TV Shows...What are you following?

[Stavros]

Chloe (Mam Tor Productions, 2022)

I watched all six episodes of this drama, currently showing on BBC-1, so I won't offer any spoilers. I thought during episode 1 that this was about a working class woman who resents the success and wealth of others, and plots to inveigle herself into their world either to take what she can for herself, or just be nasty. As is often the case now, she has a mother with early onset dementia, but as the series unfolds her relationship with a particular group of people is less random than appears at first. Indeed, in one episode a plot hole as wide as the Grand Canyon all but wrecks this show, which had some promise and a fine acting performance from Erin Doherty. Three major weaknessess cannot rescue this from the dustbin -all those people online and constantly on their phones can't do a simple search on a certain person? The dialogue at times -too many times- seems to consist of 'Are you ok?' 'Is everything ok?' or 'Sorry'in various forms, and it isn't satire. Lastly, the main male character is supposed to be a local councillor and aspiring MP who doesn't live a life taken up by meetings, phone calls, dealing with constituency/ward issues, and never has people round to his £Million pound house to talk policy and strategy, and is acted with all the zest of a squashed tomato.

It has some intriguing scenes, but does not deliver anything substantial at the end that justifies its original premise. The music is dire. Also known as The Smiths.

[Stavros]

Missions (Empreinte Digitale, 2019) Season 2

They went to Mars and lost their way....and it doesn't look like they will return for Season 3, even if the producers do find them....

I have it wrong, as usual. Season 3 begins on BBC Four this evening, 25th April 2022.

[MrFanti]

"See"....

[Stavros]

I have it wrong, as usual. Season 3 begins on BBC Four this evening, 25th April 2022.

I watched it to the end for the 'big reveal'...the things one does for art- to get nothing in return.

[Stavros]

The Undeclared War (Channel 4 [UK], Peter Kosminsky).

Cyber attacks and the Russians are to blame. It is 2024 and the Russians have hacked the CCTV inside GCHQ which enables them to literally spy on the spies. Yes, the spies spend most of the day parked in front of three computer screens, analysing data -boring. So throw in a 'spectacular event' and the ability of a workplace trainee discovering how the Russians shut down most of the Internet -and add in that she is an attractive Muslim, and add the CIA placement in GCHQ who is Black and Lesbian, and add in the rebellious Russian computer genius whose father is a fabulously wealthy Arms Dealer, but who wants to be an Artist and who works, temporarily it seems, for the Russian Bot Factory which he, Vadim, believes is fomenting a real, rather than a Cyber War.....and you have your drama.

There are scenes so daft you realise this is not serious drama. The music, especially those wailing women, is so bad I kept turning the sound off to spare my nerves.

It actually deals with some interesting issues, but falls victim to current stereotypes, of GCHQ employees, though most probably are as boring as the ones we see, of Russians, and of pretty Muslim girls who are not that religious and are liable to try some gay sex. As for the Muslim girl's boyfriend, the less said the better.

3/10 for effort.

[Stavros]

Locked down by Covid, from which I am now released, more cyber drama on the BBC in the form of The Capture, two seasons of hysterical drivel based on the concept of 'Correction'. In neither season did the Israelis make an appearance, even though they are pioneers in surveillance technology. The first season concerned a squaddie accused of murdering an injured Taliban in Afghanistan; the second season an MP -allegedly, as he never set foot in the House of Commons or have anything to do with his constituents. Ron Perlman as the world-weary CIA man wandered around with his hands in his pockets, mumbling, and being mostly irrelevant.

The BBC disgraced itself with Crossfire, a badly written, badly acted sequence of terror in Tenerife, probably the worst advert for this popular holiday destination for Brits.

Inside Man had Stanley Tucci as his usual laconic self, pontificating from death row while giving advice, Lecter style, to a naive reporter from the UK, where David Tennant, a 'fucking vicar' (minus the fucking, thank God), transformed a minor drama into an apocalypse with no Messiah on hand to redeem anyone in this preposterous rubbish.

At least in another BBC series we get to see Tucci travelling around Italy eating and drinking, though when I used to go there, I was also hunting the special ladies of the night who occupy notorious streets in Rome, Milan and Naples. Poor Stanley, stuck with so much Pasta and Provolone. He could have had so much fun, though I guess he is a boring married man who would never stray on the other side of the park.

Lastly, I put myself through six hours of Karen Pirie, a Scottish murder/detective drama. The book or books by Val Macdermid must be better than this 'shite', to go suddenly Scottish, with the by now tired resolution to the mystery being not so far from the office where two people review a cold case, because that's all it takes. Budget cuts in Scotland may explain why throughout the series, the detective only has two changes of clothes, and those are her chinos.

