Current TV Boxset Addiction

[The Legendary Shark]

The only sport I ever really engaged with was Rugby League. Not many cissies in those teams and the fans were a delight.

[Trooper McFad]

The only sport I ever really engaged with was Rugby League. Not many cissies in those teams and the fans were a delight.

My wife is a big Aussie rules fan (from when it was on the telly in the 80s) and she got an AFL subscription from the kids so I watch some of the games with her and there's no holding back in that - some crunching collisions 🤕

[Barrington Boots]

My hometown team is / was in the same league as Wrexham. For them not to win the league the year of the first series, given the resources they had available, was staggeringly inept. They improved this year!
I have to confess, watching people rave about them off this documentary has been a little grating. They're still seen as these plucky underdogs of English football but this year they hoovered up all the talent from other clubs by offering wages other teams couuldn't match and Manchester City'd the whole thing. It's not really the romantic story that its being sold as.

That gripe aside, their fans are fantastic. Anyone who supports a crap team knows that anyone else who is passionate about a crap team has been through all the highs and lows (mostly lows) as you and can sympathise with it. My side had to run a GoFundMe to pay our staffs Christmas wages after our owner shamefully didn't, and received a lot of support and donations from Wrexham, including a lot from abroad: the series has given them a ton of support in the US and I think that's a major moneyspinner for them. They'd been out of the league for a long time and deserve success, I hope they have a great year next season.

[Colin YNWA]

I can well imagine that view Barrington Boots - I'm really intrigued who do you support?

Its like the reimagining of Blackburn as the pluckly underdogs in 94/5. History is rewriting itself and anyone watching football at the time knows they had the most disposible income and bought the league. I imagine its much the same for Wrexham - still makes for good telly.

[Dandontdare]

Its like the reimagining of Blackburn as the pluckly underdogs in 94/5.

careful now

[Barrington Boots]

I can well imagine that view Barrington Boots - I'm really intrigued who do you support?

Southend United. I don't get to many games now that I live in the Midlands but my Dad still has his season ticket and I sometimes go along with him. We're an absolute basket case of a club, there's a good chance we'll be wound up this year.

Re-reading my bitter post about Wrexham, the NL is a horrible league (we've only been in it two years and we're desperate to get out) and the documentary is a really nice bit of work that does make you root for the fans and owners. I stand by my point about the manufactured romance, but I guess this is a literal rags to riches story and I genuinely wish them every success.

To avoid derailing the thread, I've been watching Physical 100 on Netflix. I'm not really into reality shows - my wife wanted to watch this, I think after a suggestion that it had a lot of ripped physiques - but this is compelling viewing, despite it's psuedo-Squid Games aesthetic, terrible editing and insistence on replaying some events four times in quick succession. There's something really nice about how respectful and supportive the bulk of the athletes are towards each other: there's none of the forced melodrama, showboating or snide behaviour I've seen in Western programmes like this and there's even a couple of selfless acts of self-sacrifice late in the team element where athletes put themselves into games they cannot hope to win to allow their teammates to have a better chance to advance. An engaging watch.

[The Legendary Shark]

At a dozen half-hour episodes, Back to Life (created by and starring the wonderful Daisy Haggard) had me engrossed from start to finish. Haggard (yum!) plays Miri, who returns home after 18 years in prison only to find that moving on isn't as easy as she'd like it to be. I don't think it could really be described as a dark comedy - but perhaps as a gray comedy.

[GoGilesGo]

Amongst a lot of very good TV on offer at the moment, the absolute best show is Poker Face.

A weekly anthology (and I know everyone on this forum loves a weekly anthology) that follows  a working stiff who has a preternatural ability to recognise bullshit. Nobody can get a lie past her.

She's on the run across the US so cannot stay long in any one place, and all of the crimes she stumbles across (and solves) are shown to the viewer in the first act. So the structure is a perfect fusion of two of my all time favourite shows, The Fugitive and Columbo.

Broadcast on Peacock in the US & Stan in Oz. Delighted to see it's coming to the UK next week:

https://www.empireonline.com/tv/news/rian-johnson-poker-face-coming-to-sky-in-uk/

[The Legendary Shark]

I've just finished Ep 2 of the Chinese offering, Three-Body, and it's damn good so far. It's a hard sci-fi thriller at the moment, with a rather deep philosophical conundrum at its core - which is presented in Episode Two with aplomb. There are thirty episodes in this season, so I've still got a long way to go, and it is taking its time, but in a good way. All I can report so far is that it's a fascinating start.

Now shoo... I need to watch Ep 3.

[Hawkmumbler]

DOOMWATCH

Unapologetically loving this deeply of its time 70's pop-modern sci-fi scareganda.
Perhaps recalled contemporaneously as a sort of Who-adjacent production but taken on it's own merits absolutely stands the test of time, even with only roughly half of the episodes produced remaining in the archives the oddly prescient vision of Pedler and co. shines through.

