Twang, Fortune 8, Rigid Digit and Asquith convene in the pod to discuss TV past and present. The square eyed team cover programmes old and new, deep dive into comedy and crime (who was in Cannon?), the Beeb, new ways of consuming the same old rubbish and take a punt on the future of that about which so many grumble whilst spending hours a week consuming.
The Afterword #70: The Tellycast
by 20 Comments
Someone
I was thinking that…
Evel Knievel?
He was fired quite early on
It was his turn in the barrel.
Did Evel Knievel ever make a successful jump?
Every bit of footage you see of him he clears the obstacle, and then falls off his bike.
Mind you, the toy version I had in the 70s, he never managed to stay on his bike with that either. So maybe it was more realistic than we thought
Lots of old discussed, some recent-old and some positively neolithic, but not a great deal of recent, really, except some mentioned in passing.
BBC iPlayer has now gone into Autumn Season mode and there are a few decent drama series.
What has captured my attention over the last few days is “Killing Eve”. which is available as a boxset on BBC 3 and is also being shown in weekly instalments on BBC1. I’m probably way behind the AW’s TV cognoscenti here, as it came out originally in April. It’s a BBC America production, based on the “Codename Villanelle” novella series by Luke Jennings. It was renewed for a second season shortly before it was premiered, so they obviously have high hopes for it.
Binge-ed it over the past couple of evenings.
Beautifully written and staged by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. At times pitch-darkly funny, yet horrifying and gripping too with an absolutely top-notch cast.
Jodie Comer is simply amazing as increasingly-reckless playfully-ingenious psychopathic hit-woman Villanelle.
Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy) is very good as naive and out-of-her-depth but determined and obsessed secret service desk jockey turned field agent Eve Polastri.
Kim Bodnia (from The Bridge) is Villanelle’s handler Konstantin, struggling to keep her on the rails or at least somewhere in their vicinity.
Fiona Shaw is MI6 Russia Section boss Carolyn Martens. A rather detached-seeming oddball.
Excellent supporting characters. No Americans involved, though Sandra Oh is Canadian/Korean which might count as close.
Highly recommended to those who haven’t seen it already. I’m looking forward to Season #2.
The BBC are knocking it out of the park with drama at the moment. The Bodyguard was wonderfully tense and gripping (despite, as many have pointed out, being ridiculous, having absurd dialogue, and the charisma vacuum in the central role of the bodyguard), I have high hopes that Black Earth Rising will live up to its early promise, and Killing Eve was hugely enjoyable.
I watch the whole of Killing Eve last week, and again with my other half at the weekend. ‘I know exactly what you’re going to say any minute now.’ ‘Oh really? …. IT’S MARTIN!!’ ‘Yep, that was it.’ It’s hokum, but the sort of hokum where we’re already planning to take pictures of ourselves outside the secret headquarters next time we’re in Trafalgar Square (it’s in Warwick House Street). Perfect binge watching for the darker evenings.
Was that a spoiler?
Not any kind of plot spoiler that I can see. Kim Bodnia and the secret base are both introduced early as part of the basic set-up.
OK, thanks. Haven’t watched yet, but on my list.
Am I alone in not watching The Bodyguard?
And should I rectify this oversight immediately.
Mind you, I’ve still not yet watched Line Of Duty (despite it sitting on the PVR awaiting viewing)
I’m not watching The Bodyguard. Didn’t even know it was on, but can’t stand Whitney Huston’s awful warbling.
The Bodyguard was terrifically entertaining, but if you haven’t watched Line of Duty I’d go for that first. Unmissable.
Started well I thought, but finish was not as good without talking about spoilers (Bodyguard)
It’s not “The Bodyguard” – that’s the one with Whitney warbling. It’s “Bodyguard”. Impeccable BBC PC casting too.
…and did you notice how nobody watched or listened to any non-BBC news sources? What a wonderful pre-Internet world that would be! Nick Robinson would actually be almost as important as he thinks he is!
I enjoyed this preposterous series, but its success proves nothing so much that if you want to have a highly successful TV drama there’s nothing quite like, er, casting a bloke who stars in another highly successful TV drama.
Jings but Bodyguard was hokum compared to Ozark , Americans, Chas & Dave et al. Frightfully disappointing
I thought it went phut at the end. The voom went out of it when he was standing in that park. **No spoilers**
I binge-watched episodes 1-5 of Bodyguard in the last couple of weeks leading up to 6 on Sunday which was the first live TV I’ve watched since the world cup (equally tense too).
Watching Line Of Duty on Netflix now. Really enjoying that as well.