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Shows you’d really like to see repeated on terrestrial or satellite TV

by 173 Comments

Kudos (and possible hampers to) Sitheref2409 who commented on the disappearance of an earlier thread about this on the ongoing Sky Arts thread.

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    • It was on UK Drama not long ago.

      I couldn’t personally see what all the fuss was about when it was originally on so I watched it again. Still couldn’t. OOA clearly A.

      John Simm’s Never Never deserves a mention, though.

      • Yeah, I wasn’t a big fan of State of Play either. I had heard it being lauded as a great drama, but I got bored a couple of episodes in. I felt it was just being dragged out. I’d like to see the film remake, as I think it might be interesting to see how they condensed the story.

  2. Bilko in the late night slot it used to occupy. It’d be a great end to the day. One of the few things my father, brother and I used to laugh through together. I recently got my wife to sit through a very poor YouTube recording of Bilko Goes South, one of my favourites.

    I’d also like to see Bakersfield PD repeated to see if it was as good as I remember.

    Also, and based on the recent stand-up thread, I won’t be alone in wishing for another chance to see Jerry Sadowitz’s Pall-Bearer’s Revue.

  3. Edge of Darkness, Our Friends in the North, Inside Out (about ex cons trying to stay clean) and Capital City (about bankers) would be a start. Oo, and the Jimmy Nail Crocodile Shoes.

  4. Quite a few late 80s/90s dramas that I remember fondly and which have been forgotten a bit:

    – Our Friends in the North, already mentioned above
    – Lipstick on your Collar – not really as well remembered as Dennis Potter’s other dramas, but I love it
    – The Green Man – anyone remember this? Brilliant drama starring Albert Finney based on a brilliant book by Kingsley Amis
    – The Common Pursuit – a one off drama about a group of friends from Oxford (or might have been Cambridge)
    – GBH – Rambling drama about a corrupt politician and a schoolteacher, written by Alan Bleasdale
    – Piece of Cake – a group of trainee fighter pilots in the early days of WW2

      • A few of them were on YouTube last time I looked. I watched a couple and I have to agree. Loved it when I was a kid, but I ended up just flicking to the musical segments.

    • I said to my wife the other evening… “Imagine how great it would be if we had a couple of Monkees episodes to look forward to every Friday,” BBC 2, 6-7 p.m…
      They’d get better viewing figures for that than they’d get for yet another quiz show.

      Re: above comment about Lipstick on Your Collar. Fantastically under valued, even at the time (maybe because it was on Channel Four?). Beware of repeats, as 25% of it was cut a few years ago to make way for adverts. Potter must’ve been spinning in his grave.
      An almost faultless depiction of the world The Beatles and The Stones experienced as teenagers.
      Unlikely Johnson or Rees-Mogg watched it, they might have learnt something.

      • No. Not aging well means it is pretty difficult to watch these days. It’s a kids show basically, some of the music clips are great, but many songs are repeated across lots of episodes presumably because that was their current single at the time.

      • I had a similar conversation with my wife about showing old Monkees episodes. She told me if I didn’t get over my Monkees obsession, she was going to divorce me. I thought she was kidding, but then I saw her face……..

        • Sorry to “monkee around” with the topic under discussion by going off on a tangent, but received a similar response from my wife when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas last December.

          “I’d like a divorce”, she replied.

          Told her that I was sorry to disappoint her but I wasn’t planning on spending quite that much…

  6. Banana Splits.

    Today’s yoof need to see and understand that TV once took risks, didn’t take itself seriously and had a lot of fun in the process. Tra la la.

    Size of an elephant! Uh-oh, Chongo! and so on.

  8. I dont know if anyone else is having the same issues as me but I cant stand watching anything that requires any real concentration during this friggin pandemic. I find my self going with rewatching those comedy series that seem to give me comfort and joy. So rewatching The Office (the superb US version), Schitts Creek, Kims Convenience, Corner Gas and the truly great Frasier.

    • @bang em in bingham

      I’m exactly the opposite. Generally cannot stand mainstream American comedy shows, especially those where they have about 40 writers banging out one liners every show. As a result have never watched The Office, Big Bang, Frazier or Friends and I’m afraid I never will.

