TV You Have Watched

[Neon Ignition]

Ghosts: Series 02
Humour wise there are one or two clever jokes but broadly this run is very similar however overall it's a much stronger run than the first, diving much more into the origins of the ghosts and moving the characters beyond just being quite simple stereotypes.

[Neon Ignition]

Upload: Season 02
Solid but not as strong as the first season as it gets bogged down in places trying to drag things out. The cliffhanger... yeah, I've seen Farscape... I know where this is going.

[Neon Ignition]

Upright: Season 01
Tim Minchin and Milly Alcock led road trip series where the two are involved in a car accident and end up travelling across Australia dragging a piano in tow whilst slowly uncovering each others pasts. You can kind of guess reveals before they happen but the whole thing is very nicely delivered that it lands well across the whole run.

[fallenangle]

Enjoying very much the rerun of Stargate Universe on Sky Mix.

Really liked it first time I watched it probably a decade ago now. Proper, grown up sci-fi series with complex characters and intriguing, strong overarching story line.

Robert Carlyle dominates as the sociopathic Dr Rush but there are some excellent performances from the rest of the cast too, particularly Louis Ferreria as the flawed, inadequate and out of his depth, accidental leader of the 'expedition'. Having a main character like that is especially daring as in most sci-fi series the 'captain' is expected to be an amour plated hero. But here it works and not just because it is unusual but because the writers made his weaknesses and bad decisions central to much of the drama.

Fanboys of SG1 and SG: Atlantis hated SG:U because it eschewed the humour, the tight knit unit of likeable characters and general coziness that were hallmarks of those earlier series. I liked those series too but SG:U is at another level of sophistication in terms of storytelling, concept and characters which makes it well worth watching again.

[Lebowski]

We tried watching Finders Keepers, the other night but its just not entertaining or believable it moves on at a snail pace too, James Patrick Buckley and Neil Morrissey star playing this awkward father and son-in-law dynamic, They find a Saxon Horde of treasure while bonding over some metal detecting and Buckley's character tries to get them to keep it and sell it on to some dodgy underground art dealer. This doesn't go to plan and sends them both down a path towards, being caught up in something bigger than both of them.

Morrissey is supposed to be the sensible straight man but takes little to no convincing to do the wrong thing (you could argue his business being in the ****ter and having a disabled son to look after are all the convincing he needs, but he doesn't seem like a character to take questionable moral shortcuts. Buckley plays this obnoxious clueless arsehole who feels like a more grown up version of Jay from the in-betweeners, but with all his redeeming qualities removed. With two episodes down out of 4 we binned it off. it has that annoying thing where it shows you a series of clips from the next episode which completely spoil what's coming up and give you a run-down of the full episode.

[Neon Ignition]

30 Coins: Season 01
The budget is obviously low but it doesn't stop this taking some ridiculously big swings with it on occasion, a move that kind of makes it endearing as it dabbled with The Thing like ropey monsters. It's a spanish series set in a remote small town where the towns Mayor and local vet get caught up with a priest in trying to work out the weird things that have started to occur in the town. The set up essentially is that when Judas betrayed Jesus he was paid thirty roman coins for the act. In retribution of this God cursed the coins and whoever has possessed one throughout the two thousand years since has been cursed themselves. One of these coins emerges in the town and things quickly get out of hand. It's bats above its weight but is more likeable for it, kind of hokey but also works and I can only imagine where the second run will go in dialling things up.

[fallenangle]

I was going to try Finders Keepers but thought better of it. Sounds like I made the right decision.

The weekly (Friday 9pm) program I'm quite enjoying on More4 in recent weeks is part of their "Walter Presents" selection of, usually, European dramas: the French language crime investigation series: Astrid, Murder In Paris.

There's nothing really remarkable about it and feels derivative of similar US/UK series but the twist is that the main protagonists are female detectives and one of them, Astrid, is significantly autistic. In fact she is a crime archivist who has been co-oped by her detective partner after she recognised her value in that Astrid's social ineptness, naivety, awkwardness and obsessional traits are actually useful tools which can help to solve crimes.

I still can't decide whether Sara Mortensen's portrayal of Astrid is too theatrical but it is....................interesting. I suspect that she has watched Freddie Highmore in The Good Doctor and there's more than one occasion where there's has been a strong hint of Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory) in the performance. In particular when 'her spot' in the police canteen was occupied.

Undemanding stuff but competent and enjoyably different, mainly due to the unusual pairing.

[fallenangle]

Have to add this. I don't usually watch awards ceremonies but this 'in memoriam' part of the BAFTAs last night was a standout feature. A perfect re-working of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time and beautifully sung by Hannah Waddingham:-



I know they can't cover everyone of significance who died in the last year but one omission immediately came to mind: David McCallum who died in October. Perhaps he'll be honoured at the BAFTA Television awards later this year as he is perhaps better known for his TV work. But he'd been in the industry since the late 1950s, was in The Great Escape and working in films right up to 2015.

[QualityChimp]

Just as a quick catchup, here are some of the shows we've been watching the last few months. Some with my wife and a couple on my own. The Prisoner is a bit too out there for her.

Poker Face (NowTV)
We really enjoyed this. A loveable lead with a fun gimmick where she can tell when people are lying and finds herself solving murders whilst on the run from The Mob.
Bring on S2.

