What Have You Been Watching Lately? (No Spoilers)

Chris1963 said:
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.
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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.
 
Further to my most recent post last week;

After having watched some more Tales of the Unexpected episodes, it's worth remarking on how misogynistic the series is, in a way that would probably not be allowed on TV today. While Crown Court simply had ribald back stories of defendants being involved in adultery, TOTU takes things one step further by portraying virtually every adult female as being bad, money-grabbing, cynical, sex-obsessed, obnoxious, unhinged or simply stereotypical in one way or another. I have yet to see an episode which has a completely likeable female character.

Another point worth noting is that the words 'Roald Dahl's...' have been dropped from the opening credits of many later episodes, for the reason that he does not introduce these individual episodes. This has the advantage of adding more running time for the stories, and in fact the advert break was also missing from a couple of episodes I saw earlier today.

If you want to watch it, a final point to make is that the screening time (on Sky Arts) this week has been brought forward from 6 pm to 5 pm for the last of the three daily showings. Don't know if this will be the case next week as well. Thankfully, the fact that I am now retired means that I can watch all three!
 
"Griselda" : 6 hour-long episode mini-series on Netflix.

Sofia Vergara plays Griselda Blanco in the dramatisation of the true story of the Colombian woman who escapes the Medellín drug cartel, only to then become the cocaine queen of Miami of the 1970s.

Really enjoyed it!

Felt very weird at first seeing Gloria from Modern Family smoking and repeatedly the F-word, I soon shook free from that, and she really does own that character. Very mature performance from her.

Penultimate episode is insane but particularly well produced.

Powerful female characters, drugs, violence and Miami in the 70s. Big fan.
 
chuckbert said:
I’m enjoying One Day. Great acting, decent plot. Not sure they completely captured the 90s vibe, but the tunes are excellent.
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Someone told me yesterday that Bristol hasn't moved on since the 90s, and it's the most accurate thing I've ever heard.
 
Kin 2
Recently watched ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ with the better half. Enjoyed it enough to read the book.
 
Further to my recent posts about TOTU, most United fans would have been amused to see that the title of a recent episode shown on Sky Arts was 'Parson's Pleasure' which of course alludes to that notorious male nude bathing place in Oxford (it closed in the early 1990's) although this particular episode is not set in the city. The reason for the title is that the main character, played by John Gielgud, disguises himself as a parson when trying to rip people off by buying their rare items of antique furniture at prices much lower than they should be.
It is unclear whether the title was Gielgud's idea and it could be viewed as ironic, given that he himself already had a criminal conviction for "persistently importuning for immoral purposes"
 
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First two episodes of 'Shogun' on Disney - looks great and sets up nicely for the series. Ploughing a similar furrow to Game Of Thrones in terms of conspiring, warring dynasties - although obviously without the monsters and dragons s**t.
 
Big Ron said:
First two episodes of 'Shogun' on Disney - looks great and sets up nicely for the series. Ploughing a similar furrow to Game Of Thrones in terms of conspiring, warring dynasties - although obviously without the monsters and dragons s**t.
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I started watching it last week, best thing I have seen for a while, plus after learning Spanish watching Narcos if this runs for a few seasons I should be fluent in Japanese as well.
 
holdsteady said:
I started watching it last week, best thing I have seen for a while, plus after learning Spanish watching Narcos if this runs for a few seasons I should be fluent in Japanese as well.
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Some of Cosmo Jarvis' acting is a bit 'Toast Of London' but none the less compelling for that.
 
Big Ron said:
Some of Cosmo Jarvis' acting is a bit 'Toast Of London' but none the less compelling for that.
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He is an Englishman talking to foreigners, if they don’t understand us we just say the same thing a bit louder, can’t imagine that has changed in the last few hundred years so maybe he is channeling that?
 
Just watched BBC’s Ukraine; Enemy in the Woods.
Very powerful documentary showing the bravery of holding onto to 500 metres of railway track by a 100 strong unit, a lot of them no more than kids.
 
'Ripley' on Netflix

Completely different take on the film (The Talented Mr Ripley). Good acting. Easy to just sink into it. A joy
 
QR said:
'Ripley' on Netflix

Completely different take on the film (The Talented Mr Ripley). Good acting. Easy to just sink into it. A joy
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Not a reboot of Alien then...
 
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