What TV series are you currently watching?

[DavidW]

When I looked at it, I had the impression that it seemed to contain mostly older shows (a number which I've already watched most of).  I'd love to be able to watch newer ones and/or ones which are currently being shown in the UK.  Wondering whether or not there's any way to do that--short of moving to the UK?

Britbox has plenty of new shows.  Including ones just airing now.  If you got that idea from looking at the Britbox channel on prime (which does a terrible job with curation), please try the dedicated app or the website instead.

[Brian]

When I looked at it, I had the impression that it seemed to contain mostly older shows (a number which I've already watched most of).  I'd love to be able to watch newer ones and/or ones which are currently being shown in the UK.  Wondering whether or not there's any way to do that--short of moving to the UK?

That Sue Perkins show sounds quite interesting!  I love reading about the history of food.  Once, some years ago, I had to make a food to bring to a medieval feast and found a relevant cookbook.  Made a greenish-colored  bread which featured a whole lot of parsley.....boy, was that ever a whole lot of chopping!

PD

There is some new/ongoing stuff on Britbox, and they have even gotten into the business of original series - often co-productions with the BBC or another service. For example, once Death in Paradise took off as a hit (it's still running), Britbox started making its own version, The Mallorca Files.

However, Britbox is a collaboration of BBC and ITV with some but not all of their catalogues. This leaves out one of the UK's most prestigious networks, Channel Four. Channel Four often licenses things to Netflix instead, like their most famous recent shows, Derry Girls and The Great British Bake Off.

[Irons]

Haven't heard of that miniseries, but will check into it.

By the way, how do you like Britbox overall?  Thoughts?

PD

I know you are an aclomshed

Haven't heard of that miniseries, but will check into it.

By the way, how do you like Britbox overall?  Thoughts?

PD

I think you may enjoy MasterChef PD.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

There is some new/ongoing stuff on Britbox, and they have even gotten into the business of original series - often co-productions with the BBC or another service. For example, once Death in Paradise took off as a hit (it's still running), Britbox started making its own version, The Mallorca Files.

However, Britbox is a collaboration of BBC and ITV with some but not all of their catalogues. This leaves out one of the UK's most prestigious networks, Channel Four. Channel Four often licenses things to Netflix instead, like their most famous recent shows, Derry Girls and The Great British Bake Off.

Thanks for the info!

I know you are an aclomshed
I think you may enjoy MasterChef PD.

Hadn't heard that term before, but I suspect that it was meant as a compliment. 

I've watched some of the British cooking shows before like "The Great British Bakeoff".  And have also watched some of the "Death in Paradise" shows.  Here in the States, PBS shows a number of British mysteries/period/etc., shows.  Part of the trick though is catching the latest episodes live....if not, then you would need to subscribe to be able to watch them on demand. 

I've also used the library system to watch older series (including ones that were made for subscription networks like HBO).

I do love a good mystery! 

PD

[George]

Barry
Season 4

Sooooooo good!!

[Florestan]

I also love Britbox Brian.  The only thing is that since it seems like content is 80% Britbox and 20% AcornTV, so I wish they would just merge.  Would like to go back to watching Miss Fischer's Murder Mysteries.

There's also this:



Watched a few episodes on Epic Drama but apart from Geraldine Hakewill's personal charm it's not as good as its predecessor.

[Roy Bland]

[Karl Henning]

I'm in a pre-Blu-ray survey of Columbo. "Candidate for Crime" (with Jackie Cooper as the perp) has one of my Top 5 Gotchas in the series. Well, definitely Top 10. Does it help that the perp is a bullshitting pol? Perhaps, but that's not the driver. And I'm winding down my second survey of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A couple of weak episodes as we head to the close of Season 7 ("Emergence" and "Preemptive Strike") but if they were keeping their powder dry for the finale, who can fault them?

[Iota]

Aussie comedy Colin from Accounts on the BBC IPlayer.

Ashley is a medical student who has just been dumped. Gordon runs a micro-brewery and has always been unlucky in love. The two are thrust together when, distracted by Ashley's actions, Gordon hits a stray dog with his car.

Blunt, sarcastic, sometimes puerile, at times dark or creepy but an absolute understated little gem of a Rom-Com of sorts at its most adorable and heart-warming, without ever being soppy or unrealistic. 8 x 30 min episodes, crammed with characters and side-stories, binged in less than 24 hours, leaving us now terribly missing Gordon & Ashley.

Man, this was a great watch.

     

Enjoyed that too, a few real belly laughs in the early episodes, leads and supporting cast all excellent, bit more rom than com in the latter half, which didn't quite hit the same heights for me, but still highly enjoyable.


Also finished the third and final series of 'Guilt'.



I found Max (Mark Bonnar) initially a bit too farcically wide boy-ish to be believable, but he seemed to settle in fairly quickly and from then on I was in it for the duration. There was an odd cognitive jolt of a change of actors for established roles between series (due to Bill Paterson e.g being tied up in GOT .. which I still haven't seen) but I ended up rather liking them. Some unforgettably vivid characters offering a choice of ways to be scarred or poisoned by the iniquities of life, affecting moments of drama and a smorgasbord of wild plot edge-of-seat moments all directed and acted with great flair, you could find a lot worse ways to spend your time.

[DavidW]

I rewatched season 1 of 24.  The main plot with Jack was always riveting. Some of the B plots though were terrible, melodramatic and leaned way too heavily on soap opera tactics. 