Traitors UK S2 (iPlayer)
Must-see TV for us. Love having a show that is staggered and you get those "watercooler" moments to discuss at work.
I like it because it's a great format, they're pretty normal people and it's a masterclass in editing.

Murder at the End of the World (D+)
Quite a sad tale that's not so much about "whodunit" but how the protagonist ended up at the place where the murders take place.
We really enjoyed this, but possibly fizzled out towards the end, but that could be because we lost momentum when Christmas happened.

Jack Ryan S5 (Prime)
We watched the final series of Ryan and each series has been great, but suitably varied yet you know you're still going to get some thrills.
Some great espionage if you're looking for that kind of thing, with a great lead.

Reacher S1 (Prime)
I want to watch S2, but rewatched S1 with my wife.
It's still a great show with some funny moment, but I do tire of Reacher always being right.
I quite like it when a character proves him wrong.
Despite that, I liked the ensemble approach, which I hear S2 lacks, but I'm still looking forward to it.

The Prisoner (ITVX)
I've been meaning to watch this again for years, having revisited Portmeirion a few years back.
I still think there are episodes I've never seen, so it's really interesting to watch.
There's never been anything like it before or since and I love it's quirkiness.
If you can cope with the ads, this version on ITVX is really crisp.

Trigger Point (ITVX)
I got confused when a co-worker was enthusing about Trigger Point, before I finally realised they weren't talking about Tipping Point.
Vicky McClure makes a great TV cop and this is a really tense show about bomb disposal experts, but each episode is really tense!
We had to watch something less strenuous after so we didn't go to bed whilst on edge!
We're about 3 eps into S1.

Doctor Who (iPlayer)
I wanted to watch the McCoy era episodes and have found these 25 minute episodes perfect for a lunch break.

Park and Rec (Freevee)
So we're onto the final series of P&R and have one episode left.
It's probably one series too many as there's a time-jump forward with some characters falling out for no reason but to reconcile.
It's nice that it's a show that got an ending, though. Seems like it's a rare beast to have a conclusive story arc these days.

[Neon Ignition]

Upright: Season 02
I don't think there will be a third season of this as Milly is well off on her career now and it took three years to get this second run made. It's not as good as the first overall but when it works it still does and the ending packs its emotional punch well again. Ends in a place that you could consider a proper ending too which is nice.

[Lebowski]

Upload Season 1-3 Amazon.

This keeps surprising me in how they seem to move the show on but keep it fresh, it's an SCI-FI comedy drama about an afterlife where In 2033, humans can Upload themselves into a virtual afterlife of their choosing (uploading vaporises your head so theirs no going back). The story follows Nathan Brown, who suffers massive internal injuries in a car accident and is uploaded to a place called Lake View before his death. The first season revolves around the mystery of his death, while also poking fun at the fact that there is a way to keep people consuming even in death.

Everything in Lake comes at a price, even the view of the lake out the window is a premium feature, as are clothes food and the Data they use. Nathan's very wealthy, still living girlfriend keeps Nathan under her thumb and treats him like a possession as she essentially owns him (uploads have no rights). Theirs some pretty funny moments, like Nathan being at his own funeral and being pretty much ignored by everyone there as they are all too busy to talk to him.

Bear in mind that while this show is interesting in concept it's not what I would call amazing must watch TV, it's a fun 30 minute comedy with an ok cast that does a good job of poking fun at the mega corps and exploring some interesting questions around life death and money. at times its bit to reliant on falling back on old TV tropes including love triangles and pretty obvious you can see it a mile away story beats. It also has this annoying habit of leaving seasons on cliffhangers, and in this day and age of TV streaming cancellations it's a pretty risky thing to do.

[wakka]

We have gotten really obsessed with The Traitors in our gaffe and so far worked our way through both UK series, both Australian series, the NZ one, and now we've almost finished the Canadian one.

You have to get NZ and Canadian ones by hooky methods but if you can be bothered I can thoroughly recommend the NZ one if you like the format. It stands out as the series with the brightest, most mature contestants to me. It has a much lower budget which leads to some changes in how the missions are delivered, which I actually preferred in many cases.

The Canadian one is pretty good, too. I think the Australian ones are weaker, especially the second series, which is dominated by a malignant narcissist who bullies everyone. The first isn't bad though.

We've not watched the US ones yet because, as co-productions with the UK, the setting and tasks are exactly the same as the UK one. Also I accidentally saw a spoiler of who wins US series 1 (). We will probably get round to them at some point though, now that we've exhausted every other anglophone version!

[egparadigm]

I have also watched lots of Traitors after UK series 2: Oz series 2 and US series 1. I agree about the narcissism, but also the contestants were surprisingly gullible. The ending was very satisfying mind!

The lauding of narcissism and the talk of murders is a bit concerning, generally.

[Atticus]

Finished the second season of The Bear. Easily on par with the first with excellent support (cameo levels) from Jamie Lee Curtis and Bob Odenkirk.

I was going to cancel my D+ sub as it's gone through the roof but I might just keep it for S3.

[QualityChimp]

We're currently on Traitors Aus S2, so no spoilers!
Yeah, they're pretty awful people, but as the herd thins, some of the nicer people are becoming more apparent.

Saw the final episode of Parks & Rec, which was lovely, if a little anti-climactic. It was nice to see a show get a finale, which seems rarer and rarer, these days.

S2 of Trigger Point is still tense and fun, but there are some almost pantomime villains to shout at, which is realistically part of the fun!