[Will Hunt]

Did anybody watch The Gallows Pole who hasn't read the book? What did you think?

[TobyD]

Just in case anyone is tempted to watch Annika on iPlayer, I'd strongly recommend not doing so. I usually love this kind of thing, and the lead was great in Unforgotten; however this is awful, I watched most of episode one and won't be finishing it, or going back to it. It had some good scenery, but that's about it.

The TDF documentary on Netflix is worth watching though. The Lincoln Lawyer is ok too, though unexceptional.

[Ged]

Did anybody watch The Gallows Pole who hasn't read the book? What did you think?

I really liked it. Totally took me by surprise.

The way it started, and the way it's advertised, I was expecting something like a pretty serious historical drama along rhe lines of the last kingdom.

The way it very slowly turns into a combination of The Royle Family and Oceans 11 is just genius. Superb characters and just very different to anything I've seen in a while.

[slab_happy]

If anyone enjoys a bit of Stewart Lee:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001bvpn/stewart-lee

A friend and I had tickets booked to see "Snowflake/Tornado" ... in early summer of 2020.

Felt like a bit of a pandemic milestone when we finally sat down in the theatre to see it, two years later.

[Will Hunt]

If anyone enjoys a bit of Stewart Lee:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001bvpn/stewart-lee

A friend and I had tickets booked to see "Snowflake/Tornado" ... in early summer of 2020.

Felt like a bit of a pandemic milestone when we finally sat down in the theatre to see it, two years later.

Yevgeny Prigozhin's let himself go.

[steveri]

Just in case anyone is tempted to watch Annika on iPlayer, I'd strongly recommend not doing so. I usually love this kind of thing, and the lead was great in Unforgotten; however this is awful, I watched most of episode one and won't be finishing it, or going back to it. It had some good scenery, but that's about it. .

Funnily enough, it had the opposite effect on me. Stuffed full of tv detective tropes, troubled home life, novelty car, work comes before teenage kid, tricky colleague relationship. As soon as she broke the fourth wall and spoke to camera I thought “not going to like this”. And yet I kind of did.

[TobyD]

Beef. On Netflix. A pretty strange program, 2 episodes in it's highly enjoyable and frequently hilarious, but I wonder if it can sustain that for ten episodes? I look forward to finding out because it's pretty good so far.

[sherlock]

Don't think anyone has mentioned The Deepest Breath yet?
Documentary about free-diving and an interesting glimpse into a strange and intriguing world. Some beautiful photography.Netflix.

[Teaboy]

I’ve enjoyed A Spy Among Friends on ITV’s streaming service. I’ve not always followed what’s going on but it’s been great! Similar to the remake of Ipcress Files which I think I mentioned before.

[mark20]

Been meaning to post for a while as a later comer to the anthology series Inside No 9. New series 8 out recently, I'm still working through the older ones. 30 min stand alone episodes, generally dark/comedy with surprise endings but a variety of stuff in there across the 8 series. All on BBC iPlayer. My highlights so far; S1Ep2 Comedy silent movie. S2Ep2 Quite gripping story of someone's life, very Black Mirror. S2Ep3 Dark comedy with lots of Python refences - can tell they enjoyed writing this one. S2Ep4 Made entirely of CCTV footage. S3Ep3 Storyline based around cryptic crosswords. S4Ep1 a modern telling of Shakespeare Comedy of Errors. S4Ep4 Non-linear thriller, a Tarantino tribute perhaps

That reminds me, there is a new series of Black Mirror on Netflix but I've not got round to watching it yet. Any good?

And new this week, Greg Wallace: The British Meat Miracle (Channel 4od) I don't want to give too much away, but fair play to him for doing this. Brutal!

[Oldmanmatt]

Don't think anyone has mentioned The Deepest Breath yet?
Documentary about free-diving and an interesting glimpse into a strange and intriguing world. Some beautiful photography.Netflix.

