I watched the 1990s BBC two-part version of David Copperfield with none other than Potter-to-be Daniel Radcliffe as the titular character for the first half. Shown probably as another tribute to Dame Maggie Smith though it's hard to say cos she really was in a lot of stuff, wasn't she? I mean, some of it would have been in the schedules anyway. Some of the actors had passed away - Bob Hoskins, playing against type as a well-spoken Micawber and very good, Michael Elphicke as Barckus, for instance, but a good many still going strong such as Trevor Eve, Zoe Wanamaker, Nicholas Lyndhurst (who is a brilliant Uriah Heep even if he is channelling the quiet menace of Groutie in Porridge, you realise), Pauline Quirke from Birds of a Feather, Alan Armstrong of New Tricks and Get Carter, I enjoyed this but it has to circumvent the novel a bit to cram it in and that does come across, as someone on imdb points out, it tells you what is going on sometimes but you don't always feel it.
Nothing will stop me watching Carry On Camping if I start, it is an absolute classic albeit let down by it's deeply odd ending in which a mean-spirited Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw mess up the festival of some hippies who descend on the next-door field, it's too left field really and presents an external unexpected threat that is out of keeping with the usual Carry On third act. The hippies are playing beatnik music from 65, nothing Woodstock here despite how they're dressed. The attitudes lift the lid on the idea that everyone was behind the swinging scene of peace and love, like Brexit if you'd put it to the vote you might have got a very different result to the one promoted by the press, certainly subsequently.
But I have somehow missed the boat on a lot of Christmas telly fare such as Murder on the Orient Express. Casablanca seemed a bit pointless - this is not the first Christmas without both my parents but it certainly feels that way, without even the ghosts at your shoulder as I put it a year ago - but I watched it anyway and it is so very good, the one-liners make it for me. The Bond films just don't have those anymore, do they, it makes all the difference. Some old films, you feel you own them a bit when your elderly parent is alive even if you weren't alive when they came out, but once they're gone they are in danger of feeling like relics, a bit of life goes out of them.
That Great Adventure 1930s film that @chrisno1 reviewed a while back was on London Live in a good print. What's the point of that channel? It never promotes itself, I would have like to have seen that but you only see it's on by accident.
Another Xmas telly problem is late-night movies like Streisand and O'Neal screwball comedy What's Up Doc which I would have liked to have seen again. By that time of night I am ready to turn in, having had a fair bit of food and grog!
I don't know about "good" - I have been watching ARCHIE an ITVX series proporting to be a biographical tale about the actor Cary Grant. Jason Isaacs is fine as the older Grant, attempting to woo Laura Aikman's Dyan Cannon. It is mostly based on Cannon's book DEAR CARY, MY LIFE WITH CARY GRANT. This throws up immediate problems of bias. While I do not have reason to doubt Ms Cannon's version of events, I do feel we only receive one side of the story. The interesting periods of Grant's life - such as the 1920s and 30s rise to fame, his bisexual affairs with Orry-Kelly and Randolph Scott, his lack of award recognition and subsequent shunning of the Academy, two attempted retirements - are washed over in mere sentences or never breathed at all. Cannon can only describe what she partook in, or what was related to her, and the screenwriters are unable to fill in the gaps or reluctant to research corroborating alternate evidence. Hence the viewpoint remains onesided. It doesn't help that one of the earliest scenes is set in 1961 and Grant is shown discussing the forthcoming project North By Northwest. As that film was made in 1958 and released in 1959, I immediately smelled an unauthentic rat. Some quick research showed me that the death of Grant's brother occurred when the young Archie Leach - as he was then - was one year old, not 6 or 7 as shown here as well as numerous other glossy alterations, such as his first theatre role being a success [it wasn't, he made a dozen theatre appearances before being teamed with Fay Wray in Nikki]. Sadly throughout, there was a constant juggling and misalignment of the historical timelines to suit the purposes of the story. ARCHIE therefore becomes more faction than fact. Ultimately disappointing.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
I watched this some months ago and really enjoyed it…yes, it’s one sided and doesn’t show him in the best light…I had no idea it was THAT inaccurate with regards the timeline - which is a disappointment but ultimately this happens far too often nowadays.
