Watching ... oh everything really

[sunshineboyuk]

X FILES pilot was really really good! I can see this being addictive.... motels, rainy nights, tons of subtext, catholicism, canada ( always a plus), autopsy's, diners, cups of coffee, smoking, long coridoors, two way glass, car radios at night, fern trees, forests, bright lights and cell phones.

And that was all in the first ep.

[Emmerdalefan]

Was watching old eps of Easties on YouTube last night from Episode 1 to episode 5 in February 1985 and early march . Love the early years of the show. And Easties will be 30 in February 2015. I hope they mark the occasion well.

[lolzy]

So I was watching the finale of Sherlock (which is of course brilliant) and who should show up but Archie Brooks, looking about a thousand years older but with the same voice. There really is no escaping from that farm show.

[James from London]

I have just finished the first seasons of SPIRAL -- very grim and really good -- and FRINGE which, while enjoyably and increasingly nutty, remained emotionally uninvolving to the end. Symptomatic is the comparative ease with which all the characters grasp the concept of alternate universes. This is not THE X-FILES where Mulder's and Scully's respective need and refusal to believe in the paranormal were intrinsic to who those characters were, thereby linking the professional and the personal in almost every case. FRINGE seems more interested in mind bending plot twists than in exploring its characters' inner conflicts, even those of Walter Bishop, whose loopy torment we are invited to observe rather than share.

Meanwhile ... SOUTHLAND's good, isn't it? I'm sure I'm not the first to say it's like THE SHIELD without the Strike Team. It's edgy and gritty and all that jazz, but at the same time it feels like a solid, meat and potatoes cop show. The pilot episode is seen through the eyes of rookie cop Sherman, just as HOMICIDE LIFE IN THE STREET was originally shown from the perspective of new boy Bayliss. The casting of Benjamin McKenzie as Sherman is interesting too. Just as Joshua Jackson, the best thing about FRINGE, is a refugee from 90s teen drama DAWSON'S CREEK, McKenzie is a graduate from CREEK's successor THE OC. In both instances, McKenzie plays the enigmatic fish out of water. In THE OC, he was the poor kid hobnobbing with the Californinan elite whereas in SOUTHLAND, he's the reverse: a rich kid from Beverly Hills slumming it with the LAPD. In this respect, he's a descendant of John Carter, aka the audience's point of view in the early days of ER, a hospital intern who is revealed to be the sire of a wealthy family. In fact, his mother is none other than the President of the Twelve Colonies:



Carter is probably the most interesting character in early ER (also currently rerunning on JamesNet). George Clooney and Nurse Hathaway are surprisingly hard to care about.

[Canon]

Meanwhile ... SOUTHLAND's good, isn't it? I'm sure I'm not the first to say it's like THE SHIELD without the Strike Team. It's edgy and gritty and all that jazz, but at the same time it feels like a solid, meat and potatoes cop show.

It's basically a procedural cop show, there are no real big story arcs - each story is mostly wrapped up by the closing credits. However unlike other such cop shows it manages to avoid the whole format/formula/every episode is the same thing - it's clever, gritty, interesting and best of all character driven.

In this respect, he's a descendant of John Carter, aka the audience's point of view in the early days of ER, a hospital intern who is revealed to be the sire of a wealthy family.

YES! I made the same connection when watching S1 but who does that make Cooper, Doctor Benton?

I miss ER, it's not a show I'd watch 8 episodes of in one sitting but it would be nice to revisit it once a week again.

I'm sure I'm not the first to say it's like THE SHIELD without the Strike Team.

The Shield is making its way to me at last. Funnily enough it's the Southland hole in my life that made me finally order the DVD set.

[Emmerdalefan]

I like shows with big story arcs. The Emmerdale plane crash is one of these as the after effects of the said crash are still felt today almost 20 years on and storylines connected with the crash have been made such as the 10th anniversary in 2003 and the Eric and Elizabeth 2010/2011 storyline. Brookside had a knack for showing long term after effects of deaths in families or disasters. Corrie seems to forget it ever happened after a few weeks or months.

[holeinmydonut]

i have enjoyed the last series of scott and bailey, so have started watching again the second series of cagney and lacey when sharon gless replaced meg foster as christine cagney.

i forgot how fantastic this series was, loved tyne daly as mary beth. this series was so ahead of its time and the supporting cast was tremendous.

john karlen as harvey and al waxman as Lt. samuels were great and the chemistry between tyne and sharon was astounding.

my favourite ep of cagney and lacey was in season 6 entitled 'special treatment' when lacey went on a anti nuclear protest and got arrested andwas locked up in a cell by sgt dupnik. hilarious. classic tv.

[sunshineboyuk]

You know, I was thinking how sad and pathetic the UK's cop show scene is , wih Scott & Bailey being the absolute worst of itv lightweight crap. What happenend to the creative shock of CRACKER & PRIME SUSPECT ... even THE BILL had taken UK cops to a more frenetic level , but VERA and SCOTT & BAIILEY? Really? How do these shows even get made? So lacklustre and devoid of interesting content , they just seem to be the graveyard shift for ex soap stars etc. Other countries have really raised the game with WALLANDER, KILLING, SPIRAL., THE WIRE, THE SHIELD, SOUTHLAND and BRAQUO not to mention THE BRIDGE and BORGEN etc ...I think there is a creative drought on in the UK at the moment in terms of great police shows.


