New telly shows thread

[merman]

Inside No. 9 is back for its fifth series, the first episode entitled The Referee Is A W*****r was very good.

[fog]

Ozark just keeps getting better.

Series 3 was brilliant with a great ending, the events in episode 9 being a hard watch at times. Tom Pelphrey and Laura Linney were both great and Ruth played superbly by Julia Garner, is still one of my favourite TV characters in recent years.

[Deckard]

Getting rave previews and right up my street -

https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3 ... ng-series/

[Foozwah]

Getting rave previews and right up my street -

https://bloody-disgusting.com/reviews/3 ... ng-series/

Damn, yes me too. Will wait til one of our local streaming services that tends to get most HBO stuff picks it up - plenty of other good stuff to catch up on in the meantime - but this totally rings my eldritch bell.

[Rhythm]

Prompted by the Emmy sweep last night...

For the past few years I've spotted banners for Schitt's Creek popping up on Netflix but until a few weeks ago had never tried it out. Now, only 2 episodes from the end, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Beautifully ridiculous and gentle, astonishingly heartfelt, not an ounce of cynicism and absolutely incredible performances all-round. If you haven't tried it, please please do. It's a genuinely wonderful little thing

[Foozwah]

Prompted by the Emmy sweep last night...

For the past few years I've spotted banners for Schitt's Creek popping up on Netflix but until a few weeks ago had never tried it out. Now, only 2 episodes from the end, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Beautifully ridiculous and gentle, astonishingly heartfelt, not an ounce of cynicism and absolutely incredible performances all-round. If you haven't tried it, please please do. It's a genuinely wonderful little thing

My missus binged it about a month ago and recommended I try it, but haven't gotten around too it yet. Will consider your recommendation the required extra push to give it a go.

[Deckard]

I know its a stretch but loved the latest Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror especially the Spidyverse take off and Toy Story in Pixar animation was truly great as well as the song...

[WiteWulf]

Really looking forward to the new TV version of The Stand, coming next month (December 17th). A brave choice to air at Christmas considering current affairs

New series of The Expanse on Amazon Prime soon, too and then we've got Wandavision on Disney+ in the New Year.

The latter looks batshit insane and has Elizabeth Olsen in it , double-win

[Deckard]

Pinched from a Discord I belong to - Xmas TV this year -

BBC One:
Call the Midwife Christmas Special
Doctor Who “The Revolution of the Daleks”
Strictly: The Christmas Countdown – 25 Greatest Performances
EastEnders Christmas Special
Blankety Blank
Zog and the Flying Doctors
Worzel Gummidge: Saucing Nancy
Ghosts Christmas Special
Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special
The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown
The Goes Wrong Show: The Nativity
The Great British Sewing Bee
Sir David Attenborough’s Meerkat: A Dynasties Special
The Wall vs Celebrites
The Graham Norton Show

BBC Two:
Upstart Crow Christmas Special
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Christmas Fishing
Being Bridget (Bridget Jones retrospective)
QI Christmas Quiz with Sandi Toksvig
Nigella Lawson’s Cook, Eat, Repeat Christmas special
The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan
The Gruffalo and Me: The Magical World of Julia Donaldson

ITV:
Britain’s Got Talent at Christmas
Dancing on Thin Ice with Torvill and Dean
Billy Connolly: It’s Been a Pleasure
The Story of SM:TV Live
Birds of a Feather Christmas Special

Channel 4:
One Night in… Hamleys
8 out of 10 Cats Christmas Special
Jamie: Keep Cooking at Christmas
The Supervet at Christmas
Quentin Blake’s Clown
Reindeer’s First Christmas
Snackmasters Christmas Special
Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2020
The Great Christmas Bake Off
First Dates Christmas
Inside KFC at Christmas
The Great Festive Bake Off
The Last Leg of the Year
Gogglebox: Best of 2020
Celebrity Gogglebox: Best of 2020
Chitty Flies Again
Taskmaster Festive Special
Gogglebox Festive Special
Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast
Big Fat Quiz of Everything

[merman]

Worzel Gummidge: Saucing Nancy sounds interesting

[Jonesey]

Really looking forward to the new TV version of The Stand, coming next month (December 17th). A brave choice to air at Christmas considering current affairs

You should look at the user reviews on IMDB. Basically they've taken a giant shit on this just because Amber Heard is in it!

I'll be watching so...whatever.

[Misfit]

tl;dr: Worth a watch on StarzPlay:

Castle Rock
Counterpart
Mr Mercedes
Pennyworth
Fringe
Doom Patrol
The Stand (coming 3rd Jan)

--

Now follows some StarzPlay cheerleading! (ANOTHER subscription channel) I'm not affiliated in any way, just seem to be watching a lot on it recently!

Really looking forward to the new TV version of The Stand, coming next month (December 17th). A brave choice to air at Christmas considering current affairs

You should look at the user reviews on IMDB. Basically they've taken a giant shit on this just because Amber Heard is in it!

I'll be watching so...whatever.

I'm shallow and whilst she's quite possibly a nutter, she looks good and it won't put me off watching!

I will try and weed out some real reviews and if it's half-decent I shall be watching.

I see it will be on StarzPlay in the UK from the 3rd Jan. I actually subscribe to this, initially for Castle Rock (Not by King but very much in his word/with his characters), but actually found a fair few things to watch on it since, so not left.