[Tjm86]

Ironically Hawkie, I've been on a bit of a retro Beeb kick of late too.  Last two seasons of Blakes 7.  Back in the day I only ever actually saw the first two seasons before being shipped off to boarding school so I always wondered what happened after season 2.  Never actually saw the last season so how the series ended has always been the stuff of 'legend' as it were.

Have to say that in a bizarre sort of way the last two seasons do stack up remarkably well.  Don't get me wrong, there are some moments when you really wonder what the writers were thinking and it feels like Darrow decided towards the end of the series that the only way to survive was to give it more ham than a pig-farm ...

It's all there ... wobbly sets, dodgy fx, dialogue strong enough to sort out the most intractable iPod headphone problem ... Yet it works ... just.  Or at least it is more tolerable than, say, the second series of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Then there is the finale.  The return of Blake.  Avon's distrust.  Death after death after death (... what Vila!!!!! nooooooh!!!!).  That final scene ...

It's fair to say that Blakes 7 even at its best was always imperfect.  The Terry Nation scripts were certainly the best, the Chris Boucher scripts tolerable ... others ... we'll stop there.

All things considered it has dated reasonably well.

[Hawkmumbler]

Blakes 7 stands up better than most because you can very much tell that everyone's tongues where firmly in their cheeks, even the deadly serious episodes like Weapon and indeed, Blake, feel like a pantomime of pulp science fiction. You can easily forgive budgetary restraints of genre TV from the UK at the time that wasn't made by the Andersons because the Beeb directors actively stated they hated science fiction and enforced its production on the budget of a ham sandwich, the fact the majority of genuine gems from that era stand up as well as they do is testament to how much fun they clearly where to work on, and that shows.

Continuing across to ITV/ATV, I picked up the blu-ray of THE OWL SERVICE before it vanished into the ether (RIP Network, nobody was giving vintage TV the time of day you folks where) and it's a tremendous piece of folk wyrd television, like so many of the best Ghost Stories for Christmas or some of the more esoteric Play for Today entries the horror is left the imagination and some genuinely great sound design and landscape photography does the rest.

[Tjm86]

I'm gutted to hear that Network has folded.  All the arguments about streaming ignore the fact that actually a lot of what is on offer is absolute dross.  It's amazing how much of old studio output is sat in vaults without being pushed out.  Yet a lot of the time the same low-budget modern stuff is plastered across 'channels'.

That Owl Service set looks like it's well worth the time of day.  Added to Crimbo wish-list for now.

I think you're right about how the cast approached Blakes 7, Hawkie.  There's definitely a feeling of enjoyment there.

... and naturally this has all led into revisiting Doctor Who (classic).  Given that Blakes 7 was the impetus here it seemed natural to dig into the Tom Baker era stuff.  Like most folks this is my preferred era, being my introduction to the character.  Quite often though some of the best stuff does seem to hark from this time.

Currently working through the 'gothic' phase with the likes of Brain of Morbius, one that definitely shows signs of the 'ham sandwich' approach.  I must admit to a tendency though to view Condo as a sort of 'Igor' type in the vein of Terry Pratchett.  Baker spends a lot of time mugging and the whole production seems to be limited to about three sets.

So it is impressive how well it all works.  Pretty much every horror movie trope is in play, from the lightning storms and gloomy castle setting to the mad scientist and his henchman.  Throw in a monster and a cult.  Regular perils and sudden escapes.  It rattles along well.

What is even more impressive is that this was based on a script that Nation was singularly unimpressed with and wanted no involvement with.  The pseudonym Robin Bland that is credited with the writing is a result of his demand not to be credited after changes were made.  A pity really is the finished product works quite well.

[Party-Pom-pom]

Aww no very sad to hear Network as folded,used to look forward to their summer and winter sales and picked up some good niche stuff from them
I recommend Beasts,Quatermass and the intruder for thoses looking for a hit of 70's,80's wierdness and Big bread winner hog for a slice of hardboiled,nasty late 60s u.k gangster action

[Hawkmumbler]

Yes, just in the process of packing up for a move now far too long in the making, and counting the number of Network releases really is a daunting testament to how, besides Mill Creek stateside and MAYBE the BFI no one has put as much time and expenditure into preserving cult TV.
It is a pity then I never took the opportunity to nab a few things that now seem lost to the thereafter. Never did manage to get around to picking up those remastered blu-rays of The Professionals, UFO or The Prisoner. Even a bunch of DVD sets I ended up going without now sell for crazy money, wished I'd got onto The Sandbaggers before a mate down the pub sold it to me as the best kind of Brit spy thriller come beuorocratic Kafkaesque nightmare just a few weeks back.
And of course the big concern is now who's going to take up the mantel, if anyone? Tjm is quite right in his assertions for all the bumbling over one another to support this streaming service and that, it does precious little to keep archive materials intact or present them as available for posterity.