CAGNEY AND LACEY has defining, astonishing performances from the lead actresses, however the stuff around it is quite dated now and hard to stay engaged with. Even at the time it was less detailed on being a police show it was more about the relationship. There are some eps where it all hangs together really well but i've struggled a bit on the rewatch. It's much better when it's not really about the cop stuff, which is a bit of a shame really. It's definately worth watching again though for the performances of Both Daley and Gless.

It's a bit like rewatching THE GENTLE TOUCH , it's dated quite badly , it feels kinda slow and almost a period piece technology has moved on so much in police work... but the performances of most of the cast and guest cast make it worth a watch, Jill Gasgoine is great , it's interesting to see her pereformance just a few years or so before Helen Mirren in PRIME SUSPECT.

[holeinmydonut]

yeap i agree C & L is dated now, but you are talking early and mid 80's, but the performances were outstanding. it was never about being a cop show, it was about the characters, their lives and struggles.

i can vaguely remember the gentle touch, but was more of a juliet bravo fan.

I really like S & B, the cast is very good with the excellent suranne jones and lesley sharp. for me its amelia bullmore as the dci who steals every scene. lovely to see the excellent sally lindsay in some scenes.

S & B was based on an idea by good friends surrane and sally.

interesting that surrane, amelia and sally were from corrie. would be great to see surrane and linday back on the street.

[JROG]

I randomly decided to juxtapose Season 5 MELROSE and Season 3 MELROSE. The difference is jarring. While Season 5 is a vast improvement over the boring Season 4, I was shocked to be reminded the freshness, fun and edge-of-your-seat quality of Season 3. It's almost unfathomable that I watched six episodes in a row. The shockers are almost as shocking as the first time, the cliffhangers just as exciting, the plotting seems even more layered and complex than before. Most importantly (and I realize this may sound demented), while Season 3 delivers its famous OMGs (everything with Kimberly, basically) it is also quite touching, on an episode by episode basis. Something to do with the haunting piano/synthesizer combo of Tim Truman's music; something I never thought I'd say. MELROSE, touching? Jake and Jo hugging after he returns from his self-imposed exile has always been a great one. But a lot of it has to do with Sydney. She really is screwed in every possible way. Also, Amanda discovering that Palmer conned/abandoned her again. Great stuff!

DDD

[sunshineboyuk]

Oh yeah MELROSE only had one great season where it all worked and that was season 3. It's brilliant. After that, it became too self aware and self conscious. The Billy and Aliison story was better in 3 , it was all roooted in something quite sweet instead of it feeling like a huge tired plot device later on. Jake and Jo were good, Jo was kinda like the Donna/Laura character, she kept it all grounded. I think the show lost a really important texture when the charracter was axed.There's a vulnerbailty to all of the characters in 3 , especially Sydney, that makes Kimbery's OMG's really really powerful. But it only works the first time.....

[Canon]

I can't bring myself to finish off Melrose, S4 made the worse of Falcon Crest look like The Wire.

[James from London]

Thanks to Canon, I finally got to see the reveal of "Who Kicked Cain's head in?" on EMMERDALE from January. I really liked it (even if it did take me the best part of three months to watch a week's worth of episodes). The choice of Zack as attacker was inspired. The scenes between him and Cain felt kinda Biblical. The fair minded father meting out violent punishment to his evil son - what could be darker and more interesting than that? What could have more complicated repercussions?

It reminds me of the huge speculation surrounding "Who Shot JR?" where any and every character in DALLAS became a suspect, at least in the newspapers, including Jock and Miss Ellie - who were ascribed the same motives as Zack Dingle: the need to bring down the monster they had created. While the unmasking of Kristin as JR's shooter was satisfying enough at the time, (vengeful bitch pulls the trigger because that's what vengeful bitches do) how much more devastating would it have been if Jock had been the one who done it?

And now it seems that EMMERDALE is on a roll with father/son violence ("Wimpy Vicar in Interesting Story-line Shock!"). I haven't seen much of this because the link you gave me, Canon, now requires a password. So instead I've been watching daily YouTube instalments of HEARTS AND MINDS, a 1974 documentary about the Vietnam War someone recommended to me. It's a whole other kind of interesting.

Oh and the Vicar's wife has turned up on Old ENDERS, once again playing a religious sidekick. This time she's part of the Walford Christian Association. She's a lot frumpier and dumpier than she is in EMMERDALE, and somehow I think it suits her better.

[Canon]

Thanks to Canon, I finally got to see the reveal of "Who Kicked Cain's head in?" on EMMERDALE from January. I really liked it (even if it did take me the best part of three months to watch a week's worth of episodes). The choice of Zack as attacker was inspired. The scenes between him and Cain felt kinda Biblical. The fair minded father meting out violent punishment to his evil son - what could be darker and more interesting than that?

