Recommended Television Programmes

[vinteuil]

.

... much enjoying The Bisexual [channel 4, Wednesdays and i-player]. Rather in the tradition of Fleabag , tho' here starring and written by the wonderful Desiree Akhavan with Maxine Peake. Able to turn on a sixpence from comedy to intimacy to pathos...

.

[DracoM]

Recommended viewing: '54 Hours - The Gladbeck Hostage Crisis'. Top-rate 2-part German production based on a real-life incident (mind you, 'incident' scarcely does justice to what happened). Part 1 2100-2230 on BBC 4 last night with Part 2 next Saturday.

Well, yes, but................as an insight into the POLICE pretty incredible and frightening, with a much better coverage of hostages and their takers.
The bus trick was SO long in the preparation............we saw it from almost literally frame one.

What did strike me was the ominous resentment and amazing breakdown of communication between the different city police forces.

[LMcD]

Well, yes, but................as an insight into the POLICE pretty incredible and frightening, with a much better coverage of hostages and their takers.
The bus trick was SO long in the preparation............we saw it from almost literally frame one.

What did strike me was the ominous resentment and amazing breakdown of communication between the different city police forces.

Buck-passing and hand-washing of a very high - or do I mean very low? - order.

[Globaltruth]

The most enjoyable box set of the year for me so far has been the BBC's Trust (still available on iPlayer) about the kidnapping of Paul Getty back in the 70's

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p06g885w

I followed the kidnap story as it happened all those years ago; this is a wonderful interpretation with excellent performances, notably by Donald Sutherland (who particularly relishes the role), his butler (called Bullymore as I recall) and most of the Italian actors.
A variety of cinematic and theatrical devices are used to good effect. Excellent location filming.
There are TEN episodes, which, in fact, are over far too soon.
Reviews for this seem to have been generally fair-to-middling, as the series was trumped (sic) by the Succession series on Sky and the film All the Money in the World. not having seen either, for me this was not an issue..and can sometimes be a more reliable indicator than the dreaded rave reviews.

The BBC have also kindly posted an archive interview with the actual J. Paul Getty by the oleaginous (in both senses of the word) Alan Whicker.
What an excellent way to finish - time to consider the excesses of families with way too much power and money?

[oddoneout]

….and thank you for having the courtesy of mentioning him by name which I didn't. If you Google him, you will find that he is a combination of academic (University of Bath etc) and wild international adventurer (whitewater rapids etc), so he is a bit modern and I am not surprised. But both of are not hugely indicated in this series which may or may not be a plus.

I think it's a plus in this case. He is evidently knowledgeable, and used to tramping around the countryside, but what seems to come across to me is his pleasure and interest in what he's doing. He wears his learning lightly I think.

[LMcD]

I think it's a plus in this case. He is evidently knowledgeable, and used to tramping around the countryside, but what seems to come across to me is his pleasure and interest in what he's doing. He wears his learning lightly I think.

Who is 'he'?

[oddoneout]

Who is 'he'?

Sorry, Rob Bell, presenting Walking Britain's Lost Railways.

[LMcD]

Thank you - I thought it might have been the chap hosting 'The Lakes' on BBC2.

[johncorrigan]

I'm a bit of a sucker for Channel 4's 'Hunted', and as part of their 'Stand Up to Cancer' fundraiser they're running a new series of 'Celebrity Hunted'. It's a wee bit more set-up than 'Hunted', but the premise is good, I think, and at times a bit scary, and gets pretty exciting from time-to-time. Apart from Dom Joly and an Olympic guy I have no idea who the celebs are...but I find I'm ok with that.

[Bryn]

Currently watching imagine... Tracey Emin: Where Do You... on, like last week's George Benjamin programme, BBC1. Ah, just finished.

[kernelbogey]

A Dangerous Dynasty

I watched this three-parter, about the Assad dynasty in Syria, back to back last night on iPlayer. Extraordinary: terrifying, saddening and enraging.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bnfn0d/a-dangerous-dynasty-house-of-assad-series-1-episode-1

[Serial_Apologist]

A Dangerous Dynasty

I watched this three-parter, about the Assad dynasty in Syria, back to back last night on iPlayer. Extraordinary: terrifying, saddening and enraging.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...es-1-episode-1

Worth watching, for all its analytical limitations. Beyond the images of mutilated human meat one sadly starts getting used in these days, and the family pressures incumbent with dynastic dictatorships across the ages, stands that of the extraordinary Asma, surely, surely aware, for goodness' sake, of the stoked up hatred waiting to be visited upon her when the time eventually comes.

[Stanfordian]

'The Informer' - BBC One series - I've watched it already and really enjoyed it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Alice Roberts' Origins of Us series (part 2 of 3 Tuesday nights yesterday, 8pm BBC4) always offer personably presented insights into things one thinks one should have already known, notwithstanding her pronunciation of "food" the ubiqutous modern way (somewhere between "feed" and "feud"), although the parallels she drew between male attraction characteristics in hunter-gatherer societies and modern-day displays typified by skateboarding risk-taking teenagers on the South Bank were, I thought, conjectural, to say the least!

[Richard Tarleton]

her pronunciation of "food" the ubiqutous modern way (somewhere between "feed" and "feud")

Not to mention (and for an anthropologist she uses the word rather a lot) "bones" as "banes". I think this is a repeat? I tried it before. But yes, a camera-friendly presenter.