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Junkenstein posted:Did anyone catch The Great Outdoors? Never heard of it, but caught a minute towards the end and it looked like it might possibly be not terrible. Any opinions? Stars Brian off of Spaced. Been meaning to watch it for a while for the reason you mentioned, but haven't heard any feedback (positive or negative).
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Jan 14, 2011 22:35
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Acolyte! posted:Can probably do better than that... Astounding. I see the roots of several Pixar movies, the entire Resident Evil franchise, every first-person shooter cutscene, and the Japanese pantsu-fetish genre all rolled into one sublime piece of television.
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Feb 3, 2011 05:35
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wickles posted:This is great too That entire DVD is well worth watching. It was the first thing that sprang to mind after seeing Coogan refer to Hammond as the squirt standing behind the school bully. If you prefer a milder comedian, please ask for one if anyone is curious.
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Feb 6, 2011 17:06
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Watching Outcasts and pleased to see that even in space the dodgy street-corner drug peddler is Irish. Good to know that a BBC policy firmly established by Casualty, Holby City and (to a lesser extent) Spooks is still alive and well in whatever century this is set in. I firmly expect at least one Scots alcoholic/space junkie to turn up before this ends.
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Feb 8, 2011 01:27
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Ouch, that kid in Outcasts is quite painful to watch. He has a voice that belongs in a 1970s Public Information film talking to Charly the cat. Right now he's standing at a lakeside with Apollo and I'm waiting for a serious-sounding "Stay away from the water" voiceover to kick in.
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Feb 8, 2011 01:50
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NaDy posted:"JIMMMEEEEEH!!" Well I love Doctor Who but that's more fantasy than sci-fi really. I didn't even bother with Survivors so the only recent BBC sci-fi show I've seen has been the first couple of episodes of The Deep, before deciding I'd be better off renting Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus. Anyway, Outcasts: The first episode of a show like this has several important criteria that should be met. Traditionally, we should be introduced to the primary characters, hopefully finding at least one that we can relate to. No need for too much backstory at this point; that can wait until they've been established in our minds as people we can form an emotional bond with. Outcasts prefers the approach of dumping a bunch of unlikeable nonentities upon us along with spurious amounts of background detail about them that we don't care about because we've yet to establish any kind of empathy with them. For a sci-fi show, you need to establish the world it inhabits. Tell us about this future - its technology and the impact it has had on mankind. Give us some clues about what future-life is like and maybe drop a few teasers about how the human race got from 2011 to whatever year the show is set in. Outcasts shuns this method in favour of showing us 1/2-second cutaways of a spaceship combined with some bloke sitting behind a shiny desk talking to some flatscreen monitors. You heard it first on the BBC; in the future people will have TVs that are so flat they're only a few inches thick. The next point is maybe frivolous but it really got on my nerves in the later part of this episode. Our uninvolving cast are out in the depths of space on an alien world - how should this be portrayed onscreen? Moorland and pine trees wouldn't be my first choice, but then I live outside the M25 so landscapes like that aren't as alien to me as they are to the producers of this show. Visualising a remote human outpost on an alien world should require more than an outside broadcast shoot in the Brecon Beacons (or the Lake District, or the Scottish Highlands or whatever godforsaken spot without free wifi coverage they chose). Even 1970s Doctor Who made the effort to find a suitable quarry rather than pointing a camera at some non-London scenery and assuming viewers would find it appropriately alien. Back to the story and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to tune in for next week. Right now the trend for shows in this genre is to drop a few tasty morsels that hint at an overarching plot which will carry the rest of the series. Lost popularised it, BSG did it with the Cylon philosophy and "they have a plan". Even the BBC's own Doctor Who has pulled it off with the season-long Cracks in Time and the pan-season Silence Will Fall themes. How does Outsiders introduce this element to the show?  TIGERS TIGERS TIGERS SEE HOW WE MADE THE AWKWARD STAGE SCHOOL KID REPEAT THAT A LOT? THAT'S A STORY ARC THAT IS. Because whenever an irritating kid repeatedly harps on about something that bares no relation to the rest of the show you better take note. I realise quite a lot of my rant can and will be refuted by people who liked it, and some of it is probably unduly harsh. I don't care; I've been subjected to hype for this show for ages, trumpeting it as the next great British sci-fi. I watched it and got what seemed to be a filler episode of Holby City set in a future-space that looked a lot like a National Trust commercial forestry plantation (before the dystopian future where they've all been sold to global megacorps).
