about the Somme in 1916, with one soldier horrified to find that he has been ordered to take part in a firing squad to shoot another soldier he knows for desertion, though he knows that he had got lost, not deserted. Some gruesome scenes in a casualty clearing station, and some annoying anachronisms: one soldier saying to a nurse that something was a "piece of piss", which I think was doubly anachronistic: firstly, I don't think that expression had been coined then, and secondly, he wouldn't have said it to, or in front of, a woman in 1916. Young, working-class men were doubtless as foul-mouthed then as now amongst themselves, but they were more courteous to women. Later, someone calls someone else a Wally, another term I don't think existed then*. It was popularised by OFAH in the 80s.
One more episode to go.
*Thought so. From Bing: “Wally” is a British English expression referring to a “silly or inept person” 1. It is thought to have originated at a pop festival in the late 1960s or early 1970s; many sources suggest the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival On hearing the name “Wally” being announced many times over a loudspeaker, the crowd took it up as a chant, and random shouts of “Wally” were subsequently heard at rock concerts all over Britain. It was still being called out at the 1979 Led Zeppelin Knebworth Concerts In 1974, a group of new age travellers were encamped near Stonehenge, and to help hinder the process of eviction by the landowners, all gave their name as Wally of Wessex, “Wally being a conveniently anonymous umbrella for vulnerable individuals”
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Surely any drama now will be anachronistic and it may help it have impact if it is understandable in today's language rather than doomed attempts at authenticity?
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I've just signed up to Netflix, so that I can watch 'Bodies', which I read a review of in the Guardian online: it's a time-travelling who-dun-it police drama (yes, another one) set in London in four different times - late-Victorian, 1940s, the present and the near future - with four different detectives investigating the murder of the same person, killed in the same way and found in the same place in each time. It goes up later today.
In the meantime, I've just watched the first episode of the Yank version of 'The Office', largely a word-for-word re-run of the British version. It's set in Scranton, about which I know nothing, but presumably it has the same reputation in the US for boringness as Slough in the UK.
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I've just signed up to Netflix, so that I can watch 'Bodies', which I read a review of in the Guardian online: it's a time-travelling who-dun-it police drama (yes, another one) set in London in four different times - late-Victorian, 1940s, the present and the near future - with four different detectives investigating the murder of the same person, killed in the same way and found in the same place in each time. It goes up later today.
....
Be interested what you think - the premise is stuck between intriguing and too clever for own good in my mind
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I've just watched episode one. Fascinating. Some gruesome scenes in a police morgue in 1891, and at the end it goes to 2053, and ends with a shock. Certainly makes me want to carry on watching.
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Now that I've got Netflix, I've started watching 'The Crown' from the beginning, a few years late. John Lithgow, Yank though he is, is brilliant as Churchill, and Matt Smith, deeply irritating as he was as the 11th Doctor, is good as the newly-created Duke of Edinburgh, and does actually bear a passing resemblance to the young D of E, which is more than can be said for most of the actors.
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I've just signed up to Netflix, so that I can watch 'Bodies', which I read a review of in the Guardian online: it's a time-travelling who-dun-it police drama (yes, another one) set in London in four different times - late-Victorian, 1940s, the present and the near future - with four different detectives investigating the murder of the same person, killed in the same way and found in the same place in each time. It goes up later today.
In the meantime, I've just watched the first episode of the Yank version of 'The Office', largely a word-for-word re-run of the British version. It's set in Scranton, about which I know nothing, but presumably it has the same reputation in the US for boringness as Slough in the UK.
Mrs O. and I watched the first three episodes yesterday, and we're planning to watch the rest this weekend. Looks good so far.
O.
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Now that I've got Netflix, I've started watching 'The Crown' from the beginning, a few years late. John Lithgow, Yank though he is, is brilliant as Churchill, and Matt Smith, deeply irritating as he was as the 11th Doctor, is good as the newly-created Duke of Edinburgh, and does actually bear a passing resemblance to the young D of E, which is more than can be said for most of the actors.
Just watched episode 3, about George VI's funeral. Alex Jennings and Greg Wise bear remarkable physical resemblances to the Duke of Windsor and Lord Mountbatten respectively.
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I'm now up to 1957 in 'The Crown', and the scandal (as it was then - no-one'd give a monkey's nowadays) if the D of E's private Secretary getting divorced. Eden has been forced to resign as PM after the Suez fiasco, defenestrated by MacMillan, who is depicted as a bit of a snake. I didn't know until now that Philip didn't become Prince Philip until 1957, when he was created a Prince by Liz.
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This was enjoyable as a podcast, be interesting to see if Uncanny translates to TV.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rckl
Watched the first one. Enjoyed it. Think it works better on radio.
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So it's parked for now. Well he is used to it.
Groan :)
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Rewatched Mark Kermode's programme that he made at the 25th anniversary of The Exorcist, as the latest one in the series has been released for the 50th anniversary. It's an excellent documentary, and seems amazing that Ellen Burstyn is still alive and appeared in the latest film - which Kermode dislikes.
I'm a couple of years younger than Kermode but am old enough to remember the hype, and that for 3 weeks in Greenock they didn't manage to complete the last showing on a Wednesday. Then, of course, there was the midnight showing in London that I went to where I saw the Devil for the 2nd time in my life.
I don't like the film as much as Kermode, not sure that's possible, but it stands up in the main, and it's a good documentary.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p07r5pwq/the-fear-of-god-twentyfive-years-of-the-exorcist
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Mrs O. and I watched the first three episodes yesterday, and we're planning to watch the rest this weekend. Looks good so far.
O.
Watched 2 episodes so far. Not convinced but the end of the second episode was probably the best bit.
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Up to season three of 'The Crown'. We're now well into events and people that I remember from then: the 1964 ad 70 general elections, the Aberfan tragedy, the moon landing, the miners' strike, the death of the Duke of Windsor, etc. There was a wholesale change of cast after season two, which means that Princess Margaret appears to have shrunk, or the Queen grown, since Vanessa Kirby is half a head taller than Claire Foy, but Helena Bonham-Carter is an inch or so shorter than Olivia Colman. Alex Jennings, in series 1 and 2, bore a passing resemblance to the Duke of Windsor, but Derek Jacobi looks nothing like the elderly Duke (but then, DJ looks nothing like anyone else, really, as he has a fairly unusual face).
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Watched the first one. Enjoyed it. Think it works better on radio.
Now watched the 3 in the tv series. The third one is the mist interesting. Some of the tweaks from the radio work quite well with the 'expereiments', while not always strictly relevant, a good addition. It's not as uncanny somehow.
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Watched 2 episodes so far. Not convinced but the end of the second episode was probably the best bit.
We enjoyed it - the chain of cause and effect to result in the changes at the end was a little happenstance, but... B+, I'd say.
Finally on to 'The Good Place', now, first season was great, now to see if they can keep up the standard for the 2nd.
O.
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We enjoyed it - the chain of cause and effect to result in the changes at the end was a little happenstance, but... B+, I'd say.
Finally on to 'The Good Place', now, first season was great, now to see if they can keep up the standard for the 2nd.
O.
I'd say the second season is forking better than the first.
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I caught "Hitsville: The Making Of Motown" on Sky Arts yesterday.
A fascinating look at the origins of Motown with quite a bit of footage of artists I had not seen before.
There was a clip of Michael Jackson that was astounding. I'd guess he was still a child of 9 or 10, and it was all there, the dance moves (even down to the famous moonwalk), the voice, everything.
It was wonderful to hear Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy talk about how the whole setup at Motown worked. If you've not seen it and enjoy Motown catch it if you can.
Also worth a watch and also on Sky Arts was another doc on the films of Stephen King's work, not as good as the above but better than your average TV doc in this field.
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An oddie but a goodie. Was mainly a cast of relative unknowns at the time. Hamlet at Elsinore
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001s720/hamlet-at-elsinore
Worth watching Steven Berkoff's memories of it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s71s/steven-berkoff-remembers-hamlet-at-elsinore
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Been watching the Yank version of 'The Office' on Netflix from the beginning. David Brent is replaced by Michael Scott, and the whole thing is as wince-inducingly hilarious as the British original. I have just discovered that in series eight and nine, Scott is replaced by Nellie Bertram, played by the brilliant Catherine Tate as a dim and vulgar Essex girl. I can't wait.
https://www.netflix.com/watch/70069647
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Up to season three of 'The Crown'. We're now well into events and people that I remember from then: the 1964 ad 70 general elections, the Aberfan tragedy, the moon landing, the miners' strike, the death of the Duke of Windsor, etc. There was a wholesale change of cast after season two, which means that Princess Margaret appears to have shrunk, or the Queen grown, since Vanessa Kirby is half a head taller than Claire Foy, but Helena Bonham-Carter is an inch or so shorter than Olivia Colman. Alex Jennings, in series 1 and 2, bore a passing resemblance to the Duke of Windsor, but Derek Jacobi looks nothing like the elderly Duke (but then, DJ looks nothing like anyone else, really, as he has a fairly unusual face).
And you have a ghost to look forward to
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67415437
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And you have a ghost to look forward to
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67415437
So I've read. I've just watched episode one of season eight, which starts with the crash in the Pont D'Alma tunnel, then jumps back to eight weeks earlier. The 'Guardian' reviews are generally panning this series, while praising earlier ones. Episode one seemed ok to me.
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Watching "The Sea Shall Not Have Them".
IMDB has this:
The billboard outside the Odeon cinema, Leicester Square, said: "Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde in The Sea Shall Not Have Them". Passing by, Nöel Coward said, "I don't see why not. Everyone else has."
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BBC Two tomorrow from 12. Talking Pictures on Bette Davis, followed by Dark Victory, and Now, Voyager.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/guide/bbctwo/20231119
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Been watching on BBC iPlayer the Hollow Crown series. I thought the plays were quite well done.
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Been watching on BBC iPlayer the Hollow Crown series. I thought the plays were quite well done.
