What was the last TV show you watched?

[Edward]

Still Game is on Netflix Canada, have not had a chance to see it, will give it a look when I can!

‘Still Game’ is totally mad, needs a couple of episodes for the characters to ‘bed in’.

I've always said it's like a Glaswegian Last of the Summer Wine, except actually funny. I got really into it a few years ago, then watched the last series as it went out on the Beeb. I had a surprisingly emotional reaction to the final episode. Next I have to see the DVDs of the live show. They did three, from memory - one was the original, three-man play on which the tv show was first based. Then, after the tv show's hiatus, they did a second show, and lastly there was alive show that followed the final series. The show as a whole was beautifully observed - not least Navid, the Indian-Scottish shop owner. Sanjeev Kohli was born in London to Indian parents, but moved to Scotland at the age of three. He clearly draws on his parents for Navid's accent, a perfectly pitched mix of Indian and Glaswegian, exactly as it would be for a man who moved to Glasgow as young adult and have been there for forty or fifty years. The running gag that Meena, his wife, never has her face in shot was great fun. (Incidentally, Shamshad Akhtar, who plays Meena, has a fascinating life story all of her own, a real survivor). It's funny when you see the whole cast out of character and make-up, it's only then you realise how much younger they are than they are playing. Isa especially... she was a favourite of mine too as she reminded me a lot of an administrator that used to work in our finance department years ago. Funny thing, as Kiernan and Hemphill in particular have gotten older (the show first aired in 2006), they really have begun to look more like Victor and Jack.

If Still Game works for you, you should check out the sketch show that Victor and Jack first appeared in, Chewin' The Fat. It's even more culturally specific I think - I loved it (being from the North of Ireland, culturally Glasgow is very close to home for me and I could easily slot in there), but my English wife wasn't sold on it at all.

 

[MisterCairo]

Two more Battlestar Galacticas. Nearing the end. It is confusing to load the blu-ray disks as curiously there is a season "4" then a series "4.5", with the disks numbered 1 and 2 for each, but then packaged in such a way that it is easy to watch 4 disk one then 4.5 disk 2, thus missing out on half the season.

Wait, what's happening now???

Got it in order just in time...

 

[Zombie_61]

Two more Battlestar Galacticas. Nearing the end. It is confusing to load the blu-ray disks as curiously there is a season "4" then a series "4.5", with the disks numbered 1 and 2 for each, but then packaged in such a way that it is easy to watch 4 disk one then 4.5 disk 2, thus missing out on half the season.

Wait, what's happening now???

Got it in order just in time...

I'm sure Universal thought they'd make more money by selling the first and second halves of each season separately, but I know a lot of people who were fans of the remake but refused to pay that kind of extortion. I see they're now selling each full season in the same package (or you can buy the whole series in one box set) so it seems they learned their lesson...once the show ended, went off the air, and fewer people cared about it.

 

[MisterCairo]

I'm sure Universal thought they'd make more money by selling the first and second halves of each season separately, but I know a lot of people who were fans of the remake but refused to pay that kind of extortion. I see they're now selling each full season in the same package (or you can buy the whole series in one box set) so it seems they learned their lesson...once the show ended, went off the air, and fewer people cared about it.

I have the box set, will post a pic of the packaging. He'll on Wheels did the same sort of thing, season 5 came in two halves, one year apart. Season did come as one set though. Yes, we own it!

 

[Touchofevil]

A number of shows dealing with people moving to Alaska and trying to find a house playing in the background off and on throughout the past week or so.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

A number of shows dealing with people moving to Alaska and trying to find a house playing in the background off and on throughout the past week or so.

Sort of similar to that might be Life Below Zero, as found on the National Geographic part of Disney+. Folks aren't buying houses, but are carving out a life in some of the toughest parts of Alaska.

 

[AmateisGal]

Another episode of the new All Creatures Great and Small. It's just a delightful, warm-hearted show.

First episode of Miss Scarlet and the Duke on Masterpiece Mystery. I quite enjoyed it, and will be watching more!

 

[Zombie_61]

...He'll on Wheels did the same sort of thing, season 5 came in two halves, one year apart. Season did come as one set though. Yes, we own it!

That reminds me that I still need to get seasons 4 and 5. Thanks!

 

[Alice Blue]

Ran across an article on the production design of All Creatures Great and Small. I’m not sure what I think; perhaps some period dramas are indeed too dingy, but I have been distracted by the bright (and fresh-looking) paint on the shop exteriors and the trim in Skeldale House.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com...arming-world-of-all-creatures-great-and-small

 

[MisterCairo]

Still watching season six of Sons of Anarchy, and have got the wife watching season one of Fargo, with Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton.