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Feb 8, 2011 03:33
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justcola posted:Is human planet any good? I thought it would be a good direction for the nature documentary to go after planet earth and blue planet. Maybe a documentary about life in the higher atmosphere. It's very good. Of all the animals on the planet man is the most ingenious and widespread, so we deserve a decent nature show about ourselves. It's fascinating to see the diversity of human life covered in the traditional nature documentary style rather than the more 'go native' format of Bruce Perry or Ray Mears (both of whom are great).
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Feb 10, 2011 05:21
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Bishy posted:I'd like to see the chasers appear on Eggheads and just obliterate the lot of them. I do like The Chase. I imagine as soon as the Eggheads were introduced the chasers would be over there splitting skulls and trying to cram the yolky goodness into their gaping maws. I've only seen The Chase a couple of times but it's a strangely enjoyable quiz show. I like the setup, with that immense ogre of a guy sitting on high and belittling the hapless contestants below him. I'm sure he's a nice chap and the intimidation is all part of the act, but it's a great format for a quiz.
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Feb 11, 2011 13:43
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Catzilla posted:Speaking of Brooker, it seems that How TV Ruined My Life is not on this week Boo, postponing one of the few shows I bother to watch in favour of tediously dull sporting coverage. Stop ruining my life, TV.
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Feb 20, 2011 12:37
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thehustler posted:Apparently, Great Unanswered Questions, a hidden gem from BBC Norn Iron, is back. Two episodes on iPlayer. Nice, I'd no idea they'd turned it into a TV show. I listened to the radio series quite a bit on Radio Ulster if and when I remembered about it.
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Feb 20, 2011 15:36
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Yikes, I hadn't realised the broadband situation in mainland UK (or maybe only Scotland) was so dire. Here in Northern Ireland just about anyone can get a 20-50Mbps connection (actual speed, not just advertised speed) thanks to large-scale infrastructure investment heavily subsidised by the government. Thanks, English taxpayers!
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Mar 3, 2011 07:27
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DaWolfey posted:Here's our Eurovision song Sounds like a rejected t.a.t.u B-side from whatever year they were famous. So could do well in Europe, I hear they like that kind of thing.
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Mar 12, 2011 20:29
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I ignored the recommendations in this thread for too long, now it's past 5am and I've just watched the first 3 episodes of Misfits back-to-back. I only meant to start an episode before bed but it's utterly compulsive TV. Lots of talk about how Britain can't do sci-fi well, but this show plays incredibly well on the stuff we can do with a sci-fi bent.
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Mar 17, 2011 06:38
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Tsaedje posted:I watched a documentary in school about the battle of Thermopolae once which he narrated, then halfway through he pops up in full greek armour shouting about how he was there to witness the glory and the honour, it was amazing. This simple addition could improve 90% of all TV content currently being churned out. Imagine a Homes under the Hammer where every once in a while the winning auction bid is made by a fired-up Brian Blessed in full Greek battle dress. The country would come to a standstill as people skipped work to tune in to daytime TV.
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Apr 23, 2011 12:27
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wickles posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlwDrpTq2Mo New Horrible Histories, good stuff. I hadn't realised it had started again. I saw bits and pieces of past shows and it's great - educational and often genuinely funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qSkaAwKMD4 The classic rock ballad Vikings were a favourite of mine.
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May 31, 2011 23:14
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I know taste is subjective but there's some real stinkers on that list. It really just needs Gimme Gimme Gimme and Two Pints of Lager And A Packet of Crisps to be complete.
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Jun 3, 2011 22:03
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SeanBeansShako posted:I've been meaning to check out both for a while now, should I? They're slightly dated now, some of the references to events at the time don't make as much sense, but the core elements of the show still hold up. If you've seen some of Armando Iannucci's stuff like The Thick of It then it's almost a 1980s version. It's not only very funny and cynical but, rather frighteningly, still used by political scientists as a textbook example of the relationship between elected officials and their civil servant counterparts.
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Jun 3, 2011 23:34
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Armando Iannucci cites Yes (Prime) Minister as an inspiration, and Adam Curtis has used it in his documentaries as a representation of how stuff really works in politics. That should be recommendation enough for anyone. And it's still relevant today, despite whatever party is nominally in power, because the civil service still holds the reins almost 30 years later.
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Jun 4, 2011 00:28
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Padje posted:While we're outing Game of Thrones actors, has anyone else noticed Bronn is played by (Robson &) Jerome? Amazing. Mine aren't anywhere near as good as that. Viserys Targaryen (the mad blonde deposed prince) popped up in Doctor Who a while back as Son of Mine in the Family of Blood episode while lardy King Robert Barathian was the lovable chubby stripper from The Full Monty.
