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Fitzgerald Fortune
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
HARRY'S GAME (1982): ITV's well-respected three-parter about 'the troubles', with Ray Lonnen as an agent who is sent undercover within the Provos to identify the assassin of a government minister. I vaguely remember watching this as a kid: my dad used to make me watch these kinds of dramas, whilst my mother used to encourage me to watch shows like MIAMI VICE, CRIME STORY and Granada's Sherlock Holmes adaptations. HARRY'S GAME went over my head at that point, but the feeling of helplessness and the sense that Lonnen is trapped within an environment that he can't control, not to mention Clannad's music, really stayed with me. It's the kind of intense issue-led drama that is all too rare on British television these days, from what is arguably one of the peak periods of British television writing (c.1975-1985).
OUT (1978): Possibly Trevor Preston's best work, this six-parter deals with the theme of revenge and focuses on the character of Frank Ross (played by Tom Bell), a 'professional villain' who is released from prison and wants to find the 'grass' who 'shopped' him to the police. His nemesis is played by Brian Cox, in one of the television roles that he made his own prior to his move to Hollywood. This is incredibly dark and seedy stuff, with nary an ounce of narrative flab. (I love the anecdote about Tom Bell, who during the 1960s was set for film stardom, but at a formal awards ceremony he jeered the Duke of Edinburgh, shouting 'Now you're on stage, tell us a joke. Go on, make us laugh'. After that incident, Bell could only find work in television, and he's damned good in OUT.)
FOX (1980): More Trevor Preston-scripted brilliance. FOX is the story of a family of borderline crooks headed by the patriarch "King" Billy, played by one of my favourite television actors, Peter Vaughan. There are a lot of parallels between FOX and THE SOPRANOS: in fact, THE SOPRANOS is essentially a US version of FOX, and where one could argue that US television went through one of its Golden Ages during the late 1990s (when THE SOPRANOS came into play), FOX is from the Golden Age of British television drama. Both series deal with similar themes.
SORRY! (1981): The first series of Ronnie Corbett's sitcom, of which I am a big fan.
DOCTOR WHO: 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. I'm not a fan of Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, but in my book this is one of the better stories from that era--although it's far from being a match for the Gothic horror of Tom Baker's peak period as the Doctor, or for the monster madness of Pat Troughton's years in the role.
HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET (1993-1999): I'm working my way through the third series of this show, which for my money is the best US television show of the 1990s--and the third series represents the show's peak. Even though it's been almost fifteen years since I last saw some of these episodes, I can remember them vividly, and it's great to have them on DVD!
Last edited by Fitzgerald Fortune, 10/23/2007, 12:34 am
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
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10/23/2007, 12:29 am
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Edge44
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
quote:
Fitzgerald Fortune wrote:
I'm glad that SCREEN WIPE is back on television!
Okay, Charlie Brooker certainly knows what he's talking about, and his views are very relevant, but I didn't enjoy the last show where he criticised the current trend of X-Factor-type shows. Although I agreed wholeheartedly with everything he said, I found his critisisms simply stated the obvious, and at times made his show quite tedious.
Did anybody else see it? If so, what are your thoughts?
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"Everything's relative..."
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10/25/2007, 1:30 pm
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Fitzgerald Fortune
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
quote:
Edge44 wrote:
quote:
Fitzgerald Fortune wrote:
I'm glad that SCREEN WIPE is back on television!
Okay, Charlie Brooker certainly knows what he's talking about, and his views are very relevant, but I didn't enjoy the last show where he criticised the current trend of X-Factor-type shows. Although I agreed wholeheartedly with everything he said, I found his critisisms simply stated the obvious, and at times made his show quite tedious.
Did anybody else see it? If so, what are your thoughts?
I haven't seen that episode yet. Conceivably he could have simply knocked the show out to fill a quote. However, sometimes people need the obvious to be stated for them: what may seem obvious to you and me may not be so obvious for other viewers.
I'll watch the show asap and get back to you 
I'm just watching the fourth series of Roger Marshall's pivotal drama PUBLIC EYE. It's amazing television, which manages to focus on the work of an 'Inquiry Agent' (i.e. a British private eye) without succumbing to heightened drama. It's a very tense and downbeat show which also manages to be extraordinarily realistic: the fourth series was produced after the show switched from ABC to Thames Television, and it's the earliest existing series of PUBLIC EYE. Made in 1969, the fourth series covers the period after the main character, Frank Marker, has been released from prison: he was put inside at the end of series three, for handling stolen goods--a crime he didn't commit. Most of the series details Marker's attempts to adjust to life on the outside of prison, whilst also striving to re-establish his business as an Inquiry Agent.
I've just watched an episode entitled 'Divide & Conquer', in which whilst sitting in a pub with a fellow ex-con, Marker stops two conmen from trying to con the landlord out of a fiver. Needless to say, the conmen threaten Marker.
There's no action in this series, and it avoids soap opera sentimentality: it's pure drama, and some of the best-written television I've ever seen. Incredibly popular during the period 1965-1975, the show is all but forgotten nowadays--like CALLAN, in fact.
Some info about the series here:
http://www.thrillingdetective.com/eyes/marker.html
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/public.htm
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/550868/index.html
Amazon link
Last edited by Fitzgerald Fortune, 10/25/2007, 2:28 pm
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
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10/25/2007, 2:25 pm
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NovelNymph
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
I forgot how much I loved David Duchovny... although there's plenty of women showing their love for him in Californication. Literally. 
Last edited by NovelNymph, 11/3/2007, 10:10 pm
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11/3/2007, 10:09 pm
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Edge44
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
You'll get to love him even more in the new X-Files movie that begins filming next month...
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11/4/2007, 6:35 pm
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Fitzgerald Fortune
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
Is there space on modern British telly between the soap opera and the thriller, or between the current fad for 'high concept' shows (TEACHERS, SEA OF SOULS, SHAMELESS and the work of people like Russell T. Davies) on the one hand and soap operas on the other? I don't think so. When was the last time this country produced a really good drama that wasn't, on the one hand, a soap opera and, on the other hand, a gimmicky high concept show? Those two genres seem to have squeezed so close together that there is no room for 'pure' dramas (like FOX or PUBLIC EYE or THE WEDNESDAY PLAY/PLAY FOR TODAY, or the work of someone like Jimmy McGovern--HILLSBOROUGH or THE LAKES, for example). I blame THIS LIFE for bringing those two once-distinct strands together, personally.
The same thing could be said of the relationship between the soap opera and the sitcom: there isn't space between the modern soap opera and the modern sitcom for the kinds of comedy dramas that British telly used to produce so well (MINDER, for example): everything has to be *either* a soap opera *or* a sitcom or a soap opera-cum-sitcom.
Last edited by Fitzgerald Fortune, 11/4/2007, 10:38 pm
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11/4/2007, 10:26 pm
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Djjaines
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Re: Track your television viewing 2007
Urban Gothic.
Loved every minute. Not gonna write a full review but it's a great series, with something for everyone. Small 20 minute self contained stories, which do connect but you can watch them in any order without really having to know much about previous episodes.
It concentrates mainly on the horror aspects, but I think some of the episodes are great just for the hilarity. (Pineapple chunks being one - a parody, it seems, of Stepford wives?? And B Movie being the epitomy of all (american) teen school horrors but set in London.
Some pretty cool twists and turns in all. I heard they cancelled season 3 though which is a real shame, I was getting into the Institute Story.
---
Daniel: Master of malapropisms and Danisms.
Danism: Using stupid sounding or vague descriptions to put what may be an intellectual point across.
Beatrice: You really put the "W" in anchorman don't you?
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