[tommytwotone]

Unless Monty Don's output has changed drastically since I last watched it...

[IanP]

sounds like your MIL is pretty enlightened compared to lots of other 50 year olds and might get a lot out of watching it?

Now I feel old 

[seankenny]

sounds like your MIL is pretty enlightened compared to lots of other 50 year olds and might get a lot out of watching it?

Now I feel old 

In my late 40s and have been quite right on since I was a teenager, but sshhhhh, don't tell The Kids! (Sorry spidermonkey...)

Your MIL will probably be chatting to her friends next week “ffs, all we watched was Monty Dons bloody gardens. I wanted to see lots of bumming in Its A Sin!”

 

[ali k]

Can anyone who's seen It's a Sin let me know how explicit it is?...if there's too much bumming, we can't really watch it.

I may be misremembering here but I thought all the explicit stuff was confined to one episode so you could potentially just skip that one?

[mark20]

Enjoyed the recent Stonehenge documentary on BBC, tracing the smaller 'blue stones' of Stonehenge to the quarry they came from in Wales and the circle they were initially part of, before being moved to their current site

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s5xm

[tommytwotone]

For anyone that's missed it, Adam Curtis (Century Of The Self, Power Of Nightmares, Bitter Lake, Hypernormalisation) has a new 6-part documentary on BBC iPlayer.


It's bloody good, and bloody dense - feel like I should be watching it with a pen and notebook - well worth a watch.

[dunnyg]

Recent Iplayer watchers, which are already recommended here but are really good:
The mole, absolutely wild!
Lance - I was a bit too young to follow his rise and fall, but obviously knew a bit, so found this really good.

The shield - 4od. Dirty cop drama, Im currently a couple of seasons in and still enjoying it. Plot moves quickly enough, and I the characters are interesting.

[moose]

The shield - 4od. Dirty cop drama, Im currently a couple of seasons in and still enjoying it. Plot moves quickly enough, and I the characters are interesting.

I love The Shield.  It maybe doesn't have the social commentary or subtext of more lauded series (The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad etc.) but it is so fun and thrilling.  And, there is thankfully no let up, or running out of steam (c.f The Wire season 5) if anything it gets madder and more bad-ass as it progresses - right up to the final episodes (the very final scene is probably the best of all).

[dunnyg]

Yeah, it definitely isn't as 'deep' as the wire/breaking bad, but proper good sofa fodder.

[lorentz]

For anyone that's missed it, Adam Curtis (Century Of The Self, Power Of Nightmares, Bitter Lake, Hypernormalisation) has a new 6-part documentary on BBC iPlayer.

It's bloody good, and bloody dense - feel like I should be watching it with a pen and notebook - well worth a watch.

Half way through this too. Excellent stuff , although the old existential angst levels area going through the roof at times.

It really does feel like it lifts the lid off modern reality and shines a light at what's really been going down in the various socio-economic-politic power structures around the world since WW2. Pretty bleak viewing at times, but always insightful.

[Falling Down]

The Stonehenge BBC doc w/Alice Roberts is good.

(Although I’m finding the slow, ponderous yet clickbaitey style of voiceover in documentaries increasingly irritating as I get older. I was able to follow James Burke rattling on when I was eight so I don’t know why presenters have to speak so slowly. )

[tomtom]

The Stonehenge BBC doc w/Alice Roberts is good.

(Although I’m finding the slow, ponderous yet clickbaitey style of voiceover in documentaries increasingly irritating as I get older. I was able to follow James Burke rattling on when I was eight so I don’t know why presenters have to speak so slowly. )

We had a good talk at work 4-5 years ago by Iain Stewart about science documentaries - and he covered some of this. TL;DR etc.. is that if you make a science program in a way that appeals to sciencey people (ie none of this voice over crap, repeats of the same stuff every 15 min etc..) then that will sell to 5-10% of the potential viewers. TV companies are interested in the other 80-90%...

Nice bloke actually - sat on a couple of committees that he's been part of  - and good at both his TV stuff and as an academic etc...

