[TobyD]

Wanna see a car crash?  Liz Truss being interviewed by Chris Mason. It’s excruciatingly entertaining if it wasn’t so serious 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001yrtr

Or listen her interview with Iain Dale on his All Talk podcast, if you can bear it. Better still, watch the clip of her trying to hold her own book up the right way on Fox news during an interview, as it only lasts a few seconds.

[Falling Down]

The book clip is already a meme

[SamT]

Just 'enjoyed' Baby Reindeer on Netflix..

Ooof.  Strap yourselves in. 

Jessica Gunnings performance as Martha is as brilliant as the whole thing is mad.

[SA Chris]

Started it, not bad for a Fifer

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/18/i-was-severely-stalked-and-severely-abused-richard-gadd-on-the-true-story-behind-baby-reindeer

Interesting back story..

[Ged]

Just 'enjoyed' Baby Reindeer on Netflix..

Ooof.  Strap yourselves in. 

Jessica Gunnings performance as Martha is as brilliant as the whole thing is mad.

Yeah agree, not sure I enjoyed it but very good. Not what I was expecting, maybe because of how funny she was in The Outlaws. Some very uncomfortable viewing.

[Ged]

Ripley on Netflix.

I just watched all of this whilst getting over a grim stomach bug. Really loved it. Shady new yorker (Andrew Scott /Hot Priest from fleabag) moves to Europe to track Down an old friend. I don't know if the black and white added anything, but it's really captivating,right to the end

[Oldmanmatt]

Just finished “The Old Man” on Disney.
Not what I expected, though I should have considering the cast.
Beautifully shot on occasion and well told.
Definitely the deep end of the John Wick pool.

[moose]

Just 'enjoyed' Baby Reindeer on Netflix..

Ooof.  Strap yourselves in. 

Jessica Gunnings performance as Martha is as brilliant as the whole thing is mad.

I thought it was very good... but a very hard watch - like a more harrowing version of Nighty Night.  I kept pausing episodes to "decompress" for a few minutes before I felt fit to continue.  At first, it was Martha's behaviour that did it - although that was fairly standard TV stalker / fanatic stuff in retrospect (not a million miles from Kathy Bates in Misery?).  But later, what more got me was when the protagonist did something that would obviously make matters worse, and had me dreading the unpleasantness to come. He's the relationship equivalent of a horror film character that returns to the creepy house, when they could have driven away or got help, and insists on exploring alone with all the lights off.

[shurt]

Ripley on Netflix.

I just watched all of this whilst getting over a grim stomach bug. Really loved it. Shady new yorker (Andrew Scott /Hot Priest from fleabag) moves to Europe to track Down an old friend. I don't know if the black and white added anything, but it's really captivating,right to the end

I agree, this was one of the best things ive seen lately

[SamT]

Ripley is on the list, but after BR, my other half is after some 'light' entertainment.    Race around the World it is!!.

[Ged]

Ripley is definitely a lot lighter than Baby Reindeer!

[mr chaz]

Feel your pain. We started Ripley, then got hooked on BR, finished that and went back to Ripley, by which time my other half had completely checked out and won't engage. I think its brilliant, really enjoyed the pace and unsettling atmosphere

[Duma]

The Tourist on iPlayer. Can't remember if this got mentioned before but I thought the first series was excellent, and just noticed there's a second series out, first episode is promising so far

[SamT]

Loved The Tourist.. different from the first series and you have to suspend believe a little.. but thoroughly enjoyable fun.

[seankenny]

Not a TV show per se, but if you’re a fan of French cop drama Spiral then you’ll probably enjoy this Le Monde description of a drug investigation in  a Parisian housing estate:

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/visuel/2024/05/01/a-deep-dive-into-a-small-narcotics-company_6670081_7.html

[edshakey]

Flowers
Will Sharpe (who played Ethan in The White Lotus season 2 -  also great) wrote and has great role in this also v dark comedy-drama alongside Olivia Coleman, Julian Barrett, Angus Wright, Harriet Walter, etc. I think I avoided it at the time because it sounded a bit bleak, which it is, but it's also a total work of genius. Very funny, and also very powerful / poignant. Angus Wright's character doesn't have a huge part, but what he does with it is immense. He's like the sexual tyrannosaur Mr Hyde version of the Dr Jekyll he played towards the end of Peep Show. Both of which are here - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiXxq6589eDAxVkhP0HHfsKA34QwqsBegQIDRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F263165522&usg=AOvVaw3HFAGiWTeUuv4LW2aY81At&opi=89978449

Missed this a few months ago, but wanted to give it a bump.
My favourite TV show, ever. V dark (from the opening scene, you have been warned!) but as powerful as anything I've seen - and very funny too. It's only 6x30mins per season, and only two seasons, so not hard to plough through, although that has potential to be quite taxing if you're finding it a bit bleak... also season two gets a bit odd but the final episode is so beautiful that I would implore anyone to continue the whole way. Hmm maybe I've highlighted a few potential downsides, so I'll balance it with another "it's really really really really good!".

Great score too, from Will Sharpe's brother Arthur. I emailed him once and he was seemed nice - yet another reason to watch!

Yossarian : your description of Angus Wright's character is brilliant 

[TobyD]

Fool me Once I'm really enjoying this despite a storyline which stretches credulity at times. It's sufficiently compelling to keep me watching at least; Joanna Lumley is remarkably good at playing a nasty old matriarch. It's on Netflix.

[Oldmanmatt]

I am certain, that (barring some undisclosed mental health issues) the writers of the new season of Dr Who, are on Acid.

Still, made me smile.

[TobyD]

I am certain, that (barring some undisclosed mental health issues) the writers of the new season of Dr Who, are on Acid.

Still, made me smile.