This TV-series is a re-imagining of jules Verne's novel "20 000 leagues under the sea". Among the changes are are making Nemo (Shazad Latif) a mysterious man from India, making the east India Company the main enemy and starting the story with Nemo and a small group of very different people whom escape from the EIC penal prison with the Nautilus, a submarine the company built in secret. Nemo is the constructor of the amazing vessel. I think this works well. In an episode or two it steps too close to Xena - warrior princess territory and the "choosing sides" scene is a bit too one the nose, but mostly I thin the series hits the right notes. I like the steampunk genere, and it has lots of action, spectacle and drama. I also think Shazad Latif is worth a screentest as the next James Bond.
A six episode spy show with a deep, black, humorous undercurrent to it.
The premise: Knightley is an embedded spy in the British government. Married (with two kids) to one of the secretaries, she works for an organization that sells information to 'the highest bidder', regardless of national interests. Whishaw is a triggerman who is kinda subcontracting for this organization. The plot gets set into motion right away when three people are killed who would otherwise seem unconnected, one of whom is a man that Knightley is having an affair with.
That's the first 10 minutes of episode 1. Things take off from there.
Running a pretty lean and mean 6 episodes, this is 'all killer, no filler'...no unnecessary padding present. The direction is crisp, the acting is extremely strong from everyone, and the writing is fairly sharp and surprisingly character driven. Filled with interesting characters, a couple of solid plot machinations, and some decent action scenes, there's a lot to recommend here.
Not sure it comes under the category of 'good' demanded by the title of this thread, but Channel 4's Brian and Maggie, starring Steve Coogan as political interviewer Brian Walden who was known for serving up a Sunday roast - not the Wynne Evans kind, but a grilling of top politicians - and Harriet Walters as then PM Margaret Thatcher. Apologies for any unfortunate images the last sentence may have produced, a helpline will be provided at the end of this post.
It's directed by would-be Bond director Stephen Frears who also did The Queen and The Damned United I think, but what lets it down is its script which is Ladybird book stuff, heavy on exposition. I mean, I know you can argue that many young people need this stuff outlined - I met a well-educated 18-year-old Surrey lad recently who'd never seen a Bond movie - but then again you think most people tuning into this will know already and everyone else can learn to run with it.
Unfortunately Coogan was a dead ringer not for the former Labour MP Brian Walden but longstanding Labour MP Dennis Skinner, while Walters might have made a good Barbara Castle, Wilson's Labour stalwart. Few have got Thatcher right, she was a one off.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
I’ve seen a couple of adverts for that…and I’ll catch up with it at some point…😁
I watched the second part tonight and afterwards C4 flagged up the original interview, repeated on More 4 and it was dynamite. Thatcher, well, have to say it she looked very attractive and 15 years younger than her age, unscripted though she was repeating her line a few times too often, but you just don't see anything like that today. You can't imagine anyone being quizzed on Brexit benefits like the way she was quizzed on issues here, and whatever you think of her, blazing away with direct answers. It was gripping. You did find in her voice she was on the verge of breaking at times, and her smile suggested a real tension like she might crack - some people do smile when under painful pressure.
