TV Binge Watching

[monkeysarefun]

The American habit of remaking overseas TV series for their domestic market rather than showing the  original seems ridiculous and even a little insulting (not sure whether for the original country or the US viewer - either could apply!) but there have been a couple of happy exceptions apart from 'The Office"

 

Firstly theres a little known Aust series called 'No Activity" which if available somewhere there is well worth a watch in both its original Australian form for its charm and characterisation, and also the US remake which was done by the original production company and even has one actor playing the original Oz character but with a US accent! Its basically a "Waiting For Godot" style production which swaps between 3 different pairs of characters - 2 police on a stakeout sitting in a car, the radio room operators and the crims themselves. The crims in the Australian version have some of the funniest dialogue I've heard in ages and worth watching for that alone. 

 

The TV series "What We Do In The Shadows" moved the location from the  original movies  native New Zealand to New York, but the result is less dire than I feared and is actually in many ways better than the movie. Matt Berry as a vampire is well worth a look 

 

Not sure if its available there but if it is "Upright", An Australian TV mini-series with Tim Minchin playing a character driving across Oz with a piano in the back of a ute is worth a watch, very enjoyable. Its the classic journey-of-discovery style story but is very entertaining and the supporting cast is excellent. Its only 6 parts so you don't need to commit. Here unfortunately it was originally on Rupert Murdochs over-priced pay TV channel, hopefully it is available there somewhere other than the Evil Empire.

 

Finally "Mr Inbetween", a 2-series show about a small-time Sydney  crim/hitman is also  a brilliant show. I'd call it tragi-comedy, in that it has some laugh out loud moments before sending you in entirely the other direction. Unlike many TV series the support characters are all brilliant and totally believable,unlike the usual comic book style bad guys so often on US series.  I'm sure many must have been actual criminals etc to get the characterisations so accurate!  .Again, here it was on Murdochs channel originally, hopefully it can be found there on a greater variety of sources. At least watch the first 5 minutes, you'll be hooked!

Edited April 26, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Jeff Smith]

We have Britbox which is a BBC/ITV collaboration and carries all the soaps.  Not much of interest for me so I don't subscribe.  Better is the Acorn app which has no soaps just drama, mystery, comedy, etc. movies and series.  Mainly British but some good Irish, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian programmes.

 

A favourite of mine has been The Brokenwood Mysteries from NZ, very tongue in cheek a bit like Death in Paradise or Doc Martin.  If nothing else it's taught me to differentiate Aussie and NZ accents!

[monkeysarefun]

7 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

If nothing else it's taught me to differentiate Aussie and NZ accents!

 

[Ben B]

Quote

The TV series "What We Do In The Shadows" moved the location from the  original movies  native New Zealand to New York, but the result is less dire than I feared and is actually in many ways better than the movie. Matt Berry as a vampire is well worth a look 

 

My wife and I really took to the series; we hadn't seen the original film, though I'd heard of it before the series, and we didn't manage to catch it until after the series had been on the Beeb.  I gather series 2 is airing in the States at the mo, Auntie Beeb is getting it sometime in the summer

 

On the subject of Matt Berry, "Year Of The Rabbit" was a good one, foul-mouthed faintly Victorian crime comedy...

[TheQ]

We don't get any TV except what's through the aerial.  

I'm not one for watching much TV, my parents having not got one till about 65, then we moved to the Hebridies which had one poorly received ghostly TV  channel.  So I never got into it. 

 

I've never heard of most of the previously mentioned programmes. 

 

I was hoping they would show the early "Time Teams"  due to the shortage of new progammes, as I missed them being out of the country.  But so far nothing..

[big jim]

3 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

My wife and I really took to the series; we hadn't seen the original film, though I'd heard of it before the series, and we didn't manage to catch it until after the series had been on the Beeb.  I gather series 2 is airing in the States at the mo, Auntie Beeb is getting it sometime in the summer

 

On the subject of Matt Berry, "Year Of The Rabbit" was a good one, foul-mouthed faintly Victorian crime comedy...

matt Berry is brilliant, there isn’t much he’s in that I don’t like but I just couldn’t get into ‘what we do in the shadows’ don’t get me wrong it was so funny but I got about 3/4 of the way through series one then just lost interest, I probably should revisit it again, one of my favourite bits was where they get  the head vampire ‘Peter’ out of his sleep and he breaks the 4th wall and looks straight at the camera asking what was going on!

 

‘year of the rabbit’ is good, not as good as ‘toast of london’ which is just ridiculously daft 

 

A good one on sky arts is psychobitches, series 2 is currently on sky on demand, some of the best British actresses and actors playing women visiting a therapist, if you ever want to see ted robbins as Les Dawson as Emily Pankhurst or reese shearsmith as old mother Shipton then give it a watch 

 

 

[dvdlcs]

Allow me to suggest a couple of shows from New Zealand. No idea where you might find them, other than "the Internet", and not the newest but I enjoyed them:

 

Nothing Trivial - a drama around a group of disparate individuals that make up a pub quiz team. [3 series and a feature length finale]

 

Westside - a crime drama around a safe breaker, Ted West, and his gang in 1970s Auckland. Prequel to Outrageous Fortune, which I haven't seen, where his son Wolf(gang) carries on the family tradition. [5 series]

[Jeff Smith]

And also from NZ The Almighty Johnsons

[MJI]

I find Amazon Prime is pretty good. I got it 2 days before The Grand Tour started.

