The TV Thread

ennspek · June 2021

hollywoodrox said:

I’m currently watching Young Sheldon , I thought it would be dire , but it’s absolutely great .
I used to be a big fan of the Big Bang theory , but it seemed to get not so good after a few seasons . Young sheldon has a great set of characters who are all brilliant with their own stories
I was so surprised what a great series it is . Nearly coming to the end of season 3 now

The episode about Communism was laugh out loud funny.

ennspek · June 2021

Time - first episode was excellent.

F1 Drive to Survive - Netflix. Fly on the wall following the F1 season. Much more entertaining than actually watching F1.

breakstuff · June 2021

ennspek said:

Time - first episode was excellent.

Watched the final episode last night. It's a brilliant bit of tv, certainly one of the highlights of this year.

And I must admit, I did 'get something in my eye' during the final scene. A great, great show.

ewal · June 2021

Bates Motel - no doubt already mentioned on this thread, but first time a show has held my attention over multiple series for quite a while. There is an inevitable trajectory to it given it is a prequel and it's great fun watching it all unfold. The two main actors are great as is the supporting cast. The town with it's dirty underbelly has echoes of Twin Peaks, maybe less surreal and not so many quirks, although having a central character who mutates between innocent young man and possessed psycho is quirky enough for me!

Philly_Q · June 2021

breakstuff said:

ennspek said:

Time - first episode was excellent.

Watched the final episode last night. It's a brilliant bit of tv, certainly one of the highlights of this year.

And I must admit, I did 'get something in my eye' during the final scene. A great, great show.

Yes, it was powerful stuff. Not overly political as I feared it might be - I haven't really seen that many Jimmy McGovern dramas, but I had an impression he was a sort of TV Ken Loach, which may be wrong.

Plotwise there were no real surprises, but the writing and the performances made it stand out. I've never particularly thought of Sean Bean as an outstanding actor, more of a second-string action man whose characters always get killed off - but that weathered face of his conveyed so much here!

And there was neither a contrived happy ending nor an unnecessarily "shocking" downbeat one. It was played just right.

EricTheWeary · June 2021

breakstuff said:

ennspek said:

Time - first episode was excellent.

Watched the final episode last night. It's a brilliant bit of tv, certainly one of the highlights of this year.

And I must admit, I did 'get something in my eye' during the final scene. A great, great show.

There's a lot of wanking in prisons.

TimmyO · June 2021

ewal said:

Bates Motel - no doubt already mentioned on this thread, but first time a show has held my attention over multiple series for quite a while. There is an inevitable trajectory to it given it is a prequel and it's great fun watching it all unfold. The two main actors are great as is the supporting cast. The town with it's dirty underbelly has echoes of Twin Peaks, maybe less surreal and not so many quirks, although having a central character who mutates between innocent young man and possessed psycho is quirky enough for me!

yeah that's great

Moominpapa · June 2021

Contrasts - Marble Arch to Edgware (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00rzwzq/contrasts-marble-arch-to-edgware" BBC documentary from 1968, on iPlayer)

This documentary features John Betjeman following the Edgware Road from central London out to Edgware, commenting on the surroundings and notable places along the way. Betjeman was 62 - my age - when he made this programme. I have always been interested in the generation of English creatives who were born around the beginning of the 20th century and came to adulthood in the 1920s & 30s. 1968 was my childhood, and so a time that I would be nostalgic about. It's fascinating therefore to watch him responding to the London of 1968 with eyes and a sensibility that was nostalgic for the London of his youth. When I came back to the UK in 2010 I lived in a university hostel near Paddington for several months while looking for a place to rent for myself & family. I walked up and down Edgware Road an awful lot in those months. The thing I remember most about it was the number of shisha bars & cafes. Otherwise it was monumentally uninteresting and always loud and filled with exhaust fumes from the constant traffic. To be honest, it doesn't look much better in 1968 - indeed it looks grimier and more run down.

I think anyone who lives in or is familiar with London (and the areas of it along the Edgware Road - Maida Vale, Cricklewood, etc.) might find it interesting. It's part of a curated (by Simon Jenkins) collection of programmes about London The BBC Four London Collection - so I'm going to check out some more of them in the next couple of weeks.

ennspek · June 2021

@Moominpapa I like the sound of this. Thank you.

Haych · June 2021

We've just finished watching White House Farm, a six part series on Netflix about the Jeremy Bamber murders in 1985.

It was very, very good, so good we binge watched nearly all six episodes in one sitting, it's very engrossing and time flew by.

Freddie Fox does a very good job of portraying a very dislikable character and by the end of the series you really do dislike him. The other star of the show is Mark Addy who plays one of the police officers on the case.