The only reason why the season progresses from plot point A to plot point B is because everyone's an idiot, incompetent, or both. It's like 24 only without the time gimmick and stupider. That said, the show is pretty briskly paced and passes the time in a pretty non-taxing way. This is the kind of show that's absolutely perfect to watch with half an eye while multi-tasking. Gonna fold laundry? This is the show for you.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
Wasn’t Brian Walden chosen for the interview as he’d interviewed Thatcher several times before and given her an easy ride…? That was the only reason why she did the interview…
Well, she did do interview generally but yes she might have been taken aback that he was going in so hard as he'd actually written some speeches for it turned out, acc to the drama. He was a supporter of her cause but it seemed he'd turned. The original interview is great stuff and in fairness, Thatcher is absolutely brilliant.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 9,317MI6 Agent
edited February 2025
Talking of Thatcher interviews here is the late broadcaster and journalist Anthony Howard on an encounter he had with the Iron Lady by phone in the early 1970s when he had to inform her that her interview wasn't going to make the cut for The World This Weekend programme on BBC Radio 4. He rather drew the short straw by the sounds of things:
By the way, this is just a small part of the interview with Howard and the whole thing is fascinating to listen to for those interested in British politics of yesteryear.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
PARADISE (Hulu) is off to a good start. As of this moment, 3 of 8 episodes are available (new episodes drop on Tuesdays) and my wife and I are fully onboard.
I don't want to say too much about the plot as it's best to go in clean. Don't read up on it and spoil the premise because it's a good one that's revealed towards the end of episode one.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
Yes, Thatcher did interviews…but this was at a particularly tricky time for her, and she needed a ‘good’ interview to get her back on track and back to being The Iron Lady of old…
I’m looking forward to watching it at some future point…🙂
YNWA 97
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
I’ve just finished the second series of SAS: Rogue Heroes…I really enjoyed this…whilst it keeps the rebelliousness of the first series - all action, blowing stuff up and looking great doing it - you definitely get the pathos and complete sense of wasted lives in this series…and the torment that goes with that…it’s both great fun and poignant.
Last night I watched the very first episode of Endeavour, the prequel to Inspector Morse, a sort of Morse Begins or Casino Royale-type series on ITV4.
It's good stuff, with Shaun Evans quite okay as the younger Morse originally played by John Thaw, the voice can't be the same but otherwise it's about right, not an impersonation, though charismatic co-star Roger Allam (something of the late Michael Gamdon's voice twin) does some heavy lifting as his senior who looks out for him and roots for him as the rookie cop promoted fast on the back of his superior detective work. Which looks a bit too superior, a bit too Sherlock Holmes, though that sort of thing is always fun to watch, and you are rooting for him against the internal opposition. It's a whodunnit where the suspects all seem a bit talky and usually say something that turns out to be relevant to the crime, conveniently enough. The denoucement was also, while unforeseen, fairly incredible but there you go.
I will be watching Ep 2 on ITV tonight, it starts at 10pm and ends Midnight.
Ep 2 of Endeavour, and it's on again tonight. It's an odd one - sort of Call the Midwife - Midsommer Murders hybrid, with all the authentic period settings of the former and the body count of the latter. I don't recall Morse having the same level of hokum - for hokum is what it is so far, you can't say it's realistic, not that you could about Agatha Christie. Sherlock Holmes wasn't either but at least he wasn't confined to one city, and London is or was the epicentre of everything at one point. The sheer number of deaths in Endeavour and the invention and imagination needed by the detective to solve them... it doesn't begin to be realistic though it presents as such. There is also the old trope of no matter that the guy has saved the day, his superior still treats him like dirt, like he's incompetent.
I will be tuning in again tonight at 10pm on ITV3.
A pretty nifty spy thriller series with a keen, black sense of humor to it. If you're not familiar with the premise, the show follows CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks who gets assigned 'graymail' cases to follow up on to see if they're legitimate. He's not supposed to be a field agent, but the stuff he ends up getting involved in eventually put him out in the field where he becomes an accidental 'agent of chaos' to other operations.
Season 1 was pretty fun. Season 2, it all gels much better with a tighter narrative throughline and more precise humor to punctuate the proceedings. It's actually pretty intelligent, especially when compared to the stupidity of THE NIGHT AGENT (which is nothing more than 'Stupid 24').
Season 2 is only 6 episodes, and it's all killer/no filler. Recommended.