      Do like stuff like earlier stuff like Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show and edgier more recent cable shows like Curb, Eastbound and Down and Silicon Valley. From what I can tell, they all tend to be the work of one writer.

      Have you seen HBO’s Righteous Gemstones with the splendid Danny McBride (Eastbound) and the mighty Walton Goggins (Shield, Justified) , Bang? Well worth a look if you’ve not. All eps are currently on Sky Comedy

      • I know what you mean about shows like Frazier and Friends and can’t watch them myself, but the US Office and Schitts Creek are nothing like those kind of shows and are both excellent, although the Office lost its way a little when Steve Carell left.

  9. A few that I would like to see:

    In a land of plenty

    The file on Jill Hatch

    Tutti Frutti

    Your cheating heart

    Piece of cake

    Take me home

    Rich man poor man

    Larry Saunders

    Bilko

    More to come I’m sure.

    Those will do for now.

  10. I’d like to see Ideal (BBC 3, 2005-2011) repeated.
    Johnny Vegas as Moz, a small-time cannabis dealer.
    (writer and creator) Graham Duff as a very gay friend of Moz’s.
    Cameos by Graham Fellowes (as a doctor for an organ-trafficking gang), Mark E Smith (as Jesus Christ), Sean Lock, Mark Radcliffe, Paul Weller, Rula Lenska, Alan Yentob (as himself) and Barry Adamson.

  15. The problem is that I often find when I do go back to a much loved show form the past it turns out not to have aged well. I found Tutti Frutti on I-player a while back and despite having loved it when it was out really didn’t feel inclined to go on from the first episode this time. The wonderful Hill Street Blues is on All Four in it’s entirety but again, one episode felt enough this time round.

    All that said, I’d love to see the Potter-esque drama Blackpool, starring David Morrisey and David Tennant again. And perhaps my favourite American cop series Homicide.

    There was also a fondly remembered Granada adaptation of A KInd of Loving in the early 80s but to be honest my enjoyment of it had as much to do with the presence of Joanne Whalley as anything else.

  17. The TOTP repeats make me wonder if there is a market for news programmes from 20, 30, 40 years ago.

    The Nine O’clock News played in its entirety from a random day 40 or 50 years ago would be interesting, I think. Doesn’t even have to be a significant day.

  18. The Avengers is on pretty much non-stop. Would imagine

    While remember TA’s later ITC stablemates – The Baron, Strange Report, Randall and Hopkirk, man in a Suitcase and The Champions ( just started on Talking Pictures) as being pretty enjoyable if a bit two dimensional, don’t think any of them ever lasted more than one series.

  19. There are nearly 15 years worth (well, probably only 10 years worth knowing the BBCs wiping shenaninigans) of Play For Today.
    Stuff from Dennis Ptter, Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russel, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Jack Rosenthal (and others) lost in that lot somewhere – in fairness, some (although very few) have seen the light of day again

  20. It’s an interesting phrase that comes up a lot: ‘it hasn’t aged well.’ I had a phase of finding shows on YouTube that were, from memory, dreadful at the time. Howard’s Way is on there, and you should give it ten minutes – it’s almost hypnotically dreadful.

      • Yep, I’ve watched that, too! It’s wonderfully dreadful. The actors look painfully embarrassed to be in it – even the sets and wardrobe look a bit sheepish.

    • We’re now so used to TV being a serious artform that’s routinely better than cinema, that we’ve forgotten how shit TV used to be and only remember its quality relative to other tv of the time, which was also shit, and often much shitter. I saw a bit of “I Clavdivs” a few years ago. It was laughable. And people used to talk about it as if it were some pinnacle of dramatic achievement.

      Technologies mature. Artforms mature. TV drama only did that very, very recently.

      • Good question for discussion. When did tv mature as an art form? What was the first TV show to truly stand on its own terms as strongly as cinema? I would maybe guess The Singing Detective.

        • I think Hill Street Blues might be a contender. I know in it’s later series it got a bit flabby and soaplike but the earlier ones were sharp.
          Also, I guess it depends a lot on what Cinema you’re comparing the TV shows with. Budget aside, I would suggest some of the shows made by ITC (Persuaders, Champions) in the 60’s & 70’s stand against what I would consider the Cinema equivalents like James Bond.

