On telly this week

[Frank]

Jacques Peretti uses the Star Wars phenomenon as the starting point for his thesis that targeting children as consumers turns us all into childish consumers for our entire lives. I've no idea why I thought that might be relevant to anyone here ...

http://bbc.in/1iIFrVq (Kenner porn from 6 minutes in, Transformers and He-Man thereafter)

[Goaty]

Season 4 of The Walking Dead will be on 5* this Saturday! And double bills.

[Keef Monkey]

Season 4 of The Walking Dead will be on 5* this Saturday! And double bills.

Oh, nice timing! We just finished season 3 on Netflix and 4 isn't on there yet. Cheers Goaty!

[amines2058]

Season 4 of The Walking Dead will be on 5* this Saturday! And double bills.

Oh, nice timing! We just finished season 3 on Netflix and 4 isn't on there yet. Cheers Goaty!

Ditto, I am just on episode 15 of Series 3 so should finish this in time to watch Season 4 on 5*.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

A new time-travelling series from 90s Star Trek bods started yesterday on Starz



Based on a 90s novel series it's quite jarringly sluggish and full of many many tropes that have no place in modern TV. Such as a constant and gratingly expositional first-person narration...

[Daveycandlish]

Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Film 4. Saturday.
Watch it.

[Hawkmumbler]

Scrappers, BBC1.

Filmed litteraly a stones throw from my home. Watch and be amazed at all the Boltonion stereotypes.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Channel 4's getting it tight. They've completely lost the live feed on their big Stand Up To Cancer night. It's like a TV channel got a bad case of DDoS.

[Goaty]

Worth to check out A Cabin In The Woods on C5 tonight at 9pm, really smart horror film!

[Frank]

The Fall, BBC2, 23:35 - 01:35. I only watched this last week because I couldn't get to sleep after the clocks went back an hour, but I thought it was really good. Gillian Anderson playing an unlikeable cop on the trail of an oddly nice guy murderer with some unreconstructed attitudes towards pretty girls, in Belfast. Tonight is episodes 4 and 5, but the first three parts are still up on iplayer.

[Jim_Campbell]

Well, it turns out the Amazon-saves-Ripper-Street story only took two episodes to go sour. That's this show completely ruined for me. No idea where they take it from here, but it's nowhere I want to go. The characters are borderline unrecognisable, their relationships utterly changed from previous series, and now ... there's no coming back from this, IMO.

Fuck you, Amazon. Fuck you in the eye.

Jim

[Dark Jimbo]

Well, it turns out the Amazon-saves-Ripper-Street story only took two episodes to go sour. That's this show completely ruined for me. No idea where they take it from here, but it's nowhere I want to go. The characters are borderline unrecognisable, their relationships utterly changed from previous series, and now ... there's no coming back from this, IMO.

Fuck you, Amazon. Fuck you in the eye.

Nooooo! That's a shame, the reviews I read for episode 1 were really good. Been really looking forward to catching it on tv next year.

[Jim_Campbell]

Episode 1 was good. Episode 2...? Fuck, I'll watch episode 3, but they're going to have to do something unprecedented in the history of TV drama to bring it back from this. If they rescue the series from here, then I'll salute the brilliance of it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Cheers

Jim

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Things that were moderately good on the beeb post Christmas:

House of Fools Christmas Special


Some like it, some don't - but it's Vic and Bob as bold as brass and not giving half a balls whether anyone else finds it funny bar them. If you can get over awkward studio audience it's brilliantly stupid and has Phil Collins in it who is an arse.

Mapp & Lucia


Written by and starring Leaguesman Steve Pemberton - this 3-part 3-hour 1920s athon is basically Game of Thrones meets PG Wodehouse (or E.F. Benson). Miranda Richardson is fantastically vile and the supporting cast are brilliant fun - it might be a little dry for some and a bit old-hat tonally but it was a rewarding watch and is filmed in damned pretty Rye where the fictional stories were set.

Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe

Another year, another thing that's funny if you like Charlie Brooker -  there is a truly revelatory thing from Adam Curtis about the media at large pushing a 'isn't everything confusing, why do we even bother?' mindset that encourages indifference. However the end of the programme features a weirdly indulgent song that features the Blockheads and an awkwardly sexy Philomena Cunk for no conceivable reason.



I also tried to watch Esio Trot but me and Geoffery gave up because for some reason they thought it would make the story more engaging by including a really intrusively unnecessary and mawkish narration from James Corden OBE and it became unbearable within minutes. Don't normally bail out of stuff but I've got a whole load of Rocko's Modern Life queued up to watch and that seems more appealing.

[Dandontdare]

Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe

Another year, another thing that's funny if you like Charlie Brooker -  there is a truly revelatory thing from Adam Curtis about the media at large pushing a 'isn't everything confusing, why do we even bother?' mindset that encourages indifference. However the end of the programme features a weirdly indulgent song that features the Blockheads and an awkwardly sexy Philomena Cunk for no conceivable reason.

Her explanation of whether Russell Brand is thick or intelligent was priceless.