What was the last TV show you watched?

[Fading Fast]

"BE THERE OR BE SQUARE”

Fantastic illustration -where'd you find it / whose is it.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
Found on the television broadcast a short while ago.

Mostly enjoying the background history of Nathan’s
and when I see an image I like I take a “kodak” shot directly
from the TV.

Here’s Jimmy with Nathan.

Enjoy !

 

[MisterCairo]

(Interestingly, I hear the BBC has now saved GBP8million a year on its wages bill since the departure of Bully Boy Clarkson and his sniggering sidekicks).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/top-gear-chris-evans-leaving-1.3663472

It would appear they're saving on viewers, too.

Looks like a cracking good show. Obviously a great decision to ditch Clarkson et al!

 

[2jakes]

Congratulations Joey!

 

[Stearmen]

"BE THERE OR BE SQUARE”

Nothing says declaring your country's Independence from a tyrannical King like eating so many hotdogs you have to vomit!

 

[Stearmen]

Wheeler Dealers. I got to love this episode, they showed what we have known for years, that the cameras are already there before Mike shows up! It was funny, the lady with the Corvette, kept laughing, every time mike started to walk towards her. Don't lecture me on how all reality shows are fake, you're preaching to the choir! I just watch for the cars, and to get a laugh.

 

[Edward]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/top-gear-chris-evans-leaving-1.3663472

It would appear they're saving on viewers, too.

Looks like a cracking good show. Obviously a great decision to ditch Clarkson et al!

Never actually watched it, but especially if it loses them money, good for the Beeb for at least not renewing Clarkson's contract (at least something if they didn't have t5he nerve to outright fire him prior to that). Of course, it would be regrettable if any broadcaster turend a blind eye to such appalling behaviour in order to preserve income, but utterly unforgiveable on the part of a public service broadcaster.

 

[MisterCairo]

Never actually watched it, but especially if it loses them money, good for the Beeb for at least not renewing Clarkson's contract (at least something if they didn't have t5he nerve to outright fire him prior to that). Of course, it would be regrettable if any broadcaster turend a blind eye to such appalling behaviour in order to preserve income, but utterly unforgiveable on the part of a public service broadcaster.

Agreed, Clarkson's a jerk, but I did watch the show (as did millions of others). And if you're prepared to face the financial consequences, great. Amazon is trusting the threesome to make them money, and as a private entity that's their choice.

I'm not a fan of "public" broadcasting (the CBC costs Canadian taxpayers $1.1 BILLION per year - and they show commercials!), so not a fan of any "higher calling" ethics required. I like free markets.

 

[Benzadmiral]

A long TV-watching weekend, as it was too hot to go outdoors for long:

Episodes of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess -- earlier ones which weren't so jokey. The Hercules episode took the family intrigues of Oedipus, the late Jocasta, her brother Creon, and Oedipus's daughter Antigone and made an entertaining rebellion-against-a-cruel-ruler story out of it. The Xena story featured our favorite swordswoman going undercover (as if Xena could ever be undercover!) in a king's dungeon to rescue a little girl she grew up with, now an adult. Kevin Sorbo makes a good Hercules, but Lucy Lawless sells herself as Xena the way Chuck Connors did as Lucas McCain 40 years before on The Rifleman.

Then, two 1962 episodes of Have Gun-Will Travel, with Richard Boone (surely one of the ugliest, and yet strongest, leading men of all time). The first featured Boone's Paladin venturing into a town that is literally law-free to capture a bandit who mutilated a little girl after killing her parents, and winding up as "prosecuting attorney" in a kangaroo trial.

The second was even better. One Dr. Avatar, a student of Cesare Lombroso (the "criminal type" fellow), comes from Europe and hires Paladin to take him to one of the last of the gunfighters, Jake Trueblood, so that Avatar can measure Jake's skull and features and prove his physical criminal type theory. Along the way Avatar notes that Paladin is no slouch in the gunfighting area himself. Then Avatar tries to bribe Paladin to kill Trueblood so that Avatar can take his actual head back to Europe for proof of his theory. When Paladin refuses, Avatar tries to get Jake to off Paladin so he can have Paladin's head instead. Realizing that Avatar is as bad as the murderous gunmen he is "studying," Paladin is forced to shoot him in self-defense.

