TV You Have Watched

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, apparently the Australian version has the cash in the center of the roundtable and less focus on team building in challenges which made the faithful's bond less - an interesting tweak that could change the flow without messing with the format

The upcoming US version has 18 contestants and 4 'celebrity' contestants... trust the Americans to ruin the format on the first attempt

[QualityChimp]

Hmm, that could be interesting. That extra layer of sussing if someone is genuine or not just because they're a "celebrity".

Any idea how to watch the Australian version, Neon?
I've heard it's decent, but I really liked how the contestants bonded towards the end.
They need a reunion show!

[Neon Ignition]

Nope, I don't think it's been shown anywhere, only seen it come up in online discussion so was surprised another run had already aired somewhere else

[QualityChimp]

Looks like Dailymotion is a way to watch it:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8en6hj

[Lebowski]

Just discovered the Detectorists despite it having been running on the BBC since 2014 id never heard of it. theirs three short 6 episode seasons and a couple of specials on bbc iplayer. Staring written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, and co staring Toby Jones its a really nice slice of laid-back TV focusing on Andy and Lance two middle-age men treading water and seeking solstice in metal detecting and treasure hunting. For the most part its an enjoyable watch but it occasionally dips into farce with some story-lines that really stretch the viewers patience and it also has some pretty unsatisfying conclusions to some of the storylines but thankfully theirs more to like here than to hate.

The Christmas special they did this year is a bit of a double edged sword for me its enjoyable and it helped me discover the series but rather than evolving the characters and their situation it try's hard to undo the ending of season 3 to reset the characters.

->Open Spoiler<-

Season 3 see's things wrapped up nicely, Andy and lance make amends with their rival detectorists and karma rewards them when they find a viking gold hoard on the last day their able to detect before the farm they have been searching for three seasons is transferred over to developers. Andy buys a dilapidated cottage to do up and seems to get his passion back and lance moves in with his girlfriend and his daughter gets to live close by too. it all seems like things are gonna go well for them but not in an unbelievable way. The Christmas special sees Andy's house burnt down lance back on his own and their hoard stolen by their rivals due to a claim dispute. It's really blatant that the writers didn't know how to move the characters on so just undoes the ending of season 3

Despite the lack of payoffs and the winding back it dose, its still a really good show and a decent watch.

[Neon Ignition]

Grand Tour
The most recent ep finally watched. I do enjoy these specials but I think I'd prefer it if they would do more where they were more directly competing against each other like the race eps in Top Gear used to be. There were bloated parts of this but without doubt the key moment was the tunnel, given their ages it really does feel like the show will end with a death one day.

[Lebowski]

Grand Tour
The most recent ep finally watched. I do enjoy these specials but I think I'd prefer it if they would do more where they were more directly competing against each other like the race eps in Top Gear used to be. There were bloated parts of this but without doubt the key moment was the tunnel, given their ages it really does feel like the show will end with a death one day.

The set pieces have more in common with the chuckle brothers than the top gear of old, they regularly jump the shark in ways that make no sense whatsoever.

"Oh no we've got lost in a snow storm good job where towing snow houses lets go to sleep"

cut to next day in a clearly different location

"Oh no we slept on a ski resort! oh look Hamonds still asleep and that prankster Clarkson has pushed his house down the hill, good job we have a camera inside to see a stunt guy get thrown about in a sleeping bag as the house skis down the hill, oh what hilarity."

Oh no Clarksons shed house is on fire as he fitted a flame thrower to his exhaust! oh what japes.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, that side of things is leant into far too hard when returning to head to head challenges etc would likely provide enough content not to have to rely on that stuff so much

[Neon Ignition]

Stranger Things: Season 01
We decided to try returning to the beginning, see how it all holds up in light of the info the fourth run delivers. The first season is still really strong, hits the right balance across the characters out of the gate for sure and the only plot hole we spotted was Joyce's lights to communicate with Will which shouldn't work at all. Really good to rewatch though.

[Atticus]

I'm not a huge fan of the contrivances and japes in The Grand Tour but there's enough good to tolerate them I think. If it disappeared forever I'd defo miss it. The last one (A Scandi Flick) was a great way to spend 90 mins (apart from the fact they

->Open Spoiler<-

destroyed a classic Mitsubishi Evo

).

[Lebowski]

And with little fan fair Our Flag means death has arrived on BBC Iplayer, one year after it showed up on HBO in the US, I watched the first episode last night and its got a great cast and is pretty funny overall. 18th century dandy Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) despite being a wealthy land owner buys a ship hires a crew and becomes a pirate. So far its a really good fish our of water type series with Stede having no aptitude for piracy which almost costs him his life as his crew see him as being to soft and weak. looking forward to watching some more tonight but its great so far.

The stand out scene for me

->Open Spoiler<-

was where captain Stede got them to all design and sew pirate flags, which sets off conversation on mutiny, their main reason for not wanting to kill him at that point though is because he's reading them pinocio and dose all the funny voices

[randombs]

Stranger Things: Season 01
We decided to try returning to the beginning, see how it all holds up in light of the info the fourth run delivers. The first season is still really strong, hits the right balance across the characters out of the gate for sure and the only plot hole we spotted was Joyce's lights to communicate with Will which shouldn't work at all. Really good to rewatch though.

I swear the kids used a desk lamp or something in later seasons to communicate from the upside down. I think it was a bit like Cooper fiddling with gravity in Interstellar.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, they use one in Season 04 but the plot hole is that S4 establishes that the Upside Down is a copy of Hawkins at moment Vakna was cast there. The lamp is used because it was present in that room back when that happened but Joyce throws up the lights sometime after that meaning that they wouldn't exist on the wall in the Upside Down for Will to communicate with. It's one of those small nerdy things that isn't all that important but I think it just stood out because S4 wasn't that long ago and the image of Joyce in her home is a strong one from S1.

[Lebowski]

Yep, they use one in Season 04 but the plot hole is that S4 establishes that the Upside Down is a copy of Hawkins at moment Vakna was cast there. The lamp is used because it was present in that room back when that happened but Joyce throws up the lights sometime after that meaning that they wouldn't exist on the wall in the Upside Down for Will to communicate with. It's one of those small nerdy things that isn't all that important but I think it just stood out because S4 wasn't that long ago and the image of Joyce in her home is a strong one from S1.

We now know that people in the UD can see sparkly things where lights are, and touching the sparkle in the upside down changes it in the real world, he wouldn't need the lights to be up in the upside down or the letters on the wall to interact with them, we also know you can hear voices in the upside down but cant respond. Will is extremely intelligent so being told light 1 is A light 2 is B ext would be more than enough for him to communicate, hes a math and radio nerd and top of his class, its more likely that Joyce paints the letters so she can keep up, not so Will can (it makes a cool visual thing for the viewers too) .

[Neon Ignition]

That would explain it then which leaves me only thinking that if sparkles appear where light sources exist in the normal world, wouldn't the UD be riddled with them from street lamps, car headlights etc