Television tonight: what's worth watching?

[rafletcher]

BBC iPlayer is telling me that Guilt will be back for a 3rd and final series soon.

Looks like this starts tonight according to iPlayer.

Thursday here.

[Mrs Pingu]

Yes, I realised when I set the PVR to record it was on BBC Scotland channel.

[rafletcher]

A heads-up that this years Giro is on Freeview, DMAX, starting on Saturday 6th. Also that you PVR may not pick up recording clashes (at least my Manhattan didn’t, Humax may be better at it).

ETA Also, you can watch catch-up (of the DMAX highlights) on Discovery+ for free.

ETTA No, you can’t. Hey ho, subscription paid.

[Hot Flatus]

June will see a TdF documentary series on netflix

[Legs]

Ever late to the party, Mrs Legs and I have been watching Happy Valley.  Just nearing the end of Series 1 now.  Enjoying it very much!

[rafletcher]

Ever late to the party, Mrs Legs and I have been watching Happy Valley.  Just nearing the end of Series 1 now.  Enjoying it very much!

We found 1 & 2 excellent. 3 got a bit melodramatic.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Magpie Murders

Very confusing initially, then settles into being rather fun. A bit Agatha Christie, with time-hopping and some messing with the fourth wall via a literary character.

[Auntie Helen]

Ever late to the party, Mrs Legs and I have been watching Happy Valley.  Just nearing the end of Series 1 now.  Enjoying it very much!

I’ve also started watching it but am finding it a little distressing and don’t know whether to continue. I watched to the end of episode 3, series 1.

[sam]

Only on tonight if you can track it down somewhere. I'd better not tell you where I watched it for free, or you may become an accessory after the fact.

Post-apocalyptic series The Last of Us. The third episode is the best TV I've seen in, well, a long long time.



"Who the hell is Linda Ronstadt?"
- some Generation Z person working at Spotify, I imagine

[citoyen]

Cue the swirly music - Succession S4 starts tonight.

It's been amazing so far. Ken and Rom's behaviour is all too painfully believable.

[rafletcher]

Magpie Murders

Very confusing initially, then settles into being rather fun. A bit Agatha Christie, with time-hopping and some messing with the fourth wall via a literary character.

We started this last night. I think without Lesley Manville it would have failed, but she held it together.

[Mr Larrington]

I bin watching Revolutions with the presenter that Prof B Cox calls “Jimmy Alka Seltzer”.  It's been lurking on the Humax box since the summer of 2019 and thus not available on iPlayer chiz but does feature a squealing Prof A Roberts on a dog sled, clearly having the time of her life.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Just started 10 Pound Poms

One episode so far. Mixed feelings; it isn't always comfortable viewing. Portrayal of Australian attitudes feels 'right' to me; my parents, with myself and my brother, emigrated to Oz at the end of the 10 pound poms era (although we were posh; flew out on sponsored passage, paid for by Dad's employers). My cousins came with their parents by sea on a sponsored passage.

Comments in spoilers

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A few things don't feel right. There is a scene in the first episode where an aussie aboriginal woman is told to go the back of the queue in a store, behind the white women. This is supposedly in 1950, well, from my recollections of rural australia, she's far too well dressed, and wouldn't have been allowed in such a smart store in the first place (yes, rural australia was very racist).

They are over-egging the 'poms stealing jobs from real aussies' thing. The whole £10 passage thing happened because australia had a shortage of labour, plus the official White Australia policy meant they wanted more English immigrants. So an experienced builder wouldn't have been reduced to digging ditches.

Flies. There aren't enough. All characters should be constantly waving them away, and the new immigrants struggling to cope. It wasn't until the mid 80s, with the introduction of dung beetles, that the massive massive problems with flies were tackled.

On the other hand, the 'you poms are like blacks in australia' is about right. Even in the 70s, 'pommy bastard' was not a term of endearment. Being identified as a pom meant being the subject of bullying and abuse.

[sam]

The Diplomat. After watching Keri Russell in The Americans, thought I'd give it a shot. I also like Rufus Sewell as "the wife".



It amuses me that the actor playing the PM also played him in Black Mirror/The National Anthem.

Brought to the small screen by Debora Cahn, writer/producer from The West Wing, which was entertaining and maddening in equal measure.

[rafletcher]

Behind the times, but we started watching “Blue Lights”. Brilliantly made. And we followed that up with a Storyville “Chechnya - The Gay Purge”. Chilling b

[Salvatore]

New series of Springwatch starts tonight.

Not that I'd normally watch it, but a BBC "junior researcher" contacted me at the weekend with a request to use a couple of my pictures and videos, and was very keen for me to return the permission form today. Said researcher and form stress that there's no guarantee that they'll be used but I'll be watching just in case anyway.

If you were on the Not The Coronation Camping Weekend you probably saw one of the videos (Apollo watched it several times).

[Nuncio]

The first episode of the Tour De France Netflix 'documentary' yesterday was pretty good, I thought, given that it's aiming at a broad audience.

[Wowbagger]

New series of Springwatch starts tonight.

Not that I'd normally watch it, but a BBC "junior researcher" contacted me at the weekend with a request to use a couple of my pictures and videos, and was very keen for me to return the permission form today. Said researcher and form stress that there's no guarantee that they'll be used but I'll be watching just in case anyway.

If you were on the Not The Coronation Camping Weekend you probably saw one of the videos (Apollo watched it several times).

Was it used?

[Woofage]

Behind the times, but we started watching “Blue Lights”. Brilliantly made.

Same here (2 episodes to go). It's much more gritty than other police/crime dramas and the characters are believable. I particularly enjoyed the "Full Moon" episode as that injected a bit of black comedy.

[fd3]

Moonage Daydream on the flix.  To say that I am a massive Bowie fan is a understatement, so that may be why I am finding it just a random jumble of stock footage.  I'm not even sure the quotes/interviews match the era of the videos/footage.

[Auntie Helen]

Thanks for the r3commendation of Blue Lights, I really enjoyed it.

[Nuncio]

Ditto re- Blue Lights.

[rafletcher]

I knew it had to be good, my wife struggles with accents, but loved watching it. Roll on season 2.

[fd3]

Greek salad on the prime.
Series following on from the auberge Espanol trilogy

[ian]

Whatever the latest Mandalorian is.

I may be committing some kind of heresy, but honestly, Star Wars is a bit meh. As an 80s teenager, of course, I loved it back in the day to the point that even Return of the Jedi was OK and I never questioned the poor workmanship on Death Stars that always left a fatal design flaw (they should have taken up a snagging list with the developers). Then they reprised it all with the prequels that honestly I can't remember and I have no wish to remind myself. Han Solo I slept through. Twice. Rogue One was almost OK, I think they wanted to make an adult film (not the sticky kind).

The series are the very epitome of meh. They're watchable, though I don't know why I bother. I think it's the gravity of completeness. Everyone went on about Andor, and really, it was dull and derivative.

In other news, last episode of Dark. It's going to have to do some heavy lifting.