TV obsessions—come on, admit it!

[Alatar]

So, like LotR and The Hobbit then...

[axordil]

Well, if LOTR was about one of the surviving dwarves, maybe.

[Alatar]

Eh no. More like Gandalf.

[axordil]

Watched the first episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency last night, which managed to carry the tone and manner of Douglas Adam's story into a new setting rather well, I thought. Wisely, they kept Dirk English, though the story is set in Seattle and the other main players are American (including Elijah Wood, who still looks 19 )

[Impenitent]

Marc and I have just finished watching the first two seasons of The Tunnel, a joint British/French production adapted from the Danish/Swedish crime series The Bridge which was, I believe, itself adapted from a book.
It's a gripping crime/suspense drama fronted by two outstanding actors in the roles of the British detective Karl Roebuck (I've not seen the actor Stephen Dillane in anything before) and French detective Elise Wasserman (Clemence Poesy, whom I've seen only as Fleur Delacour in the HP films).

So much to praise! The bilingual script is sharp; the direction gritty; the suspense is unrelenting; the characters are just brilliant and convincing, especially Elise who displays all the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome (and not in a quirky way; in a very unsettling, must be so difficult to live with way).

The first season opened with the discovery of a woman's body in the Channel Tunnel, straddling the border. On closer inspection, the shocked detectives find that they have found two bodies - the top half of a French politician, and the bottom half of a British prostitute. Discovering the why is a maze of a journey and I was glued to the screen right to the end (10 episodes), although I found the denouement didn't live up to the incredible build up.

The second season, only 8 episodes, we finished last night, and I liked it even more because of the development of Elise's character, and the carryover from the first season which still weighed enormously on Karl. And the resolution was also more to my taste (fewer plotholes, to which I am allergic).

A really excellent series which I can highly recommend. I wonder whether there will be a third?

[eborr]

I enjoy watching programmes about the natural world, I find them very relaxing, and although I have a biased, the stuff done by the Beeb's natural history unit has always been great. I have just watched the first and second episodes of Planet Earth 2 in HD, the quality of the filming is unbelievable. I am not much given to hyperbole, but the beauty of the world shown in these programmes is incredible.

Attenborough is doing the V/O and he is pretty good at that, but to be honest, I have had to rewind and play some bit's again because I have been so caught up in the visuals.

Much of what the BBC now produces is unwatchable - they have really bought into the prevailing consumerist philosophy and are pretty much fully engaged in a race to the bottom, with Z list celebrity dancing programmes, naff reality programmes and a political agenda that makes the Daily Mail appear progressive, but the Natural History unit in Bristol still cuts if. No doubt one Attenborough goes, their agenda will change do, and we will have programmes about how urban Foxes can bring down the value of your house, or reality programmes about people who clean up Pigeon s**t.

I am aware that some you can't get BBC, directly, but hopefully the programmes will come on Netflix or where-ever in time. At it's a crime to watch the in anything less than HD.

[Sunsilver]

I mentioned that series when it first came on National Geographic Wild channel last year, and no one responded. (Maybe they couldn't get it?) Yes, i agree, extremely well done, and worth watching! I love that Attenborough includes clips from his earlier programs to show how things have changed.

Nat Geo Wild has some great programming. If I ever have to give up my extra channels on cable, it will be the last one I'll let go! There have been a few bad programs, but I noticed they didn't last long.

We can get the BBC in Canada, and I've enjoyed some of the programming (Mrs. Brown's Boys, Sherlock (Masterpiece Theatre) and reruns of Call the Midwife (Okay, that's on another channel, but it was on BBC when it first came out. ) Most of their sitcoms are pretty bad, though.

I really wish they'd rerun All Creatures Great and Small! Loved the books, loved the show!

[eborr]

My wife's Grandad know Alf Smith (James Herriot) quite well, he farmed in the country side near Thirsk, he is name checked in one of Herriot's non-fiction books -

[Frelga]

There's BBC America, but for some reason half the time they are playing StarTrek.