I'm ploughing on with Endeavour on ITV3, 10pm-Midnight on weekdays but I'll be missing tonight's as I'm working. It's like watching a quality movie every night, the decor and visuals are terrific 1960s stuff and the casting is great. One episode had a young Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma) as a spoilt public school girl staying on at summer school with 10 or so others in a haunted house mystery. That was one where the denouement wasn't too ridiculous, or maybe my attitude has adjusted, we're up to Series 3 or 4 now as each series doesn't have too many episodes. One intriguing thread had Morse being tailed by the freemasons - a link eventually also made to historical paedophile activity by councillors and county police. This kind of allegation has to be made historically, i.e. for a drama set in the 60s and despite Line of Duty, rarely in the present tense, as the UK isn't eager to expose current ongoing scandals.
Even so, I tend to enjoy the set up, and am emotionally invested in the characters, but the last 15 minutes where we find out who the killer is tends to be utter codswallop. Curiously, this does not hinder my enjoyment and deter me from tuning in each evening, possibly the reverse for the silliness of it sends me to sleep lightheaded, without depressing or unhappy dreams. That all said, I do wonder if it's a generational thing that I just don't get, these dramas where on the one hand you totally buy into it but on the other happily accept when it turns to nonsense, I suppose I'm okay with some slapstick in most of the Roger Moore films while for older fans it was a dealbreaker.
Last night's episode followed on from Morse's tangle with the freemasons and had him questioning his loyalty to the police, very much in Daniel Craig mode, chopping wood in his own hut overlooking a lake. Then it span off into some kind of homage/rip off of The Great Gatsby, they didn't even make it subtle. Most odd.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 9,317MI6 Agent
If you took Ross Kemp and all his programmes and fitted them into a black hole I really would shake your hand.
That said, I did enjoy Bridge of Lies.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I have been watching VIRDEE, a BBC crime series set in Bradford. It is a grim and surly exercise. Not much happiness up north. The story revolves around DCI Harry Virdee, a Sikh married to a Muslim. That might be a big enough family issue, but it turns out his brother-in-law is a drug baron and is starting a turf war with an Eastern European gang. Meanwhile a serial killer is going all Silence of the Lambs on Bradford. The action is gruesome. The plot has holes all over the place. The writers are packing in too many subjects and themes and to do this, like any soap opera really, every action has to be taken without any prior thought. Hence, each episode is remorseless in its pursuit of tension, which has the exact opposite of its intent. Rather than increasing our enjoyment, we just become exhausted by all the anger, rapid fire dialogue and incident and increasingly daft scenarios.
HIGH, about the Peru Two, specifically Michaella McCollum - an Irish party girl whose dream summer in Ibiza turns into three years in a South American high security prison on drug smuggling charges - was an interesting documentary series, but I don't entirely understand why McCollum felt compelled to tell her story. Maybe she needed the money. It was mostly a procedural documentary. They would have been better off dramatising it and exaggerating the story for dramatic purpose. It just seemed a bit flat told how it was. On the plus side, Michealla seems to have found a decent life for herself, so all good, right ?
PARADISE (on Hulu) wrapped up Season 1 last night (note: it's been renewed for Season 2).
Overall, it's a pretty fun show. Episode 7 is a really strong episode in and of itself and a contender for 'episode of the year', in my opinion. There are a lot of plot and character contrivances to muddle through but overall the concept and the execution is fairly sound. The season finale resolves a major plotline in a way that doesn't entirely satisfy (I won't spoil) but it's overall good enough to prep the audience for what's to come in the second season.
It's only 8 episodes and good for a weekend binge.