I’m a pretty accomplished Technical, mixed gas diver, semi-retired these days and tend to just bimble with my GoPro. I’ve been diving and Free Diving since I was about 10 years old. However, Free diving below anything more than about 15msw eludes me. I’ve been diving recently with a South African Free-diver and spear fisherman and watching him calmly sit (and I mean cross legged on an old wreck) at 34msw, belly concave, but serene; while fish swim around him unconcerned, is quite unnerving.
We often go hunting new and un-dived wrecks. This is an exceptionally dangerous activity, if you enter the wreck. These aren’t nicely cleaned, baby proofed, deliberately sunk, wrecks. They’re full of rotted linings and dangling cables to trap and ensnare the unwary. Stir up the bottom and you’ll be blind and lost. Everything is sharp, push the wrong ladder, brush the wrong bulkhead and you’ll be buried under tons of rusting steel. Anyway, here’s a link to a wreck we found two weeks ago. It’s an initial checkout dive, to see if it’s worth a deeper probe, so nobody has full gear and we just poke around the superstructure (although at one point Danny couldn’t resist a peek into the engine room). The Free-diver, does all that we do, without gas. I didn’t catch him on film because we dive in pairs and he was running the boat during our dive.

[cheque]

Thanks for that Matt, not a great month for my Thalassophobia this!   

[chicane]

The deepest breath was superb, really enjoyed it

[TobyD]

The Sixth Commandment is excellent, if deeply unsettling. On iPlayer.

[SA Chris]

Finished watching She-Hulk with the kids. Enjoyable low maintenance fun, apart from the last episode, which is a bit of a confusing mess.

[seankenny]

This is a good list of stand alone TV episodes:

https://slate.com/culture/2023/09/best-stand-alone-episodes-tv-television.html

As the article puts it:

“What makes a stand-alone? There’s been no shortage of debate about this question, but for our purposes, we’re defining it simply as an episode that stands up on its own, whether or not you’ve seen the rest of the show.”

They include “College” from The Sopranos which is really a mini film noir and one of the best bits of the show (though they give “Pine Barrens” an honourable mention).
Suitably inspired and with an afternoon to kill I watched the classic Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever”. A really well written hour of TV drama *and* it’s got Joan Collins, but the expositional style of acting looks clunky to our modern sensibilities.

[SA Chris]

Interesting and varied list. Got me thinking....

[slab_happy]

If you fancy a bit of Shakespeare:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pk71s/hamlet

Tennant's not my all-time favourite Hamlet ever (that's a tie between Simon Russell Beale and Paapa Essiedu), but he is extremely good, and Patrick Stewart is a phenomenal Claudius.

And apparently Iqbal Khan's production of Othello (which blew my mind) is coming later in the autumn:

https://www.rsc.org.uk/news/season-of-shakespeare-on-bbc-four

[Wellsy]

I should watch that, I've never seen Hamlet

[slab_happy]

Do it, it's a fantastic production to start with! 

[SA Chris]

Gen V just started on Prime. Spin off from The Boys, and seems to be continuing in the same vein (poor pun if you've seen it).

Enjoyed the first episode, but the plot seems kind of obvious (unless there are hopefully some big twists).

[spidermonkey09]

Just finished the BBC le Carre adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl. Very good, well acted, and replete with all the usual 'what the fuck is going on, I really need to pay more attention' moments that in reality theres nothing you can do about and are  le Carre's trademark. I haven't read the book but I gather its quite a faithful adaptation.

[slab_happy]

For anyone who's got Sky, you can currently watch Bristol Old Vic's extraordinary production of Touching The Void:

https://bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/touching-the-void

Which I have been raving about for several years now, ever since I was lucky enough to see it live.

Outstanding example of how theatre can stage the completely unstage-able.

[Falling Down]

Just finished the BBC le Carre adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl. Very good, well acted, and replete with all the usual 'what the fuck is going on, I really need to pay more attention' moments that in reality theres nothing you can do about and are  le Carre's trademark. I haven't read the book but I gather its quite a faithful adaptation.

We watched the first two last night and are now hooked.  Michael Shannon is such a great actor and Florence Pugh too. Thanks for the recommendation.

[TobyD]

Enjoying Bodies, currently on netflix. It's not as great as some reviewers seemed to think, but it is compelling and very nicely made. It's pretty original (if you're unfamiliar with the graphic novel from which it is derived).