TV You Have Watched

[Atticus]

Enjoyed the first couple of eps of Frasier. It's not wall-to-wall belly laughs or anything, though the original show wasn't that either, but it has the warmth and good feels I hoped it would. An old-fashioned US sit-com that's perfect for a Friday night. It's good to have Frasier back.

[Colin]

Other half had watched some of it before whereas I’d seen none and been reluctant, but together we’ve sped through all four seasons of Sex Education in a few weeks. It’s focused on the sexual activity of teenagers as portrayed by 20-somethings, but framed around sex positivity, progressive attitudes, and seeking help with your issues rather than wallowing in messy hedonism. The two run parallel in a lot of ways but I almost feel like from what I remember of it, it’s jostling to be positioned as the anti-Skins?

In broad terms there are some good characters, storylines and messages in there, but the way the on/off, up/down nature of the two main characters is strung out in piecemeal fashion and is a bit too contrived to remain compelling for the whole run. Generally speaking I feel the show is on a steady downward trajectory, but this newest final season is particularly weak as it unceremoniously shuffles out a lot of recurring cast and pushes in a lot of new, struggling to carve them out meaningful roles while pushing a lot of others to the back.

Have to agree with this, as much as my wife and I have really enjoyed the show this final season just felt like they were trying to desperately shoehorn in too much new stuff. The move to the college setting just made the whole thing feel more than a little ridiculous, hopefully they'll stick by this being the last one.

[Lebowski]

Watched first new episode of Rick and Morty, voice actors don't sound great, they tried to go big with a massive ensemble cast where the new guy is doing half the voices for the first time, the whole thing fell on its face as everyone sounded wrong and off. I still don't get the canceling of Roland It's not not like he was presenting bake off, its an immature show with burp fart jokes mixed in with offensive adult humor. So i can see two ways forward for this cancel the show or bring back Justin Roland.

[fallenangle]

Watched Warriors the BBC Balkan's War 1999 military drama last night. Don't remember why I'd missed it the first time round or since but they were repeating it in two big chunks on BBC4 last night. I just happened to catch the start and it had me hooked for the whole thing.

Powerful and realistic stuff about the horrors of that war in Bosnia. Really worth seeing and a poignant reminder of how nasty it was and the effect it had on the British UN troops sent to help with the humanitarian effort but not allowed to intervene.

[charlesr]

Just started S2 of Dark on Netflix. Really cool

[egparadigm]

Just started S2 of Dark on Netflix. Really cool

Looks good, gonna check it out.

Netflix has recently locked in that household business which prevents password sharing.

->Open Spoiler<-

Have found that one of my netflix apps still works though, I guess because it’s really out of date and not supported with updates…

[Neon Ignition]

Red Dwarf XI
Still can't believe the most recent special moved away from what was starting to click with the show again at this point. Really solid overall run even if it pilfers old ideas a bit much.

[prinnysquad]

Quatermass and the Pit (1958/9)

The 1967 film is in my top 5 films of all time, so I thought I’d give this a rewatch after about 15 years. It holds up remarkably well. Andre Morell is excellent as the title character, occupying a finely-balanced middle ground between quiet, thoughtful respectability and powerful authority. The supporting cast I don’t like as much as their Hammer counterparts, but they do a fine job, and the extra hour-plus of running time allows the series to flesh out some scenes and explanations that the film glossed over a little.

The episodic nature is fully utilised with highly-effective cliffhangers at the end of each 30 minutes, and the narrative builds its layers beautifully. In some respects, this is superior to the film, because the effects look less cheesy and dated in black and white. 65 years on and this is still effective, entertaining television, with a story that continues to astonish with its complexity. It throws together ancient astronaut theory, race memory, the wild hunt, ghosts, poltergeists, religious imagery such as gargoyles, telekinesis, clairvoyance, witchcraft and the occult, and unifies them under a single concept. Hugely ambitious stuff from Nigel Kneale, a master of the genre.

10/10

[fuse]

Lots of toe-dipping been going on the past few weeks.

Gen V (Amazon) is alright; very much the college version of The Boys, with the same kind of gross-out shenanigans and poking fun at the same kind of targets, just with a young-adult backdrop to it.

Watched the first episode of The Continental (Amazon), the John Wick spin-off thing, which was not the casual episodic thing we were hoping for. Feature-length episodes, very dark both visually and thematically, and just... fairly charmless? It might improve, but I'm in no great rush to get back to this.

Watched a few episodes of Devil's Plan (Netflix), which is a Korean reality gameshow thing that would likely appeal to fans of Traitors, The Mole, etc. Big difference being the games they're asked to play though, which are less focused on physicality and are fairly complex puzzles - which caaan get a little tough to keep up with given there is only so much of it that the subtitles keep pace with. Will see this through.

Celebrity Race Around the World (BBC) was fairly entertaining, and although the "we're used to staying in five star hotels!" element is played out every bloody episode, they're a fairly endearing bunch and it still works as a nice travelogue thing.

Criminal: United Kingdom (Netflix) has this tight focus on the police interrogation process, set in just an interview room and the halls outside it. The cast of officers remains the same but their stories are minimal, with each episode really serving as a vehicle for a single actor (see: Sophie Okonedo, David Tennant, Sharon Horgan, Kit Harington... you get the idea) to come in and flex their acting chops in the hot seat. Everything plays out very conveniently with the right ups and downs in the drama, but it's also plenty watchable.

[fallenangle]

^ Celebrity Race Around The World was pushing the description of celebrity well past its meaning. Melanie Blatt was the only one I knew and anyone under twenty-five likely wouldn't have a clue about who she was either.

Still it was an OK series, like the previous Canadian non-celebrity one, the landscapes and photography were the real stars of the show.

[Colin]

Binged season 4&5 of What We Do In The Shadows as we didn’t even know they were out yet, always enjoyable.

[Neon Ignition]

The Enfield Poltergeist
A four part series looking at the 70's case. Regardless of outcome it's still a genuinely interesting case largely by virtue of how extensive the audio recordings are and the amount of people who were involved in it over that time. The biggest issue though is how very clearly faked the 'haunting' was and though appearing only briefly herself towards the end, to this day, Janet remains firmly full of ****.

[Neon Ignition]

Quantum Leap: Season 01
Back to the original season in a slow build up to watching the new version. Has it's moments though the first season is very episodic and so storylines lack an overarching importance and tend to be based on other popular stories so are overly obvious how they pan out which can make it a little over dull at times. The most fun part is spotting people you recognise from other stuff, looking forward to when the second run starts to expand more on Sam and Al's characters which is where the emotional connection to the two leads kicks in more.

[fallenangle]

Signora Volpe Freeview Drama (20) Wednesday evenings.

Fairly recent new series (2022) with Emelia Fox as a resting 'MI6' agent finding her talents useful for local detective work after moving to be near her sister living in an Italian rural idyll.

The attractive Italian landscape is a big plus; storylines OK-ish but nothing special, good all round writing and acting in an inoffensive well made crime drama that passes the time if you want some undemanding midweek TV entertainment.

[eastyy]

The Enfield Poltergeist
A four part series looking at the 70's case. Regardless of outcome it's still a genuinely interesting case largely by virtue of how extensive the audio recordings are and the amount of people who were involved in it over that time. The biggest issue though is how very clearly faked the 'haunting' was and though appearing only briefly herself towards the end, to this day, Janet remains firmly full of ****.

Was watching that and first i thought ...hmm sounds plausible with the weird goings on at the start...but when it got to the girl supposedly being possessed it was at that point I lost interest and saw it as a load of rubbish