 

[AmateisGal]

Still watching season six of Sons of Anarchy, and have got the wife watching season one of Fargo, with Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton.

Season one is awesome! Boyfriend and I worked our way through all seasons of Fargo - they're definitely different.

I finished Miss Scarlet and the Duke tonight. Really enjoyed it, and I hope they make another season!

Also started rewatching the 1990s sitcom Just Shoot Me. It's witty and fun.

 

[BobHufford]

Also started rewatching the 1990s sitcom Just Shoot Me. It's witty and fun.

I had this as my ring tone for a time:

 

[Edward]

Finished the Starzversion of Heathers recently. Mixed impressions. I liked it better than Heathers the Musical (which wasacomplete mockery of the original, seemingly put together by people who neither understood the film, nor wanted to work on it asmuch as they really wanted to be donig Clueless. Awful, awful - if you like the film at all, never see the musical). It stretches out the action to ten, forty-minute parts. JD is mostly the same characrer, though Veronica is both an oddly bloodless shadow of the original, and intended to be much darker. I'm not convinced that things have changed so much on the ground in an American High School of today that the "cool kids" / "beautiful people" Heathers of today would have all been the first victims of the original Heathers for one reason and another. I had the feeling that they were trying to do something ironic and clever, though it did have a strong undertone of suggesting that some folks who are still very much facing prejudice in today's world somehow the bullies. But hey ho. The adults, fom the disinterested or warped parents passing on their own flaws to the next generation through the teachers, were very well done, and the satirical take on a school prepping kids with a 'school shooting drill' was perfectly executed. The ending was badly handled - they did that awful thing where they have aperfect ending, but then they can't resist adding on a stupid "here's people in the afterlife" to beat you over the head with who went there and who were The Bad People Who Are In Hell. Stupid.

On the other end of the scale, Starz has also now launched their new version of Stephen King's The Stand Three episodes in, I'm enjoying it very much. Great cast, and while some of them depart markedly from the physical descriptinos in the book, they still make sensed and fulfil the same 'role' well. Whoopi Goldberg makes a great Mother Abigail. They've also taken an intersting approach to the story: taking a point about midway through as "now", and filling in the rest in flashback, done in a way where it's really clear. Enjoying that a lot.

 

[MisterCairo]

I have the box set, will post a pic of the packaging. He'll on Wheels did the same sort of thing, season 5 came in two halves, one year apart. Season did come as one set though. Yes, we own it!

FWIIW:

 

[MisterCairo]

The wife and I finished Fargo season 1 (second go round for me), and back to viewing SOA, season six.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Finished all the seasons (14) of Life Below Zero on the National Geographic section of Disney+. There seems to be another season out there; anticipating it becoming available. Will try Port Protection on the same service as a placebo 'til the real thing comes back.
Watched a couple episodes of Miss Scarlet (and the Duke) through the PBS service. We liked the clever plotting, but hope Inspector Wellington gets to be more than a grouch each show.

 

[Edward]

Over lunch today I bookmarked a few links on youtube to old fifties hotrod films and Twilight Zone episodes for tonight - I feel the need for something a bit light after It's a Sin, a mini-series about a group of friends going through the AIDS crisis frim the early days in 1981 to 1991. The surprising ting is less the aspects of how dreadful the response was back then to begin with, but how little the world seems to have learned with Covid19.

For the Trekkies out there, the new Below Decks animated series, set among the trainees and Ensign underlings of a Starfleet vessel primarily tasked with managing 'second contact' with new civilisations, is a lot of fun. I'm watching it on Prime, not sure where it's available outside the UK.

 

[MisterCairo]

Second and third last episodes of SOA season 6. My goodness the violence does not dissipate even after a couple of years' hiatus. The finale is next, and though we know how it goes, we are still tingling with excitement!

 

[MisterCairo]

With the wife - Sons of Anarchy, final season, first three episodes.

With the family, now nearing the end of Supernatural season 9.

On my own, Red Dwarf, on series two, and started Rising Damp, have not seen in yonks. Britbox for both.

 

[Edward]

I've been watching a series of comedic shorts made for the BBC IPLayer. Called Staged, they're a series of fifteen minute episodes, with David Tennant and Michael Sheen in the lead, and their families appearing randomly. The set-up is that they - playing themselves - are rehearsing, via Zoom, a West End play that was cancelled due to Covid-19; they're working online to be able to hit the ground running when lockdown is over, and they will then have something ready to go and their choice of theatres. Of course, little goes to plan and there isn't much rehearsing done. Hilarity ensues. Samuel L Jackson made a guest appearance in the lastest one, and sends himself up absolutely hilariously. Well worth catching if you have access to iPlayer or it gets shown elsewhere. It's little more than a couple of people talking to each other, but the quality of script and delivery is such that it's an absolute joy.