SS-GB

[DracoM]

Well, blimey, if the BBC series made all the changes listed in RT on that level, they have virtually re-written and eviscerated it. It's a totally different book / TV piece. How on earth did they get away with that?

[Nick Armstrong]

I enjoyed it - in spite of (or possibly because of) the many similarities to the 1964 Doctor Who story The Dalek Invasion of Earth - and thought it particularly good at demonstrating how everyone in the Nazi chain of command loathed each other. Eidenger was very good - the most fully-rounded character in the story - and I loved being caught out by the plot twists. The very end seemed to me to be hedging its bets for a second series.

The Doctor Who analogy escaped me! (A couple of the reviews I read drew 'amusing' comparisons with 'Allo, 'Allo - but since that's certainly a series which always struck me as 'distasteful' as well as soul-destroyingly unfunny, I never watched more than about 5 minutes so that analogy didn't strike me either!)

For some reason I was happily taken in by the whole thing, from the Spitfire landing on the Mall in front of a bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace at the start, to the final episode which I found nail-biting - and I liked the Thirty-Nine Steps touch of the hero (the sound on my telly didn't make him whisper) striding across barren countryside at the end (yes, towards a season 2? alas, I doubt it).

Haven't seen or read any other 'What if Jerry had won the war' stories, which perhaps helped enjoying this one. There's an ambitious series on Amazon Prime, The Man in the High Castle (based on a Philip K Dick novel) which is on a similar footing from a US perspective ("it's 1962, America has lost WWII; the east is the Greater Nazi Reich and the west, the Japanese Pacific States.") which was intriguing for the first episode but which I haven't had time to pursue...

However, for real engrossment it was pale in comparison with Follow the Money on BBC4, and The Team on More4 - whew! (I'm also hooked on Prime Witness 1973 and the third series of Broadchurch - the second had been so dire I very nearly didn't bother, but this is much, much better - with an infinitely superior handling of a rape crime than the Beeb's recent Apple Tree Yard. )

Got Follow the Money (loved Season 1) and The Team queuing up on the hard disc under the telly; am finding the current Broadchurch engrossing having abandoned Season 2 as daft; and hated Prime Witness 1973, abandoned during the first episode!

[vinteuil]

... I liked the Forty-Nine Steps touch :

I think you mis-counted*



* [ probably too many clementines... ]

[Nick Armstrong]

I think you mis-counted

Brex-flation!!

Thanks for your ceaseless vigilance, vinblanc

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The 49 steps? That's another storey.

[Serial_Apologist]

The 49 steps? That's another storey.

There's a flaw somewhere in there....

[Nick Armstrong]

[Richard Tarleton]

Haven't seen or read any other 'What if Jerry had won the war' stories

Robert Harris's Fatherland a good read.

I may be the only Netflix subscriber round here, but the 2 series of Fargo amongst the best things I've seen on TV in a while. The snowy landscapes of Minnesota and North Dakota the backdrop for some fine if bloody stories and great acting. Martin Freeman from Sherlock stars in the first series (the second series takes place 30-ish years earlier, with one or two characters in common). I took out a Netflix sub after watching all 4 series of House of Cards on DVD, when The Crown started - that was rather good too.

Am enjoying Broadchurch 3 - I've known the West Bay setting since childhood. Line of Duty returns shortly

[Lat-Literal]

There has just been a terrorist incident outside Parliament so perhaps fact is getting closer to fiction.

For what it's worth, the two people I know who saw the programme thought it horrible and not all that respectively.

[Nick Armstrong]

I may be the only Netflix subscriber round here, but the 2 series of Fargo amongst the best things I've seen on TV in a while. The snowy landscapes of Minnesota and North Dakota the backdrop for some fine if bloody stories and great acting.

No - there's two of us. House of Cards, Fargo, others besides - absolutely brilliant.

[ostuni]

Make that 3 Netflix viewers. Orphan Black, Narcos, both excellent.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

The 49 steps? That's another storey.

Accessible by Schindler's lift?

[Stunsworth]

Make that 4 Nexflix subscribers.