Comments
I finished this show a couple of days ago too…I’m with you - an unexpected ending…very entertaining throughout…and good casting…🙂
I watched the 1990s BBC two-part version of David Copperfield with none other than Potter-to-be Daniel Radcliffe as the titular character for the first half. Shown probably as another tribute to Dame Maggie Smith though it's hard to say cos she really was in a lot of stuff, wasn't she? I mean, some of it would have been in the schedules anyway. Some of the actors had passed away - Bob Hoskins, playing against type as a well-spoken Micawber and very good, Michael Elphicke as Barckus, for instance, but a good many still going strong such as Trevor Eve, Zoe Wanamaker, Nicholas Lyndhurst (who is a brilliant Uriah Heep even if he is channelling the quiet menace of Groutie in Porridge, you realise), Pauline Quirke from Birds of a Feather, Alan Armstrong of New Tricks and Get Carter, I enjoyed this but it has to circumvent the novel a bit to cram it in and that does come across, as someone on imdb points out, it tells you what is going on sometimes but you don't always feel it.
Nothing will stop me watching Carry On Camping if I start, it is an absolute classic albeit let down by it's deeply odd ending in which a mean-spirited Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw mess up the festival of some hippies who descend on the next-door field, it's too left field really and presents an external unexpected threat that is out of keeping with the usual Carry On third act. The hippies are playing beatnik music from 65, nothing Woodstock here despite how they're dressed. The attitudes lift the lid on the idea that everyone was behind the swinging scene of peace and love, like Brexit if you'd put it to the vote you might have got a very different result to the one promoted by the press, certainly subsequently.
But I have somehow missed the boat on a lot of Christmas telly fare such as Murder on the Orient Express. Casablanca seemed a bit pointless - this is not the first Christmas without both my parents but it certainly feels that way, without even the ghosts at your shoulder as I put it a year ago - but I watched it anyway and it is so very good, the one-liners make it for me. The Bond films just don't have those anymore, do they, it makes all the difference. Some old films, you feel you own them a bit when your elderly parent is alive even if you weren't alive when they came out, but once they're gone they are in danger of feeling like relics, a bit of life goes out of them.
That Great Adventure 1930s film that @chrisno1 reviewed a while back was on London Live in a good print. What's the point of that channel? It never promotes itself, I would have like to have seen that but you only see it's on by accident.
Another Xmas telly problem is late-night movies like Streisand and O'Neal screwball comedy What's Up Doc which I would have liked to have seen again. By that time of night I am ready to turn in, having had a fair bit of food and grog!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I don't know about "good" - I have been watching ARCHIE an ITVX series proporting to be a biographical tale about the actor Cary Grant. Jason Isaacs is fine as the older Grant, attempting to woo Laura Aikman's Dyan Cannon. It is mostly based on Cannon's book DEAR CARY, MY LIFE WITH CARY GRANT. This throws up immediate problems of bias. While I do not have reason to doubt Ms Cannon's version of events, I do feel we only receive one side of the story. The interesting periods of Grant's life - such as the 1920s and 30s rise to fame, his bisexual affairs with Orry-Kelly and Randolph Scott, his lack of award recognition and subsequent shunning of the Academy, two attempted retirements - are washed over in mere sentences or never breathed at all. Cannon can only describe what she partook in, or what was related to her, and the screenwriters are unable to fill in the gaps or reluctant to research corroborating alternate evidence. Hence the viewpoint remains onesided. It doesn't help that one of the earliest scenes is set in 1961 and Grant is shown discussing the forthcoming project North By Northwest. As that film was made in 1958 and released in 1959, I immediately smelled an unauthentic rat. Some quick research showed me that the death of Grant's brother occurred when the young Archie Leach - as he was then - was one year old, not 6 or 7 as shown here as well as numerous other glossy alterations, such as his first theatre role being a success [it wasn't, he made a dozen theatre appearances before being teamed with Fay Wray in Nikki]. Sadly throughout, there was a constant juggling and misalignment of the historical timelines to suit the purposes of the story. ARCHIE therefore becomes more faction than fact. Ultimately disappointing.
I watched this some months ago and really enjoyed it…yes, it’s one sided and doesn’t show him in the best light…I had no idea it was THAT inaccurate with regards the timeline - which is a disappointment but ultimately this happens far too often nowadays.