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Jun 13, 2011 17:41
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Hmm, who can we get as the friendly face of our legal services advertising campaign? Oh, how about the actor Billy Murray, most recently known for his role as vicious gangster, murderer and conman Johnny Allen in Eastenders. A piece of casting genius by whichever agency is responsible for those commercials.
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Jun 20, 2011 23:59
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Psybro posted:Remember they are 100% lawyers. That's why, when you present the details of your claim, they give it to you straight - like a lawyer made from 100% law.
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Jun 21, 2011 02:42
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thehustler posted:I'm meeting Johnny Ball next week. I'm well excited about it. He's coming to our uni (UCLan) to do some event here, science for kids, and as the A/V guy I'm doing some filming for it and maybe get to interview him a bit. Apparently he's lovely, but bonkers. I met him years ago when I was a kid, he came to our school and did a Q&A session with our class. We all got to chat with him and he was awesome. I hear he's still great but has fallen in with the 'global warming is a lie' brigade. Also thanks to everyone in the thread who raved about The Shadow Line. I ended up watching 5 episodes back-to-back last night on iPlayer. Gripping stuff.
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Jun 23, 2011 12:42
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When it airs on C4? It was on BBC4 a couple of months ago. I only saw a few but it didn't seem completely terrible. edit: Nevermind, looks like a different show with the same name and premise.
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Jun 26, 2011 21:19
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:I've started watching Luther, and while the acting is generally very good, there are more plotholes than Edward J. Olmos' face. I watched both series recently and that was my opinion of it. The atmosphere, some fine performances, and a psychotic redhead femme fatale all made it worth watching. I'm not the kind of person who normally picks up on plot holes until long after the event but I noticed them constantly while watching the show. That, combined with conveniences like Alice's "...and with a single bound she was free!" escape from a secure facility spoiled it a bit for me. But only a little bit.
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Jul 17, 2011 15:20
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Daktar posted:Does anyone remember a kid's show that ran for an entire summer holiday many, many years ago? It had this character named Reg who wore a sort of plastic hat in the shape of a quiff, and he looked vaguely like a 50s rocker. I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think it also had Mark Speight presenting, and he tended to wear a blue suit and had very, very blonde hair. Also, they showed the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. That would have been Scratchy and Co. I wasn't really a fan; I only watched because Gail Porter would occasionally appear.
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Aug 7, 2011 00:25
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henpod posted:Holy poo poo, I didn't know there was new Shooting Stars. I think I laugh at this program more than most for some reason. It's so immature and surreal sometimes. I love Angelous' rave, and like another poster said, whenever there is an American guest, they don't know what the gently caress is going on and that makes it even funnier. Utterly confused American guests are great, as are people like Brigitte Nielsen this week who just enjoy the ride. It's the z-list British celebs who are just there to sit quietly and collect the cheque who bring it down somewhat. Angelous' rave tune cracks me up every time. It's not as amusing out of context but for anyone who might be wondering, this is the tune he plays. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ysPGGoUsQ
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Aug 11, 2011 13:06
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drat you, Horizon! No matter how intriguing the premise of any episode is, you always churn out a ponderously slow documentary full of pointless lingering shots and narration that drip-feeds facts at a glacial pace. This one about colours could be interesting, but they really need to produce a 15-minute version for those of us who can process human speech at rates above 4 words per minute.
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Aug 11, 2011 18:02
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I've just been watching The Code with Marcus du Sautoy. I'm not a mathmatician, but he's completely full of poo poo. Cicadas have prime-number lifecycles, imaginary numbers make radar works. Maths is built into nature because music, this thing we made, has nice ratios! I never made it past the first episode where he spent an insane amount of time discussing how neolithic man built all their circular sites around the mystic cicle number, a number that lies at the very heart of every circle. Here are some circular things, this mysterious number lies within each of them. Look, more round things and believe it or not this elusive number dwells within them too. He then took at least 3 circles and proceeded to work out the ratio of the circumference to the diameter for each of them. I never studied maths beyond GCSE but I know what loving Pi is! Just skip straight to the interesting bit about the unexpected places it turns up. There's no need to spend 5 minutes explaining basic maths to us any more than Countdown needs to start each show with a singalong version of the alphabet song to teach us our letters. It's that same ponderous style as Horizon where the producers assume everyone watching dropped out of high school before their 12th birthday. I'm grateful for any kind of educational documentary on TV these days, but some of them really try my patience and that was way more rant than I'd intended.