How many Western series, then or now, would feature what we'd call today a forensic anthropologist? No wonder HG-WT was famous in its own time. . . .

 

[Fading Fast]

Agreed, Clarkson's a jerk, but I did watch the show (as did millions of others). And if you're prepared to face the financial consequences, great. Amazon is trusting the threesome to make them money, and as a private entity that's their choice.

I'm not a fan of "public" broadcasting (the CBC costs Canadian taxpayers $1.1 BILLION per year - and they show commercials!), so not a fan of any "higher calling" ethics required. I like free markets.

I am going to stay away from the public-private TV debate (I'm a private-markets guy, but know the policy here is to try to keep away from politics), but you highlight something I am quite willing to emphasize.

PBS here in the States used to make a big deal out of its "no commercial" policy. Now, it basically shows a bunch of commercials masquerading as acknowledgment of sponsors before the start of many of its premier shows. So a cruise line with its name prominently highlighted gets a 15 second or so shot of one of its ships sailing into a beautiful port with a voiceover promoting the company name, but we are supposed to believe it's to just acknowledge its sponsorship - please.

How is that not a commercial? If we are going to have subsidized public TV, then can't we at least keep the commercials out? I'm fine with a bland list of sponsor names scrolling at the end of a show, but what PBS does now is really just show commercials slightly masked.

 

[1mach1]

Life's Too Short

 

[Benzadmiral]

This weekend one of the cable channels was showing a binge of "Burke's Law" and its successor series, "Amos Burke, Secret Agent." I remember the earlier show, but had always been curious about the latter.

The first BL I watched, "Who Killed Purity Mather?", was written by Harlan Ellison, and featured eccentric, almost lovable, suspects and hangers-on, and a revelation scene worthy of Doyle and Ellery Queen. The ones I dipped into were charming and funny in the right places.

Then we got into AB, SA. And it looks . . . cheap. The opening sequence has action clips from various episodes, but somehow they all come off looking like bits from those inexpensive Eurospy movies that proliferated in the mid-Sixties to capitalize on Bond and U.N.C.L.E. We have a high-tech HQ, this time aboard a jet plane. It was fun to see no less than 6 actors who appeared on MfU. And the first episode ("Balance of Terror"!) features a scene lifted from an U.N.C.L.E. episode. Burke is trapped in his hotel bathroom, in danger of being steamed to death. His solution is clever: He knots several towels together and to a wooden stool, tosses the stool up through the skylight, where it hangs up, and then he can rope-climb up and out.

Still, it must have been a shock for those fond of the light touch of BL to come to this. And it is the same character; in the first scene Burke mentions the LAPD. Methinks it would have been better to ditch the Amos Burke name and set Gene Barry up with a completely new character. . . .

 

[Edward]

Agreed, Clarkson's a jerk, but I did watch the show (as did millions of others). And if you're prepared to face the financial consequences, great. Amazon is trusting the threesome to make them money, and as a private entity that's their choice.

I'm not a fan of "public" broadcasting (the CBC costs Canadian taxpayers $1.1 BILLION per year - and they show commercials!), so not a fan of any "higher calling" ethics required. I like free markets.

That way lies a political debate, of course, which is not for these parts. Suffice it to say that, yes, while the private sector can do as it will and face the financial consequences, I do expect more of a national broadcaster when it comes to upholding basic standards of civil behaviour. Lest it be quickly forgotten, absent the victim's unwillingness to press charges (in part in the face of, if you can believe it, a legion of twitter-based death threats), Clarkson would have found himself facing a criminal court. But then Cheryl Cole has a criminal record for a very brutal beating (and she got off lightly compared to the charge sheet with that), and she's supposedly the 'nation's sweetheart', so I may well hold to a minority view nowadays.