Nautilus (2024)
This TV-series is a re-imagining of jules Verne's novel "20 000 leagues under the sea". Among the changes are are making Nemo (Shazad Latif) a mysterious man from India, making the east India Company the main enemy and starting the story with Nemo and a small group of very different people whom escape from the EIC penal prison with the Nautilus, a submarine the company built in secret. Nemo is the constructor of the amazing vessel. I think this works well. In an episode or two it steps too close to Xena - warrior princess territory and the "choosing sides" scene is a bit too one the nose, but mostly I thin the series hits the right notes. I like the steampunk genere, and it has lots of action, spectacle and drama. I also think Shazad Latif is worth a screentest as the next James Bond.
BLACK DOVES with Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw.
A six episode spy show with a deep, black, humorous undercurrent to it.
The premise: Knightley is an embedded spy in the British government. Married (with two kids) to one of the secretaries, she works for an organization that sells information to 'the highest bidder', regardless of national interests. Whishaw is a triggerman who is kinda subcontracting for this organization. The plot gets set into motion right away when three people are killed who would otherwise seem unconnected, one of whom is a man that Knightley is having an affair with.
That's the first 10 minutes of episode 1. Things take off from there.
Running a pretty lean and mean 6 episodes, this is 'all killer, no filler'...no unnecessary padding present. The direction is crisp, the acting is extremely strong from everyone, and the writing is fairly sharp and surprisingly character driven. Filled with interesting characters, a couple of solid plot machinations, and some decent action scenes, there's a lot to recommend here.
Bring on Season 2!
I’ve put BLACK DOVES onto my watchlist, I can always rely on a HarryCanyon recommendation 🍸
It’s totally implausible, but very entertaining 🙂
🤣
Another recommendation from a trusted source 😁👍🏻
If you enjoyed Ludwig have a look at this on ITVX . Patience English language remake of the French Astrid .
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31495377/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_5_nm_3_in_0_q_patience
Not sure it comes under the category of 'good' demanded by the title of this thread, but Channel 4's Brian and Maggie, starring Steve Coogan as political interviewer Brian Walden who was known for serving up a Sunday roast - not the Wynne Evans kind, but a grilling of top politicians - and Harriet Walters as then PM Margaret Thatcher. Apologies for any unfortunate images the last sentence may have produced, a helpline will be provided at the end of this post.
It's directed by would-be Bond director Stephen Frears who also did The Queen and The Damned United I think, but what lets it down is its script which is Ladybird book stuff, heavy on exposition. I mean, I know you can argue that many young people need this stuff outlined - I met a well-educated 18-year-old Surrey lad recently who'd never seen a Bond movie - but then again you think most people tuning into this will know already and everyone else can learn to run with it.
Unfortunately Coogan was a dead ringer not for the former Labour MP Brian Walden but longstanding Labour MP Dennis Skinner, while Walters might have made a good Barbara Castle, Wilson's Labour stalwart. Few have got Thatcher right, she was a one off.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I’ve seen a couple of adverts for that…and I’ll catch up with it at some point…😁
I did think it was rubbish.
I watched the second part tonight and afterwards C4 flagged up the original interview, repeated on More 4 and it was dynamite. Thatcher, well, have to say it she looked very attractive and 15 years younger than her age, unscripted though she was repeating her line a few times too often, but you just don't see anything like that today. You can't imagine anyone being quizzed on Brexit benefits like the way she was quizzed on issues here, and whatever you think of her, blazing away with direct answers. It was gripping. You did find in her voice she was on the verge of breaking at times, and her smile suggested a real tension like she might crack - some people do smile when under painful pressure.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THE NIGHT AGENT, season 2
The only reason why the season progresses from plot point A to plot point B is because everyone's an idiot, incompetent, or both. It's like 24 only without the time gimmick and stupider. That said, the show is pretty briskly paced and passes the time in a pretty non-taxing way. This is the kind of show that's absolutely perfect to watch with half an eye while multi-tasking. Gonna fold laundry? This is the show for you.
