Yeah the first 4 or 5 episodes of Prime Suspect were great. I think I saw 6 and didn’t like it and never saw 7.
Wow. Demagogue’s really into crime tv.
Not to piss on his parade, but I think nearly everyone one of those shows are pretty much cack, except for Morse, which is redeemed by a great central character, and Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes, which remains the best recreation of the books to date.
However, as people have mentioned above, Cracker is fantastic. I hear they’re bringing it back too, and had to supersize all the old props thanks to Robbie Coltrane’s ever-expanding waist. Prime Suspect is certainly worth a watch and I remember Between The Lines being really good as well, but that may just be nostalgia.
that’s what makes it cool! It’s a cozy, and it fits like a glove. Very relaxing show.
Can I echo this? Best British Television drama series in ages.
Short version: Modern day detective gets in car crash and wakes up in 1973. Is he in a coma? Has he travelled through time? Will he cop off with the attractivbe WPC?
Very funny, very sharp, especially if you’re even conceptually aware of 1970s Brit Cop shows or social mores.
KG
The lead actor of Life on Mars kind of looks like a pygmy Denis Leary.
I was surprised by that as well, but I think what it is, is that these are most of the television series I find worth watching at this time. And I am limited to what made it over to my home country, the one I am living in now, what I buy on DVD or is uploaded as a torrent.
Thinking about it, maybe it is just me, but I find very few british comedy shows that funny. The only ones I can think of, offhand, which I would spend the time to watch are Coupling, Men Behaving Badly and The Smoking Room. Most of the others I have watched have a depressing edge which just doesn’t work for me (The Office, Extras, … more I can’t remember).
I do watch television programs from other genres, but they tend to be one parters or shows with a fixed story. Are there any worth watching Marsh? I can’t remember any.
I can’t say enough nice things about Time Team. Archeology is boring. Digging ditches is boring. Dug up walls lathered with speculation is boring. But dig Baldrick up from whatever hole he fell into where he was recording voice acting for the Discworld audiobooks and put him in front of a show where they go about doing all these things and I’ll sit glued to it.
You’re probably right that most British tv serials aren’t worth watching; they come off as shaky and amateur in comparison to their American equivalents.
But over the decades, there’s been quite a lot of decent drama outside of the crime genre: Cold Feet, Our Friends in the North, Boys from the Black Stuff, Queer as Folk, Clocking Off and Shameless are a few names to check out. The last two were written by Paul Abbott, who’s a rising star in TV at the moment. I don’t think he writes in the same genre twice, but his stuff is always worth watching. He wrote a few episodes of Cracker, too, I think. State of Play was an excellent one-off political thriller by him, and one of the drama highlights of the last few years.
Of course the BBC does a good line in costume dramas and adaptations of classic novels. I hear the recent Bleak House adaptation was pretty good.
Stephen Poliakoff is well-respected for his many TV plays, and although I’ve never been a huge fan of his, it’s probably worth while having a look at his body of work - She’s Been Away, Close My Eyes, Shooting the Past, and Perfect Strangers are amongst his works that were considered good enough to be shown again recently as part of a season celebrating Poliakoff’s contributions to the world.
But comedy is really where the most exciting things are happening… but, as you say, it’s a massively subjective area. Spaced was one of my favourite sitcoms in recent years (and lacks both the depressing edge and use of embarrassment that appears in The Office). Then there are Chris Morris’ various delectable offerings: Brass Eye and The Day Today are both hilarious and biting spoofs of current affairs and news programmes. Of the most recent comedy series, The Thick of It, a vicious political satire, is probably my favourite.
Documentaries have really gone to shit in recent years, with the exception of Attenborough’s output, which justifies the licence fee by itself. Simon Schama’s history programmes are about the only bearably non-remedial offerings in that area.
Though I do like Time Team, too, but mostly because of Phil Harding (the guy with long ginger-brown hair who sounds like Worzel Gummidge).
Ooh - just found this listing and analysis of Brit TV from the BFI:
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/482184/index.html
Spaced is still the best brit sit-com for years, brilliantly surreal and great guest appearences by the hip and trendy at the time of the stand up circuit.
I missed the programme the other night on Kenneth Williams which was supposed to be excellent, perhaps if I actually remembered to turn on the TV I might fare a bit better at actually catching some of this stuff.
I think it’s pretty darn cool that the Poirot TV series eventually managed to put every Agatha Christie story about the character into the show. The series finished up 2013, for a total of 70 episodes. This includes several Poirot short stories that Christie wrote. I was a huge fan of the books when I was a kid and then a teenager, but this was an era before Amazon, so I don’t think I ever tracked down all the Agatha Christie mysteries.
I hope the TV series does a good job with the stories. I’d love to see them all one day.
Collateral is worth a watch, if only for Carey Mulligan’s turn as a no-nonsense detective.
I know this has nothing to do with anything, but whenever I see this phrase, I think of the no-nonsense and some-nonsense judges on Mr Show.
Sigh, you utter one cliche, and they pounce with the Mr Show clips :)
I was listening to one of the Poirot audiobooks, and thought, “Hey, this guys sounds just like TV Poirot! What a great impersonation!”.
It turns out that is is TV Poirot! David Suchet does the Audiobooks as well as the TV show, and fully voices every character. He’s very good at it.
An aside: When Amazon first merged their Prime service with Lovefilm to produce Amazon Prime Video here in the UK I was excited as I thought I could now stream all of Poirot, on demand. Except the cheeky buggers want to charge me £2 per episode! It’s perpetually on TV, why would I willingly pay £2 per episode??! I can buy the entire boxsets for cheaper than that.
It wouldn’t take long for Poirot to figure out the case of “Why Pod never actually watches anything on Amazon Prime Video” :/
We are working on completing a collection of I think about 120 books from Christie. Here’s a pic of some of the editions we are trying to get – swiped it from eBay. I believe we have about 40 or so at present:
They are nice copies and it’s fun to work towards a complete collection.
Is anyone watching Bodyguard? I don’t know if if it’s airing outside the UK, but over here it seems to be something of a sensation. It’s getting ridiculous ratings (10m+ viewers including iPlayer for the first episode) and very good reviews, even though it sounds pretty humdrum to me. I’m curious what the appeal is.
The Great British Bake Off.
Seriously.
As an American, it’s very interesting seeing baked goods I’ve nevet heard of.
I believe Bodyguard has been sold to Netflix for distribution outside the UK. No idea when it will be available.
Watching it, enjoying it but it is a bit bobbins. It’s like an extended edition of Spooks so not the most gritty of representations.
That comparison may be influenced by the presence of Keeley Hawes. She’s put in a very good performance. The standout for me though is Richard Madden. Who knew he was this good from Game of Thrones. I didn’t even recognise him until three-quarters of the way through the first episode.
I’m not going to carry on after watching the first episode. I’m sure it’s fine for people who like that sort of thing, but it’s just not my kind of show at all.
I watched the first episode of Bodyguard and found it mildly interesting. Interesting it was so popular, as I have also have no interest in carrying on watching.