What TV shows have you been watching ?

  • ^ I really enjoyed LoM but staggered through the first 2 eps of AtA, which I found very hard-going, and gave up (KH and PG fan though I am).


    Is it worth just skipping straight to the final episode?

    Abandon all reason

  • ^ I really enjoyed LoM but staggered through the first 2 eps of AtA, which I found very hard-going, and gave up (KH and PG fan though I am).


    Is it worth just skipping straight to the final episode?


    hard to say, it's been a while, but I think it would be best to at least watch the final episode of Series 2, and then series 3, which sees the introduction of a key character, Jim Keats, played by Daniel Mays, another great actor, recently in Des.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • We are watching Away. It looked good. If you like SF which I do it's a bit crap. If you like soap operas which Mrs Farmer does ( well just one these days thank goodness) then this is the space soap for you. It should be called Home and Away but I think that title has gone already .

  • I think it would be best to at least watch the final episode of Series 2, and then series 3, which sees the introduction of a key character, Jim Keats, played by Daniel Mays, another great actor, recently in Des.

    OK maybe I'll try that. Yes I like Mays a lot, another Line of Duty alumnus of course along with Hawes and the superb Jason Watkins, also in Des.


    Des was horribly compelling. David Tennant is one of our best actors, no question. His matter-of-fact portrayal of Nielson, which I gather was fairly accurate, made it all the more chilling. The scenes with Watkins's author character in particular were mesmerising - what a treat seeing two such brilliant actors at work. Add in Mays and the great Ron Cook, and a generally excellent supporting cast, and you had a production that I think did justice to a horrifying true story.


    It was a starkly notable moment at the end when Nielson, with a very grim irony, berates the author for not mentioning the victims' names and insists he should honour them properly. It really summed up the complexity of the man - so casual and offhand having committed disgusting gruesome crimes yet seemingly also having a macabre sense of decency.


    A standout in a year that's so far seen some high-quality TV.

    Abandon all reason

  • Have you seen the Mindhunter series. The actors who played Charles Manson and Ed Kemper are incredible. Fab series and hope they make a third series.

  • I have been watching Spike Milligan on You Tube, Tonight. Crying with laughter. Had forgotten just how funny he was . Was he the funniest man ever?

    I found him variable, as is often the case with geniuses. Some elements of his humour remain of their time, but he instigated something completely new in comedy as the main author of the Goon Show. And that in turn inspired so much of the new humour and satire of the 1960s - Beyond the Fringe, the Footlights and Oxford companies eventually leading to Monty Python and the Goodies (who then inspired many of the 1980s comedians, and so on).


    In my teens I had loads of Goons recordings and loved the controlled anarchy of them. I found his TV shows more uneven but they were groundbreaking in their way. When the Pythons were planning their first series they nervously discussed whether to do away with punchlines. Then they saw Milligan's first Q series and he'd gone ahead and done just that anyway! He completely deconstructed how comedy worked.


    I'm not sure if he was the funniest man ever, I couldn't honestly say who is /was - for me, possibly Stan Laurel.


    What Milligan stuff were you watching?

    Abandon all reason

  • We are watching Away. It looked good. If you like SF which I do it's a bit crap. If you like soap operas which Mrs Farmer does ( well just one these days thank goodness) then this is the space soap for you. It should be called Home and Away but I think that title has gone already .

    Yes, I wasn't gone on it at all. In the same wheelhouse (but not quite as bad) as the truly awful The Loop. Looks like it's been cancelled too which is a little surprising.


    I just started a Russian series To The Lake. It's another apocalyptic virus out of control show, but very gripping so far. Well made.

  • First episode of new BBC political drama Roadkill. Good enough to want to carry on for now at least.

    ... although 2 eps in now and it's already getting a bit stupid. But I will persist - I can rarely resist a political drama.


    The BBC iplayer has all 4 seasons of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica (which I gather ran 2004-10). I randomly started watching it, having never seen the original and have enjoyed the first 2 episodes so far.

    Abandon all reason

  • I do not watch a lot of TV series as such. I have a soft spot for the 70s or 80s era programmes.


    Currently I do try to watch a lot of comedy programmes aired mainly from UK.


    Currently watched the new series of Graham Norton and Jonathon Ross shows, plus Question Of Sport.

  • Not a TV show as such but just watched a live-streamed performance of Mark Thomas's excellent stage show Cuckooed. It tells the story of his involvement with the activist group Campaign Against the Arms Trade, and their discovery that one of their fellow activists, and long-standing friend, was a spy for BAE Systems.


    The stream was followed by live interviews and chat. One of the participants was a man who fell foul of a notorious 10-year blacklisting within the UK construction industry. He and over 3000 others were either sacked prematurely from jobs or denied work altogether due to being classified as "domestic extremists" - which in his case resulted from campaigning for greater standards of safety within the industry. Many other safety campaigners suffered the same fate. People lost homes and marriages, and their mental health suffered, as a result. Eventually the construction companies got taken to court, admitted they'd run the blacklist and paid out millions in compensation.


    Another speaker described her 5-year relationship with a man who disappeared, then subsequently was revealed as an undercover cop (married, with 3 kids) who'd been spying on her and a group of fellow anti-racism campaigners, and had formed other similar fake long-term relationships. The Met Police later settled out of court when brought to account.


    Believe it or not, as usual with Thomas's shows, a serious topic was well presented but with humour.


    I'd seen this one on stage when it originally ran a few years ago and it was good to see it again.

    Abandon all reason