Favourite TV Series

Mare of Easttown was a real good watch. I thought Winslet put in an absolutely amazing performance in the starring role.

 

Currently watching a rerun of the series Happy Valley, and Sarah Lancashire is fantastic in the leading role, she really is a great actress in my book.

 

Agreed. We loved it, especially the family dynamic which was really convincing.

 

Totally agree, kept you guessing all the way through. Just wish they made more quality shows like this.

 

Lupin series 2 started on Netflix last night, well worth a watch

 

Just finished Rebels! Only 2 months to complete lol.

Was no clone wars but was ok and looks like some of it could be part of some future series of either Mando or Ahsoka.

Had some really huge moments though which I won't spoil on here but I'm sure you know what ones I mean.

Generally ok though, especially for someone with no prior knowledge of Thrawn.

May take a break from Star wars for a bit after over 200 episodes of this and the clone wars. Got Discovery season 3, Expanse season 5 and Lower Decks to catch up on...

 

Anyone watch Inside no. 9? Is it any good? I’ve accidentally caught a couple of episodes in the past, including last night and it seems exactly the sort of thing I’d like, but then I’ve just fallen asleep and never remembered to dig it out and watch it.

I think the other one I once saw he had found a shoe and was desperately trying to reunite it with its owner.

Edit: I see the IMDB reviews are absolutely stellar, so answered my own question probably.

 

Finished s01 this weekend (2 eps) and I have to say I was expecting the penultimate episode to be very good and the final episode to be full of pointers to the events in the, hopefully recommissioned, 2nd series. How wrong I was: both ramped up the tension and plotting to produce some mesmerizing drama.

 

Yes, it’s one of my favourite things on TV. As with anything some episodes are better than others but all are good and the best are terrific. There’s plenty of black humour in there of course but some of the scenes are genuinely unsettling. Highly recommended.

 

Watched them all and they are mostly excellent

 

Put it another way - even the shyte ones are still worth watching.

 

Proving that my finger's really on the pulse of the zeitgeist I learnt this weekend (because it's being shown on a US cable channel*) that a minor character, Officer O'Leary, in the wonderful Un Zud film What We Do in The Shadows has (have?) had their own TV series: Wellington Paranormal (since 2018). I've watched the first 4 eps of S01 and it is, as expected with anything involving Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, it is a masterpiece.

It's such a cultural phenomenon that the show's two leading characters have appeared in recruitment ads for the Kiwi Police force, various road safety campaigns and covid lockdown public information films.

*C&P from Wiki:

 

Clarkson's Farm

Not because Clarkson is particularly good in it, but I am actually learning some really interesting things about farming

 

After reading this review, I might have to give GB News a go.

There’s a moment during the first Monday night of GB News’s programming when its chairman, the former BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil, finds himself staring into the abyss. The Abyss’s name is Dan Wootton, and the Abyss is very pleased with himself. He’s cheerfully telling Neil about his fact-free lockdown scepticism, and Neil, who is still wedded to logic, looks worried that his career is in a burning clown car.

The grinning Abyss has a three-hour programme every night (straight after Neil’s), featuring other nihilistic information vacuums like Nigel Farage and Rod Liddle. I believe it’s called Stare into the Abyss for Three Hours, and it does what it says on the tin.

Wootton’s show is probably the most distilled version of what this new channel promises to be. GB News has been designed as a sort of Fox News UK. It’s there, by its own account, to shake off the shackles of both the BBC’s allegedly “woke” echo chamber and also actual reporting, which, I think you’ll agree, amplifies reality’s left-wing bias.

The people at GB News hate elitist experts so much they’ve apparently chosen not to hire any technicians. Clips don’t play or the wrong clips play. Guests are inaudible or bathed in echo (sounding suspiciously like they’re in an echo chamber). All of the presenters have developed a strained grimace for when things fail. Yes, they mightn’t do journalism, but they have perfected gurnilism.

The people at GB News love Britain so much they’re not going to trouble it with much actual reporting, dispatching bubbly reporters to talk to randomers and expecting viewers to email in their views. “Mike Smith has been in touch to say I don’t smile enough,” says the Brexit Party candidate turned presenter Michelle Dewberry, giving just a sample of the type of content acquired in this manner.