Wasn’t Brian Walden chosen for the interview as he’d interviewed Thatcher several times before and given her an easy ride…? That was the only reason why she did the interview…
Well, she did do interview generally but yes she might have been taken aback that he was going in so hard as he'd actually written some speeches for it turned out, acc to the drama. He was a supporter of her cause but it seemed he'd turned. The original interview is great stuff and in fairness, Thatcher is absolutely brilliant.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Talking of Thatcher interviews here is the late broadcaster and journalist Anthony Howard on an encounter he had with the Iron Lady by phone in the early 1970s when he had to inform her that her interview wasn't going to make the cut for The World This Weekend programme on BBC Radio 4. He rather drew the short straw by the sounds of things:
Anthony Howard - Not getting on well with Margaret Thatcher (27/41)
By the way, this is just a small part of the interview with Howard and the whole thing is fascinating to listen to for those interested in British politics of yesteryear.
PARADISE (Hulu) is off to a good start. As of this moment, 3 of 8 episodes are available (new episodes drop on Tuesdays) and my wife and I are fully onboard.
I don't want to say too much about the plot as it's best to go in clean. Don't read up on it and spoil the premise because it's a good one that's revealed towards the end of episode one.
Yes, Thatcher did interviews…but this was at a particularly tricky time for her, and she needed a ‘good’ interview to get her back on track and back to being The Iron Lady of old…
I’m looking forward to watching it at some future point…🙂
I’ve just finished the second series of SAS: Rogue Heroes…I really enjoyed this…whilst it keeps the rebelliousness of the first series - all action, blowing stuff up and looking great doing it - you definitely get the pathos and complete sense of wasted lives in this series…and the torment that goes with that…it’s both great fun and poignant.
Last night I watched the very first episode of Endeavour, the prequel to Inspector Morse, a sort of Morse Begins or Casino Royale-type series on ITV4.
It's good stuff, with Shaun Evans quite okay as the younger Morse originally played by John Thaw, the voice can't be the same but otherwise it's about right, not an impersonation, though charismatic co-star Roger Allam (something of the late Michael Gamdon's voice twin) does some heavy lifting as his senior who looks out for him and roots for him as the rookie cop promoted fast on the back of his superior detective work. Which looks a bit too superior, a bit too Sherlock Holmes, though that sort of thing is always fun to watch, and you are rooting for him against the internal opposition. It's a whodunnit where the suspects all seem a bit talky and usually say something that turns out to be relevant to the crime, conveniently enough. The denoucement was also, while unforeseen, fairly incredible but there you go.
I will be watching Ep 2 on ITV tonight, it starts at 10pm and ends Midnight.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Endeavour is really good.
Ep 2 of Endeavour, and it's on again tonight. It's an odd one - sort of Call the Midwife - Midsommer Murders hybrid, with all the authentic period settings of the former and the body count of the latter. I don't recall Morse having the same level of hokum - for hokum is what it is so far, you can't say it's realistic, not that you could about Agatha Christie. Sherlock Holmes wasn't either but at least he wasn't confined to one city, and London is or was the epicentre of everything at one point. The sheer number of deaths in Endeavour and the invention and imagination needed by the detective to solve them... it doesn't begin to be realistic though it presents as such. There is also the old trope of no matter that the guy has saved the day, his superior still treats him like dirt, like he's incompetent.
I will be tuning in again tonight at 10pm on ITV3.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THE RECRUIT, season 2, on Netflix:
A pretty nifty spy thriller series with a keen, black sense of humor to it. If you're not familiar with the premise, the show follows CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks who gets assigned 'graymail' cases to follow up on to see if they're legitimate. He's not supposed to be a field agent, but the stuff he ends up getting involved in eventually put him out in the field where he becomes an accidental 'agent of chaos' to other operations.