I've recently watched Henry IV parts one and two, and greatly enjoyed them.
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Finally caught up with the Red Riding trilogy this week:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Riding
I'd read the David Peace books before the TV series came out, and admired his ability to get beige on the page. They reminded me of James Ellroy's books set in Los Angeles but with the seedy glamour replaced with seedy grime. There wasn't so much an underbelly of vice, porn, and corruption more a Jimmy Two Bellies.
It's filled with actors that nitty gritty 'northern' programmes are, David Morrissey, Maxine Peake, Sean Bean, giving excellent performances but you sometimes ard not sure which of the programmes they are in.
The balance of based on a true story waves and wanders, again rather like Ellroy with the Yorkshire Ripper case being the Black Dahlia for Ellroy. The appearance of Joseph Mawle as Sutcliffe jolts the bounds of the fiction it does use apart.
Usually I don't mind flashbacks but in a series with episodes set in 3 different times, having flashbacks to the times of the earlier episodes in the last one is overused. If it was merely a diffetent view of previous scenes, you could see it working but it's huge chunks of plot. There's more of David Morrissey's scenes in the 1974 setting in the 1983 episode than in the 1974 one.
I haven't watched the recent Savile programne, and I didn't warch Tennant as Nilsen. I was recently looking at a hotel in Shoreditch where they have a vintage cinema and you get a cocktail, and thought about how that might be cool but the films didn't seem to fit with my vision. One was Se7en. I have had no desire to ever rewatch that.
Now a martini with The Thin Man...
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Passport To Pimlico followed by Whisky Galore on BBC2
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Some Like It Hot on BBC2 at 15.25 this afternoon. This is just wrong. Should be Christmas Day at about 22.50.
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Watched "Everything Everywhere All at Once" yesterday on Amazon Prime.
It is enjoyable enough, and Michelle Yeoh is, as ever, extremely entertaining.
Nods to The Matrix franchise abound.
Yet I'm struggling to see how it won so many Academy Awards.
It's all a bit frantic and the multiverse switching doesn't hold up for me.
I mean. I know it shouldn't make sense but usually, I can suspend disbelief like a trooper, I can't with this one.
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Yesterday. I watched on iplayer the first episode of 'Dodger', a serial aimed at older kids (I think) about the adventures of Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger from Dickens's 'Oliver Twist'. Very entertaining, with Christopher Ecclestone as Fagin. It is, of course, set in 1830s London, with lashings of authentic grime, but I was surprised to recognise some old steps in my home town of Stockport at one point. Wikipedia confirms that much of it was filmed in Greater Manchester. As usual, wicked or at least rascally characters in fiction and drama are much more entertaining than good ones: in the novel, Oliver is a tiresome little goody-goody. It's why George MacDonald Fraser wrote his series of comic novels about Flashman rather than Tom Brown.
Recommended.
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Also watching 'Killing Sherlock' with the fwagwant Lucy Worsley and her violent lipstick, about Arthur Conan Doyle's vexed relationship with his creation.
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Caught up with Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator. It presents Caesar as if he was a completely new challenge to the republic so it suffered from a lack of context.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0gjlmkv/julius-caesar-the-making-of-a-dictator
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Also watching 'Killing Sherlock' with the fwagwant Lucy Worsley and her violent lipstick, about Arthur Conan Doyle's vexed relationship with his creation.
Watched 2 episodes of this so far. I like it. It's good at covering what an interesting character Conan Doyle was.
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Caught up with Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator. It presents Caesar as if he was a completely new challenge to the republic so it suffered from a lack of context.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0gjlmkv/julius-caesar-the-making-of-a-dictator
Started watching that, but it turned out to be one of those history docs with lots of talking heads speaking in the present tense about events centuries ago, which pisses me off, so I gave up.
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This is more what 'they' are watching on Netflix since though I do use it I hadn't watched any and only heard if 1 in their top 5.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67688722
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Started watching that, but it turned out to be one of those history docs with lots of talking heads speaking in the present tense about events centuries ago, which pisses me off, so I gave up.
I don't know whether watching the updated US series You Are There in the early 70s means I am more adjusted to present tense history but it doesn't bother me if the history is good. Trying to make history sound more dynamic seems a laudable aim overall.
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Time to watch The Bishop's Wife
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bishop's_Wife
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Talking Pictures TV are showing 3 of the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas next week
https://www.memorabletv.com/news/talking-pictures-tv-christmas-highlights/
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And time to watch White Christmas.
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In the heat of battle, my father wove a tapestry of obscenity, that as far as we know, is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.” — Ralphie
Time to watch A Christmas Story
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https://scandification.com/what-is-helsinki-syndrome/
Time to watch Die Hard
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Currently enjoying Pillow Talk
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And perfect day for Christmas in Conneticut
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_Connecticut
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Already had 1 of 3 favourite musicals on TV this Christmas, though the film is nowhere near as good as the original soundtrack, or many other adaptations, because of bad casting (Guys and Dolls). Today another one is on TV, and by the magic of iPlayer, in the midst of watching it and singing along. In this case the film does work, though I note it's 50 years old now (Jesus Christ Superstar). Link here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001kk2j/jesus-christ-superstar
The 3rd you ask, well that's Assassins. Not sure anyone's willing to do a film with any budget on that.
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Elizabeth R on IPlayer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p033w6j5/elizabeth-r
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'Don't tell us your hand, tell us the story'
Time for the magnificent Muppets' Christmas Carol
https://youtu.be/ULaNvmjZWxg?si=_b1EpGHx-hriSHGk
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And Christmas Eve Evening - time for Scrooged
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Christmas morning means Singin' in the Rain
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This: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g8hbw/wallace-and-gromit-a-matter-of-loaf-and-death
Love the Heath-Robinsonian contraptions.
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Catching up with series 4 of All Creatures Great and Small
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Call The Midwife had a nice idea but somehow it didn't hang together as well as some previous Christmas episodes.
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Watched West Side Story, the 1961 film version, for the first time in an age. It holds up remarkably well even as my brain informs me that nearly egeryone is dubbed, that Natalie Wood, George Chakiris were made up to such an extent that they needed to make up Rita Moreno. It's remarkable how dark it is even if it had to make some changes to the lyrics.
In a year or so Natalie Wood will have been dead longer than she was alive. Sonething seems a bit out of kilter in the time space continuum. She's a had actress to place as a successful child star, appearing every Christmas in Miracle on 34th Street, which was filmed at the same time as she was in The Ghost and Mrs Muir.
She went on from WSS to immediately be in Gypsy, another epic American musical with lyrics by Sondheim. I saw it once memorably described as America's answer to King Lear. She later went on to make a fortune off of Bob And Carol And Ted And Alice - does that ever get shown any more?
And tweaking Fitzgerald's maxim, that was her 2nd Act but there was to be no 3rd one except in endless speculation about her death.
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Viewing figures for yesterday show not many people watching things together. Would think Charles Windsor will be quite pleased.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67821839
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Viewing figures for yesterday show not many people watching things together. Would think Charles Windsor will be quite pleased.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67821839
Glad the ast-ever 'Ghosts' did well. I'd've predicted 'Dr Who' in top position in advance. Surprised the King's message did so well.
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Glad the ast-ever 'Ghosts' did well. I'd've predicted 'Dr Who' in top position in advance. Surprised the King's message did so well.
The numbers though make the BBC, even with 9 out of the top 10, in a highly questionable position. As for Charlie's speech remember that's all 'main' channels.
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BBC4 showing The Singing Detective tomorrow and Thursday which means it will be available on iPlayer from sometime tomorrow.
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Royal Institution lectures started last night, this year on AI
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001tv7s/royal-institution-christmas-lectures-2023-professor-mike-wooldridge-the-truth-about-ai-1-how-to-build-an-intelligent-machine
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bjdgx7/towards-tomorrow-robot
As part of a sort of theme BBC also had Isaac Asimov looking at progress towards robots in 1967
And a Horizon from 1978 on microprocessors and automation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001tv81/horizon-19771978-now-the-chips-are-down
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I watched Mad About the Boy: the Noël Coward Story on BBC Two last night.
The documentary filled in quite a lot I did not know about him. His childhood upbringing in a very modest household, his devotion to the royal family and although I knew he was prolific I hadn't quite realised how prolific he was.
I found that he was easier to admire than like.
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I watched Mad About the Boy: the Noël Coward Story on BBC Two last night.
The documentary filled in quite a lot I did not know about him. His childhood upbringing in a very modest household, his devotion to the royal family and although I knew he was prolific I hadn't quite realised how prolific he was.
I found that he was easier to admire than like.
Haven't got to watching it yet
There's also 2 adaptations of plays available on iPlayer.
A Song At Twilight with Paul Schofield and Deborah Kerr
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00zyc1q/playhouse-a-song-at-twilight
And The Vortex
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001tv7z/the-wednesday-play-the-vortex
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Just put on The Pajama Game and had a pre-viewing warning about violence, drinking, foul language, and sexual content.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pajama_Game_(film)
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'Chicken Run' should carry a warning about fowl language.
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Watched the Agatha Christie adaptation Murder is Easy. The casting was a nonsense, no way there would have been that many Scots in an English village in those positions.
A friend lives near the village it was filmed in and 'appeared' as an extra. More in a 'don't be lacking an ability to see though people or you'll miss him' appearance.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-67827510
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And a warning before watching Vera that it contains 'moderate language'!
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Watched Kin on the iPlayer. Enjoyed it. There are excellent performances and it's well done, olif not exactly groundbreaking. There are 2 series currently that the BBC have bought but they only have one up
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001snk7/kin
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Call The Midwife had a nice idea but somehow it didn't hang together as well as some previous Christmas episodes.
I do hope Sister Monica Joan's prediction proves correct. The tiresome old bat should have snuffed it years ago.
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No idea about That's TV as a channel but the entire second series of Yes, Prime Minister suits my mood today.
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Don't know whether anyone watched the series called "The Tourist" last year.