Over the course of each day, viewers are bombarded with questions. “Would you vaccinate your child against Covid?” “Should Isis bride Shamima Begum be let back into Britain?” “Are killer bees brainwashing our children?” (That one’s mine.)

You could spend the whole day shouting “Yes!” and “No!” at GB News, which is clearly a lot of people’s idea of a good time. Though not as opinionated as Wootton, the daytime presenters cover wedge issues in the culture war – footballers taking the knee, immigrants crossing the Channel, Tory councillors forced to remove Union Jack bunting – while also oohing about life-saving dogs and new cafes opening in northern suburbs.

GB News is basically a beacon of positivity about Britain that’s simultaneously deeply suspicious about fellow Britons, who they think want to vaccinate them against their will and teach them French. My favourite bits are the weather reports, because they’re the only segments without technical problems (my nerves are shattered), and the contributions from the adorable child reporter Tom Harwood, whom older presenters can barely resist popping on their laps and saying, “Now there, sonny me lad, tell us about the Australia trade deal and I’ll give you a hoop and a stick.” Based on the daytime schedule, it feels like GB News is fighting its “war on woke” very cunningly. I mean, after watching it I don’t feel very woke at all. I feel very sleepy.

Things perk up with Andrew Neil, who is now orange. He has a segment on his show called Woke Watch, featuring an aggrieved white man named Andrew Doyle grumpily lamenting, for example, that the National Trust has created signs acknowledging that some properties were funded by the slave trade.

While Doyle generously accepts that a history of structural racism is a terrible thing, he also finds reading about it at a stately home annoying. Yes, millions have been traumatised by centuries of racism, but Doyle is mildly irritated by having to read a sign when on a day trip. So, if you think about it, it evens out.

For the most part Neil has an actual news show where he grills guests such as the UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, about real issues. Neil is just rebelling against a perceived left-wing bias in the BBC (the organisation to which the famed Marxist Dominic Cummings constantly leaked Tory talking points), but his colleague the Abyss appears to be rebelling against actual news values. On Wootton’s Monday show a member of the British public calls in to ask Roger Daltrey of The Who about government pandemic policy. Seriously.

For a moment I think a researcher – probably the person who does the sound – was asked to book someone from the WHO. Then I remember that Daltrey is a Brexit-voting curmudgeon, and it makes sense. Who knows what’s going to happen next. (I’ve left that sentence as a statement rather than a question in deference to the GB News fans’ faith in Daltrey.)

As Wootton keeps reminding us, GB News isn’t like the fuddy-duddy BBC with its “rules”, so when Rod Liddle comes on to protest footballers taking the knee against racism, he’s smoking a cigarette. When Lady Colin Campbell turns up to lambast Meghan Markle and quibble about whether Jeffrey Epstein was a paedophile or an ephebophile, she has a dog on her lap. When the “anti-woke” actor Laurence Fox inevitably appears, I think, he’ll surely be naked from the waist down and in clown makeup. When Fox does turn up – it was inevitable – he’s actually wearing a suit and calling lockdown “child abuse”.

It doesn’t take long for Wootton to go full wingnut. On Tuesday he highlights a baseless conspiracy theory about how lockdowns might ultimately be a government plot to curb carbon emissions. Does he have facts to back this up? No. But he’s the type of journalist who doesn’t need facts. He prefers to ask questions. You know, like your four-year-old: What is a dog? Why is the moon? Are spiders happy? Is Isis funding the BBC?

There are some dissenting voices on Wootton’s panel, but most of his guests are a who’s-who of trollkind. They include Allison Pearson, Rod Liddle, Claire Fox, Megyn Kelly, Laurence Fox, Lady Colin Campbell, Lord Voldemort, Scrooge McDuck, the millionaire from the cover of the Monopoly Box, Cruella DeVil, Megatron, Gargamel from the Smurfs and Nigel Farage. (Only the worst seven actually appear.)