[Falling Down]

I’m just being elitist Tom  . I totally understand why they’re done like that. 

[tomtom]

I’m just being elitist Tom  . I totally understand why they’re done like that.

:D He had some interesting insights into the design and scripting of the programs too... showing the changes from old school to new Horizon programs... (and their audience figures!). Its a wee bit of a debate in science communication, the patronising presentation/dumbing down vs wider audience trade off..

[Falling Down]

I’m certainly all for making it simpler for accessibility and increasing audience numbers.  I was just being arsey in my earlier post. I can always go and read a book if I want the details.

[shurt]

This this this. The Expanse is the best!

Expanse series is now complete for those not wanting to watch an episode a week. Best sci fi around IMO.

Vikings also finished up the final season.

[Steve R]

For anyone that's missed it, Adam Curtis (Century Of The Self, Power Of Nightmares, Bitter Lake, Hypernormalisation) has a new 6-part documentary on BBC iPlayer.

Just watched the first part of this.  Not familiar with Curtis or any of his previous stuff.  I set out wanting to like it, found it sort of interesting from an objective distance but ultimately totally unsatisying.  I'm no historian and quite possibly lacking the intellectual firepower to 'get it' but the idea(s) developed seemed to be about as rational as interpreting patterns in tea leaves. Felt like an exercise in spinning tenuous threads of causality across centuries and continents and then never actually getting round to tying any of them together.  The style; long interludes of  meaningless historic footage of people dancing to equally meaningless music punctuated with more dramatic music and commentary didn't do much for me either. Typical conspiracy type tropes which set the alarm bells ringing as well as being very inefficient -  reckon all the ideas covered in the episode could be achieved in 3 or 4 paragraphs of text.

Will probably give part 2 a miss and try the Lance Armstrong thing tomorrow night!

[Wood FT]

I’m on episode 3 and don’t feel it’s his best work by a long way.

[slab_happy]

"Totally Under Control" (co-directed by Alex Gibney) is a damning chronicle of exactly how the Trump administration fucked up so catasrophically in its handling of Covid-19:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p36r/totally-under-control-trump-and-covid19

Grauniad piece about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/12/they-refused-to-act-inside-a-chilling-documentary-on-trumps-bungled-covid-19-response

Just really good, gripping documentary-making.

[Steve R]

Enjoyed the Lance Armstrong doc.  Don't know anything about elite cycling, think I read his book ~ 20 years ago so was all interesting, quite shocking and new to me.

Saw this on BBC4 a few nights recently:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mf8k/episodes/player
Bit of a different take on a nature doc, bordering on guided meditation.  Nice bit of escapism, seems 30mins well spent.

Found McMafia (on netflix) really entertaining, missed it first time around.  Pretty tense, pretty slick, generally well acted, different escapism to above with beautiful people and places.  Elements of Bond movies but way better than any Bond movie imo.

[Davo]

Just had a quick scan back and couldn’t see anyone recommending this:

The Valhalla Murders: on iPlayer, 8 episodes of Icelandic murder and detective work. Starts slow but builds to quite a gripping conclusion.

[TobyD]

The fourth season of Unforgotten is starting on ITV this week; I've watched all the previous ones on Netflix, I really like it as a good natured police procedural with a bit of a difference (in that they investigate cold cases of people who died or disappeared years ago).

[TobyD]

Bloodlands watched the first episode of this last night. It's pretty good, tense drama and well worth watching. On iPlayer.

[SA Chris]

New Chris Packham series

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000slkq/chris-packhams-animal-einsteins-series-1-1-masterminds

Entertaining for all the family. Kids now asking if we can catch some starlings and do some tests with them.

[Will Hunt]

I very much enjoyed The Terror (BBC) last night. Fictionalised (OR IS IT?  ) account of Franklin's doomed expedition to complete the Northwest Passage.

Very reminiscent of that brilliant adaption of Dark Matter that was on BBC Sounds a while ago (you know, the scary story of a man overwintering alone [OR IS HE?  ] at an Arctic observation station).