          • Yeah I think there are proto-mature dramas which sort of signal what might be possible. Hill Street Blues is a great shout – as is, maybe, LA Law. It wasn’t uniformly superb but in terms of format and feel, I feel like those two shows carried a lot of the seeds which gave birth to NYPD Blue, The West Wing and the beginning of the golden age from 2000 onwards.

            I think the point at which BBC drama and US drama crossed over (ie when you stopped being able to scoff at the shoddy comparative quality of American TV) was about 2002 maybe? It doesn’t really hold up that well now, but 24 was quite a watershed show in that sense: cinematic appointment television that made the BBC look silly by comparison (Spooks, anyone?)

            • I think The West Wing had a lot to do with that.

              But the killer was the golden HBO era where, in the States, they ruled Sunday evening drama and couldn’t put a foot wrong.
              The Wire
              The Sopranos
              Deadwood
              Rome
              Carnivale

            • Another Steven Bochco show: mid 90s (Wiki says 95 but I don’t think it was shown here until 96) Murder One was the first really long, single story series I remember and was good enough that I asked a friend to record the last episode as I was working away.

  21. Gangsters, a thriller set in Birmingham from the late 1970s. Probably rubbish by today’s standards, but I never did see the last episode. Theme tune was by Dave Greenslade and I can still hum it (sort of).

    Oh, and even if it is ‘rubbish’ it can’t be any worse than some of the repeats of so-called classic shows that are on now eg, early Avengers, etc.

    I seem to remember The Prisoner also having been pretty good viewing, but once again I suspect that my memory – and tastes – have changed.

    • Last episode of Gangsters was a major disappointment.Almost as if the writer wanted to get fired by the BBC. There was much 4th wall breaking, meta gags, a key character killed off early on and a dreadful impersonation of WC Fields by aforementioned writer. In my youth I might have thought it edgy, when I saw it again on DVD I found it plain pretentious. Great theme song though!

    • I only saw the Prisoner for the first time a few years ago. There’s a lot of flab in the middle shows (apparently owing to a network-related minimum number of episodes), but the best episodes – Arrival, The Schizoid Man, Hammer into Anvil, Many Happy Returns, Fall Out – are superb.

      • Many Happy Returns is great. No. 6 awakes in an empty village and makes his way back to London only for…etc. etc. There’s no talking for about half-an-hour.
        The three episodes with Alexis Kanner are also gems. The final one (Fall Out), the one with the girl trying to kill him (The Girl Who Was Death), and the Cowboy and Western one.

        The Avengers is always being repeated but possibly because the best series (Rigg’s first) is in black and white, they now seem to start it up again from her 2nd series.

        I still love those Hopkirk, Champions, Baron series. Saw an episode of the Champions the other day and it was fun. Fun, strewth, Talking Pictures and ITV 4 almost have to explain what that is before each transmission!
        “We warn viewers that the following programme contains fun and is not po-faced or pompous. we are sorry if this spoils your enjoyment of the show.”

    • Frank Ross IS out!

      Rewatched on DVD a few years back and thought it stood up well. I’d forgotten about the subplot of his wife in an institution. Good role for John Junkin in a straight role and an early sighting of Brian Cox.

    • The first episode has a wonderful scene, showing through his eyes all the changes in London while he’s been inside.
      Watching it a few years ago, it was a nostalgic look back, seeing everything through the other end of the telescope.

  25. I love a very peculiar practice and think it holds up okay. Ultraviolet was an interesting take on the vampire mythos from C4 in the 90s (and one of the first outings for idris Elba). And if you want an old creepy children’s programme Alan garners The Owl Service takes some beating.

  27. In no particular order:
    A Very Peculiar Practice
    Taking over the Asylum
    P’tang yang kipperbang
    The various Beiderbecke series
    I think I’d like to see LA Law again through adult eyes, just to see Bochco’s early stuff.

