Recommended Television Programmes

[Serial_Apologist]

Watched the first two episodes of 'The Sixth Commandment' on the BBC i-player last night - terrific, creepy, unbelievable, yet apparently a true story - I think we will be watching the other two this evening.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...iesId=p0fvlpjj

I watched this with growing despair at how religion can be used, whether by politicians, businesses or psychopaths, to prime ostensibly good and well-meaning people into believing anything or anyone, and by the implicit corollary in the underlying message about trusting other people.

[Serial_Apologist]

I watched this with growing despair at how religion can be used, whether by politicians, businesses or psychopaths, to prime ostensibly good and well-meaning people into believing anything or anyone, and by the implicit corollary in the underlying message about trusting other people.

Speaking of which, a wonderful documentary on the origins of the Israeli state has just begun on PBS America. It goes a long way to redressing the conflation of Judaism and Zionism that has led to so much trouble in the Labour party. The makers of this would never be passed for membership of current Labour, that's for sure.

[Bryn]

Speaking of which, a wonderful documentary on the origins of the Israeli state has just begun on PBS America. It goes a long way to redressing the conflation of Judaism and Zionism that has led to so much trouble in the Labour party. The makers of this would never be passed for membership of current Labour, that's for sure.

Can you offer any further information on the programme? What's the title, presenter, director, source, etc?

[Serial_Apologist]

Can you offer any further information on the programme? What's the title, presenter, director, source, etc?

7.15pm - Israel: a twice Promised Land 1/2
A documentary about Israel after the Second World War, focusing on the period from when the conflict ended to the UN vote on the Partition Plan.

8.25pm - 2/2
A look at the years between 1948 and 1967, two decades punctuated by wars between Israel and its neighbours.


That is all the info provided in Radio Times, I'm afraid.

[Bryn]

Thanks. I found the second programme. Good to have a somewhat different take to Tony Greenstein's "Zionism During the Holocaust: The weaponisation of memory in the service of state and nation".

[richardfinegold]

We just finished watching The Americans, the six season series about a married team of KGB moles that takes place during the Reagan Administration. In many ways this series was highly reminiscent of Breaking Bad, and I suspect that isn’t by accident.
Both shows are about ordinary appearing people by day that have secret lives in which they perform terrible deeds. The protagonists in both shows have family members that are being initially kept in the dark, but ultimately discover the truth and become reluctant enablers. In both shows the chief nemesis in charge of catching the wrong doers is a close connection to the protagonist, who use that closeness to pull the wool over the eyes of the enforcement officer. And in both shows the evil doers, the anti heroes around which everything rotates, have some sort of epiphany at the end. The supporting characters are fascinating, whether the various drug lords in Breaking Bad or the Soviet handlers in The Americans.
The ending of The Americans is much less satisfying than Breaking Bad. In BB, most of the victims are bad guys, other Drug Lords. When an innocent gets caught in the crossfire, it becomes a pivotal moment. InThe Americans, dozens of routine, ordinary people have their lives ruined in each season, as the KGB tricks them into doing things that are against their inclination. The punishment meted out to the Jennings in the end—becoming permanently estranged from their kids-seems inadequate for all the bad things they have done. And the one truly heroic Russian is left to languish in an American jail for decades at the end, although he too had his share of blood on his hands from the time before his own epiphany.Perhaps this is more realistic, such as the stories of Kim Philby being a lonely old man in a Moscow flat at the end. Yet allowing the Jennings to become sympathetic characters at the end because they decided to be pro instead of anti Gorbachev feels like a cop out

[Nick Armstrong]

We just finished watching The Americans, the six season series about a married team of KGB moles that takes place during the Reagan Administration….

I watched this series during lockdown, and found it absorbing. You make very interesting points about it - parallels with Breaking Bad had not occurred to me, but I take your point (although I was disappointed by the final sections of BB - possibly due to not viewing them in optimal circumstances, iirc).

One aspect of The Americans which I found particularly intriguing was how the parents had to cope with the growing awareness of their two children as the latter seasons went on.

Great TV (and generally underrated I think)

[richardfinegold]

I watched this series during lockdown, and found it absorbing. You make very interesting points about it - parallels with Breaking Bad had not occurred to me, but I take your point (although I was disappointed by the final sections of BB - possibly due to not viewing them in optimal circumstances, iirc).

One aspect of The Americans which I found particularly intriguing was how the parents had to cope with the growing awareness of their two children as the latter seasons went on.

Great TV (and generally underrated I think)

Yes, and now feeling the same kind of letdown when a favorite long running series has run its course

[smittims]

That's sadly only too true. I experieced that with 'Wycliffe', 'Van der valk' and even 'Ballykissangel', all of which fell victim to ever more desperate attempts to stop a decline in the ratings. How wise John Cleese was to stop 'Fawlty Towers ' when he did , ensuring that it remains a 'Fawltless' classic.

[french frank]

How wise John Cleese was to stop 'Fawlty Towers ' when he did , ensuring that it remains a 'Fawltless' classic.

I have been informed that Fawlty Towers is to be 'rebooted' [sic] and filmed in the West Indies.