[Sunsilver]

Eborr, would you classify the James Herriott books (All Creatures Great and Small, etc.) as fiction or non-fiction? Of course, he had to change names to preserve the privacy of his clients - that's a given in any sort of medical practice - but how close to the truth did he stick with the books? And is your wife's Grand-dad mentioned in them, or some other book Smith wrote? I'm only familiar with his books about his veterinary work, plus a couple of kid's books he wrote about animals.

[eborr]

I am not an expert on Herriot, so as to the actuality I couldn't really say, how truthful his tales were.

the book Luke was mentioned in is

https://www.amazon.com/James-Herriots-Y ... 0312439709

They are talking about a ruin on the Drovers Road of an Inn called Lime Kiln house, where his Mother was the last landlady.

[Lalaith]

Has anyone else watched The Crown?

I started it a bit ago, and it became my treadmill show (the one I watch while walking). I thought the first few episodes were a little slow. (Sarah declared them boring.) Each episode gets better, imo, and I remember thinking by the episode where Churchill has his portrait painted that it was excellent. ("Assassins" is the episode title, and it was very well-written and acted.)

And then, yesterday, as I'm walking and watching, I have this slow dawning taking place in my brain. "Um, you don't suppose.... No, already? But it can't be. And surely there's...."

Last episode.

[Alatar]

Hey Maria, not sure if you spotted it but Netflix released the 2hr Christmas special of Sense8

[Maria]

They sent me an email about it.. but we've been watching so little TV that we've had Netflix turned off for a couple of months. The email was a rather blatant attempt to get us reactivate- but I can't see paying for a whole month for one episode.

When they put the entire season online in May, we'll start watching it again.

We've been slowly going through Babylon 5 again the past few months. It is still awesome... but the quality of the recording is really poor when put up on a big screen tv. I've read that's why they won't release it in blu ray. The original video quality just isn't good enough.

[Primula Baggins]

That's a shame. I already have it on DVD, but I'd get it on Blu-Ray, eventually.

I think the barrier might be the special effects shots, which would have to be completely redone at higher resolution. That was what delayed the widescreen release for so long—the on-set, live-action shooting was done widescreen, but the CGI effects were all rendered for 4:3 (budget, I believe), because that's how the show was originally broadcast. They eventually fixed the effects for widescreen, but I doubt it was done at a resolution high enough to look acceptable on Blu-Ray. So it would all have to be done yet again, and for an uncertain level of return.

I think the show is a classic, but I also think its audience is aging out; it doesn't have the new material being produced that brings new audiences in to Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. That ship may have sailed.

[Maria]

The CGI stuff could be redone easily but the real problem is the actors. There are so many scenes where the faces are kind of pixilated out.

[Primula Baggins]

Yes—hard to remember, but TV was a different thing in the early 1990s! I'm so happy to be spoiled by beautiful resolution. We were late getting our first and so far only HDTV, but it changed everything—watching movies without the feeling that you're missing half the image; science fiction TV that doesn't look fake. But shows that were made before that transition really got started suffer as a result.

Still, if the story and writing and acting are good enough, it's worth watching. That definitely applies to B5. (Though anyone who wants to try it should probably Google "Which first-season B5 episodes should I watch?" There really are only about four you actually need to see to follow the rest of the story, and some of the others are really bad. . . . From season 2 on it picks up beautifully.)

[Maria]

We just got tired of so many shows we tried that were at best mediocre. We wanted to watch something guaranteed *good*, even if the visuals weren't all that great.

So a full B5 re-run. I have to say, though, that the tension about Earth's government was especially ominous this time. I can't help wondering what form the Night Watch will take in rl.

edit: I liked Season 1, really. The only one I dislike is season 5.

[Jude]

Has anybody seen the new series on Queen Victoria?

[Primula Baggins]

The first two episodes air tonight on PBS, right after Sherlock. I'm recording them and definitely plan to watch.

Have you seen it already, Jude?