  28. There was a multipart Elvis Presley life story that was fabulous back in the 80’s. On a similar subject, I think the surreal adventures of Nick Neat & Tina Tidy in Adventures Beyond Belief could handle a new audience – all I’ve been able to find is a VHS video copy and it still stands up – probably helps that it was a bit daft in the first place!
    I’d like to see some old early 80’s LWT stuff as well. There was an alternative comedy show late on a Friday that always seemed to have Arthur Smith on it, The Making Of Modern London & Twentieth Century Box.

  30. What I’d really like to see again would be the 1972 BBC One children’s adventure series by N. J. Crisp called ‘The Long Chase’, but I believe that’s essentially been lost due possibly to the videotape recycling policy of the time.

    Failing that, I’d love to watch the 1983 series ‘Johhny Jarvis’ again; as I recall it evoked a very good impression of the ennui of the early Thatcher years, particularly from a teenager’s perspective. It could have used the cover of ‘Some Leaden Pall’ as its poster. It still somehow managed to express a realistic optimism and hope for the future of its well drawn protagonists. I was ten years older than the main characters, and just starting out as a secondary school teacher – it certainly chimed well with what I saw and heard in my fifth form set’s classroom each day.

  31. Drop the Dead Donkey would be worth a shot.
    Day of the Triffids
    Children of the New Forest
    And as a kid I adored the 1970s version of Swallows and Amazon.

    Anyone for Blake’s Seven?

  34. I have never seen Pennies From Heaven by Dennis Potter and would love to.

    As a kid I loved The Tripods and absolutely would watch a repeat of that.

    The Larry Sanders Show really should be repeated properly.

    There are a bunch of Plays For Today written by Peter McDougall, like Just Another Saturday, Just Boys Game etc which were great. In a similar vein I also remember one called Leaving which impressed me to bits. Would love to see that again.

    But I have said this before and I will say it again, The Monocled Mutineer starring Paul McGann was just bloody great and seems to have been forgotten.

  35. I think something has been lost in the “binge” method of watching shows.

    Pre-video, Fawlty Towers was initially buried within BBC2’s listings along with other near-Python gems like Rutland Weekend Television and Spike’s Q shows.
    Thanks to older siblings seeking it out and ensuring the family watched it, I was able to spread the word around the playground (I was about 9, before you call the police).

    Later on, Big Night Out and Father Ted were definitely appointment viewing. Unlikely-sounding comedies that gathered momentum over time as more people got into them.

    Like many people I taped these shows and binge-watched them. There were even times when entire social events were planned around watching things like the Young Ones, one after the other – but it’s never as good as watching it for the first time.

    • When Big Night Out started, the NME were so smitten that they published a guide on how to watch it – which included NOT taking drugs, and killing anybody likely to come to your house when it was on. Sound advice…

        • This was deliberate – Vic and Bob were sick of the earnest sex’n’politics preoccupations of 80s comedy and wanted to go back to the unpretentious daftness of The Goodies.

          Later in 1990 BNO was repeated at 6.30 in the evening – the only beeping was for the entrance of Judge Nutmeg:

          Spin spin spin the wheel of justice
          See how fast the bastard turns

    • As I kid I kept watching after the first series despite only one of the three main ghosts from the first series remaining. I think one of the actors died and a second chose not to return without the same core group, leaving bearded irritant Timothy Claypole to carry the load. If I had known tat at the time I would have saved myself some time watching in the hope that the others would show up again.

    • As a business idea, it wasn’t bad. If you need to freak someone out, hire out a ghost for the purpose. Far more targeted than the Goodies rather vague “anything, anytime, anywhere”. I imagined a bored but randy rock star in a hotel ordering out of desperation and three middle aged men arrive on their trandem.

  37. I’ve only seen ‘Threads’ the once, when it was first broadcast, and it had quite an effect on me. I’d like to see it again just to see if 61 year old me would still find it a harrowing experience as 25 year old me. Even the cover of that week’s Radio Times (an armed traffic warden wrapped in a bloody bandage) had an effect.

    I’d also like to see Jack Rosenthal’s ‘The Knowledge’ again.

  40. I have forgotten to mention The Rotters Club in my list, great 3/4 part series (can’t remember), from the early/mid noughties.

    I think it was specifically made for members of this parish of ours.

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