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What was the last TV show you watched?

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,206
Location
Troy, New York, USA
"Hard Knocks - Training Camp with the Atlanta Falcons". I enjoyed the series this year but not as much as last years with the 'Nati Bengals. I think HBO and the Shield have gotten after them about their language as this years iteration was almost PG it was so clean. Sigh...

Worf
 

Gregg Axley

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,125
Location
Tennessee
I watched it also. A little disjointed, but, at least it was about a historical figure, and not a reality star. So by that measure, it gets two thumbs up!
I read some of the accounts from his career, and the movie does present them with at least 90% correctness.
It might have been Adrian Brody that said (paraphrasing here) "since most of those viewing Houdini's act in person are now gone, we have to guess at some of the pieces to put this together.
As the movie went along, I was consulting the only factual source for history, by Hollyweird's standards...Wikipedia.
Well both are made up, with a certain amount of true content. :D
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
5th episode in on "The Paradise" and continue to be amazed at how much better it is than "Mr. Selfride," yet "Mr. Selfridge" seems to get much more press. "The Paradise" has better, more fully developed characters, better story arcs and no Jeremy Pivon.
 

Stormy

A-List Customer
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403
Location
460 Laverne Terrace
5th episode in on "The Paradise" and continue to be amazed at how much better it is than "Mr. Selfride," yet "Mr. Selfridge" seems to get much more press. "The Paradise" has better, more fully developed characters, better story arcs and no Jeremy Pivon.

I love "Mr. Selfridge" and simply adore Jeremy's performance. I am also a fan of "The Pardise." I'm looking forward and hoping for more period series set in Britain.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,715
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
"RCA Presents its First Television Program: July 7, 1936."

It's not a recording of the actual broadcast, which was seen by exactly three experimental sets in the RCA Building in Manhattan and an assembled audience of mucky-mucks. No such recording exists. But RCA arranged with Pathe News to have the entire production filmed as it was broadcast, from a pair of newsreel cameras situated behind and to the right of the single television camera. The original audio from the broacast was used as the soundtrack, so that's genuine. But what you see is a silhouette of the cameraman and his camera, a boom mike and its operator and a parabolic light reflector -- and then, in front of all that, you see, in a single full shot, the various acts that made up the program.

It ran about 48 minutes, all told, and began with General Sarnoff of RCA congratulating himself and NBC President Lenox Lohr, before they excuse themselves to go in and watch the variety show to follow. There follows a Pathe newsreel -- which is spliced intact into the film of the event, from opening titles to final rooster -- which gave the crew time to reset the studio for the performances to come. After the newsreel, NBC's Betty Goodwin announces a fashion show featuring models and clothing from Bonwit Teller, designed to be stimulating to the "tired business man" audience -- and then comes a series of variety acts. Blackface comedians George Wiltshire and Eddie Green -- who really were black, and were veterans of Broadway and radio -- do a slick, snappy routine, and give way to a tap-dance number featuring three Rockettes. Next is actor Henry Hull, then starring in "Tobacco Road," doing a monologue in character as Jeeter Lester -- most of which is obscured by the cameraman's shoulder, although you can hear him well enough. The Pickens Sisters then do two numbers, including a rather savage operatic parody, and the grand finale is comedian Ed Wynn, who claims he was only asked to be in the show half an hour before it began and has prepared no material and is clearly scared to death until his radio sidekick Graham McNamee runs into the studio and nurses Wynn thru a rather painful five-minute ad-lib routine. Finally, we go to another Pathe News clip featuring the Army on maneuvers with its impressive array of retreaded WW1 tanks and cloth-covered biplanes and its "irreplaceable horse cavalry." A rousing rendition of "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" blares up on the soundtrack over an image of Old Glory spanking in a gale, and that's the end.

And that's how NBC Television introduced itself to the business world. It would be another three years before TV was ready for the general public, and it would be another thirteen years before Ed Wynn got his nerve up to try it again.
 
Messages
17,190
Location
New York City
I love "Mr. Selfridge" and simply adore Jeremy's performance. I am also a fan of "The Pardise." I'm looking forward and hoping for more period series set in Britain.

Have you watched "Call the Midwife" and (of course) "Downton Abbey" - two enjoyable period series set in Britain? "Call the Midwife" doesn't get as much press as "Downton" or "Mr Selfride" (or much press at all), but the stories are solid, the characters are well drawn out over many episodes and the period sets are gorgeous. Also, while I think it is over, "Foyle's War" was a fantastic series set in Britain during WWII.
 

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