Recommended Television Programmes

[LMcD]

How R3 has changed...
"La lampe donne sur ses yeux" with Mich(a)el Lonsdale, a play in French, broadcast in 1982 on R3. Auntie still has it in her archives.

Mon Dieu!

[AuntDaisy]

Mon Dieu!

Avec un soupçon de Zut Alors!

[smittims]

I don't think Black Doves is intended to have anything to offer the male viewer. It , and similar dramas are there to assure advertisers that enough women are watching to justify the expensive adverts for overpriced hair, clothes and beauty products.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't think Black Doves is intended to have anything to offer the male viewer. It , and similar dramas are there to assure advertisers that enough women are watching to justify the expensive adverts for overpriced hair, clothes and beauty products.

depends whether watching Ben Wishart engaging in graphic naked sex is your cup of tea doesn’t it ? His character is SO unconvincing. As indeed is Keira Knightley’s.

And that’s another one I gave up on after one episode. Again ludicrously overhyped but completely unengrossing. Also wildly implausible unlike the masterworks in the spy genre The Bureau and , supremely, The Americans.

[LMcD]

depends whether watching Ben Wishart engaging in graphic naked sex is your cup of tea doesn’t it ? His character is SO unconvincing. As indeed is Keira Knightley’s.

And that’s another one I gave up on after one episode. Again ludicrously overhyped but completely unengrossing. Also wildly implausible unlike the masterworks in the spy genre The Bureau and , supremely, The Americans.

Thank you all for saving me from what would clearly have been a waste of time giving this series a try.

[johncorrigan]

I've enjoyed 'Wolf Hall' very much. It's not normally the kind of TV I would watch. We did so because my wife knows the production designer, so thought we'd watch the original series.
Unlike most here I know very little of Tudor England. I had long gone from History 'classes by the time we got there in school. I did see a programme about Elizabeth's spymaster in the last few years, which I remember finding interesting and intriguing - otherwise it was pretty much Francis Drake, playing bowls and defeating armadas... and I knew the wives, celebrated by Rick Wakeman, were divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived, but don't ask me whom...except for poor Ann Boleyn. Therefore another thing I have enjoyed is that I think I've learned a bit of history here and to get a bit more meat on the bones of names I had only heard of, eg Cardinal Wolsey.
On a different front, Mrs C reckons that Timothy Spall looks like a tortoise stretching its head and neck out of its shell, and I think I will always see this excellent performer in this way, from now on.

[Pulcinella]

Watched Episode 1 of Black Doves just now: sufficiently intrigued to keep watching.
But there's a deeper plot somewhere.
Sam, aka Paddington, coming from darkest Peru, has obviously gathered info from the late queen and her predilection for marmalade sandwiches (saving one for later)!
I hope all will be revealed (and I don't mean more than his bare buttocks).

[Nick Armstrong]

Mrs C reckons that Timothy Spall looks like a tortoise stretching its head and neck out of its shell, and I think I will always see this excellent performer in this way, from now on.

I was similarly affected by this:

[LMcD]

I was similarly affected by this:

An ideal choice for the caption competition on HIGNFY.

[johncorrigan]

[johncorrigan]

I notice that BBC4 is rerunning 'The Box of Delights' starting this evening. I recall having a vhs of it and enjoying the series very much. Wonder how it will stand the test of time?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...s-were-running

I am enjoying this very much - excellent seasonal viewing. It has an element of old Doctor Who about it, and not just because Patrick Troughton is in there. The soundtrack from the Radiophonic Workshop helps create great atmosphere.

[Serial_Apologist]

I watched episode 1 of BBC1's The Listeners drama about a school teacher who becomes obsessed with a low frequency ubiquitous pulsing hum which she, alone, can hear, until one of her charges admits secretly to having the same experience - all very hush-hush for some strange and even more inexplicable reason. Frankly, I am intrigued as to what this is all about, and will continue watching unless the plot then has teacher and pupil involved in an illicit intimate cliché.

On tomorrow night and the following two Tuesdays.

Waste of time as well as opportunities for covering potentially important issues such as the attraction of cults of one sort or another, and grossly over-acted non-credible characters. Why do people get commissioned to come up with such unrealistic stuff? I'm glad now that I didn't post a link to this series.

[LMcD]

Waste of time as well as opportunities for covering potentially important issues such as the attraction of cults of one sort or another, and grossly over-acted non-credible characters. Why do people get commissioned to come up with such unrealistic stuff? I'm glad now that I didn't post a link to this series.

I decided Episode 1 was enough.

[Nick Armstrong]

.

... much enjoying on netflix series one (we're late to this : series two is now out, to great acclaim) of The Diplomat - the arrival of a new US Ambassador to London in the midst of a major crisis : UK warship attacked in the Gulf, diplomats trying to prevent the UK Prime Minister using the US to rain hellfire on Iran &c. Some very timely insights into the power play within the US political system and the US/UK dynamic. Much of it of course absurd, but much of the detail surprisingly accurate

A hoot, very well paced, sharp dialogue, neat plotting. They secured extraordinary filming rights within the Foreign Office and the American Embassy here, and Wrotham Park makes a very good replacement for Winfield House.

Highly recommended...

A further reply to this - season 2 is turning into top-flight stuff! Have you got as far as episode 5? I’ve just finished watching it - when Alison Janney (formerly of West Wing) turns up as the US VP, she hoists the series up yet another notch. Her scenes with the two leads are among the best I’ve seen in recent years (the script seems to have risen to greet her, too)

[LMcD]

A further reply to this - season 2 is turning into top-flight stuff! Have you got as far as episode 5? I’ve just finished watching it - when Alison Janney (formerly of West Wing) turns up as the US VP, she hoists the series up yet another notch. Her scenes with the two leads are among the best I’ve seen in recent years (the script seems to have risen to greet her, too)

I shall investigate!