Well, it's back for a second series, this time transplanted from Australia to Ireland and every bit as gory, funny and twisty turny as the first series.
Hooked already.
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Could be so camp as to wonderful, or dreadful, or wonderfully dreadful.
https://www.whattowatch.com/watching-guides/rivals-cast-plot-and-everything-we-know-about-the-jilly-cooper-adaptation
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Could be so camp as to wonderful, or dreadful, or wonderfully dreadful.
https://www.whattowatch.com/watching-guides/rivals-cast-plot-and-everything-we-know-about-the-jilly-cooper-adaptation
Probably just dreadful. Jolly Sooper is definitely not my kind of author.
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Just watched Maestro, the film about Leonard Bernstein, on Netflicks. Not sure about the black and white of the first part, nor the highly personalised and rather vapid narrative which concentrated so much on the homosexual elements in his life (which certainly came into full bloom while he was married to his wife). Didn't get too much sense of the burgeoning genius who didn't start learning the piano till he was fourteen, yet became a first rate virtuoso, let alone world-class conductor and important composer and educator. Some of the latter came through in the depiction of his performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, which gave some indication of the emotional depth of which he was capable, even when he was involved in his grotty homosexual affairs. Carey Mulligan as his wife gave a fine performance, and conveyed the deep emotional trauma she experienced when she realised the extent of Bernstein's betrayal of her.
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Watching 'Mr Bates V The Post office' on ITV1. I've long been aware of the injustices associated with the Post Masters/Mistresses of course, but this dramatic interpretation crystallizes some of the very disquieting and upsetting themes relating to this still ongoing saga. For me it's difficult to watch without feelings of outrage and frustration but I find it absolutely riveting.
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Watching 'Mr Bates V The Post office' on ITV1. I've long been aware of the injustices associated with the Post Masters/Mistresses of course, but this dramatic interpretation crystallizes some of the very disquieting and upsetting themes relating to this still ongoing saga. For me it's difficult to watch without feelings of outrage and frustration but I find it absolutely riveting.
And programme has meant more people have come forward to sue the Post Office.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67894818
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Moderator A number of posts discussing the scandal rather than the programme have been split and merged with existing thread on the Politics and Current Affairs called
Horizon scandal: Call for all Post Office convictions to be overturned
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Watching 'Mr Bates V The Post office' on ITV1. I've long been aware of the injustices associated with the Post Masters/Mistresses of course, but this dramatic interpretation crystallizes some of the very disquieting and upsetting themes relating to this still ongoing saga. For me it's difficult to watch without feelings of outrage and frustration but I find it absolutely riveting.
I watched the first two episodes last night and had to stop because I was so angry.
Watched the last two tonight, still angry but a bit better.
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I've now watched the whole thing. In episode three, in the parliamentary committee scene, I thought that the actor playing Nadhim Zadawi bore a remarkable resemblance to him. Turns out it was him, playing himself!
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I've now watched the whole thing. In episode three, in the parliamentary committee scene, I thought that the actor playing Nadhim Zadawi bore a remarkable resemblance to him. Turns out it was him, playing himself!
Yeah, I thought he was a bit wooden.
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So I've just watched "Saltburn" on Amazon Prime, which has had a lot of buzz about it lately with some articles that I read saying that it was shocking in ways never before seen in cinema.
Well if it was I missed it. It was uncomfortable in places and somewhat disgusting but nothing that I haven't seen before in another setting.
The film tries to be a cross between Brideshead and Talented Mr Ripley but isn't nearly clever enough to pull off homage to either of them.
It's fairly enjoyable on its terms but it is not the groundbreaking film that some commentators have said it is.
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Yeah, I thought he was a bit wooden.
Actual footage of the real hearing deftly spliced in with the acted drama, wasn't it?
This was probably a wise move for legal reasons, to make sure there was absolutely no misrepresentation of the facts. As has been noted (by Lia Williams, who played Vennells) "there were lawyers all over it"
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Enjoyed two series of Hidden Assets on iPlayer. RTE programme partly related tl an earlier one called Unacceptable Risk. Good to see a forensic accountant, and an IT person being more realustically used than the normal doer of impossible things.
Michael Ironside appears looking much younger than I thpught he was, in part because he cunningly looked older than he was when he was in Scanners, V, and Top Gun.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0b9nq4r/hidden-assets
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Stumbled across this the other day - on Sky Sci-fi (one of the Virgin Media channels)
SurrealEstates (all one word) - about a US estate agency that specialises in difficult to sell houses, because said houses have a malevolent supernatural agent/demon that has to be dealt with before the house will sell.
Utterly daft but an easy watch if you fancy something that is entertainingly silly. There are two series, the first of which can be accessed on catch-up.
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Actual footage of the real hearing deftly spliced in with the acted drama, wasn't it?
I don't think so: he was mentioned in the credits as playing himself.
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Watched Caroline Aherne: Queen of Comedy, quite good, I'm still left more admiring her than enjoying her comedy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ty35/caroline-aherne-queen-of-comedy
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Been watching The Diplomat, written by Debora Cahn who was part of the writing team of The West Wing, and Gray's Anatomy. It's a bit more Gray's.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diplomat_(American_TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diplomat_(American_TV_series))
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Don't know whether anyone watched the series called "The Tourist" last year.
Well, it's back for a second series, this time transplanted from Australia to Ireland and every bit as gory, funny and twisty turny as the first series.
Hooked already.
Have now watched the first series, enjoyed it.
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Currently watching "Fellow Travelers" (US Spelling) on Paramount+.
A very good 8-part series based on a book by Thomas Mallon.
All I can say by way of recommendation is that if I've seen a better US TV production over the last 4 or 5 years I can't remember it.
It is a gay love story set against the backdrop of McCarthyism, the Vietnam war and AIDS, which makes it sounds like it covers a lot of ground, which it does, but it does it elegantly and with heartbreaking emotion.
My only small criticism is that the actors don't age that convincingly, but it is a tiny niggle.
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Been watching Grantchester, sort of Endevour meets Call The Midwife. Keep struggling to fit the James Norton of this into my brain with the James Norton of Happy Valley. Can see why he's a possible Bond.
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Been watching Grantchester, sort of Endevour meets Call The Midwife. Keep struggling to fit the James Norton of this into my brain with the James Norton of Happy Valley. Can see why he's a possible Bond.
As I have progressed through it a problem has occured. It tries for colour blind casting but in also trying to use social context at the time as in the example of the curate's homosexuality, it ends up with such as a black women professor at Cambridge being treated as entirely normal, undermining the social context part.
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Watching Space 1999. I didn't watch it originally, and having caught odd, some very odd, episodes over the years had never got around to it. It's quite odd. It is sort of trying for serious science fiction, it's short of any humour but the science is generally crap. It looks a lot better than other UK Sci fi shows of the time, and it gets a great role of guest stars, some in very small roles, so I'm guessing the pay was good.
Not sure I'll make it through the 2 series. The first is regarded as much better than the second and it's been a bit of stuggle.
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Watching Space 1999. I didn't watch it originally, and having caught odd, some very odd, episodes over the years had never got around to it. It's quite odd. It is sort of trying for serious science fiction, it's short of any humour but the science is generally crap. It looks a lot better than other UK Sci fi shows of the time, and it gets a great role of guest stars, some in very small roles, so I'm guessing the pay was good.
Not sure I'll make it through the 2 series. The first is regarded as much better than the second and it's been a bit of stuggle.
From memory, the second series really jumped the shark. They brought in Fred Freiburger (sp?) who was responsible for the third series of the original Star Trek also (how can I put this) a shit season.
I've not really seen it since the first broadcast, except for the odd episode, but the second series in my recollection is that it is a completely different show.
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From memory, the second series really jumped the shark. They brought in Fred Freiburger (sp?) who was responsible for the third series of the original Star Trek also (how can I put this) a shit season.
I've not really seen it since the first broadcast, except for the odd episode, but the second series in my recollection is that it is a completely different show.
Still on the first series, and they are holdimg a seance to talk to the spirit of the man, who is still alive, that has been taken over psychically by plants. At leasrlt I think that's the plot. It's all done so po faced that I am wondering whether the second series will be better than its reputation.
Guest stars so far in seriezs Christopher Lee, Peter Cusing, Joan Collins, Brian Blessed, Peter Bowles (who was excellent in a story let down by a nonsensical solution), Julian Glover, Isla Blair, Anthony Valentine amongst others. Stuart Damon from The Champions, and Paul Jones of Manfred Man pop up in ten line cameos.
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Oh don't get me wrong, the first series was no masterpiece.
I never took to the leads, Landau and Bain, they were so humourless that I just found it very difficult to watch. At least with all the different puppet supermarionation series humour was often used to leaven the mixture.
The best thing about it, as with all Anderson's productions was the special effects.
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Oh don't get me wrong, the first series was no masterpiece.
I never took to the leads, Landau and Bain, they were so humourless that I just found it very difficult to watch. At least with all the different puppet supermarionation series humour was often used to leaven the mixture.
The best thing about it, as with all Anderson's productions was the special effects.
Yes, in the first couple of episodes, their seriousness worked but after that it becomes wearing.
Acvording to IMDB on the episode with Joan Collins 'Barbara Bain had put up quite a squawk as soon as she saw Joan Collins's wardrobe for the episode, demanding that her skirt be longer, so as not to appear sexier than herself. Gerry Anderson refused the "request", explaining that Crawford's legs were one of the reasons she was hired for the episode. As a result, Bain spent the last half of the show dressed in barbarian garb that was shorter than Collins's. Hence, the nickname "Barbara Pain" Anderson's crew had come up with early on during the show's production (not to her face, of course'
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supermarionation
My sons and I always used to joke that that sounded like a Nintendo computer game.
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Watched the Terence Davies biopic of Siegfried Sassoon on BBC Iplayer last night.
A good watch although it didn't give me an understanding in any great depth of what motivated his writing.
