Favourite TV Series

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by NathWFC, Mar 20, 2010.

Tags:
  1. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    One of those shows that could have completely unravelled with a poor final episode. But it was a brilliant ending to the best series of TV this year.
     
    GoingDown likes this.
  2. Filbert

    Filbert Leicester supporting bloke

    I watched the first episode of the Saville thing last night. It’s an incredible amount of footage they’ve managed to put together but then I guess being on camera and the centre of attention was part of what did it for him.

    Well told, well made documentary with good contributors. I was a bit hesitant because I half expected a Channel 5 style talking head piece with greyed out stills of him looking creepy while sinister music plays.

    All you need, especially for someone like me who wasn’t around to see this **** on TV in the 70’s and 80’s, is to see the footage of how he interacted with people to know exactly who he was and wonder how on earth he was allowed to get away with what he did. He couldn’t meet anyone, man, woman or child without physically touching them and getting in close… even royalty and politicians. It’s staggering to watch.

    I think my wife got sick of me saying ‘You know what? I think he might have actually been a nonce’ by the half hour mark.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2022
  3. domthehornet

    domthehornet Moderator Staff Member

    Starting this now, my parents next door neighbor's partner was very good friends with Saville and a patron at Stoke Mandeville, he's adamant it's a stitch up. Mind he did fix it for me to milk a cow blindfolded. I don't remember writing to him.
     
    Lloyd and The undeniable truth like this.
  4. Filbert

    Filbert Leicester supporting bloke

    Grow up.






    So he can’t bugger you.
     
    domthehornet likes this.
  5. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    The only criticism I have of the Saville docuseries is that they could have easily wrapped it up in a single episode. Considering the seriousness of his crimes against children I also thought they gave him way too much credence before bringing him crashing down right at the end of part 2. I'd have liked to see one program with half of it about the sick abuse he was allowed to get away with, why he got away with it and the long standing effects it had on the victims.
     
  6. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    Thought exactly the same and commented this to my family members I discussed it with on Sunday, I did get a bit bored of it in the middle.

    It seems to me that they just had so much footage of him they essentially wanted to show every single bit of it, even though it wasn’t really necessary to do so. Sometimes less is more.
     
    Diamond likes this.
  7. CYHSYF

    CYHSYF Academy Graduate

    A friend of mine worked at the BBC in the 80s, he said it was incredible the amount of power Saville had. The Director General had one allocated parking space but Saville had two, and Saville had the only dressing room with a bed in it, though it only became clear later why he insisted on having one.

    One of my colleague's wife was also a junior nurse at St Jimmy's in Leeds, on her first day the matron took her aside and quietly told her under no circumstances should she ever allow herself to be alone in a room with Jimmy Saville. They all knew what he was like but because of who he was he was allowed to get away with it. Sickening.
     
  8. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It is sickening and all the more bizarre that people at the bottom knew, but the great and the good, the BBC DG, Thatcher, the Queen did not.

    I’m certainly not saying that those figures knew. What it indicates is how much power there is within a system of power and patronage. Saville was propped up by the establishment, the NHS, the BBC, other charities and the truth could not break through that in his lifetime.
     
  9. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    People did nothing about Saville and others like him because then such behaviour was considered naughty not criminal. The past is a foreign country and all that. Of course everyone thinks if they'd been there at the time they would have put a stop to it. Retrospective heroics, lot of it about.

    There's a terrible disconnect there and people today just can't process the difference in the entire culture then. Dirty Old Men were funny. Suggesting that women not be objectified was the preserve of humourless Women's Libbers (and still is today). Bill Wyman went on chat shows with Mandy Smith. Carry On culture cast a shadow over the whole thing, old men and young women was cheeky postcard material, schoolgirls were sexy. All of which formed a 'safe' simulacrum of cheekily transgressive sexuality that people could imagine when Savile talked about escaping from someone's caravan when her dad came knocking, or his case coming up next Thursday, and meant they were never faced with visualising the reality of him fondling a paralysed child or stuffing one hand in a terrified girl's mouth while he poked around in her knickers with the other.

    As an aside does anyone know how Savile made his money? Did he do a Jeffrey Archer and charge a honorarium (say 20%) on everything he raised?
     
    HappyHornet24, UEA_Hornet and Filbert like this.
  10. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    Just finished this:



    It features heavily those 'loveable rogues' Kevin and Ian Maxwell (in the early episodes). I can only imagine that their participation in it was the production of a "Poor, misunderstood, Ghislaine" PR puff-piece that no-one would touch with a bargepole (as are the details that the victims had previously received 'settlement' from both Epstein and Maxwell). The Duke of York is very heavily featured in the later episodes. Lot's of repeated footage of SEJ 'hosting' Maxwell when he was trying to sell the club to him.

    I did learn something from this: the insanely wealthy Epstein literally popped put of nowhere...
     
  11. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Better Call Saul returns today people. That’s tonight’s viewing sorted.
     
  12. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    Agreed. I think the reason they did it that way was because it will be watched in the US and around the world. Unless you grew up in the UK, you wouldn't realise just how famous and a part of life he was, so they spent a long time trying to show that. A UK only version could certainly have been one episode.
     
  13. Filbert

    Filbert Leicester supporting bloke

    I had no idea how ubiquitous he was in the culture and how visibly creepy and inappropriate he was around other people. Growing up in the 90’s he was an eccentric old figure who I thought just popped up on TV because he looked and sounded funny.

    It wasn’t until I saw the Louis Theroux documentary, probably in the late 00’s because that’s when I got into LT’s stuff did I get a sense that he had an unusual life and no one could get beneath the surface of his story.

    Of course since his death no one really talks about his career or the charity work, just the fact that he was a horrible nonce, so I can’t imagine someone from outside of the UK having much context at all.
     