Good wasn't it. I think you would have been blown away by it (like I was) if you were more invested/familiar with these characters. It was very sad, the killer was Cain's line about growing up with Shadrach as a father with Zak not realising (or not wanting to) that Cain was his. I'm not sure if the idea that Zak should have known was ever touched upon by Cain when it came out in the early 00's but it feels like the pay off to something that has been building for years, something that Zak should have been made face up to long ago. Making the story not all about the failings of Cain but Zak too.

A lot of viewers didn't seem to get how this old loveable rogue could beat his own but it is exactly who Zak is. It's exactly the character we kept hearing about for months before he made his first appearance back in 1994 (I've been trying to persuade Sunny to jump into that time period, maybe I'll have better luck with you!), it's exactly how he treated the sons who did grow up with him as a father.

What could have more complicated repercussions?

And it does but not in the way I was expecting.

And now it seems that EMMERDALE is on a roll with father/son violence ("Wimpy Vicar in Interesting Story-line Shock!").

Very much worth watching, everyone involved is incredible. After 16 years Ashley is suddenly all kinds of interestingness. It is the Zak & Cain story in reverse, it comes about not only because of what has happened to Ashley in recent months but also because of a murky backstory with his father.

Oh and the Vicar's wife has turned up on Old ENDERS, once again playing a religious sidekick. This time she's part of the Walford Christian Association. She's a lot frumpier and dumpier than she is in EMMERDALE, and somehow I think it suits her better.

Well that's funny because she was a lot like that when she first appeared (dressed as a bumble bee in what IIRC was also Lorraine Chase's first episode). She has changed a lot over the years and that's what I like about Emmerdale, if she was a character in Corrie then she'd probably still be exactly the same despite everything that's been thrown at her.

[Emmerdalefan]

I am watching some 1983 episodes of Emmerdale Used To Be A Farm and Turner is being a right stinker, making advances on his secretary and being an ass to Seth and Joe. He is the longest serving character ever. Jack appeared from 1972 to 2008 but took 6 years off from late 1973 so he does not technically count. Emmerdale in 2012 just has 1 character who was in it in 1983 and that being Turner himself.

[holeinmydonut]

just been watching again the first sereis of 'the golden girls' . the first series was the best and what a cast. my fav was bea arthur as dorothy. her timing was amazing.

i was fortunate to see bea do her one woman show at the savoy theatre in london 'just between friends.' it was a joy to see her and needless to say she had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. she was as funny and engaging on stage as on the tv screen.

back to 'the golden girls' a dream cast. my fav ep was when dorothys daughter kate was getting married and dorothy came face to face again with her divorced hapless husband stan.

'the golden girls' is my fav all time sitcom.

the writing was outstanding and it was way ahead of its time. sad that only betty white is still alive. heavan must be a very happy and funny place.

[Emmerdalefan]

Believe it or not but I think in a few ways EastEnders is better than Corrie and Emmerdale such as better acting when it comes to hard hitting issues such as Phil's alcoholism and the chav culture. See, I love Corrie and Emmie better mainly but in a few sporadic ways Easties has more strengths. Neighbours is better than Home and Away I think and always will be even if H&A is still quite good.

[JROG]

I'm watching SIX FEET UNDER Season 5 for the first time. Ruth's story with George is brilliantly dark and hard. There is this really, really, really sad scene in the end of episode 3 where George keeps being really nice and sweet to Ruth, as he tries to engage her in conversation, but Ruth (having none of it) is not receptive. Breaking down to his daughter, George says he thinks he needs more shock treatment (what a thing to say about yourself!) and implores her not to tell Ruth about this because he can't lose her. It's so deeply sad I couldn't even bring myself to cry.

How great that the writers are showing Ruth's torment by having her be the nasty bitch in all but one scene in each episode. For the whole hour, she's the apparent villain until George does something that shows clearly the life that she has been living. Oh, SIX FEET UNDER, why do you have to end so soon?

[holeinmydonut]

just been watching first ep of prime suspect usa on universal. very good, it has had mixed reviews, ours was better, but the yanky doodle version worked well. maria bello was very good, she may not be helen mirren but i still enjoyed her performance. looking forward to ep 2.

[Canon]

I was going to say that I have fond memories of Dolly, but thinking about it, I have no concrete memories of her at all. So all I can say is I have fond ... forgetfulness of her.

Well if you're a member of the actors union Equity then she could soon be your new President.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukekeFulqDo

http://www.facebook.com/JeanRogersEquity

Zoe Tate has started stirring things between Michael and Rachel which made me realise the difference between Zoe and Chris: they are both selfish and spoiled but Chris knows he's a shit and revels in it while Zoe pretends to be nice and then stabs you in the back.

Zoe got a hilarious mention on The Graham Norton Show last week, comedian Greg Davies said he was stunned when he realised that the yoga instructor on the DVD that he bought was actually the schizophrenic lesbian vet off Emmerdale. To which Miriam Margolyes replied "I'm one of those!".