Concentrated rather too much on his dalliance with Ivor Novello, (I say dalliance, it was on Novello's part, rather more than that for Sassoon) who judging by the film presentation of him wasn't a very pleasant man.
It only gets a middling 6.7 on IMDB, worth more than that just for Davies's style, I would say.
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Watched the Terence Davies biopic of Siegfried Sassoon on BBC Iplayer last night.
A good watch although it didn't give me an understanding in any great depth of what motivated his writing.
Concentrated rather too much on his dalliance with Ivor Novello, (I say dalliance, it was on Novello's part, rather more than that for Sassoon) who judging by the film presentation of him wasn't a very pleasant man.
It only gets a middling 6.7 on IMDB, worth more than that just for Davies's style, I would say.
Ah, thanks for the heads up. Hadn't seen this was there.
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Should have said it is called "Benediction" Duh!
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Been watching The Agatha Christie Hour very intermittently.
https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/The_Agatha_Christie_Hour
Last night watched the fourth episode called The Fourth Man. Quite odd, not very Christie.
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Watched a pleasant little Australian film on Amazon Prime called "June Again".
It stars an actress called Noni Hazlehurst who was familiar to me from an Australian series "A Place to Call Home" which was a kind of superior soapy Dynasty-type programme from a few years ago.
Anyhow, an interesting look at dementia and her acting is very good indeed. It sounds heavy but it is not even though for some reason I had a thoroughly damp face by the end of it.
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Watched the Terence Davies biopic of Siegfried Sassoon on BBC Iplayer last night.
A good watch although it didn't give me an understanding in any great depth of what motivated his writing.
Concentrated rather too much on his dalliance with Ivor Novello, (I say dalliance, it was on Novello's part, rather more than that for Sassoon) who judging by the film presentation of him wasn't a very pleasant man.
It only gets a middling 6.7 on IMDB, worth more than that just for Davies's style, I would say.
Enjoyed it. Triggered by watching it then watched Gosford Park to see a different take on Novello. Apparently Jude Law was meant to play the Ryan Phillippe part. Think that would have been better but it's still fun, and an extraordinary cast.
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Enjoyed it. Triggered by watching it then watched Gosford Park to see a different take on Novello. Apparently Jude Law was meant to play the Ryan Phillippe part. Think that would have been better but it's still fun, and an extraordinary cast.
Years since I've seen Gosford Park, in fact, not since its theatrical release. But yes, a great cast.
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Years since I've seen Gosford Park, in fact, not since its theatrical release. But yes, a great cast.
If you have Amazon Prime currently streaming as part of package.
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Watched the Terence Davies biopic of Siegfried Sassoon on BBC Iplayer last night.
A good watch although it didn't give me an understanding in any great depth of what motivated his writing.
Concentrated rather too much on his dalliance with Ivor Novello, (I say dalliance, it was on Novello's part, rather more than that for Sassoon) who judging by the film presentation of him wasn't a very pleasant man.
It only gets a middling 6.7 on IMDB, worth more than that just for Davies's style, I would say.
Just watched it - brilliant. Slightly odd that it ended with a poem of Wilfred Owen's, rather than one of Sassoon's.
Ivor Novello
Was a rather waspish fellow
When he first met Siegfried Sassoon -
But he did write a jolly good tune.
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Missed the series Scotland from the Sky the first time. Enjoying it this week, particularly today's
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b4fzl2
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Obviously having watched Space 1999 then I felt the need to watch UFO.
One of my first reactions was 'Is that Peter Gordeno?'. It was. But then I had to think why I even knew who Peter Gordeno was.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(British_TV_series)
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(British_TV_series))
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gordeno
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Been a shite day so watched Happy Feet, and here's Savion Glover with Gregory Hines doing the Opposite Dance on Sesame Street.
https://youtu.be/vPtt9fZNi4A?si=-WoPNjPkN5X1uSlZ
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And some more Savion Glover
https://youtu.be/Oe-pKN1lIWc?si=OfNG-uhRpUamkfGF
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Obviously having watched Space 1999 then I felt the need to watch UFO.
One of my first reactions was 'Is that Peter Gordeno?'. It was. But then I had to think why I even knew who Peter Gordeno was.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(British_TV_series)
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(British_TV_series))
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gordeno
Because of Wanda Ventham's appearance I have today discovered that Tracie Bennett is Benedict Cumberbatch's half sister. Also this insight into the 3 year old proto Sherlock
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Not fancying Richard the Third on BBC 2 this afternoon, watching Cold Comfort Farm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000y2f8/cold-comfort-farm
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A quick footnote to your Space 1999 posts. I came across this elsewhere (As Space 1999 predates TNG by at least a decade I smell plagiarism Roddenberry!):
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A quick footnote to your Space 1999 posts. I came across this elsewhere (As Space 1999 predates TNG by at least a decade I smell plagiarism Roddenberry!):
Yeah, I thought that when I watched that one. To be fair, it is, of course, a version of 'resistance is useless' from Doctor Who, but then 20,000 leagues Under The Sea, Jules Verne, used the phrase in chapter 23, when Captain Nemo ordered Professor Aronnax, Conseil and Ned to be confined to their quarters. "After that I stopped objecting and started obeying because resistance was useless."
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The classic Bette Davis double bill Now, Voyager and Dark Victory on BBC2 this afternoon.
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Given it was St Patrick's Day watched The Commitments for the first time in a long while. Stands up really well. That for so many of the cast it was their first, and in a number of cases only, acting job is remarkable, and a tribute to Alan Parker. Most of the men were interested in a music career, and some have had success. The three women in the group have all had very successful acting careers.
I'd love to see the locations now versus then because it's a reminder of how much Dublin has changed in 30 or so years.
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3 Body Problem on Netflix - can't really describe it: it's mad, but the sight in episode 3 of Mark Gatiss (as Isaac Newton) and Reece Shearsmith (as Alan Turing) embracing on the Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan I won't easily forget.
It's Sci-Fi, Aliens, Hi Tech and Video Games all mixed up - no idea what is going on, but I'm hooked.
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3 Body Problem on Netflix - can't really describe it: it's mad, but the sight in episode 3 of Mark Gatiss (as Isaac Newton) and Reece Shearsmith (as Alan Turing) embracing on the Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan I won't easily forget.
It's Sci-Fi, Aliens, Hi Tech and Video Games all mixed up - no idea what is going on, but I'm hooked.
Thanks for the tip-off. I've just watched episode one.
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3 Body Problem on Netflix - can't really describe it: it's mad, but the sight in episode 3 of Mark Gatiss (as Isaac Newton) and Reece Shearsmith (as Alan Turing) embracing on the Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan I won't easily forget.
It's Sci-Fi, Aliens, Hi Tech and Video Games all mixed up - no idea what is going on, but I'm hooked.
Based on a quite brilliant book.
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Interesting programme on the last person publicly executed in Glasgow, Dr Edward William Pritchard, the 'Human Crocodile'. Note, in Gaelic with subtitles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03klcy4/sgeulachd-edward-pritchard-the-human-crocodile
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Watched a film on Amazon Prime last night called "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont" which I had never come across before although it was made in 2005.
It is one of those small UK films that I am particularly fond of, although it is directed by an American, Dan Ireland.
It stars Joan Plowright who is excellent in the titular role and a young Rupert Friend.
It has a lot to say about intergenerational relationships and also about chosen families v. biological families.
No special effects, no fights, no over-the-top plotting. Just a good film with great acting from a supporting cast that includes Anna Massey and Millicent Martin. I also spent the longest time trying to place Anna Carteret - Juliet Bravo, of course!
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Sweet Charity - feels very much of its time.
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Also dipping in and out of Sweet Charity. Yes of its time but interesting to see part of the progression of Fosse's style.
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Also dipping in and out of Sweet Charity. Yes of its time but interesting to see part of the progression of Fosse's style.
It's his first directed film, and it feels the direction is a bit old fashioned, and it has hints of the problems that Gene Kelly had with Hello, Dolly at the same time.
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Watching the first episode of Pompeii: The New Dig
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001yczx/pompeii-the-new-dig
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Time to rewatch Strictly Ballroom
ETA what a joy of a film. I presume that all the judges and professionals in Strictly Come Dancing, and its various copies around the world pay a tithe to Baz Luhrmann.
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Baby Reindeer. Not easy to watch at times, being about stalking and rape, but brilliant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68849404
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81292213
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Baby Reindeer. Not easy to watch at times, being about stalking and rape, but brilliant.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68849404
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81292213
Hmmm, given your recommendation I may give it a go. I'm less and less attracted by tough watches.
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The Gay Divorcee
Your wife is safe with Tonetti; he prefers spaghetti.
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They Might Be Giants - just sublime
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Might_Be_Giants_(film) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Might_Be_Giants_(film))
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Dexter, from the beginning, on Netflix. It started 18 years ago, so I'm coming to the party a bit late. An original idea - a serial killer who only murders other serial killers who escaped justice - and deliciously gruesome.
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'Marco Polo', on Netflix. Kublai Khan comes across as a likeable old psychopath.
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Second series of Blue Lights on BBC. It's very well done but can't help feel it's less than a sum of its parts.
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Netflix - Dead Boy Detectives
Tow young lads working as detectives - who happen to be ghosts, with a psychic sidekick. Utterly daft but great fun.
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Netflix - Dead Boy Detectives
Tow young lads working as detectives - who happen to be ghosts, with a psychic sidekick. Utterly daft but great fun.
Watched the first episode of that. Wasn't totally gripped, but may try episode 2.
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Watching The American President - Aaron Sorkin's dry run for The West Wing, filled with actors in particular Martin Sheen who appear in The West Wing. As it's a film it's much simpler but the bones are there. Sad to see that the issues highlighted are more pressing, and that the people's choice is even more limited.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_President
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Running Man was just on Finnish telly. Haven't seen it for ages. Forgotten what a good film it was. Cheesy as fuck in lots of parts but it adds to its charm. I've always been an Arnie fan.