 

Watched and liked TGT, Man in High Castle, Our Man in Japan, Good Omens.

 

Worked through a few series of Walking Dead unitl it turned into a soap.

 

Currently doing American Gods.

 

There is also a LOT of railway films including one on Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, and in the credit is ME.

 

yes some of my video material is on Amazon Prime!

[Steamport Southport]

On 27/04/2020 at 07:32, TheQ said:

We don't get any TV except what's through the aerial.  

I'm not one for watching much TV, my parents having not got one till about 65, then we moved to the Hebridies which had one poorly received ghostly TV  channel.  So I never got into it. 

 

I've never heard of most of the previously mentioned programmes. 

 

I was hoping they would show the early "Time Teams"  due to the shortage of new progammes, as I missed them being out of the country.  But so far nothing..

 

How are you on here? Meaning can you watch things through your device such as computer or Smart TV?

 

Many of the programmes mentioned can be easily found online.

 

Time Team? They're all here.

 

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team

 

 

 

Jason

[TheQ]

54 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

How are you on here? Meaning can you watch things through your device such as computer or Smart TV?

 

Many of the programmes mentioned can be easily found online.

 

Time Team? They're all here.

 

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team

 

 

 

Jason

Thanks I didn't think of that,  that's my viewing sorted for some time... 

[Allegheny1600]

On 26/04/2020 at 23:34, monkeysarefun said:

The American habit of remaking overseas TV series for their domestic market rather than showing the  original seems ridiculous and even a little insulting (not sure whether for the original country or the US viewer - either could apply!) but there have been a couple of happy exceptions apart from 'The Office"

Thanks for the heads up about those Aussie series, I'll try and find them here in Blighty!*

I know what you mean about the Yanks remaking series to suit their native viewers but their version of "Shameless" was much better, we thought. I thought the British version was just too cringeworthy (probably it's general appeal?) whereas the US version was somehow more believable, maybe because of preconceived ideas about the American way of life, I don't know.  

Cheers,

John

 

*I generally like Aussie films etc

[MJI]

Britbox and ITV are missing a load of streaming viewers and they are encouraging piracy.

 

WHERE ARE THEIR CONSOLE APPS?

 

They need punishing, done this before.

 

I remember contacting a film company about Blu Ray vs HD-DVD for a film I wanted.

 

Blu Ray got pulled last minute to try to force support for HD-DVD.

 

So I sent them an email stating how I downloaded a rip of HD-DVD, converted to a format my BD player could handle then copied across the network to the HDD in the player.

 

Since I got the burner later I could not really rub their nose in it.

 

[Reorte]

23 hours ago, MJI said:

I find Amazon Prime is pretty good. I got it 2 days before The Grand Tour started.

 

 

Got the trial they keep trying to push (must remember to cancel it in time, they'll probably offer another one soon enough if I want to watch more) and have binged through Star Trek: Picard and Good Omens.

[big jim]

16 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Got the trial they keep trying to push (must remember to cancel it in time, they'll probably offer another one soon enough if I want to watch more) and have binged through Star Trek: Picard and Good Omens.

I couldn’t get by without amazon prime!

 

for what you pay it’s damn good value for TV, music and deliveries on top of that, I must admit I keep forgetting I’ve got prime TV though as we have sky Q with Netflix so that comes up as default when we go to the  menu on the TV, prime is there but in the app!

 

 it’s shocking just what I do have for on demand and subscriptions, off the top of my head i have BBC iPlayer, itv hub, channel4, uktv, Apple TV which are all free, we then have subscriptions for sky with Netflix, prime family, Spotify family, tidal music, readly, Xbox live, PlayStation network, Nintendo switch on line family, scary how much all those cost but all are very well used between the 4 of us in the house 

 

To top those off there are more subscriptions on my phone too, such as Tom Tom go for the sat nav on the mobile (it has offline maps so you don’t suddenly go off map when there is no mobile signal)

 

then we have photo sites like Flickr and photobucket! 
 

no wonder I’m always skint

 

anyway back to TV I’m going to finish afterlife tonight on the pad during downtime at trafford park, only 4 episodes to go 

[Jeff Smith]

For those living in the US; we have subscription streaming from Netflix, Hulu, Prime, PBS and Acorn.  Acorn, although with limited content compared to the others, is by far our favourite.

[Reorte]

Other than the aforementioned Prime trial I'm signed up to zero subscription services. I don't use deliveries that often either, preferring to buy in person where possible. Stopped using iPlayer when they insisted on signing in even though it's free. Prefer to be down the pub anyway! (also not an option now of course)