GOOD TV

[Stanley]

Keeping Faith...... I watched the last episode and have to report that I am as confused as ever by the baffling twists and turns of the plot. Particularly the last scene where Evan reappears! It stinks to me of either a very badly plotted series or a blatant ploy allowing another series. A very famous writer who mentored me for many years told me that the biggest flaw in any story was to allow your readers to fall of the last page with no attempt at resolution leading to a credible and natural finale. In this respect, 'Keeping Faith' failed abysmally!

[PanBiker]

I have been watching "The War" a 14 part series on PBSAmerica. Covers WWII told for the viewpoint of men from four towns in America. Serving in the European and Pacific Theatres. Tom Hanks is one of the narrators who reads from some of their letters home. Interviews also with the some of the surviving men also. It's on at acouple of times each day and we are up to episode 9. Just breaking out from Normandy after D-Day and slogging it from island to island in the Pacific. It's very gripping as it's told from the viewpoint of individual men's experiences. A very good series, recommended and bound to be repeated I reckon.

[Stanley]

I've seen some of them Ian and agree with you.....

[Stanley]

The last episode of Bodyguard last night. Gripping and a nice conclusion. I've enjoyed it. They had a trail afterwards, there will be another series of 'Line of Duty' next year, written by the same author. Good, I really enjoyed that.

[Nolic]

I think that Bodyguard will be back as well. It was gripping last night. Nolic

[Stanley]

I hope so Comrade. You still can't beat a good firm plot with added human interest, and yes, I mean the relationships!

[Tripps]

I watched the last episode - don't want be the odd one out at the water cooler.
I hadn't seen any of the previous ones, just knew what I'd picked up in the media.
It shattered my preconceptions about 'dramas'.

It has become standard convention in 'drama' that anyone in a headscarf - despite masses of apparent evidence - cannot possibly be the baddy, so that's usually one suspect ruled out immediately.

What do you know this one was a baddy! The twist was that she was a female engineer.

Wow.

[Stanley]

That was good wasn't it. Beautifully portrayed as well, the half smile as she did the reveal and said that they had jumped to the conclusion she was a downtrodden Muslim wife when in fact she was smarter than any of them! A very good point.....
Normally I avoid fly on the wall documentaries but the 'Missing' series with Cheshire constabulary is a cut above. brings home the chaos caused when someone vanishes....

[Stanley]

If you want some really scary stories see Mystery Playhouse at 10;45 each morning this week on R4. It was the Erl King today and The Bloody Chamber yesterday........

[PanBiker]

Some good stuff going on with motions for the support of Palestine at the Labour Party Conference.

BBC Parliament Channel - Freesat 201

[Stanley]

I saw it on the TV news Ian. So all these people will be anti-semitic? Well done I say.
Have been attempting to watch Wanderlust. It would be a lot better if the characters could communicate in complete sentences...... Or communicate at all for that matter! Are people really so inarticulate? Should I get out more?

[PanBiker]

The news only showed a snippet of the debate which I thought was one of the best I have ever seen at conference. Emergency motion regarding finishing the Royal Liverpool Hospital being proposed at the moment.

Parliament channel is available on catch up on the Iplayer, don't know if you can get all the coverage though. I'm watching most of it live.

[Stanley]

I heard the reports yesterday. Another example of how PFI and the outsourcing to crooks like Carillion can go wrong. The upside is that when completed in house it will not be paying exorbitant fees for thirty years. The delay might turn out to be a good thing.

[Tripps]

I've re- subscribed to The Spectator. I missed it for the last few months.
This is from this week's edition - and expresses better than I can, a point I've made a couple of times recently. Besides not understanding the plot - it's the main reason i avoid 'drama' now.

What a load of utter tripe Bodyguard (BBC1, Sundays) was. Admittedly, I came to it late having missed all the sex scenes with Keeley Hawes and Robb Stark, which may have dazzled me in the way they seem to have dazzled many impressionable viewers. Even more distracting than the gratuitous sex, mind you, was the diversity casting. The whole exercise was like an extended United Colours of Benetton advert, with black female snipers, an Indian/Pakistani SWAT team head, an oriental bomb disposal expert, etc. If you sincerely believe — as the BBC demonstrably does — that the primary function of contemporary TV drama is to act as a make-work scheme for BAME actors then this is admirable. But from the point of view of most viewers it is distracting, insulting and discomfiting — for it forces you into noticing something you’d rather not be forced to notice.

[Stanley]

Despite all that it held my attention David...... I think 'load of utter tripe' is a perhaps a little harsh......

[Stanley]

I started watching the programme about plastic pollution but it made me so depressed I had to leave it. We aren't fit to have a planet.......

[Stanley]

I've given up on Wanderlust.... too bloody vague and annoying to watch, nobody ever ends a sentence!
Went to iPlayer and watched a couple of episodes of Killing Eve. Dark tale but it has a plot, good acting and plenty of action.

[PanBiker]

Keep at Killing Eve, well worth it. We have watched the lot in a can't stop binge session via IPlayer.

[Tizer]

Stanley, did you see `Science of D-Day' on BBC 1? You'd enjoy it, especially the bit about the 25-pounder field gun and its muzzle brake...Science of D-Day
`In June 1944, one of the greatest amphibious assaults in history was launched from the south coast of England. Within a matter of hours, 7,000 vessels had landed 156,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy. It was a manoeuvre that changed the course of the war and tested innovations in science and engineering for the first time. In this programme, engineer Rob Bell looks at the nuts and bolts which made such a staggering invasion possible - from giant troop-carrying gliders to tanks that could drive on water - and how necessity really did become the mother of invention. Like all new inventions, not all of them worked and resulted in devastating consequences. We find out why. This is the science of D-Day.' (30 minutes)

[Stanley]

No, I'll have a shufti. I watched a Youtube video on muzzle brakes and there was a lot they didn't know.....
Ian I watched the rest of Killing Eve and I am still trying to work out what happened in the last scene. Scope for another series? I agree with you, it's good.

[PanBiker]

Yes, I reckon there will be another series also. This is the last thread I have read to catch up on the last three weeks of One Guy. Not long after you made your post I was getting up to start my three week adventure at LGI.

Three weeks out and I have a few series to catch up with on the on demand services, plenty of time to do those now when the mood takes me.

[Stanley]

[Big Kev]

I've been watching Informer on BBC1 and have resisted 'binge watching' on the iPlayer. It's been good so far.

[Stanley]

I tried it but it didn't turn me on Kev......
The new version of The Little Drummer Girl is going down OK but it must be puzzling for anyone who hasn't read the book. Very complicated plot.

[Tripps]

Here's why I didn't even try to watch it. If he can't understand it - I've got no chance.

Andrew Neil
Am I alone in finding the Little Drummer Girl tedious, incredible and incomprehensible in parts?