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Running Man was just on Finnish telly. Haven't seen it for ages. Forgotten what a good film it was. Cheesy as fuck in lots of parts but it adds to its charm. I've always been an Arnie fan.
And straight after on the same channel The Bourne Identity. Good film night. Got a few beers and crips. Day off tomorrow because of Ascension Day.
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And straight after on the same channel The Bourne Identity. Good film night. Got a few beers and crips. Day off tomorrow because of Ascension Day.
Sounds good
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Started Superman & Lois. Not exactly cheery.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p09yd3d8/superman-lois
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So given I found Superman & Lois a bit depressing, switched to This Town. Enjoying it so far, has an interesting sideways look at the time, and an unusual lead character.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001w95s/this-town
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For the umpteenth time, Calamity Jane
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Schmoedipus - by Dennis Potter starring Tim Curry, pre RHPS
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8w7y24
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Watching the new updated Rebus. So far so Hmm...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001yjr6/rebus
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Watching the new updated Rebus. So far so Hmm...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001yjr6/rebus
It's growing on me.
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There was an updated program on BBC3 last night at 9 pm about the paranormal goings-on at 'Roses' house, 'Roses' if you remember was a member who used to post regularly on this site. There were two episodes last night, which were a bit drawn out, and there are two more episodes next Friday at 9 pm.
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Good documentary on Covent Garden. It's a bit messy in parts and could do with more linking to the general changes in London, but worthwhile
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0d4s5dm/the-peoples-piazza-a-history-of-covent-garden
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Enjoying Raiders of the Last Past. Sutton Hoo is such a wonder.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0008569/raiders-of-the-lost-past-with-janina-ramirez
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Watched this tonight. John Le Mesurier was superb.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p032kjfk/play-for-today-series-2-traitor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitor_(Play_for_Today) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitor_(Play_for_Today))
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Looks interesting. I've added it to my watchlist to watch later.
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Looks interesting. I've added it to my watchlist to watch later.
I saw it a couple of years ago (the last time they did a retrospective on LeM) - he is brilliant and mesmerising.
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Rewatching Feargal Keane'a excellent Story of Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00yyc7b/story-of-ireland
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Eric, on Netflix - Benedict Cumberbatch on top form as a mentally disintegrating puppeteer whose son is missing.
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Rewatching Feargal Keane'a excellent Story of Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00yyc7b/story-of-ireland
Moved onto Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0ff7cg0/once-upon-a-time-in-northern-ireland
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Moved onto Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0ff7cg0/once-upon-a-time-in-northern-ireland
Feels so far and yet so near
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Moved onto Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0ff7cg0/once-upon-a-time-in-northern-ireland
Watching the episode covering the hunger strikes. Utterly bizarre, and yet my memories are so clear.
-
Four Weddings and A Funeral on iPlayer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zxf0/four-weddings-and-a-funeral
Brilliant film but Andie McDowell is so bad.
And Amber Rudd was the Aristocracy Co-Ordinator
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So there aren't many advantages to Pride month for me anymore. But here are two.
A film available on BBC IPlayer called "Lie with Me" is a French film about first and lost loves which is acted wonderfully and has the grandson of Jean-Paul Belmondo co-starring in it.
The other film is on All4 and is called "The Blue Caftan". This Morrocan film is essentially a three-hander with sensitive, intelligent performances from the three actors. It centres on a Caftan maker, his wife and their younger assistant and touches on the complexities of love and loss in a truly memorable way. It is unusual for an Arabic film to touch the subject of homosexuality but it is all done rather beautifully. This film is a cut above anything else I've watched recently.
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Moved onto Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0ff7cg0/once-upon-a-time-in-northern-ireland
Have always been interested in the story of Ireland - another example of the arrogance of the British government. Decided to watch this after you mentioned it and am struck by the similarities to the Palestinian situation.
Watching the peaceful Catholic Civil Rights marches against deep-rooted, state-sanctioned inequality being met with Protestant police brutality, then the British army on Irish soil, kids throwing stones at the British army and their armoured cars, the justification for armed struggle, the British Army ransacking Catholic homes, the IRA terrorist attacks followed by mass internment of Catholics, the British army shooting people in the back as they were running away. As the former army soldier who got blown up by the IRA says - one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
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Have always been interested in the story of Ireland - another example of the arrogance of the British government. Decided to watch this after you mentioned it and am struck by the similarities to the Palestinian situation.
Watching the peaceful Catholic Civil Rights marches against deep-rooted, state-sanctioned inequality being met with Protestant police brutality, then the British army on Irish soil, kids throwing stones at the British army and their armoured cars, the justification for armed struggle, the British Army ransacking Catholic homes, the IRA terrorist attacks followed by mass internment of Catholics, the British army shooting people in the back as they were running away. As the former army soldier who got blown up by the IRA says - one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
It may be that this will end up needing moved if it becomes just about the similarities or not of Northern Ireland and Palestine rather than the TV programme.
I'm reminded of the first line of Anna Karenina:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
I think it's easy to see similarities in such situations but that it's tempting to see too much. The main motivation for a lot of British govts in Northern Ireland was indifference, sometimes feigned, in the hope that the problem would just go away. The redrawing of the province of Ulster was a desperate attempt to deal with a problem that there was no easy solution to.
The split in the community was one centuries in the making, and it's worth remembering that the Ulster Protestants had been transplanted in many cases because they were seen as problematic in Scotland. The British govt after Northern Ireland left it alone as much as possible hoping that some sort of miraculous coming together would happen. It didn't.
When the protests produced violence from the Protestant side, it was the Catholic representatives that asked the British Govt to intervene. Hence, in the programme you get the member of the Army you mentioned talking about the difference between his first and second tours.
I don't think there was any action the British govts could have taken over the first few years of the Troubles, and what a marvellously inappropriate euphemism that is, that would have changed the situation much for the better. That's not to say that there weren't bad decisions made but that it was inevitable that some would be.
As with so much war, I listen to the voices on the programme and like the Big Endian and Little Endians in Gulliver's Travels, it is the tragedy of small differences that I hear.
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Completed watching the Once Upon A Time In Nortern Ireland yesterday, it's not a programme to be rushed at. Some incredibly powerful testimony, and am haunted by that of Alan McBride whose wife was murdered in the Shankhill Road bombing, where he talks about talking in a school.and one youth says that they don't need to be told about it, and they all now have Protestant friends. McBride asks if the class feel the same way and they agree. He then asks if they would buy or rent a house on the Shankhill and none of them would.
The ghost of John Hume haunts the programme from the first marches to get equality in suffrage to the talking to the terrorists. An extraordinarily important factor in the peace we currently have, I don't think his role is really appreciated.
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Yes I was watching it yesterday and remember that clip and have a lot of the same feelings that you do. The main thing that struck me in terms of its similarity to the Palestinian issue was how easy it seemed to be for some to turn to violence growing up in that environment - men, women, and especially school children on both sides explicitly stating on camera that they would throw petrol bombs or kill people because of how important it was not to be pushed off their land or prevented from walking down their road or denied their freedom or treated like 2nd class citizens. That's always been my point about the Palestinian situation - there are groups of people in these situations in every community who will react the same way - they will turn to violence and armed resistance - they are not the 'other' - they are part of every community.
As people were saying in 'Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland' these paramilitaries on both sides were not parachuted in from outside the community, they were ordinary people's uncles, brothers, sons, fathers, friends, friend's fathers. They were not bad people but they did bad things https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65638259
Even children got caught up in the fight- it seemed natural to them e.g. Ann Marie, aged 10, throwing bottles at British troops in 1981. And the British troops did not react by shooting children unlike the IDF.
The other similarity with the Palestinian issue is that you could be murdered by paramilitaries on either side if you were suspected of being an informant, if you disobeyed orders, if you had "loose lips". The chilling question asked in the programme "do paramilitaries "lie awake at night" worrying about the impact of their violence and coercive control. Was so sad listening to Michael McConville remembering the day his mother, Jean, was taken away and murdered by the IRA for showing compassion to a wounded British soldier - Jean McConville: The Disappeared mother-of-10. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27234413
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I am reminded having watched Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland of the short film Elephant 'inspired' by the Troubles. Brutal but effective in underlining the sad futility of the cycle of violence
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(1989_film) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(1989_film))
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I am reminded having watched Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland of the short film Elephant 'inspired' by the Troubles. Brutal but effective in underlining the sad futility of the cycle of violence
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(1989_film) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(1989_film))
I can't find a link to watch it but here's a discussion with Alan Clarke and Danny Boyle at the time of its showing
https://youtu.be/pc0CwLCWi5s?si=VoJXndxvbd7FX0BW
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Campion on iPlayer. Somehow seems caught between taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough buy given it was originally a parody that's not surprising. Still enjoyable, and Davison plays it well
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Just Your Luck, Peter McDougall's first produced play. Haven't seen it in years.
https://youtu.be/DYwjgtPGxcE?si=IDb9DE_6VCr2-Skb
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_McDougall
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Missed The Game the first time it was on, indeed, missed seeing so much about it that I didn't know it was old till the much missed Paul Ritter appeared. Good so far, great cast, in which Victoria Hamilton is a stand out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p02h76px/the-game
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Started watching High Country, enjoying it so far.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0020rnw/high-country
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Went to see Present Laughter with Andrew Scott in the cinema as part of NT Live. It's a quite brilliant performance and the changing of the sex of a couple of the characters allows it to align with what Coward could not have written at the time. Scott was extraordinary in the role, with some marvellous support.
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/present-laughter-review
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Giving Those Who Are About To Die a try. Not entirely sure but it's trying to do something about an interesting period.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_About_to_Die_(TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_About_to_Die_(TV_series))
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'The Devil Next Door;, a documentary series on Netflix about the 1980s trial of John Demjanjuk, the Ukrainian-American accused of being 'Ivan the Terrible', a hideously cruel guard at Treblinka death camp during the war. In film of the trial, he appears to be burly, genial, not very-bright retired factory worker in his 60s. I've got one episode to go, but he was eventually acquitted of being I the T when evidence was produced that Ivan was killed during a prisoner uprising, but he was a guard.
