andystroud
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- Joined
- 8 Dec 2017
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Earlier on in this thread I mentioned how much I had enjoyed watching 'Crown Court' on TPTV. The channel has now announced that the series won't be back on until later this year. So, desperate to watch some more nostalgia, I decided to try 'Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected' which has recently started a rerun on Sky Arts (this channel is available on Freeview) the other week. The series was originally shown around 1979 but I never watched it then (as a 16 year old, I rarely watched anything on TV other than football) so I've decided to start watching it now.
Sky Arts are showing it in the format of two back-to-back episodes (each lasting 30 minutes) on weekdays in three time slots - 9 am, 1 pm and 6 pm. This includes repeats of the previous day's episodes, so if you've missed one, you only have to wait the next day to see it.
If there is an award for the best opening credit sequence of any TV series, then surely Tales of the Unexpected would win. It's hypnotic the way it opens with sinister images and the way the lead actor's name suddenly flashes up on the screen is chilling.
And as for the stories themselves, they vary in quality from the poor to the outstanding. The best one I've seen so far is 'The Flypaper' which I've just seen at 6.30 pm this evening and should be repeated tomorrow morning. It's really disturbing. Other excellent episodes I've seen have been 'The Hitchhiker' and 'The Umbrella Man'
The series is notable for having included many famous British actors in it, sometimes playing unrelated characters in different episodes. For example, Joan Collins (playing, as one reviewer noted, a similar type of character to the one she has played in films like 'The Stud' and 'The Bitch') and Susan George have both appeared in different episodes in the last fortnight.
The location filming is in itself a good reason to watch the series if you're a nostalgia obsessive like myself. It was filmed mostly in East Anglia (in the episode 'The Hitchhiker' you can see a road sign that says that a new motorway will open in the autumn of 1979) but other parts of the UK can be seen, for example, in 'The Landlady' there is some good footage of Bath, including the ground of Bath Cricket Club which can be seen through the window of a train approaching the station.
I've read on IMDB that later seasons of TOTU in the 1980's were filmed in the US rather than the UK, which is disappointing but I will wait and see how it turns out.
I’ve started watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents.. (also on Sky Arts) for similar nostalgic reasons. It originally ran from 1955-62, so I must have seen reruns previously.