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Aug 11, 2011 19:33
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OK, there might not be many A-list celebs in the Big Brother house right now, but just wait for the A-listers joining in the next few weeks (courtesy of the editorially-independent Daily Star). Cheryl Cole  Charlie Sheen IS WINNING BIG BROTHER  Jordan  The Motherfucking Royal Family  That's only the tip of the iceberg stolen from the full list of up-and-coming celebrity appearances on Tabloid Watch. Back to the summer kids' TV recollections of last week, I'm sure lots of people remember Why Don't You? but does anyone recall one particular summer the host gang spent the whole time prick-teasing a reveal about the secret of Exploding Milk? Being in Northern Ireland, our summer holidays are out of sync with the England-based broadcasters so I was back at school before the secret was revealed (if it ever was). What do I need to do to make my milk asplode?
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Aug 20, 2011 02:47
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goatface posted:I love the "how they filmed it" bits they add to documentaries, they show you just how good the natural world unit are. With films I generally watch in full, because (usually) the director has spent a lot of time thinking about the mood they want to create and framing shots and pacing things accordingly. TV shows that have 15 minutes of usable material padded out to an hour with endless recaps and other filler can gently caress right off. Dragons' Den is possibly the worst, if only because it's something I would watch otherwise. Having that bloke pop up every 5 minutes to recant a blow-by-blow narration of the stuff I just watched is infuriating to the point where I just don't bother with the show any more. edit: Amazed that so many years later, Shooting Stars still gets better and better. Comfy Chairs fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Aug 30, 2011 |
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Aug 30, 2011 00:55
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Baxter Parp posted:He's a loving idiot that shouldn't be allowed out on his own. He's a cock and I've no love for the music he plays. On the flipside, both David Cameron and the Daily Mail believe he's personally responsible for the decline of 'their' kind of Britain. So he can't be all bad.
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Dec 27, 2011 13:45
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Having spent my New Year's Eve catching up on iPlayer stuff wot I missed, can I commit heresy by saying that Charlie Brooker no longer impresses me? The whole 2011 review show came across as a kind of smug Guardian-reading media-savvy commentary on the year's events. I've a lot of respect for Brooker (Black Mirror E01 was a deliciously subversive bit of telly) but much of his recent output seems like Chris Morris put through a committee blender and turned into an inoffensive hour of TV that pokes fun at the mainstream but never seriously challenges it. Like a Harry Hill for people who don't watch ITV. He's still one of the best social commentators on TV but I feel like there's a need for someone to take up the Brass Eye mantle and produce genuinely provocative satire. Brooker has the skill to produce someone like that, and the clout to get it on air. I'm just not sure he deserves to be in the commentating role himself.
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Jan 1, 2012 02:48
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Fatkraken posted:So how long before netflix UK is actually worth subscribing to? I have the free trial but to be honest the selection is absolutely abysmal compared to what people seem to have in the US, and I am not happy paying the same price for a tiny fraction of the service. My current plan is to cancel once the free trial runs down and re-sub in a few months/a year or so once the selection actually contains more than a few things I want to watch. I'm planning to cancel once the free trial expires too. I've hardly used it. I browsed through the recommendations it presumably acquired from my Facebook account. Doctor Who was incomplete, Dexter was 4 years behind America and the quality on Starship Troopers was lower than the free stream I'd just watched on iPlayer. But there's still lots of stuff I would watch if only the quality was better. Maybe I've just been unlucky picking the wrong material to stream, but it's barely DVD quality and I know my bandwidth is enough for HD. I like the idea of Netflix but I'm not sure I want to pay a subscription fee for telly that's lower quality than the copyright-infringing alternative.
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Feb 1, 2012 23:35
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DemonNick posted:It's because networks are dying, basically. A lot of the best shows in US Network history, or television period, have been US adaptations of UK shows. Some of them were better than the originals, even. The networks' ratings have been dropping for years now, and that's made them a lot more risk averse, especially when it comes to pilots, which are usually a big gamble anyway. Being able to say "It worked in the UK" reassures execs, even when no one involved is interested in doing an honest to god adaptation. I'm not buying this. For the last year I've been all about American-produced shows. Fringe, Dexter, Game of Thrones, Homeland. All fine US shows that wipe the floor with any British shows in the same genres. American TV may be focused on the big bux, but they're still willing to take risks on new ideas even if they're a bit too trigger-happy in killing them off before their time. But they still take the risk. Compare that to the BBC's output in recent years. Instead of embracing the future format of TV they're trying to dumb down enough to compete with ITV for the decreasing percentage who still rely on watching soap operas and reality shows broadcast at fixed times. The pay-to-view American networks are producing some drat good stuff right now, because they know they're fighting an uphill battle against the internet, a battle that requires a major rethink about their target audience and who would care enough to pay for their content. While the American networks are taking the risk on new styles of TV and attempting to keep the attention of an internet-savvy generation, British TV is stagnating. The BBC still has a few shows that can garner the attention of a global audience. ITV/C4 have just given up completely and have resorted to advertising/phone-in revenue from people who can't get online.
