Television, drug of the nation

I watched part of the first one on all4 but got fed up of all the adverts in a 20 minute show. Worked much better when you can plow through 3 in an hour no bother.

Bit behind the times, but liking Tin Star

Been watching lots of Seinfeld on Amazon. There’s barely an episode that wouldn’t see everyone involved destroyed on Twitter if they were made today.

Tin Star started off promising but I think the wheels fell off before the end of the series..

All4 is bollocks. not sure if it's still the case but having to watch 3 ad breaks to skip forwards to the end bit of the episode you had already watched up to (say if your browser crashed) would take 10 minutes.

I'll let someone else rip it off their site and stick it on usenet for me.

The same can be said for most old comedy shows. walking the line of acceptable humour ages very badly if that line moves drastically after the fact.

Britannia- Any good ?

Have caved to the commuter zombie state and resorted to blanking out the 2 hours daily train ride with box-sets on Amazon.

Ploughed through S1 and half of S2 of Mr Robot in just over a week. Enjoyed S1 a lot despite it being basically being Fight Club crossed with V for Vendetta (two of the most over-rated pieces of neckbeard bullshit ever created).

Good soundtrack though and some enjoyable performances. It is probably the darkest piece of TV i've ever seen. Half the time it's so murky that if you try to watch it on a train in daylight hours you're basically looking at your own face in the reflection of almost completely black screen while someone mumbles over a succession of ominous parping doom noises.

Am getting serious dream-sequence/descent into madness fatigue in S2 though. Will probably finish it because I'm invested... but unless it perks up a bit and your main man starts acting rather than lying about debating with himself about the nature of reality I may sack it off.

I sacked it off three episodes into S2

It really does seem to have lost its way

what else is decent and downloadable at the moment?

Black Lightning is getting all the top reviews - which is interdasting as the trailer looks terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LAUGA01mUc

also: Inside Number 9 if you haven't done so already.

I only caught 2 episodes, but enjoyed Miriam's Great American Adventure. Fairly predictable I suppose, some Americans are nuts, others aren't, there's good in everyone, hope for the future etc, but her style is fantastic, realistically positive and funny.

It's the shitty kind of superhero action that gets rebooted after a series/film because they realise how badly made it is once they're done.

decent premise and story but this bit from the guardian review nails it

Oddly, one of the main flaws becomes apparent when it jumps into the superhero action. Given that it takes barely 10 minutes to prove itself to be competent drama, it is easy to forget there is some suited-up scrapping to be done; when Black Lightning dons his glowing latex, it almost lowers the tone, possibly because it looks like something an 80s ITV gameshow contestant might wear to run through a cardboard maze.

the superhero'y bits are corny as fuck. feel like the old 80s/90s style superhero action rather than the modern stuff which works 100x better.

Aye Inside No.9 is splendid. actually felt like applauding at the end of Ep1 and 3. Flawless.

Despite fond memories and much of my 20s featuring endless Royston Vasey references, I couldn't be bothered to get past the gross-out first few minutes of the League of Gentlemen specials.

the "you're in a wife mine now" gag at the end of le christams spesh was top tier.

tommy wiseau executive producer?

One of the League of Gentlemen, in panic at imminent cohabitation, dumped his dodgy VHS collection at my post-student shared house #truestory #csb

Ha!

Just caught up with the new episodes of ST: Disco. I'm still enjoying it, despite the obvious tired tropes and flaws. Probably made more enjoyable because after the first new episode of Disco, I went back and watched the original series Mirror Mirror episode. But it does raise questions regarding how would Mirror Spock even come to be in the universe that Disco is in?

I found the 'twist' in the last episode a bit groan worthy, still watching but getting fed up with it...

I have to admit, I didn't see it coming at all.

This week's episode is excellent.

Stealing Van Gogh on iPlayer is an interesting one off documentary about art theft and organised crime. It meanders a bit in the second half but is interesting nonetheless.

I missed the last 10 mins of the last episode so I also missed the twist, but I'll go back and watch it. I suspect I know what it is now though.

Huh. I'll check that out.

I used to live i this house just off City Road https://goo.gl/maps/1SPrnX3E96u in which French poet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Apollinaire once lived. He was arrested in 1911 on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa and various other goodies from the Louvre. We never did check the attic...