It had been twenty years since I've watched it.  And I still remembered the big twist on the final episode, and who the real villain was (only revealed a few episodes before the end).  But I mostly forgot it.  I had a distinct memory of Jack searching a field at sunset but didn't remember what happened and it was fun to rediscover it.  I don't think that I will rewatch any of the other seasons.  I remember that the stakes became more and more ridiculous as the show went on.  Having an assassination attempt on a political candidate was grounded enough.  Later seasons had terrorists detonating dirty bombs, heroes turned into villains, family members turned into villains... it just went off the rails imho but good during its time.

[SimonNZ]

I rewatched season 1 of 24.  The main plot with Jack was always riveting. Some of the B plots though were terrible, melodramatic and leaned way too heavily on soap opera tactics. 

Did it have a plane explosion or a train crash in the version you saw? As I understand it after 9/11 they reshot the plane with a train, but when I saw season 1 on dvd (presumably a UK edition) it was the plane version - which was really cleverly done, its stuck in my memory after all this time (that and Sarah Clarke's Nina).

TD:

[DavidW]

Did it have a plane explosion or a train crash in the version you saw? As I understand it after 9/11 they reshot the plane with a train, but when I saw season 1 on dvd (presumably a UK edition) it was the plane version - which was really cleverly done, its stuck in my memory after all this time (that and Sarah Clarke's Nina).

It is still a plane.  I've never heard of that before, and don't think that is right since I watched it both now and twenty years ago.  Without giving anything away a train doesn't work for the plot at all.

[SimonNZ]

It is still a plane.  I've never heard of that before, and don't think that is right since I watched it both now and twenty years ago.  Without giving anything away a train doesn't work for the plot at all.

Feel like I must be losing my mind: I checked that on Wikipedia yesterday but checking again now its not there - it just says they took out the shot of the plane exploding. The aliens from the movie Forgotten changed it while I was asleep (a running joke with friends of mine when the facts don't fit: "the aliens changed it")

I first heard about it on a podcast about culture reflecting their times that had an episode on season 1 of 24. I guess now I have to relisten to that.

[Brian]

I'm in a pre-Blu-ray survey of Columbo. "Candidate for Crime" (with Jackie Cooper as the perp) has one of my Top 5 Gotchas in the series. Well, definitely Top 10. Does it help that the perp is a bullshitting pol? Perhaps, but that's not the driver.

That is a definite Top 5 Gotcha! The only weak spot in the episode is the very long scene where Columbo shows Jackie Cooper a diagram of the driveway and the headlights...they could have cut that to half the length. And really the ending works without the explanation of how phones work. But that ending is so, so good.

[DavidW]

Feel like I must be losing my mind: I checked that on Wikipedia yesterday but checking again now its not there - it just says they took out the shot of the plane exploding. The aliens from the movie Forgotten changed it while I was asleep (a running joke with friends of mine when the facts don't fit: "the aliens changed it")

I first heard about it on a podcast about culture reflecting their times that had an episode on season 1 of 24. I guess now I have to relisten to that.

Well podcasts are highly suspect.  They're talking off the cuff sometimes for hours on things that range from right in their wheelhouse to bs they know nothing about.

I was curious and I now read over the entire imdb trivia page on 24.  It didn't pop up there.

Anyway in my mind the show embodies the post-9/11 era with an emphasis on the fear of terrorism and that torture is acceptable if it creates results.

[Todd]

The Diplomat.  Finally, a show that one can enjoy with no real caveats.  OK, there are some.  The dialogue is exceptionally well written, perfectly delivered – and entirely unrealistic.  No one talks like the people in show, even in highfalutin power positions.  (I did like the line about the main character having a preternatural ability to unfuck a clusterfuck.)  A couple of the scenes are slapstick silly.  And I never, not for one moment, bought into the premise that Keri Russell's character prefers frumpy threads and mussed hair.  Fortunately, the producers manage to squeeze her into some high-end, size two haute couture.  Rufus Sewell plays Ms Russell's husband, maintains his perfect American accent throughout, and lights up the screen with beneficent deviousness, energy, and wit.  Indeed, the show delivers some solid laughs.  And it is not afraid to make fun of the current president by using Michael McKean as a stand-in, with comments about his age and forgetfulness, and one zippy line delivered by a Russian ambassador about the amount of attention paid to the president's stupidest child.  The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, with T'Nia Miller – lately of The Peripheral – stealing the scenes she's in, even when they are with Mr Sewell.  Throw in a good, old-fashioned cliffhanger ending, and I eagerly await season two.   

[BWV 1080]

I watched the first episode and figured Netflix borrowed some writers from Lifetime - strong career woman, loser husband with dark secret, next season I heard she goes home for the holidays to the small town where she grew up and falls in love with her high school sweetheart who runs a home remodeling business

[Karl Henning]

I watched the first episode and figured Netflix borrowed some writers from Lifetime - strong career woman, loser husband with dark secret, next season I heard she goes home for the holidays to the small town where she grew up and falls in love with her high school sweetheart who runs a home remodeling business

An improvement, I suppose, on "Reality TV" Insofar as it's actually scripted.

[DavidW]

I watched the first episode and figured Netflix borrowed some writers from Lifetime - strong career woman, loser husband with dark secret, next season I heard she goes home for the holidays to the small town where she grew up and falls in love with her high school sweetheart who runs a home remodeling business

In other words every Lifetime movie ever made!

[Irons]

The Stones and Brian Jones on BBC iPlayer brought back many memories from a long time ago. Brian Jones was my favourite Stone when in my youth I worshiped the ground they walked on. As Keith Richards put it, "some people are never going to reach their 70's and Brian was one of them".