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Great news! I've just discovered that there are two whole series of 'Ghosts US' that I haven't seen! I'm now watching them on iplayer.
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Rewatching Elementary, the US update of Sherlick Holmes. It stands up well particularly the seriousness that it treats addiction. Just watched an episode with the bow dead actor John Heard, and had one of those refractive moments of remembering him in this, and other similar series of similar times, and thinking oh yes I remember this but it being overlayed with bits from those other appearances.
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Rewatching Elementary, the US update of Sherlick Holmes. It stands up well particularly the seriousness that it treats addiction. Just watched an episode with the bow dead actor John Heard, and had one of those refractive moments of remembering him in this, and other similar series of similar times, and thinking oh yes I remember this but it being overlayed with bits from those other appearances.
What's it on? Please say Netflix, so i can watch it!
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What's it on? Please say Netflix, so i can watch it!
Ah, sorry, Prime
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Shit! >:( >:( >:(
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Shit! >:( >:( >:(
I use this site to follow what's new on streaming sites. You can tailor it to just show the streaming stuff you have but it's useful as it covers pretty well everything including ITVx and iPlayer.
https://www.justwatch.com/uk/new
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Just discovered I can watch it after all, because I'm signed up to Prime for purchases! ;D ;D ;D I've now got it saved at the top of my screen.
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Just discovered I can watch it after all, because I'm signed up to Prime for purchases! ;D ;D ;D I've now got it saved at the top of my screen.
Have you seen it before? I'd be interested in your opinion.
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Have you seen it before? I'd be interested in your opinion.
Elementary? No. I'll let you know what I think when I've watched an episode or two.
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Elementary? No. I'll let you know what I think when I've watched an episode or two.
Give it a few episodes, the update takes a little time to work. I think Jonny Lee Miller is great in the role. It inspired the Frankenstein casting with him and Cumberbatch switching roles but I found that unwatchable.
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Just watched episode one. Loved it! I'm glad Holmes s still English, and loved the Anglicisms he occasionally uses, such as "bollocks!" and "telly", which are amusingly incongruous in New York. No pipes, though, which was a pity, and i hate stubble - it's scruffy.
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Watching Dial M for Murder on BBC 4. Ray Milland is great in it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0078kx8/dial-m-for-murder
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I quite like a good western - stumbled across a 7 part series called 'Godless' on Netflix - Jeff Daniels is great as the main baddie. Worth a watch.
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Just discovered I can watch it after all, because I'm signed up to Prime for purchases! ;D ;D ;D I've now got it saved at the top of my screen.
There's some good stuff on there.
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Rewatching Elementary, the US update of Sherlick Holmes. It stands up well particularly the seriousness that it treats addiction. Just watched an episode with the bow dead actor John Heard, and had one of those refractive moments of remembering him in this, and other similar series of similar times, and thinking oh yes I remember this but it being overlayed with bits from those other appearances.
And latest episode watched has Julian Sands whose memory is entwined with seeing him in the airport and plane returning from Florence a couple of years ago with my wife with whom I first watched A Room With A View in 1986.
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The rabbit hole of watching old athletics runs on youtube. Steve Ovett setting the 1500m World Record
https://youtu.be/BwHSoE6fE44?si=IarxB8ClMXhmaUrN
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Watched the first episode of KAOS, released today on Netflix, with Jeff Goldblum as Zeus - quite quirky but enjoyed it enough to stick with it.
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Still working my way through 'Elementary' Just watched the first part of a two-parter with Vinny Jones as Sebastian Moran. Both he and Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock repeatedly refer to Arsenal FC as "The Arsenal". Who uses the definite article before it? I know it's made by Yanks, but surely Miller or Jones could have told them.
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Still working my way through 'Elementary' Just watched the first part of a two-parter with Vinny Jones as Sebastian Moran. Both he and Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock repeatedly refer to Arsenal FC as "The Arsenal". Who uses the definite article before it? I know it's made by Yanks, but surely Miller or Jones could have told them.
Does get used
https://angryofislington.com/2012/10/16/where-did-the-chant-1-0-to-the-arsenal-come-from/
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Actually, it isn't a two-parter; t just ended inconclusively. I think the thread gets picked up again later, when VJ reappears.
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Still working my way through 'Elementary' Just watched the first part of a two-parter with Vinny Jones as Sebastian Moran. Both he and Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock repeatedly refer to Arsenal FC as "The Arsenal". Who uses the definite article before it? I know it's made by Yanks, but surely Miller or Jones could have told them.
The partner is an Arsenal fan and does indeed refer to them as "The Arsenal".
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On Netflix I am watching "One Day" based on a book made into a film in 2011 and is now a limited series. So I am familiar with the plot from the film, but it is so well acted and made that it is worth watching.
Pitch perfect performances.
I am aware that it is a tear-provoking finale because of the film. You've been warned.
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New series of Slow Horses started being released today, so rewatching the previous three.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Horses
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Having caught up with Slow Horses, awaiting next episode, watching the great State of Play.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Play_(TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Play_(TV_series))
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I started watching Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix, but since it has now been cancelled (due to issues regarding Neil Gaiman) I can't see it's worth continuing.
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I started watching Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix, but since it has now been cancelled (due to issues regarding Neil Gaiman) I can't see it's worth continuing.
I suspect no Good Omens 3 on the allegations of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman either. I do find the allegations seem to being downplayed as opposed to those against Weinstein.
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Watching Nightsleeper on BBC.
Totally unbelievable and yet I can't stop watching.
Excellent fun.
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Watching Nightsleeper on BBC.
Totally unbelievable and yet I can't stop watching.
Excellent fun.
We watched it for about 15 minutes, NO THANKS.
We are watching, 'Saving lives in Cardiff', which is more to our taste.
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Watching Nightsleeper on BBC.
Totally unbelievable and yet I can't stop watching.
Excellent fun.
Agree. Just watching episode 4, classic line from one of the characters: "how am I going to even know when the drugs have worn off, when things like this keep happening?"
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Die Hard With A Vengeance pops up on TV in Portugal so you have to watch - the concept of Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman being German brothers is so fabulous.
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We watched a film from 2012 called "The Scapegoat" on Netflix last night. It is an adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier story which has been filmed before. It is about two men who are identical, one of whom ends up assuming the identity of the other.
It is very nicely done and stars Matthew Rhys, Eileen Atkins and Andrew Scott - to name but a few venerable actors.
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We watched a film from 2012 called "The Scapegoat" on Netflix last night. It is an adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier story which has been filmed before. It is about two men who are identical, one of whom ends up assuming the identity of the other.
It is very nicely done and stars Matthew Rhys, Eileen Atkins and Andrew Scott - to name but a few venerable actors.
Thanks for the recommendation. Will look out for when back in UK. I do love Andrew Scott's acting.
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Threads on iPlayer. Not cheery but very good
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02kgkkg/threads
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Watched 'Don't Look Up' on Netflix last night: brilliant combination of apocalyptic disaster film and political satire, with Meryl Streep, Len DiCaprio, Mark Rylance etc. A comet the size of Mt Everest is due to land in the Pacific, in what will be a "planet-killing" event.
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Just discovered that there's an Aussie version of 'The Office', so I've started watching it on Amazon Prime. The David Brent character is Hannah Howard, played by Felicity Ward.
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Watched Deadpool and Wolverine at the cinema yesterday. Thought it was a fun film. All the Deadpool films have been good. As a bonus Electra (Jennifer Garner) is in it, albeit briefly.
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Watching Nightsleeper on BBC.
Totally unbelievable and yet I can't stop watching.
Excellent fun.
Couldn't put it better myself. Loved it.
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Just finished watching Ludwig on IPlayer - enjoyed it: a bit daft but great fun nonetheless.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0022wvz/ludwig?seriesId=m0022ww2
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I loved Ludwig. I hope there will be more of it/him.
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I stayed away from the Shakespeare: Rise of A Genius at the time but it's not bad at all. It doesn't really do anything new but it has some great performances.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0gjkv0t/shakespeare-rise-of-a-genius
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And following on from that I ended up at Welles, Wheldon, and O'Toole talking about Hamlet
https://youtu.be/smMa38CZCSU?si=Y1Qf7rWSIGi5VC-d
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I loved Ludwig. I hope there will be more of it/him.
Just finished it, enjoyed it. I think given its success in the ratings, there is definitely going to more.
https://tellymix.co.uk/uktv-viewing-figures-30sept-6oct/
Just wondering given that it takes place in Csmbridge where Professor T is also set whether the 2 consultants could have a crossover
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Couple of plays by Peter McDougall set in and around his and my hometown of Greenock made in the 70s.
Elephant's Graveyard is the less bleak of the 2 but I prefer Just A Boy's Game.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001fgz4/play-for-today-series-7-the-elephants-graveyard
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p032kjg0/play-for-today-series-10-just-a-boys-game
And there's a short documentary interview with McDougall on his memory of making the Elephant's Graveyard
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0024983/peter-mcdougall-remembers-the-elephants-graveyard
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Thanks for the recommendation. Will look out for when back in UK. I do love Andrew Scott's acting.
If you like Andrew Scott have you caught Ripley on Netflix?
It has been very good so far (three episodes). However, I do feel that maybe Scott is a wee bit too old for the part, although I don't think an age is stated for Ripley in the first book. I had just imagined him younger. Shot in B&W, it is very atmospheric and filmed on location in a beautiful part of Italy.
I also binged Ludwig. As everyone else has said, I found it very enjoyable. However, every so often, I did catch myself thinking, will this go the same way as Death in Paradise, with repeat murders solved in a supposedly ingenious way? Time will tell, I guess. The cast were all very good, and I liked it a lot.
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If you like Andrew Scott have you caught Ripley on Netflix?