Most recently I'm half a dozen episodes into Counterpart, which is a very interesting sci-fi/thriller set in the current day where something caused the world to split into two parallel dimensions 30 years ago (so if you were to meet yourself then you'd have had the exact same life until the split)

Worth a watch, although there are some subtitle issues on the, so far few bits, of German dialogue (it's set in Berlin). JK Simmons is an excellent lead playing two very different versions of himself.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4643084/

Although it was made in 2017 it is also quite up-to-date as the 'other' side seemed to have just gone through a pandemic and there are elements of mask-wearing and hand sanitizing!

In fact, StarzPlay seems to be the place for King fans. I want to give Mr Mercedes a try soon too. Seems to have decent reviews.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4354880/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

It does seem to have a lot of 'dark' shows too, or maybe it's just Amazon's algorithms knowing the viewer and showing stuff they might like...

I enjoyed Pennyworth the origin story of Alfred, Batman's butler. It's certainly not about how to serve tea and biscuits! Season 2 just out in US, coming to UK end of Feb.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8425532/

I'm also currently dipping into Fringe that I missed the first time around. Lots of episodes there. A bit of an updated X-Files/conspiracy thing.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

And finally, there is Doom Patrol. Need to give this a few more episodes, but it has potential "A re-imagining of one of DC's most beloved group of outcast Super Heroes: Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Crazy Jane, led by modern-day mad scientist Dr. Niles Caulder (The Chief). "

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8416494/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Oh, and a link for Castle Rock. Two very different seasons and we enjoyed both. Season 1 has a wider scope and touches on characters/events from many King books and is about why bad things happen in Castle Rock, season 2 is a bit more focused and is pretty much an origin story for Annie Wilks of Misery fame. Lizzy Caplan is a pretty cool young Kathy Bates.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6548228/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Currently, through Amazon, you can get a trial to StarzPlay for 99p a month, for the first three months. Has to be worth a try to binge some of the above if any take your fancy.

Oh, and we watched a Few Good Men again the other night trying to make our 17-year-old like the things we do. Classic movie. Couldn't be bothered to hunt out the disk and it turned out it was available on, you guessed it, StarzPlay!

[VNVObit]

Really looking forward to the new TV version of The Stand, coming next month (December 17th). A brave choice to air at Christmas considering current affairs

New series of The Expanse on Amazon Prime soon, too and then we've got Wandavision on Disney+ in the New Year.

The latter looks batshit insane and has Elizabeth Olsen in it , double-win

already binged the 3 episodes of The Expanse - really love that show
Similar view of Wandavision here too

tl;dr: Worth a watch on StarzPlay:

Castle Rock
Counterpart
Mr Mercedes
Pennyworth
Fringe
Doom Patrol
The Stand (coming 3rd Jan)
*snip*

Watched the first season of Mr Mercedes but found the second series a bit meh (not helped by my wife telling me I was a passable stunt double for Brendan Gleeson with my lockdown beard)

I loved Fringe when it first came out so much so I bought the blu rays for the first 3 seasons. Well worth sticking with, particularly Walter's unique take on science

Doom Patrol is a bit marmite and really lost interest in watching the second season

will give the other 2 a watch


Started La Valla (The Barrier) Spanish dystopian series set in Madrid with titular barrier separating the rich & privileged from everyone. First episode caught my interest (the Expanse mini binge nudged onto the back burner)

Finished the Valhalla Murders - Icelandic Noir with murder investigation leading to uncovering a big scandal - Relatively short, Characters not quite as engaging as the Bridge (no relationship quite like any of Saga's ) but worth a look

[WiteWulf]

I'm also currently dipping into Fringe that I missed the first time around. Lots of episodes there. A bit of an updated X-Files/conspiracy thing.
!

Fringe is utterly fucking amazing, and I don't say that lightly. I watched the first few episodes when they were first broadcast and dismissed it as an X-Files rip-off but, without spoiling it, it becomes *so* much more than that at the end of the first season. Something happens that throws the whole premise a curve-ball, and it's not one of those things that was written in after audience testing, as it's foreshadowed all the way through the season (hell, there's stuff in the very final episode that calls back to the first season). The amount of work and care that got put into Fringe is really only equalled in TV by Babylon 5, imho.

Enjoy it, stay spoiler free, but do check out the wiki pages for the episodes after you watch them if you want to see the foreshadowing stuff and the codes.

Also, only watched the trailer and the first episode for the new Expanse season and, oh my word.....all the feels watching those rocks tumbling through space and knowing what's coming

[Deckard]

Really looking forward to the new TV version of The Stand, coming next month (December 17th). A brave choice to air at Christmas considering current affairs

You should look at the user reviews on IMDB. Basically they've taken a giant shit on this just because Amber Heard is in it!

I'll be watching so...whatever.

Yeah just downloaded - one of the main issues was when it starts, rather than where the book starts and Whoopi doing Guinan....Dont have great hope for it but have to see the "new" written by King ending !

Tbh what is it with King and endings ? Shining - piss poor, This - piss poor , Gunslinger - piss poor. Under the dome - shite. Needful things, dire BUT

He has nailed a few along the way - Carrie and Bag of Bones stand out ....