I'm sure some of it is sexed up for the sake of dramatisation but it's very good all the same.

fretmeister · June 2021

Just finished "Time"

It was very very good. I hadn't even spotted it - it was mentioned by an acquaintance who is a prison guard and thought it was very realistic.

TimmyO · June 2021

fretmeister said:

Just finished "Time"

It was very very good. I hadn't even spotted it - it was mentioned by an acquaintance who is a prison guard and thought it was very realistic.

Was refreshing to see Sean Bean play something with more than 2 dimensions!

Was really good

Greatape · June 2021

Lots of good old stuff available for free.

Seinfeld on All4. Also Hill Street Blues.
Yesterday catch up has a the Rebus shows and - guiltiest of pleasures - Lovejoy.
iPlayer has loads

ITV hub has stuff like The Avengers, Robin.of Sherwood.
Broad City on Amazon.
Find a trial Starz sub somewhere and binge 'Black Sails'

All sorts of gems out there before you even have to think of subscriptions.

breakstuff · June 2021

Just finished the third, and final season of Ash vs Evil Dead on Nutflix. A bit inconsistent, but finished off on a high. Just a shame they're not making any more as the ending set up a potential banger of a fourth season. Bruce Campbell has said that's the last time he'll play Ash so it looks as though it's dead as a Deadite.

Need to get my Lucy Lawless fix from somewhere else now.

Moominpapa · June 2021

"Georgia Brown: Who Are the Cockneys Now" (1968 - from BBC's One Pair of Eyes documentary series)

Fascinating piece from 1968 in which singer & actress Georgia Brown revisits the East End of her youth. The whole programme is about the immigrant experience and there are multiple complex layers involved with watching this from 2021. Brown was a second generation Jew - her grandfather (and thousands like him) had arrived in the East End virtually destitute, not knowing English, and fleeing from terrible persecution and prejudice in other lands. The East End of 1968 that Brown visits has a decreasing Jewish population and a growing Pakistani one. It's really interesting to listen to Brown - an articulate and liberal-minded presenter - . as she ponders the situation of the Pakistanis as 'the new Jews'. Another factor in the mix which it is harder to appreciate from today, 53 years later, is that memories of the war and the community spirit it engendered in the East End were still very strong. (Brown herself was a survivor of the Hughes Mansions bombing, in which the last V2 to hit London destroyed an apartment block killing 131 people.)

If you don't want to watch Mary Berry or antique shows, BBC iPlayer has some absolute gems to offer, and this is one of them.

ennspek · July 2021

I thought Time was a bit of a let down.

For R4 listeners I have found Count Arthur Strong on Netflix. Same writers as Father Ted, IT Crowd etc.

First episode or so are a bit weak bit great from then on

FarleyUK · July 2021

Finished The Night Manager last night - loved it. Brilliant acting and Series.

Philly_Q · July 2021

breakstuff said:

Just finished the third, and final season of Ash vs Evil Dead on Nutflix.

That's what I'm watching at the moment, just getting to the end of season 2.

Before that I watched Invincible, I was a bit hesitant because it's animated, but it's excellent.

FarleyUK · July 2021

Just finished Loki…. Hmmm.

Marvel phase 4 here we come.

Mattharrier · July 2021

Netflix:
Archer - animated spy series, very silly, very fun, mish mash of Bond, Bourne and every espionage film you can think of, plus dozens of other genres thrown in.

Brooklyn 99 - cop sitcom, gets progressively less about policing and more about the characters as it progresses, which is no bad thing.

SWAT: reboot of the original size, and movie reboot. Think CSI, NCIS etc - impossibly glamorous people in an impossibly glamorous police station, with no concern about sticking to actual police protocols, but it's great, with some great action sequences.

GLOW: 80s female wrestling, heartfelt and funny. Great writing, brilliant cast. Sadly canned before the final fourth season by fucking covid.

Superstore: sitcom based in a, uh, yeah. Lightweight but endearing and well put together.

Amazon Prime:

The Expanse: relatively hard Sci fi, solid cast and good writing, looks great too.

Six: Elite Navy SEALs doing their thing. If you like military shows that cover the hone front as well, you'll probably like this. Canned after 2 seasons which is a shame, it was good stuff and setting up well for a third season.

NOW TV:

The Rookie: reasonable cop show made really good because Nathan Fillion is in it.

Seal Team: another show about Seal Team Six, starting later the same year as Six. Again, if you like shows about soldiers at war and at home, you may well like it. Generally fairly realistic (people get hurt, they get in trouble for breaking rules, operations have consequences, gun handling is done properly and so on), and the cast is great.

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