And googling the same, I find this, announced in February. No doubt Prunella Scales, not mentioned in the article, will be sadly missed by fans.

[smittims]

Thanks. I see it's planned as a sequel rather than a remake. In my experience remakes are always duds, e.g. the dreadful Burton/Taylor 'Brief Encounter'. All the same, I felt the Guardian editorial was a bit unfair condemning Cleese's project before it's been made, let alone seen!

[french frank]

All the same, I felt the Guardian editorial was a bit unfair condemning Cleese's project before it's been made, let alone seen!

Cleese is one of those {many, may I here interject] comedians that I never found very funny. But then, I have no sense of humour whatsoever.

[Serial_Apologist]

Some here may find this difficult to believe, but as a latecomer I have been watching a series called Crazy Rich Agents: Selling Dream Homes on BBC2. It was previously titled Britain's Most Luxury Homes or some such title. I am interested in the fact that there exist people who are prepared to fork out tens, even in a few cases hundreds of millions of £££s to live in places with interiors resembling department sets at Harrods or 5-star hotel suites in any location worldwide, seriously wondering how such can represent the aspirational domestic end-point of our "meritocratic" age.

In fact I am more interested in the types of people selling such properties than those buying them - mostly billionaire business types from abroad, many of whom either want a convenient pied-à-terre with every trimming, eg bathrooms with gold faucets, Italian marble-lined walls, on-site French chef, or something they can then sell on to make themselves an even greater profit. Many in the luxury end property market form part of a benighted mutual back-scratching network share out what is on offer in the way major multinationals market monopolize to keep prices high, with the inevitable trickle-down consequences on home ownership as a whole. But change is now apparently underway. Previous episodes and series have focused on Southebys and their international equivalents in the game... which left the last series with a number of properties in the tens of millions category unsold, and their young aspiring agents anxious over building credible careers. Last night we were re-introduced, not only to some of these properties, including an extraordinary £40m Mayfair flat, but to a new breed of agents in hock, but not salaried to, a gynormous new agency based in New York, but commissioned. These young, over-groomed in every sense, appear set to turn the programme into a version of The Apprentice. Imposter syndrome? - a thing of the past. One witnessed astonishing feats of over-indulged hyper-inflated self-belief, one young pretender out to prove himself showing up on Hampstead's famous Bishop's Avenue (London's Billionaire's Row), casing one Neo-Queen Anne-styled mansion from the front gates, gaining access after having hailed the caretaker on pretense of representing a reputable firm, and on the basis of phone contacts and acquaintances made at a local outoors fitness session staging a viewing gathering, an event usually reserved exclusively. Another upstart looks set to upset his own applecart by virtue of unfamiliarity with the protocols, the whens and wheres of salespersonship in this guilded arena as he "befriends" one of the Sugar-alikes who has been unsuccessfully trying to raise interest in a super-exorbitant re-fit in Knightsbridge, once the home of Dame Margot Fonteyn.

All in all, a fascinating look at life as conducted at the top - well worth watching.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0g1b7qd

[smittims]

I always liked John Cleese, from the first time I saw him do his 'headmaster speech' on 'The Frost Report'. I also admire him for his sociological work, e.g. training flms and his book 'Families and how to survive them'.

But I do sympathise with ff over humour. I'm a veteran of 'Take it from Here', Al Read, Harry Worth, Eric Sykes, Hancock's Half-Hour, etc. When 'Monty Python' arrived I sat eagerly expecting to enjoy it just as much. As sketch followed sketch I started to wonder' is it me, or is it them?' I found literally nothing to laugh at . I've never been able to understand the adulation in which this programme is held.

But then , humour is a very subjective thing. My father loved Buster Keaton ad Harold Lloyd, who left me cold. And I remember him shaking helplessly with laughter, tears in his eyes, at a groip of singers who used to sing the weather forecast to Anglican chant. I didn't even think it mildly amusing!

[Serial_Apologist]

I always liked John Cleese, from the first time I saw him do his 'headmaster speech' on 'The Frost Report'. I also admire him for his sociological work, e.g. training flms and his book 'Families and how to survive them'.

But I do sympathise with ff over humour. I'm a veteran of 'Take it from Here', Al Read, Harry Worth, Eric Sykes, Hancock's Half-Hour, etc. When 'Monty Python' arrived I sat eagerly expecting to enjoy it just as much. As sketch followed sketch I started to wonder' is it me, or is it them?' I found literally nothing to laugh at . I've never been able to understand the adulation in which this programme is held.

But then , humour is a very subjective thing. My father loved Buster Keaton ad Harold Lloyd, who left me cold. And I remember him shaking helplessly with laughter, tears in his eyes, at a groip of singers who used to sing the weather forecast to Anglican chant. I didn't even think it mildly amusing!

I think, with Monty Python, it was a matter of hit-and-miss with the sketches. Some were hilarious, some not, and, rather as with, let's say, jazz or 12-tone music, it was a question of which gateway offered one's potential point of entry. Getting the "wrong" one would prejudice one against further investigation.