TV You Have Watched

[fuse]

Inside Man I think is a beeb thing, but we watched on Netflix. Stanley Tucci and David Tennant take top billing, and it's written by Steven Moffat. Let me tell you, friends - it is tripe of the highest order. There's some key line in there from Tucci's character I'm paraphrasing about how "everyone is one bad day away from being a murderer", and the whole show seems to hinge on dancing around it like some kind of earth-shattering philosophical revelation. It really isn't, and incredibly there are even worse, even more staggeringly bad moral positions it seems to take during its course. This is before you get into the terrible script, which is not anywhere near as funny as it clearly thinks it is, loaded with cliches and repeated reminders of who the characters are, and made me react - more than once! - out loud to just how ridiculous it all is. It is not just bad, but offensively so. I'm still furious that we watched the whole thing in one sitting and that I didn't switch off 30 minutes in.

[Colin]

Fargo season 5, absolute gold so far. We've binged the first eight episodes and gutted the last two aren't available yet. Brilliant stuff, almost up there with peak Fargo.

[MartyG]

Mr Bates vs The Post Office

The lies the post office tells us (and why is the Post Office still able to do its own criminal prosecutions in this day and age? Why is this even a thing any more?).

[Cepp]

Yeah it was quite something, I was only going to watch one episode the other night but ended up bingeing the whole thing.

I've seen bits about it in the news over the years but wasn't aware of the sheer scale of it. Not to mention Fujitsu being able to remotely access live systems and the Post Office being able to bring about their own prosecutions like you said. Stealing from postmasters while accusing them of theft and ruining their lives. Mental stuff.

[Neon Ignition]

Upload: Season 01
Takes a beat to settle into its pacing but this largely light show deals with the concept of humans being able to upload themselves to a server when near the point of death. Existing within an idylic location, it covers how they deal with the real world etc whilst also mixing in a murder mystery and other elements. Adter a few weps it starts to dial up the emotional stakes and that's when things really begin to click. It's just had its third season and feels like as we catch up this might become a low-key fave.

[Lebowski]

I quite enjoyed the first two seasons didn't know a third had dropped, Amazon really need to push this stuff more, The way they take a swipe at microtransactions in this made me laugh too with everything in the afterlife coasting money food, clothes, Lodgings ect.

[Neon Ignition]

Reacher: Season 01
Just about okay. Clearly low on budget, high on word soup and low on logic. There's a slight bit of humour to keep characters engaging but generally nothing amazing.

[Lebowski]

Mr Bates vs The Post Office

The lies the post office tells us (and why is the Post Office still able to do its own criminal prosecutions in this day and age? Why is this even a thing any more?).

We watched this in one sitting on Friday night, and I'd say it's essential viewing. It's a fantastic example of how a UK Organisation can view its reputation as worth more than the lives of its employees. The short version of the story is a multi million pound system was rolled out for book keeping at all uk post offices any errors or discrepancy were the responsibility of the post masters who ran the branch. Bugs in the system caused thousands of pounds to suddenly show as short, these often doubled in front of the post master eyes and the horizon helpline would tell them "you're the only one, nobody else is having these problems" you have to make up the discrepancy. When they couldn't, they threw the book at anyone that tried to challenge them in court, turning a £5,000 discrepancy into £400,000 worth of legal bills or in a lot of cases prison. They pushed people into plea deals to avoid jail time, and they stalled and dragged court proceedings out in the cruellest way possible.

That's where Mr bates comes in, he refused to sign his books as he knew they were wrong so they fired him and took his post office off him, but they couldn't prosecute him as he refused to put his name against the discrepancy's. Over the course of the series it shows how he refused to let it go and try's to find other people with this problem, this then balloons into a class action against the post office for the wrongful prosecution and to prove that the horizon system was at fault.

That they bankrupted people took their livelihoods their homes, prosecuted and sent these people to prison when they knew their systems were to blame is disgraceful. In a lot of the case they shouldn't of even taken these people to court as they had no right to investigate them. It's no secret that its been proven that the post office board and Fujitsu's board of directors knew no money had been taken and that its system was at fault. Have the people who did this been brought to justice, have they had criminal proceedings brought against them for the clear Fraudulent behaviour? Nope, the head of the post office at the time has handed back her CBE, but that's it.

What of the compensation they were promised, well despite them all having their names cleared in 2019 it's take an ITV drama to get any sort of commitment to anything from our government. And the deal their being offered is crap.

[Colin]

Finished the latest season of Fargo last night, and although as a whole it was excellent, the finale just felt a bit underwhelming. Having said that, still the most entertaining thing I've watched in ages, and the only thing I've been willing to binge watch in quite a while. Well, until I had to watch the last two episodes weekly anyway!

[Dogg Thang]

I've been watching For All Mankind and I'm now up to the start of season 3. I'm finding it a mixed bag. The time jumps really pull the rug out from the story in a few places for me, meaning that the consequences of things don't have to play out or the potential of how to achieve certain things is bypassed. And maybe this has to happen for drama but they all seem really sloppy, which is why everything goes wrong. I did love the end of season 2 and felt that built to an amazing finish. But I'd love to have seen that continue in season 3 but the time jump meant again that the consequences were just left behind. Overall, I'm enjoying it but I find myself wishing it was stronger.

[Neon Ignition]

We tend to struggle with the first few eps each season too, settling back into it and eventually it hits the right drama notes to pull us back in.


Squid Game: The Challenge
The real world version with real people competing for the prize. The lack of death has an effect on the strategies people use but it's still interesting to see some of the same mindsets emerge despite the lack of need for it. Perhaps the biggest issue with the show as a game show is that luck plays too large of a roll, those still in it at the end only occasionally needed to display skill and yet it was still quite engrossing to watch and incredibly faithful to the original show.

[Lebowski]

I saw clips of the last episode and the last two games spoilers follow....

The game were all random chance not skill, they were pressing a button to decide if they stayed or went, then they played rock paper scissor to get a chance to pick a key and open a door it was more like Strike it Lucky than the often brutal contests in Squid Games.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, the further it went on the more random luck was introduced when really it should try to make things more cut throat

[Neon Ignition]

The Traitors: Series 2
Really didn't expect this to work as it's very similar to the first run with very few changes made to it but human nature ruled the day and it surpassed the first series. The players having seen the show before and thinking that they had it worked out really played into events well.

[Neon Ignition]

Scrubs: Season 01
We've started working through this again and it's still good fun though there are regularly moments or jokes that haven't aged too well