I haven't watched Dr Who since I was a kid and I'm pretty sure it was Sylvester McCoy. The above comment makes me want to watch it again now.

[Oldmanmatt]

I am certain, that (barring some undisclosed mental health issues) the writers of the new season of Dr Who, are on Acid.

Still, made me smile.

I haven't watched Dr Who since I was a kid and I'm pretty sure it was Sylvester McCoy. The above comment makes me want to watch it again now.

I started watching it again when my kids were young and have enjoyed it in its resurrected form. Daft, of course, and for kids really; yet sometimes quite deep.

[webbo]

Reformatting...


Few I've watched recently:

True Detective: Night Country (Sky / Now TV)


Better than all the other "not S1" True Detective series, but not amazing either.Builds nicely but kind of peters out in the final act, and the dénouement is a bit weird, and leave a few strange plot holes.

The Gentlemen (Netflix)


Spinoff of the Guy Richie film (which I rather enjoyed). Gather he's involved in some fashion.Enjoyable if you accept it for what it is - you're going to get cartoon caricatures of Scouse gangsters, pwopa nawty geezers etc.

Just watching this at the moment and finding some laugh out loud moments. Which is surprising given my usual crime drama is Miss Marple, Agatha Raisin or Harry Wild.🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Duma]

Scavengers Reign (netflix). Wonderfully imagined alien ecosystem. Bit slow at times but excellent by the end I thought. 12 short episodes, so you can dip in.

[warmonke]

Scavengers Reign (netflix). Wonderfully imagined alien ecosystem. Bit slow at times but excellent by the end I thought. 12 short episodes, so you can dip in.

Really enjoyed this too, amazing visuals and world-building

[Fultonius]

Did someone mention The Little Drummer Dirl?

If not, really enjoying it. Watched the first 4 episodes and then went back and started again with my partner as I thought she'd be into it.

If it was mentioned thanks to whoever it was. Florence Pugh is fantastic in it.

[seankenny]

Masters of the Air (Apple TV)

In 1943 the American Air Force's 100th Bomb Group - the "Bloody Hundredth" - began combat operations over occupied Europe, undertaking daytime raids far outside of the range of any fighter escort operating at the time. Masters of the Air follows the pilots as they arrive in England and begin their deadly work - one raid over Munster saw them lose twelve out of thirteen aircraft - until the eventual Allied victory over Germany.

As you'd expect from a Hanks/Spielberg production, the show gives just enough technical detail to give the viewer a feel for the workings of a B17 bomber, and the aerial combat scenes are very well done, bringing home two things for me: just how fucking dangerous this job was, and the really awesome scale of combat in WW2. As historian Adam Tooze wrote recently: "The entire conduct of the war was based on the vast deployment of energy. The Allied armies, most notably at D-day, were swimming in oil. Never before had a war been as motorized or as dependent on hydrocarbon fuels." The men experience huge loss as every downed plane means ten fewer colleagues at base that evening, the shattering tension of alternating between bucolic East Anglia and bouts of intense danger, the terror of bailing out of a failing aircraft.

For me there was an extra layer of poignancy. My great uncle, a quiet and gentle man of whom I was very fond, spent this part of the war driving an ambulance on an RAF base. The scenes in the show of injured and dead men being pulled from planes on their return was his most visceral experience of war (aside from getting straffed in Scarborough at the start), and perhaps what led him to a breakdown in 1945. So this really made his experiences come alive for me in a new way.


As befits a middle aged man with too much time, I went on to watch...


Band of Brothers

Classic war story of American paratroopers training and then fighting the Nazis in France, the Netherlands and Germany. All the cast are good, the battle scenes suitably terrifying and this is the "good war" at its mostly heroic best. Very much well-troden ground but modern-ish production values and direction are a great reason for returning to this subject matter.

Annoyingly, as with Masters of the Air, the British are cast as rather bungling and the UK as some kind of quaint Tolkinesque shire-land, when in reality Britain was a technological powerhouse with an incredibly productive industrial economy. This is very much American mythologising, which is fine in its way, but the war was so vast and encompassed so much that the centrality the show subtly assumes feels misplaced. Still, very much worth watching.


And finally...

The Pacific

This I think is the best of the bunch, covering the stories of three different Marines as they fight the Japanese from island to island. The harsh environment of the Pacific - the heat, the rains, the crabs, the mud - is as much a character in the story as the men themselves, always threatening to overwhelm them physically and mentally. There is a lot of racism and we are left in no doubt that this is in part a race war in which both sides completely dehuamnise the enemy. The rules of war were tossed overboard long ago, it's a brutal fight to the death. I know very little about this part of WW2 and one of my initial reactions was "what the hell happened in Japanese society that made their soldiers so careless of their own lives?"

The story really picks up about halfway through when we follow Eugene Sledge, a doctor's son from Mobile, Alabama, whose book provided much of the source material for the show. He is part of the invasion of Peleliu, a tiny coral island with a much sought after airstrip. We are right in there with Sledge and his friend Snafu (great performance from Remi Malik) as they ride to shore in an amphibious craft under intense fire, are pushed out of it onto the sand and have to crawl to the treeline with death all around them. Most of the shots are very tight, but the soundscape of screams and cries - "I'm bleeding out! I'm bleeding out!" - powerfully expands the viewer's awareness out of the immediate frame. (The recent Holocaust film Zone of Interest does similar.) All along one has to think: this is his very first time in combat.

The final episode covers the men's return to America and their attempts to reintegrate into a society both grateful and ignorant. All the veterans struggle but clearly for Sledge, a sensitive young man, this was a tough task. He has almost lost his own humanity in Okinawa and now he has to put those experiences away and live again. This is familiar territory (and foreshadows later tropical conflicts) but again, it was very affecting. Strong recommend if you want to go there.