It has been very good so far (three episodes). However, I do feel that maybe Scott is a wee bit too old for the part, although I don't think an age is stated for Ripley in the first book. I had just imagined him younger. Shot in B&W, it is very atmospheric and filmed on location in a beautiful part of Italy.
I also binged Ludwig. As everyone else has said, I found it very enjoyable. However, every so often, I did catch myself thinking, will this go the same way as Death in Paradise, with repeat murders solved in a supposedly ingenious way? Time will tell, I guess. The cast were all very good, and I liked it a lot.
I watch Death In Paradise for the sun and the music.
Haven't caught up.with Ripley, and I would agree Andrew Scott is too old. I'm not sure I've ever thought any of the adaptations work fully but Plein Soleil with Alain Delon felt the closest. In part that's because Delon was the age I had Ripley in my head.
I liked the use of a back story in Ludwig which meant that the murder puzzles were less central. Not sure how that will work with the change in circumstances. Part of my mentioning Professor T is that It's a little difficult to separate out the murders in my head as needing the characters.. it's also odd that Ben Miller moved on from playing an odd policeman in DiP to an odd police consultant in Professor T.
I did at one point in the midst of all of it bewail the lack of ordinary detectives but I think that is what Midsomer Murders is for.
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Just finished a 'rewatch' of the series Supernatural. I put rewatch in quotes because I hadn't seen much of the last 3 series for a variety of reasons. It should have ended after 5 series on the original plan, and I think that would have been best but the extension to 15 allowed it to become very meta, even more than it had been.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_(American_TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_(American_TV_series))
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I loved Ludwig. I hope there will be more of it/him.
There will
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2024/ludwig-series-two/
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Excellent news about Ludwig!
I've seen good reports for series 2 of 'The Diplomat' on Netflix - apparently Rory Kinnear plays the UK Prime Minister with a nod toward Boris the Liar.
I haven't seen series 1 yet - wondered if anyone here had.
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Excellent news about Ludwig!
I've seen good reports for series 2 of 'The Diplomat' on Netflix - apparently Rory Kinnear plays the UK Prime Minister with a nod toward Boris the Liar.
I haven't seen series 1 yet - wondered if anyone here had.
I watched it, it was very good but a little cold, perhaps a bit too pleased with itself. Dinner is excellent in it as he pretty well always is.
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I watched Midas Man on Amazon Prime last night.
It was about Brian Epstein's life concentrating largely on his management of The Beatles.
It was competently acted, and the George, John and Paul actors did very well, but for anyone who has slightly more than a passing acquaintance with his story, it tells you absolutely nothing new.
A bit of a shame really, it felt like a much better film was bubbling somewhere underneath the surface.
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I've been watching 'Detectorists' on iplayer, and they keep mentioning a Saxon king called Sexred. I googled his name. You would not BELIEVE some of the results I got!
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Watched this on the Princes in the Tower from last year on Channel 4. Interesting example of presenting strawman, and false dichotomy, and Robert Rinder appearing to prostitute his 'expertise'.
Note, there is not enough evidence to decide that Richard the Thurd murdered the Princes in the Tower but despite the way that it is presented in the programme that's not been the position generally taken. It's been highly questioned for a long time.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-princes-in-the-tower-the-new-evidence
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A Matter Of Life And Death just started on BBC2 - seen so many times but one more is just fine
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A Matter Of Life And Death just started on BBC2 - seen so many times but one more is just fine
Followed of course by The Red Shoes
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Followed of course by The Red Shoes
After that there was a trailer for this which may be great but may not
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/renaissance-the-blood-and-beauty
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We have been watching the Expert Witness documentaries on the BBC.
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Watched this on the Princes in the Tower from last year on Channel 4. Interesting example of presenting strawman, and false dichotomy, and Robert Rinder appearing to prostitute his 'expertise'.
Note, there is not enough evidence to decide that Richard the Thurd murdered the Princes in the Tower but despite the way that it is presented in the programme that's not been the position generally taken. It's been highly questioned for a long time.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-princes-in-the-tower-the-new-evidence
Interesting speculations about Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, if I remember correctly. These two otherwise glibly dismissed as 'pretenders to the throne'.
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Interesting speculations about Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, if I remember correctly. These two otherwise glibly dismissed as 'pretenders to the throne'.
Speculations yes but Rinder sells himself to declare those speculations correct.
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There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours than in the company of "A man called Otto". Currently showing on Netflix.
I'm not a huge Tom Hanks fan, but he certainly does well with this.
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Just wasted 10 minutes watching the first 10 minutes of 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights' on Amazon Prime. What a load of infantile rubbish!
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Watched the wonderful "Cold Comfort Farm" from 1995 on BBC IPlayer. Bliss.
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Watched the wonderful "Cold Comfort Farm" from 1995 on BBC IPlayer. Bliss.
There's also the 2002 version of The Importance of Being Earnest on iPlayer which I watched at the weekend. Not quite as good an adaptation but still enjoyable.
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A piece of television archeology as the BBCs first steps into archeology - Hellenic Cruise with Sir Mortimer Wheeler
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p017h0rz/armchair-voyage-hellenic-cruise-1-venice-to-mycenae?seriesId=unsliced
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Rewatching Andrew Graham Dixon's Art of France. It is a joy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b08cgq7f/art-of-france
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Finished Wolf Hall second series. As ever the acting was excellent but the story as in the third book is less clear, in part because the Boleyn story is so well known, and so this becomes much more about Cromwell's story. It feels difficult then to cut off because of Cromwell's death (sorry, spoiler), when so much of what was happening is then just gone.
Cromwell is a fascinating character but one that's difficult to do a clear drama on - the benefit of the book is that it's easier to have a wider internal monologue, or duologue with the dead Wolsey, but in trying to allow for ambiguity, it often ends with opacity.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002473m/wolf-hall?seriesId=m0024ywj
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Really odd little programme from 1967 with amongst others, a comparatively young Robert Hughes, looking at 'swinging London', or more not so swinging London. Arnold Wesker laments the failure of The Beatles
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00rzw31/three-swings-on-a-pendulum
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Just seen the first episode of 'Still Game a Scottish sitcom from 2002 which I'd never heard of before. Far too many brilliant Scottish sitcoms were originally only broadcast in Scotland, so thank heavens for streaming. I could tell it was quite old from clues such as smoking in pubs and beer at £1.90 a pint, and the final credits confirmed it. I recently watched the first series of 'Only Child', another Scottish sitcom. English sitcoms tend to be a bit crap nowadays.
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Binge watched LA Palma on Netflix. A drama (although unintentionally a comedy) about the possible tsunami that would be triggered if half of the island slides into the sea.
A Norwegian production with weird AI dubbing (I switched to subtitles after 20 minutes) and acceptable acting and excellent special effects - but goodness me, the script. It defies any reality; the people do not behave as real people would do at all. A volcano explodes and covers everything with ash, but we'll continue with our holiday.
It is worth watching just so that you can say WTF approximately every 5 minutes.
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Just seen the first episode of 'Still Game a Scottish sitcom from 2002 which I'd never heard of before. Far too many brilliant Scottish sitcoms were originally only broadcast in Scotland, so thank heavens for streaming. I could tell it was quite old from clues such as smoking in pubs and beer at £1.90 a pint, and the final credits confirmed it. I recently watched the first series of 'Only Child', another Scottish sitcom. English sitcoms tend to be a bit crap nowadays.
Still Game is brilliant, and can be quite moving. I feel a bit jealous of you getting to see it for the first time
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Just seen the first episode of 'Still Game a Scottish sitcom from 2002 which I'd never heard of before. Far too many brilliant Scottish sitcoms were originally only broadcast in Scotland, so thank heavens for streaming. I could tell it was quite old from clues such as smoking in pubs and beer at £1.90 a pint, and the final credits confirmed it. I recently watched the first series of 'Only Child', another Scottish sitcom. English sitcoms tend to be a bit crap nowadays.
As NS said, Still Game is brilliant, and the local vernacular used throughout really is authentic.
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Watching Funny Girl for the eleventy first time, but looking forward to seeing What's Up Doc for the first time in over 35 years.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0026chk
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Went to the cinema to watch Comfort and Joy - 40 years on since first watched it. Difficult to separate my live for Glasgow from my love for it. Much better seeing it on the big screen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_and_Joy_(1984_film) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_and_Joy_(1984_film))
And today watched a twelve Angry Nen - what a film it is!
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And today watched a twelve Angry Nen - what a film it is!
Who can forget the occasion on 'Give Us A Clue' when Lionel Blair pulled off twelve angry men? (Humph, on ISIHAC.)
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Some like it hot.
Again.
Brilliantly played by three actors at the top of their game.
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Some like it hot.
Again.
Brilliantly played by three actors at the top of their game.
+1
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Some like it hot.
Again.
Brilliantly played by three actors at the top of their game.
+2
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Zagazoo, brilliant work of whimsical empathy from the beeband Quentin Blake.
(As are quite a lot of Quentin Blake's (arts/ stories). I haven't watched all of them, but I think I'm just using them as a go-to, when there’s nothing-on-the-telly.)
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Old episodes of Shoestring.
Early Trevor Eve a very long way from the stern professional types he played later.
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Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl - marvellous
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Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl - marvellous
Pretty good, but not the best ever. Ditto for Doctor Who.
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Just watched both parts of the 'Call the Midwife' Christmas special, which is sentimental rubbish, but very watchable. However, it seems to have lost a year, as it's Christmas 1969, 55 years ago. It always used too be set 54 years ago.
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Pretty good, but not the best ever. Ditto for Doctor Who.
I haven't seen W&G yet but enjoyed the Who Christmas special. More proof, if needed, that RTD should turn over writing duties to Moffat. (I know it won't happen)
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Watched Mark Gatiss's adaptation of E Nesbit's Man Size in Marble - Woman of Stone. I thought it was nicely directed by Gatiss but not sure of the tweaks to the story
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026ds3/a-ghost-story-for-christmas-woman-of-stone
Link to the short story
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40321/40321-h/40321-h.htm#MAN-SIZE_IN_MARBLE
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We have been watching "Death in Paradise" the 2024 Christmas Special.