This hackneyed crap is a world away from the revival on BBC Four of The Sunset Song, the first part of A Scot's Quair, first shown in the 1970s with the radiant Vivien Heilbron. It was a beautifully done series, but no match for the trilogy by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, one of the finest works of literature in English ever written, a pompous remark much needed after the miserable, wretched failures above.

[diddyboponTOP]

I just finished the final Season of Animal Kingdom. Great show for those who like Action shows that haven't heard of it. Now I'm watching the last season of Power, Book 3 raising Kanen Two episodes to go, then I want to watch the Reboot season of Dexter, late I know
Also I want to get into both the Game of thrones Prequel and the Lord of the Rings show can anyone give me advice on what is better of the two? Also I only saw two seasons of my Cobra Kai I have to catch up there, what a great show. It was hard to watch at first making me remember my youth too much but I can handle it.

[Stavros]

I watched quite a few, but not all of the episodes in Married at First Sight UK. I wouldn't ban this offensive material from tv, but I do wonder why people apply to appear on these shows, if they are not determined, as some are, to not just 'be on TV' but be on tv forever, in any number of game shows, quiz shows and the like, with the ultimate aim of being on either I'm a Celebrity, or Strictly Come Dancing.

Ten couples are matched by three so-called 'experts' whose record by the end speaks for itself -one success, apparently, nine failures. This trio are some of the most offensive people on TV, consumed by their self-confidence, pretend psychologists, they don't just offer armchair comments on the behaviour and motivation of the couples, but offer them 'advice' in person in what to me is so patronising a tone that if it was me I would either get up and leave, give one of them a slap, or both. Their credibility as 'relationship consultants' is zero. Then the couples discuss their private lives in public and it is embarrassing and at times excruciating to watch.

I googled some of it but there is no evidence they are even paid to appear on this show, but I don't think even those desperate to be on TV would give up their jobs for a month or so without some financial compensation, and I don't know what happens to the children of the individuals who all say 'my children are the most important thing in my life' -ie, not the wife/husband they just 'married'! which isn't even a marriage just a tv stunt. To make matters worse, the people in this series are either vacuous or at times just plain 'orrible, with only one of the women apparently reluctant to expose most of her chest, perhaps because she is a butch lesbian. As reality tv shows go, this one needs to be binned, along with Love Island, as it does nothing for the human race except spell its doom.

[Stavros]

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (BBC, 2022).

American actor Stanley Tucci's family is Italian on both sides, from Calabria on his father's side, and in this series he travels around Italy, eating, talking, and eating. As with most tv shows about food, he rarely if ever eats anything that is not delicious, or 'that is so good!'. If you know or want to go to Italy, this is an infuriating programme because the food is indeed so good, as are the ingredients, and I really must go some time in the next year. Be warned, most of the places Tucci eats in are either high end, or out of the way, there is plenty of rubbish on sale in Rome, Milan and other cities on the tourist trail.

The 4th episode features London, a) because Tucci has lived there for about 10 years, and b) it has one of the largest Italian populations outside Italy -though smaller than Buenos Aires and I think, Sao Paulo, and by origin, there are up to half a million in Toronto. Whatever. Because he is friends with Gennaro Contaldo he attributes him to changing the Italian food scene in London, which is nonsense as even Contaldo if asked would claim Antonio Carluccio did this with the Neal St Restaurant in Coven Garden, and there were well-established Italian restaurants before this, but, as noted at the start, what has changed is the availability of Italian regional cuisine rather than a basic staple of Minestrone-Pasta-Profiterole dinners.

So an entertaining programme by an amiable American, with so many outstanding breads, hams, cheeses, meats and fish the allure of the real thing is all but irresistible.

[Stavros]

The Traitors, BBC 2023

The Traitors US, BBC 2023.

I watched both series, though I should point out all at once as I was away in Europe after the start of the UK version which was not available in Germany. Also, because I have no interest in the people concerned, I flipped through the discussions they had and the personal to camera moments and in the US case the Missions which were mostly the same as the UK ones.

The series encourages people to lie and scheme to win money, and is thus driven by selfishness and greed. Like most game shows, one watches to see who wins and loses, and the only real issue in both series, is the ease with which a mob mentality can shape the decisions people make and the reasons why. If it is this easy to fool people and get them to make the wrong decisions, we may understand how even intelligent people could vote for blatant frauds like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

Scary, in its way, but smoothly done trash, with the only real star being Scotland, even when it looks wet and cold.