I'm sure the C/H/M product will do well on Amazon internationally. I doubt I'll have the opportunity to see it to compare; we dabbled with Amazon for the free trial, but were unimpressed. There's some great stuff on there, but it's largely stuffed - at least on the UK version - in between a hole heap of things that have additional charges attached. We found that 90% of what we considered watching wantedto charge us a few quid more for the privilege, and there didn't seem to be any way of opting to search only for content which is "free" for Amazon subscribers to view. It'll be interesting to see how the platform develops over time. For now I much prefer Netflix - though of course it's movie content is slightly less fresh-from-cinema. Both platforms seem to be producing high-quality, original programming, which is the far more important end of things. Seems likely, to me, that this will be the way forward for thegolden age of TV we've been living in over the last few years. I'm looking forward to the day they turn off the old broadcast networks entirely, replaced by on-demand databases. Within a decade, there'll be no reason not to go that way.

 

[MisterCairo]

I'm looking forward to the day they turn off the old broadcast networks entirely, replaced by on-demand databases. Within a decade, there'll be no reason not to go that way.

Not starting a political debate at all, just saying!

And agreed, the future is not bright for networks in the traditional sense. The web (i.e., the market) is making sure of that.

More and more Canadians are "cutting the cord", going without cable or satellite tv. We have our dish still though,.

 

[Edward]

Not starting a political debate at all, just saying!

And agreed, the future is not bright for networks in the traditional sense. The web (i.e., the market) is making sure of that.

More and more Canadians are "cutting the cord", going without cable or satellite tv. We have our dish still though,.

It's an exciting time for the medium. Long before Netflix arrived in the UK, the core free to air broadcasters were all offering soem degree of programme content online, ondemand (though of all of them, the BBC are the only one to date to allow time-limited downloading so the viewer can watch offline - I'm hoping that will change, as it's great for travelling). The Beeb are one to watch on this front - they've already taken down BBC3 (the Yoof channel) from regular broadcast. Ostensibly to save money, but that's how the kids are all accessing it now anyhow.... plus it provides a great platform to experiment with making new content exclusively available online. There's also increasingly more content that they're putting out that way now too which is aimed at other audiences. I suspect that (as well as arhive access) may well increase when they close the no-licence loophole. With Amazon and Netflix in the private sector increasingly leading their marketing on original content, it's clearly the way things are headed, and fast. I find these days I rarely switch the main set on (though that will change once I have a web-enabled big screen in place!).

There's been a lot of romanticisation of the "shared experience" television concept among columnists over here, but I doubt that's much shared by audiences. I don't remember the last time I followed anything that I had to view at a set time on a set day... I think it might have been the first Doctor Who reboot series, in 2005 - before BBBC iPLayer launched.

 

[MisterCairo]

There's been a lot of romanticisation of the "shared experience" television concept

I think we still have a shared experience, just among a more select group.

The days of "everyone" watching the same thing (I think the last show for most of us in North America like that was Friends) may be gone, but the followers of (insert programme here) get together, in person and online, to discuss the latest episode.

We see it here on the Lounge - if you follow Game of Thrones or Peaky Blinders or Preacher or what have you, there's "what did you think"? chat going on.

Just avoid the SPOILERS if you can!

 

[Touchofevil]

Preacher
Once again, entertainingly twisted, fun, and well done.

 

[BobHufford]

"Mister Ed" in Hawaii. Some great shirts and a few nice hats.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

ANZAC Girls, episode 1, from the Acorn service.
We got Acorn for the purpose of watching Poldark, only to discover the series was from 1975, when the BBC still did film for exterior scenes and videotape for interior scenes. We're waiting for more of the more recent series.

 

[Touchofevil]

Hell on Wheels
Better, but still a moment or two of annoying.
Did the talented writers and directors leave the show?