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Feb 22, 2012 05:59
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SeanBeansShako posted:Guess Channel 4 thought Springwatch was too boring and decided to break out Fox corpse collecting in their watch? I'm surprised they didn't make the next logical step and turn it into an episode of Dissecting Nature's Cute Critters.
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May 13, 2012 01:25
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fuf posted:Are people just joking when they go on about Brian Blessed? I really don't get it. I saw him on that episode of QI and he comes across as one of those insufferable thespians, like the kids in school that did drama and would take it in turns to recite little monologues and anecdotes to each other instead of actually having conversations. At times he does venture into that insufferable luvvie territory, but it doesn't happen often. He's just a remarkable guy, who has lived life to the full in every sense, has no regrets, and is happy to lampoon his past and his public image. The man made his third attempt on Everest at the age of 55, breaking records for the highest altitude attained without oxygen, then turned back to help a stranded climber. Just some poo poo he decided to do, with no media coverage or the usual celebrity bollocks. He's also the oldest person ever to trek to the North Pole. Be thankful he didn't bellow his success when there, as it would probably have reversed the Earth's magnetic field.
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May 15, 2012 23:34
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BBC3 for me is Doctor Who repeats and Eurovision semi-finals. I already have the Doctor Who on DVD/Blu-Ray, so an entire channel boils down to 2 days of Eurovision a year. BBC4 is where the background viewing is at for me. I've learned so much about so many things from having it on while doing other stuff.
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May 19, 2012 01:24
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Would I Lie To You? is a great panel show. It doesn't have the satire of HIGNFY, the forced edginess of Buzzcocks or the ineffable smugness of QI. It relies on simple humour and banter between the regulars that stems from 3 blokes who seem to genuinely like each other. Lee Mack's humour is certainly old-school, but his quickness of wit makes up for it. He's never lost for words and always has a comeback for anything that gets thrown at him. His burns against Mitchell's posh boy background are fantastic. David Mitchell plays his part brilliantly as the intelligent, slightly-aloof nerdy one continually bemused and angry at a pop-culture world he doesn't understand. He's pretty much a goon with the ability to channel his emotions into hilarious diatribes. I've not been a fan of Rob Brydon in the few other things I've seen him in, but he's an excellent host able to ad-lib and play the teams off against each other. My favourite moment from recent series has been the Cuddle Jumper. It's completely dumb slapstick comedy, but worth watching from the start just to see David Mitchell cracking up around 1m55s; losing his cynical demeanour and laughing hysterically at the sight of two men jostling around inside a giant sweater.
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May 20, 2012 00:46
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tanglewood1420 posted:Alice Cooper was great as the host on Buzzcocks. He was also one of the best castaways on Desert Island Discs in the last couple of years. He just comes across as a really nice guy who doesn't take anything seriously and has enough anecdotes to sink a battleship. I've seen him pop up on all kinds of shows, from Buzzcocks to BBC Breakfast couch sessions, and he's always struck me as a really great guy who has managed to maintain a grasp on reality despite his rock god status. He's always incredibly respectful of the fans who made him a household name, but happy to rip the arse out of the fringe elements of his fandom.
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May 22, 2012 02:04
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Biggest studio laugh on HIGNFY this evening was when they showed a couple of John Terry photoshops they found on the Internet, probably pinched from b3ta or somewhere without acknowledgement. Combined with Shatner doing a few lame renditions of pop melodies, it really just seemed like they were taking some internet memes and making them into a show. I have twitter already, so tuning in to see a bunch of jokes I'd heard 3-4 days ago isn't appealing. Would I Lie To You? before it was great as always, although it was harshly edited. During the "I know this person because x" round they edited it to the extent that the opposing team never even questioned Josie Lawrence's story. I'd love if it the BBC could put up full studio recordings of all these shows. They did it once during that David Walliams <topic> Relief 24-hour thing and it worked well.
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May 26, 2012 00:33
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