Season 1 was pretty fun. Season 2, it all gels much better with a tighter narrative throughline and more precise humor to punctuate the proceedings. It's actually pretty intelligent, especially when compared to the stupidity of THE NIGHT AGENT (which is nothing more than 'Stupid 24').
Season 2 is only 6 episodes, and it's all killer/no filler. Recommended.
I'm ploughing on with Endeavour on ITV3, 10pm-Midnight on weekdays but I'll be missing tonight's as I'm working. It's like watching a quality movie every night, the decor and visuals are terrific 1960s stuff and the casting is great. One episode had a young Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma) as a spoilt public school girl staying on at summer school with 10 or so others in a haunted house mystery. That was one where the denouement wasn't too ridiculous, or maybe my attitude has adjusted, we're up to Series 3 or 4 now as each series doesn't have too many episodes. One intriguing thread had Morse being tailed by the freemasons - a link eventually also made to historical paedophile activity by councillors and county police. This kind of allegation has to be made historically, i.e. for a drama set in the 60s and despite Line of Duty, rarely in the present tense, as the UK isn't eager to expose current ongoing scandals.
Even so, I tend to enjoy the set up, and am emotionally invested in the characters, but the last 15 minutes where we find out who the killer is tends to be utter codswallop. Curiously, this does not hinder my enjoyment and deter me from tuning in each evening, possibly the reverse for the silliness of it sends me to sleep lightheaded, without depressing or unhappy dreams. That all said, I do wonder if it's a generational thing that I just don't get, these dramas where on the one hand you totally buy into it but on the other happily accept when it turns to nonsense, I suppose I'm okay with some slapstick in most of the Roger Moore films while for older fans it was a dealbreaker.
Last night's episode followed on from Morse's tangle with the freemasons and had him questioning his loyalty to the police, very much in Daniel Craig mode, chopping wood in his own hut overlooking a lake. Then it span off into some kind of homage/rip off of The Great Gatsby, they didn't even make it subtle. Most odd.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
If you took Ross Kemp and all his programmes and fitted them into a black hole I really would shake your hand.
That said, I did enjoy Bridge of Lies.
I have been watching VIRDEE, a BBC crime series set in Bradford. It is a grim and surly exercise. Not much happiness up north. The story revolves around DCI Harry Virdee, a Sikh married to a Muslim. That might be a big enough family issue, but it turns out his brother-in-law is a drug baron and is starting a turf war with an Eastern European gang. Meanwhile a serial killer is going all Silence of the Lambs on Bradford. The action is gruesome. The plot has holes all over the place. The writers are packing in too many subjects and themes and to do this, like any soap opera really, every action has to be taken without any prior thought. Hence, each episode is remorseless in its pursuit of tension, which has the exact opposite of its intent. Rather than increasing our enjoyment, we just become exhausted by all the anger, rapid fire dialogue and incident and increasingly daft scenarios.
HIGH, about the Peru Two, specifically Michaella McCollum - an Irish party girl whose dream summer in Ibiza turns into three years in a South American high security prison on drug smuggling charges - was an interesting documentary series, but I don't entirely understand why McCollum felt compelled to tell her story. Maybe she needed the money. It was mostly a procedural documentary. They would have been better off dramatising it and exaggerating the story for dramatic purpose. It just seemed a bit flat told how it was. On the plus side, Michealla seems to have found a decent life for herself, so all good, right ?
The recent Oscar winner for documentary, No Other Land, about the West Bank conflict, is on Channel 4 tonight at 11.15pm, ends 12.50am.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
PARADISE (on Hulu) wrapped up Season 1 last night (note: it's been renewed for Season 2).
Overall, it's a pretty fun show. Episode 7 is a really strong episode in and of itself and a contender for 'episode of the year', in my opinion. There are a lot of plot and character contrivances to muddle through but overall the concept and the execution is fairly sound. The season finale resolves a major plotline in a way that doesn't entirely satisfy (I won't spoil) but it's overall good enough to prep the audience for what's to come in the second season.
It's only 8 episodes and good for a weekend binge.