  14. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    Yeah I'm well past the wrong side of 40 and he was never off the TV in the 80s.

    Apparently the organisers of Children in Need refused point blank to have him on it as they know he was a full on nonce. It's exactly the sort of gig he would have done, so shows that people were well aware.
     
    Filbert likes this.
  15. Knight GT

    Knight GT Predictor extraordinaire 2013/14

    Anatomy of a scandal on Netflix. Excellent mini series
     
  16. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    I saw the trailer for that, something to watch next.
     
  17. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    First two episodes available, I've only seen the first one. I was a little disappointed the series opening scene didn't follow the other series' flash forwards, particularly as season 5's flash forward sort of left a cliff-hanger insofar as someone recognising him in the mall. The scene they did use implies that the previous 5 series flash forwards cover a couple of months at most rather than many months or years.

    Good start to the series though.
     
  18. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    I'm happy to report that it's good the whole way through.

    Personally, I think it's a better show than Breaking Bad.
     
  19. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I finished that the other day, worth watching it just for Sienna Miller alone.

    Not really a spoiler more a question but just in case:

    Is it normal for a complete case that’s ready for trial to be built like that without the accused even being aware? I always thought if somebody made an allegation about somebody they’d be interviewed, charged etc. Or did I just misunderstand that and they condensed it all together so it seemed like that?
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2022
  20. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    Agree about the Breaking Bad comment.

    Not a huge fan of the first two episodes of this season however. They're fine and entertaining, but think it has started a little slow (even for BCS) and am not as engrossed as I have been in previous seasons.
     
  21. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    I thoroughly enjoyed "The Ipcress File" (book, film and TV series) and was told that I should give "Berlin Station" a try. Series one had it all: good cast, good characters, tight dialogue, excellent photography/locations and an interesting story-line based on an Edward Snowden type character but was let down by, what seemed to be, some woeful editing producing a slightly incoherent narrative. The second series was better, focussing on the tensions between the BfV (Germany's MI5) and the CIA against the backdrop of the rise of an XRW party (presumably based on the AfD).

    I'm four episodes into the 3rd and final series (it was shitcanned by Fox who've got a history of doing this with promising shows eg "Firefly", "The Last Man on Earth"...) and its storyline has become quite engrossing, a Russian takeover of Estonia, due to current events. There are some howlers in setting (such as how a middle-aged Estonian would be ignorant of the Russian language) and the Estonian treatment of their ethnic Russian population seems to be more 'borrowed' from the Latvian experience but these are minor complaints. I was particularly taken by a comment from a BfV officer about how Germany couldn't be openly involved in a planned CIA operation due to its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons - a prescient comment for a series filmed in2018...
     
  22. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    Got through the 4 episodes in two sittings over the weekend, yes I agree that it's a good series. However there's no doubt Kate would have been disbarred so the final cut scene wouldn't be realistic but that's nit-picking.
     
  23. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Life after Life, BBC iPlayer is a bit of an odd one. It follows the fortunes of Ursula, a anxious baby born early in the 20th century who regularly dies during her life, only to carry on through an alternative future where her peril is overcome. It’s high concept stuff, considering if you had the chance to live life again and again, as in a multiverse.

    Ursula lives in a big house with grim servants and the whole thing is about as middle class as Ocado substituting your missing quinoa for polenta. The concept doesn’t work and is an unnecessary way to tell the tale, in fact it ends up a bit like Downtown Abbey meets OMG they killed Kenny. The thing gets worse when Ursula begins to be aware of her multiple fates and takes preemptive strikes like pushing the maid down the stairs before she can give the household Spanish Flu. And this can’t possibly be ok, because there is no such thing as foresight and girls who push the maid down the stairs are just plain bad.

    If someone was moved by the drama (other than the falling maid) please let me know. 6/10.
     
  24. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Can I just hate Chris and Rosie Ramsey without going through the trouble of watching them or is someone going to tell me they are charming?
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  25. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    Stranger Things series 4. Awesome start.
     
    HappyHornet24 and Carpster like this.
  26. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    In the same bracket as Mrs Brown's Boys. Inane, weak, pathetic attempts at comedy that will boil your p1ss.
     
    Lloyd and Moose like this.
  27. Carpster

    Carpster Squad Player

    Resident Alien is a hoot if you fancy some light hearted entertainment.
     
  28. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Series 3 was one of the worst things I’ve ever watched. I’m wondering what it could do to erase that from the memory.
     
  29. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Series 4 sounds perfect then.
     
  30. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    I’ve just got to the end of Episode 1 - agree, it’s started strongly. My 15 year old is binge watching all of the released episodes as we speak - she has warned me that I’m going to find it hard to watch as it’s gorier than previous seasons.
     
  31. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Only two in but agree it's been really good so far.
     
    Diamond likes this.
  32. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    I haven't seen the programme but enjoyed your review!
     
  33. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Robert’s review has 8.7 on IMDb.
     
  34. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're finally doing my favourite SW movie as a TV series:

     
  35. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Physical (Apple TV) clearly named in honour of the Olivia Newton John tune, is unexpectedly good from what seems an highly unpromising theme, the 1980s aerobics explosion.

    Sheila and Danny are former student radicals in California, drifting towards middle age, while trying to remain hip and cool. In fact Danny is a pretty useless unachiever and unreconstructed chauvinist while Sheila is concealing some pretty hefty demons. She finds an outlet for those through high-energy aerobics.

    It’s a well paced and witty tale of a woman trying to carve out a niche for herself, in spite of her own self-loathing and everyone else’s attempts to take the spotlight. The show owes something to Peep Show as Sheila’s inner caustic inner thoughts are spoken aloud with a fair amount of talking straight to camera.

    Comes with an enjoyable 1980s soundtrack.
     

Share This Page