Recommended Television Programmes

[Nick Armstrong]

Baptiste is superb. Spellbinding. Tom Hollander is a very very good actor IMO. So many actors are single-faceted (ie they seem to just play themselves) but Tom Hollander is really talented.

Absolutely agree.

More good news - the next Line of Duty (season 5) is on its way this spring. The first 4 are all airing at the moment on BBC4 late at night (and are hence on iPlayer).

[jayne lee wilson]

I kept on waiting for something else to happen, but it never did: are those open-front dresses blue tacked onto the wearer? I've often wondered...

Physiology, including a (hopefully) beautiful shoulder, is usually enough.... but getting the right size is even more important than usual...

[Serial_Apologist]

Physiology, including a (hopefully) beautiful shoulder, is usually enough.... but getting the right size is even more important than usual...

[oddoneout]

Physiology, including a (hopefully) beautiful shoulder, is usually enough.... but getting the right size is even more important than usual...

Sticky tape plays a part in many cases. It's possible to get double-sided tape specially designed for the job.

[Nick Armstrong]

I used to think that Lonely was a brilliant character in Callan, Cal, but I suppose he doesn't appear till later on.

No, he's already there in season 1.

Oddly enough, given that my Callan reference was in reply to a post about Armchair Theatre, I've just found out that the pilot of Callan aired as an episode of Armchair Theatre! It was in February 1967, a play entitled A Magnum for Schneider. So I'll soldier on with Armchair Theatre, in the hope that it will be broadcast in the current run. According to Wiki, it survives (unlike all but two of season 1 of the Callan series that followed...)

[Bryn]

I used to think that Lonely was a brilliant character in Callan, Cal, but I suppose he doesn't appear till later on.

I hadn't seen the first season of 'Fleabag' but it was being heavily trailed and I couldn't resist the call of Andrew Scott, as well as Olivia Colman and Bill Paterson...nuff said! At times I thought I was watching a Bunuel re-enactment this evening. Laughed a lot and totally terrific script by Fleabag herself,Phoebe Waller-Bridge ...if the rest of the series is anything like as good as tonight's I reckon I'm in for a right tasty treat.

Ah yes, (Adam) Russel Hunter. A fine actor, and Lonely was a wonderful character, too.

[LMcD]

No, he's already there in season 1.

Oddly enough, given that my Callan reference was in reply to a post about Armchair Theatre, I've just found out that the pilot of Callan aired as an episode of Armchair Theatre! It was in February 1967, a play entitled A Magnum for Schneider. So I'll soldier on with Armchair Theatre, in the hope that it will be broadcast in the current run. According to Wiki, it survives (unlike all but two of season 1 of the Callan series that followed...)

A Magnum for Schneider was episode 2 of series 7, whereas TPTV is currently showing series 15 - to be followed, I hope, by series 16. I think TPTV have access to a lot of Thames TV material, but the Callan episode was back in the days when Armchair Theatre was produced by ABC.

[jayne lee wilson]

LEAVING NEVERLAND (C4/HBO).

This was remarkable, wasn't it? Dignified, utterly unsensationalised, and quietly, forensically devastating.

I won't forget those open, honest and quietly agonised faces: Wade Robson, James Safechuck, dealing with the poisoned marriage of love and hate: the consequential lifelong suffering. Their poor Mothers, unable to forgive themselves for being drawn into the whirl of stardom, wealth and fame; wanting the best for their children .... trying so hard, for so long, to believe the worst couldn't be happening....the sister full of regret and sorrow and inescapable memories, the father lost to suicide. It was terribly haunting.

The source of it all in Jackson himself and his family; the child-star whose childhood was stolen away by his own unique talents, a bullying demanding domineering father, by that seductive lure of fame itself, again.

There's the inevitable backlash from those for whom Jackson is a pop-God, or even a personal God: a religion. But it only took a few minutes of this long, sad, restrained film to believe everything the two struggling, damaged men said, implicitly. Our cultural value-system shifts, necessarily and essentially, on its axis once more.

[vinteuil]

I hadn't seen the first season of 'Fleabag' but it was being heavily trailed and I couldn't resist the call of Andrew Scott, as well as Olivia Colman and Bill Paterson...nuff said! At times I thought I was watching a Bunuel re-enactment this evening. Laughed a lot and totally terrific script by Fleabag herself,Phoebe Waller-Bridge ...if the rest of the series is anything like as good as tonight's I reckon I'm in for a right tasty treat.

'

- I was so hooked by this episode, I went straight to the i-Player and watched Episode 1 of the First Series (which is available for three months). Grotesque, horrific, and hilarious, the central character obnoxious and fragile; self-centred and yet somehow appealing. That's my viewing sorted out for the next few days.
(Phoebe Waller-Bridge was also responsible for the scripts of Killing Eve ... and is a really good actress, too: phenomenally talented!)

... we were fans of the first series of Fleabag, and were able to watch the first episode of series two last night. Immaculate. So precise, sharp, funny. Quite the best thing on tele at the moment. This, and the recent Killing Eve, such jewels.

The less said about the dismal Alan Partridge - stone-cold unfunny....





.

[cloughie]

'



The less said about the dismal Alan Partridge - stone-cold unfunny....





.

The trailers have been so annoying - if I'd even thought of watching I definitely will not. Do people actually think he is good?

[eighthobstruction]

'


... we were fans of the first series of Fleabag, and were able to watch the first episode of series two last night. Immaculate. So precise, sharp, funny. Quite the best thing on tele at the moment. This, and the recent Killing Eve, such jewels.

The less said about the dismal Alan Partridge - stone-cold unfunny....





.

....Yes clever ol'Fleabag.... dire Alan P, poor,too much hype, ridiculous premise for this series (past earlier series were better written and directed]

[Serial_Apologist]

....Yes clever ol'Fleabag.... dire Alan P, poor,too much hype, ridiculous premise for this series (past earlier series were better written and directed]

The Partridge characterisation - so tired, used up first time around.

[Bryn]

Anyone here been watching the much trailed Dairy[sic] Girls? Is it worth catching?

[Bryn]

Currently watching "The Brexit Millionaires" on Channel 4. Very illuminating. How the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg make massive profit out of promoting Brexit.

[Constantbee]

BBC2 The Parkinson’s Drug Trial: A Miracle Cure?

So, the licence fee is still funding something worthwhile?

In 2 parts, 59 minutes each, first broadcast on 28 Feb and available for 29 days. Now, is that 29 days from the date of first broadcast, or from today’s date? It’s about a groundbreaking clinical trial. Not for the faint hearted, raises more questions than answers but recommended nonetheless.

Background here:

https://www.cureparkinsons.org.uk/news/gdnf-trial-toms-story