Recommended Television Programmes

[Stanfordian]

'West Side Story - Making of a Classic' - documentary about the musical West Side Story. "Bruno Tonioli and Suzy Klein go in search of the true stories behind the inception of this classic show."

I loved this programme!

[DracoM]

Brian Cox: planets thing on BBC2. Crikey............!!

[Serial_Apologist]

Been watching the series on Thatcher - revealing would be an understatement, not least as regards her colleagues and co-workers at the time, when they speak of her worst characteristics with admiring smiles.

[Nick Armstrong]

Summer of Rockets

Looking forward to watching the recorded first episode, to find out where on the spectrum between the above two extremes I fall

Well, two episodes in and I’m much closer to the edashtav opinion... Yes, there were a couple of creaky plot moments in the first episode, but I must say I’m pretty engrossed by the story, the performances and the look of the thing.

[johncorrigan]

Just finished watching George Steven's film of colour footage from D-Day to Berlin. The film was put together in 1985 and I found it pretty amazing, shocking, horrifying, beautiful...well worth a watch if you haven't seen it before.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l21wg/dday-to-berlin-newsnight-special

[gradus]

Just finished watching George Steven's film of colour footage from D-Day to Berlin. The film was put together in 1985 and I found it pretty amazing, shocking, horrifying, beautiful...well worth a watch if you haven't seen it before.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...snight-special

Thanks for the link john, really gripping and entirely new to me.

[johncorrigan]

I've been dipping into 'Years and Years' these last few Tuesdays, but last night decided that dystopian future wasn't my bag, given the dystopian present. So I thought I'd swap the dystopian present for the chaotic past and try 'The Planets' with Prof Cox. I hadn't seen any of this series so far. It's a strange watch with so much CGI and the like. Last night was 'Jupiter and we had lots of stellar cloud floating across the TV screen.
But in amongst all this was an hour of fascinating information - Jupiter was there when the sun was born, the first planet of our solar system; actually it's probably a kind of failed star. We found out why our planetary system is different from most other solar systems because of the actions of Jupiter as it careered towards the sun 4.5m years ago - why Ceres didn't become a planet; why Mars isn't as big as it could have been; why the Earth isn't as big as it could have been; and how Jupiter continues to protect the inner planets, and yet, chuck the odd asteroid at us. I found it a really interesting hour and Prof Cox didn't annoy me too much at all.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p06qj30b/the-planets-series-1-3-the-godfather-jupiter

[jayne lee wilson]

The Planets is wonderfull! Visually, verbally, scientifically (New Scientist subscriber here...)....

Halfway through Eve2 now......never a great fan of S1, but...not much on since Chernobyl.

S1 - Starts as (another) Nikita ripoff, deeper with death of older agent, but lost itself in country house farce, comic-book sausage-eating Russian villains and finally the almost-lesbian-almost-liebestod….. I really hated it by the end.
..I'm watching it faute-de-mieux really....
S2 Gratuitously nasty, cold-hearted and cynical, formulaic and far too pleased with itself. Why was the young man in hospital killed? To make sure he told no-one that she’d stolen his pyjamas?

The supposed obsession between the two protags doesn't work for me at all. Docile (you've-got-to-tell-me-everything!) Husband another stereotype... And I’ve had enough of Sandra Oh scurrying around looking desperate....it's her sole expression..."shades of desperation"...
Ditto Fiona Shaw looking smug...

Still watching though. Might finish it this week. Funny that.
Or I might just give up. Desperate enough to try Big Little Lies 2 now.
"I probably won't go to Rio, then again, I just might..."

[Richard Tarleton]

The Planets - brilliant, didn't used [?] to get on with Brian Cox but do now. Only came in half way through last night, will watch the start tonight, having never got my head around gas giants....

Didn't she kill the boy out of her warped, psycopathic version of pity, at his hideous future ("you look like a pizza"), he having said he wished he'd died with his parents? It's just Jodie Comer as keeps us watching. 2 of 3 Times critics reviewed the first two episodes, even though we haven't seen the second one unless we've been bingeing on iPlayer.