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Watched Mark Gatiss's adaptation of E Nesbit's Man Size in Marble - Woman of Stone. I thought it was nicely directed by Gatiss but not sure of the tweaks to the story
I also saw this. I enjoyed it. I am not familiar with the original short story, but I will now read it as you have kindly supplied the link.
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I also saw this. I enjoyed it. I am not familiar with the original short story, but I will now read it as you have kindly supplied the link.
There are a number of other E Nesbit stories in the link if anyone wants to read them.
It was interesting to see the context supplied by the biographical bookending. Nesbit is a fascinating character in her own right as well as an important author. Suspect I read it about the same age Gatiss did given he says it was the first ghost story he read. It's nicely done if a little neat, and I can see why he added to the story but I think it didn't quite work.
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We have been watching "Death in Paradise" the 2024 Christmas Special.
What did you think of it, and the new boy?
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What did you think of it, and the new boy?
We are finishing it off this evening, I like the new boy, but my husband isn't too keen on the programme.
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First episode of the new series of 'Casualty', With a bit of pro-seatbelt propaganda, and thankfully very little of whiney, self-pitying wretch Cam.
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Just watched both parts of the 'Call the Midwife' Christmas special, which is sentimental rubbish, but very watchable. However, it seems to have lost a year, as it's Christmas 1969, 55 years ago. It always used too be set 54 years ago.
Found this year's a bit bland. Having 2 parts didn't really work. Vanessa Redgrave's voice disappearing.
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There are a number of other E Nesbit stories in the link if anyone wants to read them.
It was interesting to see the context supplied by the biographical bookending. Nesbit is a fascinating character in her own right as well as an important author. Suspect I read it about the same age Gatiss did given he says it was the first ghost story he read. It's nicely done if a little neat, and I can see why he added to the story but I think it didn't quite work.
I first became aware of Edith Nesbit's darker side when I read the Armada Ghost book stories as a young teenager. If memory serves me correctly several of her stories featured across the run of books, along with the likes of Ruth Sawyer and William Croft Dickinson.
Speaking of ghost stories (sort of) I finally managed to see "All of Us Strangers" last night with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on but worth seeing for the performances and the atmosphere created.
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Found this year's a bit bland. Having 2 parts didn't really work. Vanessa Redgrave's voice disappearing.
I wish they'd drop la Redgrave's intros and outros: they were always glutinously sentimental, sounding like folk-wisdom but not really saying anything, but they get more anachronistic with every series, since young Jennifer left the series years ago.
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I wish they'd drop la Redgrave's intros and outros: they were always glutinously sentimental, sounding like folk-wisdom but not really saying anything, but they get more anachronistic with every series, since young Jennifer left the series years ago.
'BBC cancels living treasure xxxx before her death.'
I agree, though it doesn't really fit the show any more.
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Watched Black Doves on Netflix feels like an inferior Slow Horses. Watchable though the end was a bit of a mess.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Doves
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The Harry Potter films on Netflix, in order from the beginning. I haven't seen any of them before, nor read any of the books, so I'm coming fresh to them. I've watched five so far, number five being 'The Order of the Phoenix', and tonight is 'The Half-blood Prince', followed by 'Deathly Hallows', parts one and two. Great fun, and some very impressive SFX, but some are perhaps a bit over-long.
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The Harry Potter films on Netflix, in order from the beginning. I haven't seen any of them before, nor read any of the books, so I'm coming fresh to them. I've watched five so far, number five being 'The Order of the Phoenix', and tonight is 'The Half-blood Prince', followed by 'Deathly Hallows', parts one and two. Great fun, and some very impressive SFX, but some are perhaps a bit over-long.
Seems amazing that the first film is 23 years old.
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Very impressive numbers for Gavin and Stacey, though i am not one of them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/gavin-and-stacey-the-finale-becomes-UKs-highest-rating-scripted-show
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Very impressive numbers for Gavin and Stacey, though i am not one of them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/gavin-and-stacey-the-finale-becomes-UKs-highest-rating-scripted-show
Me neither. Never saw the appeal. And I'll usually watch anything with Alison Steadman in it.
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Very impressive numbers for Gavin and Stacey, though i am not one of them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/gavin-and-stacey-the-finale-becomes-UKs-highest-rating-scripted-show
I've never seen an episode of it, so hardly worth watching the finale.
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Finished watching the Harry Potter films last night; now to start on the 'Fantastic Beasts' prequels, which are also on Netflix. There are three so far, with two more promised.
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Finished watching the Harry Potter films last night; now to start on the 'Fantastic Beasts' prequels, which are also on Netflix. There are three so far, with two more promised.
First one is ok, not convinced by two and three, and I'm not sure more will be made, as the third wasn't that successful, and the attention has moved to the TV series of the original books.
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It's interesting that Call The Midwife has now reached things within my memory. I would have said that I didn't recall anything about the Isle of Dogs declaring UDI but when it appeared in the story, it triggered off a memory.
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Just watched C the M. I wondered if the UDI storyline was historical or fictional, so I did some googling. Turns out it did happen.
1970 was the year I left school, so it's the year I date my adulthood from.
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Supernatural ... Is anybody watching the BBC2 series 'Uncanny' on Friday? How about you Roses?
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Tried Virdee - lasted 27 minutes. Makes Bradford look good but clunky as hell
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0027vxj/virdee
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Tried Virdee - lasted 27 minutes. Makes Bradford look good but clunky as hell
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0027vxj/virdee
Virdee wasn't to my taste either.
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Been watching some videos on Facebook of Mark Crossley telling stories about Brian Clough. Quite funny.
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Been watching Yellowstone, quite good but maybe not as good as it could be
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series))
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Supernatural ... Is anybody watching the BBC2 series 'Uncanny' on Friday? How about you Roses?
We watched it. Having had many 'uncanny' experiences as a youngster in my childhood home, and at our previous property, I found it rather OTT. The explanations given for the 'haunting' didn't make much sense, imo.
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We watched it. Having had many 'uncanny' experiences as a youngster in my childhood home, and at our previous property, I found it rather OTT. The explanations given for the 'haunting' didn't make much sense, imo.
I know what you mean. The presenter with his 'funny' faces and the background music doesn't help. That's entertainment, I guess.
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Watched the BBC adaptation of Towards Zero. Slightly surprised given the cast that it wasn't shown around a holiday period. I thought it looked great, and I like the slowness. The usual questions of updating Christie appeared. An excellent performance from Matthew Rhys in what was an interesting update.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028c7q/episodes/player
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Watched the BBC adaptation of Towards Zero. Slightly surprised given the cast that it wasn't shown around a holiday period. I thought it looked great, and I like the slowness. The usual questions of updating Christie appeared. An excellent performance from Matthew Rhys in what was an interesting update.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028c7q/episodes/player
We are watching the second episode tonight, we haven't made up our minds about it yet.
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Been watching Yellowstone, quite good but maybe not as good as it could be
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series))
Watched 1923 prequel to above. It's very odd. It feels quite old fashioned, even down to the gratuitously violent sex scene in Episode 7 which added nothing to the plot in being so obvious.
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I know what you mean. The presenter with his 'funny' faces and the background music doesn't help. That's entertainment, I guess.
I think it worked better on radio.
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The documentary The Hunt For Peter Tobin is excellent.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0028d01/the-hunt-for-peter-tobin
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Watched 1883 the prequel to the prequel of Yellowstone, very very slow, enormously depressing
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I Watched "Towards Zero" the new Christie adaptation.
Hmm....Looks gorgeous, but then these types of productions usually do. Acting was fine, mostly. Anjelica Huston did well with an English accent.
But...it didn't feel like Agatha to me. I'm all for keeping things fresh, but I think a sprinkling of f-words is the laziest way to do it.
Also, the now obligatory colour-blind casting was in play which I find a trifle jarring. I understand the reasons given for its use, but it is another level of suspension of disbelief to watch something set in the 30's and see such a mixed cast. As I say I understand why it is done, but other more unaware people might come to this and think England was all tolerant and light in this period, which as we know, it wasn't. As such does it skew the collective understanding of what our country was then?
Alright, I'm perhaps over-thinking this - I know it is only a murder mystery, but it still bothers me.
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Having managed to avoid watching 'Silent Witness' from its inception until recently, I'm now working backwards from the present, and am currently two episodes into a six-parter about the murder of a health secretary. Nice 'n' gruesome.
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Alan Yentob documentary on Armando Iannucci, I am slightly biased in enjoying this quite as much as I was at school with Armando
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0028nh3/imagine-202425-the-academy-of-armando
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Not watching yet it's not on but it's a strong cast, the inclusion of Susan Hampshire, a small piece of genius, and given Channel 5's adaptation of All Creatires may well be good.
If actuarial tables are correct, then thus being the 3rd adaptation I will have watched, there is a chance I might make it to the 4th.
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/forsyte-saga-millie-gibson-uk-broadcast-newsupdate/
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Didn't see this when it was first on, enjoyed it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b0693dsh/the-ascent-of-woman
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Currently watching Severance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)). Seriously weird idea and weirdly compelling viewing.
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Quite extraordinary tale
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00241jq/the-man-who-definitely-didnt-steal-hollywood
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I watched, My Brain The Rupture (on bbc iplayer) a couple of nights ago. In some ways I can empathise with her and how long it is still taking to recover.
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I watched, My Brain The Rupture (on bbc iplayer) a couple of nights ago. In some ways I can empathise with her and how long it is still taking to recover.
We watched it too. My husband had the same problem in 2006. He was nearly 60 when he had his and was in hospital for nearly 4 months. He was unable to to do any academic work again, which has upset him badly. As he has got older he has more and more health problems and his walking is not good. :(
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Watched 1883 the prequel to the prequel of Yellowstone, very very slow, enormously depressing
I liked it!