Look, you can’t win against the Abyss and his attention-starved chums. Outrage is like oxygen to them. Each angry tweet or article just convinces them that they are martyrs on a burning pyre, even though that pyre is actually made of money and it’s not actually on fire because nobody thought to hire anyone who knew how fire works.

 

Nicely written.

Peak Little England. Even Buckinghamshire is already sick of this soggy dog end of English exceptionalism.

 

We're currently bingeing Call My Agent on Netflix. Very entertaining

 

Mrs Keighley very much enjoys this.

 

FYI started on Inside no. 9, really liked the second episode, like Parasite before Parasite was even made. Also the one with Migg the tramp.

 

It's good - no car chases, fighting or explosions, but still worth watching

 

It has improved my vernacular French!

 

First series is almost perfect. Second and third good too. Fourth a bit of a dip, but has been a great watch.

Another non-violent favourite is ‘Bonus Family’ on Netflix. It’s a Swedish story of families extended by divorce and how everyone gets on or doesn’t. It’s about as Swedish as Bj*rn Borg fixing flat pack furniture while wearing an ABBA t-shirt. Easily recognisable to the UK, but subtle cultural differences. A bit soapy maybe, but very well written and warm-hearted.

 

No one should miss ‘Time’ by the way. It’s fantastic TV. A hard watch, but a masterclass in honest, gripping story telling.

 

Brilliant. Stephen Graham is the best!

 

Good tip. I'll give Bonus Family a try

 

Article about its funding and its advertisers.

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/who-...E2pcMwJvFiNmEcUVeTaOkm7A93eSdjpw4STMgQRJUqVZo

 

The problem about the stage setting is that, like with other fantasies (Lord of the Rings being an obvious example), it introduces a lot of characters, dead and alive, relationships, rivalries and history, that is difficult to take in in the first viewing even if you give everything your undivided attention. Some of the characters I don't even remember being referred to by name and I had to look them up on the GoT wiki. I'm looking forward to watching the second season DVD but I needed to watch the whole season again to make a decision to purchase it (it would have been different had the first season ended on any kind of cliffhanger).

My main gripes though (albeit diminished on second viewing once I understood more what was going on and why certain characters are the way they are) is that while there are some gripping stories and the production and scenery are top notch, there are few characters who really engage my interest or elicit my sympathy, and of those that do, some are killed off too early (Ned, Viserys, Khal Drogo). Arya, Jon Snow and to a lesser extent Tyrion (I love the way he can talk his way out of any dangerous situation, but I feel he does love the sound of his own voice) are the only ones left who I really care about what's going to happen to them, the rest are intriguing but not particularly likeable and/or used more as plot devices. Hopefully the next season will have a smaller turnover of characters, and more character development and action.

 

On the upside, as put by the Telegraph, you won't find a programme where a paedophile invites children to come and sit on his knee and tell him what they want

 

Which paedophile? This one?



Or this one?


And why would that justify GB News’s partisan lies?

 

How do you know he was a paedophile? Lady Colin Campbell will be able to give you the correct definition, on GB News.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/16/lady...-calls-jeffrey-epstein-a-paedophile-14779493/

In fact, another recent guest has been once communist, pro IRA, now contrarian extreme right winger Claire Fox. Who would be happy for you to watch kiddie porn. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/art...ld-be-free-watch-child-porn-and-jihadi-videos
In mitigation, the BBC also gives this gob***** plenty of airtime, especially now Johnson has elevated her to the HoL for services to brexit.

Well done everybody!

 

Just started watching Sons of Anarachy on Netflix. Been meaning to watch it for the last couple of years and only just got round to it. Midway through season two, very good so far.

 

Just finished watching Time (3 part series) with Sean Bean and Stephen Graham. Really excellent viewing and the pair of them are superb as a guard and inmate

 

Have you watched The Shield? Kurt Sutter wrote both (staff writer on the shield) and lots of the same actors. Even the gang names are the same.

 

Hi Moog, no mate, haven't seen that. Will give it a go after SOA. Thanks.

 

I also haven't watched Mayans yet. It's on my list. SOA was very good though.

 

Keep meaning to check that out.