Chernobyl on catch-up - 2 down, 3 to go, avoiding watching last thing at night. Curious to re-read James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia (2006) in which he rather downplays the mortality from the disaster ("no more than 75"), attibuting figures of "thousands if not millions" to misinterpretation/misunderstanding of life expectancy data......

Watching the snakepit that is Big Little Lies....

[jayne lee wilson]

Oh OK OK I admit it.....Eve S2/4 was brilliantly inventive TV.. tightening the screw... but a bit look-away-now sometimes......
Might finish it tomorrow or sooner insomnia provoking....

(Great soundtrack BTW)

(Boy in hospital.... psychopathic pity? Do psychopaths do pity?
Or more like disgust at his self-pity...or a random act of killing...joy in the exercise of one's fine-tuned skills...
Give the writing credit I guess for suggesting the ambiguity...and leaving it open (like a wound...)...

[DracoM]

BBC TV Parliament Live - this afternoon's astonishing debate.
Blimey, are we in a mess or what..........................

[Serial_Apologist]

The Planets is wonderfull! Visually, verbally, scientifically (New Scientist subscriber here...)....

Halfway through Eve2 now......never a great fan of S1, but...not much on since Chernobyl.

S1 - Starts as (another) Nikita ripoff, deeper with death of older agent, but lost itself in country house farce, comic-book sausage-eating Russian villains and finally the almost-lesbian-almost-liebestod….. I really hated it by the end.
..I'm watching it faute-de-mieux really....
S2 Gratuitously nasty, cold-hearted and cynical, formulaic and far too pleased with itself. Why was the young man in hospital killed? To make sure he told no-one that she’d stolen his pyjamas?

The supposed obsession between the two protags doesn't work for me at all. Docile (you've-got-to-tell-me-everything!) Husband another stereotype... And I’ve had enough of Sandra Oh scurrying around looking desperate....it's her sole expression..."shades of desperation"...
Ditto Fiona Shaw looking smug...

Still watching though. Might finish it this week. Funny that.
Or I might just give up. Desperate enough to try Big Little Lies 2 now.
"I probably won't go to Rio, then again, I just might..."

I really cannot understand Killing Eve's alleged popularity - how can it be classed as satire? Gave up at the end of Episode 1 of Series 1.

[vinteuil]

I really cannot understand Killing Eve's alleged popularity - how can it be classed as satire? Gave up at the end of Episode 1 of Series 1.

... I don't see it as satire - it is pure (black) comedy. I loved the first series; the second series is not so far up to much. The main reason to watch is the delicious comedy performance of Jodie Comer.


.

[LHC]

The Planets - brilliant, didn't used [?] to get on with Brian Cox but do now. Only came in half way through last night, will watch the start tonight, having never got my head around gas giants....

Didn't she kill the boy out of her warped, psycopathic version of pity, at his hideous future ("you look like a pizza"), he having said he wished he'd died with his parents? It's just Jodie Comer as keeps us watching. 2 of 3 Times critics reviewed the first two episodes, even though we haven't seen the second one unless we've been bingeing on iPlayer.

Chernobyl on catch-up - 2 down, 3 to go, avoiding watching last thing at night. Curious to re-read James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia (2006) in which he rather downplays the mortality from the disaster ("no more than 75"), attibuting figures of "thousands if not millions" to misinterpretation/misunderstanding of life expectancy data......

Watching the snakepit that is Big Little Lies....

With regard to the actual deaths at Chernobyl, I know some of the scientists working for the Chernobyl Tissue Bank. The public perception of deaths from radiation exposure are vastly overestimated.

By 2014, 25 years after the incident, there had been 28 deaths from Acute Radiation Sickness and just 15 from thyroid cancer. There was an increase in thyroid cancer risk, especially amongst children exposed at the time of the incident, but it is treatable, and current estimates are that the death rate for thyroid cancer as a result of exposure will be about 1%. There is no scientific evidence of any long term effects on fertility or infant mortality and no evidence yet of any heritable effects.

For Fukushima, there have been no deaths from radiation sickness and it is considered unlikely that there will be any increase in thyroid cancer.

[Anastasius]

I really cannot understand Killing Eve's alleged popularity - how can it be classed as satire? Gave up at the end of Episode 1 of Series 1.

Now, why am I surprised ?