TV Series - Reviews and Recommendations......

Pross

Tashman said:

I enjoyed Guilt too, currently working through Showtrial which I'm enjoying also

I enjoyed Showtrial. Most of the filming was around the route I try to run at lunch time when in the office and other scenes were filmed on the square I worked on for about 15 years.

daniel_b

Pross said:

Tashman said:

I enjoyed Guilt too, currently working through Showtrial which I'm enjoying also

I enjoyed Showtrial. Most of the filming was around the route I try to run at lunch time when in the office and other scenes were filmed on the square I worked on for about 15 years.

Londinium?

TheBigBean

daniel_b said:

Pross said:

Tashman said:

I enjoyed Guilt too, currently working through Showtrial which I'm enjoying also

I enjoyed Showtrial. Most of the filming was around the route I try to run at lunch time when in the office and other scenes were filmed on the square I worked on for about 15 years.

Londinium?

Bristilium.

secretsam

I am loving The Expanse.
Also really like Upload and Carnival Row.
No doubt all 3 have been discussed previously, but, you know...

seanoconn

Been a while since I’ve watched this and rarely found in it’s entirety. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, 6 parts although they could be classed as films. The first 4 are on iplayer with 2 more to follow.

One of the best Scandinavian series ever and seriously worth a watch if you haven’t seen it before. Does not compare to the poor English language attempts.

pblakeney

The Steig Larsson films are available as a trilogy.
I've got them all and had the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo for a decade now.

daniel_b

3 of 8 episodes through Guilt on iplayer - excellent black comedy, really good.

vincesummerskRoxcBTr

Started watching North Water, well filmed but pretty grim!

longy

secretsam said:

I am loving The Expanse.

The new and (for the moment) final series is out later this week and it will be bittersweet knowing it's the end. It doesn't help that I have just finished the final book of the nine part series which really is the end.

The Expanse is, without a doubt, my favourite series of sci fi books and tv.

kingstongraham

tailwindhome said:

tailwindhome said:

This looks amazing

https://twitter.com/DisneyStudios/status/1448272314517184520?t=VRl6Z_sejEmhLFPk1Y4eTw&s=19

It is

Now it's long at 8 hours over 3 parts but it worth the time imo

Highlight so far is Paul futtering about on the bass and from nothing creating Get Back.

Last post about this, but he really really messed up the rooftop concert.

All the hype about it being the first time the whole concert is shown, and he has passers by talking over it for "atmosphere". I want to hear The Beatles, is that not the point?

I hope there's an extra release where you actually get to hear the whole thing. What he has released is not as good as what we'd already seen.

rick_chasey

Fair play to have the stamina to watch 8 hours of that.

blazing_saddles

As is often the case these days with the iPlayer, all series of Spiral have been renewed and available for another year.
Final series has 26 days left but no doubt it will also get another year.

daniel_b

blazing_saddles said:

As is often the case these days with the iPlayer, all series of Spiral have been renewed and available for another year.
Final series has 26 days left but no doubt it will also get another year.

That is awesome news, I saw they were expiring at 6am on Sunday, and having checked Sunday daytime saw they had actually been removed completely, so feared the worst - great to see them back up there. Will be good turbo viewing for the next few months. Currently watching Rocco Schiavone (Grizzled Italian Inspector), and whilst it is reasonable, it's nothing too amazing - my interest is that my brother lives in Aosta, so an element of interest in seeing some place names, and places I am familiar with.

davidof

Mad_Malx said:

Been very enjoyable. Regardles of accuracy, interesting to see a very different legal system to that shown in UK dramas.

I only caught a bit of Engrenages, it was a bit plodding tbh, like a Gallic Nordic Noir. I'll have to rewatch a bit.

BAC Nord gets very good reviews

https://youtu.be/iyVLnChTs8w

Based on "true events" as they say.

daniel_b

Engrenages in my opinion is very well written, and isn't action packed - not much in the way of fisticuffs, or car chases, and there might be the odd shootout, but they are pretty rare.

It's more about the relationships between the police, the judiciary and all of the people interwoven into it - a real masterpiece to my mind.

blazing_saddles

daniel_b said:

blazing_saddles said:

As is often the case these days with the iPlayer, all series of Spiral have been renewed and available for another year.
Final series has 26 days left but no doubt it will also get another year.

That is awesome news, I saw they were expiring at 6am on Sunday, and having checked Sunday daytime saw they had actually been removed completely, so feared the worst - great to see them back up there. Will be good turbo viewing for the next few months. Currently watching Rocco Schiavone (Grizzled Italian Inspector), and whilst it is reasonable, it's nothing too amazing - my interest is that my brother lives in Aosta, so an element of interest in seeing some place names, and places I am familiar with.

Overall I enjoyed the first series of Rocco Schiavone. I was a bit meh at the start but as the characters developed and a few comic one liners dropped into the mix, I found myself wanting more.
It's also the current offering on S4c Clic (with English and Welsh subititles available) which is a neat alternative, as the ad breaks are all removed.
Just read that series 4 was released on Rai, earlier this year.
Hopefully, the remaining series will turn up on More/All 4 at some point.

tailwindhome

I don't get Succession

I've watched every episode, but much like Billions, I've no idea why.

blazing_saddles

tailwindhome said:

I don't get Succession

I've watched every episode, but much like Billions, I've no idea why.

Amazingly enough I just watched the first episode of Succession, this afternoon.
It will be the last.
Shocking what passes for quality writing these days.

Pross

tailwindhome said:

I don't get Succession

I've watched every episode, but much like Billions, I've no idea why.

Have to admit I'm struggling with Billions these days, the way they structure the series doesn't help but it is mainly all the making new alliances and then double crossing each other is getting ridiculous. Far better when it was just Chuck trying to catch Axe out. I've never understood any of the financial stuff.

daniel_b

blazing_saddles said:

daniel_b said:

blazing_saddles said:

As is often the case these days with the iPlayer, all series of Spiral have been renewed and available for another year.
Final series has 26 days left but no doubt it will also get another year.

That is awesome news, I saw they were expiring at 6am on Sunday, and having checked Sunday daytime saw they had actually been removed completely, so feared the worst - great to see them back up there. Will be good turbo viewing for the next few months. Currently watching Rocco Schiavone (Grizzled Italian Inspector), and whilst it is reasonable, it's nothing too amazing - my interest is that my brother lives in Aosta, so an element of interest in seeing some place names, and places I am familiar with.

Overall I enjoyed the first series of Rocco Schiavone. I was a bit meh at the start but as the characters developed and a few comic one liners dropped into the mix, I found myself wanting more.
It's also the current offering on S4c Clic (with English and Welsh subititles available) which is a neat alternative, as the ad breaks are all removed.
Just read that series 4 was released on Rai, earlier this year.
Hopefully, the remaining series will turn up on More/All 4 at some point.

Interesting - it has certainly improved episode by epsiode, I'm only up to 3 or 4 currently.
I see 16 have been made, but All4 only have 6 - which is Series 1, someting they seem to do quite often, probably because the companies that own further series hope people will sign up to watch them.
Series 2 & 3 are 4 a piece, but series 4 only has 2 episodes - not sure if that doesn't bode well for the future or not.
I've already seen two actresses who have been in Montalbano episodes, one of them recurring.

I'll watch the 6 available, then I'm going to Spiral series 1.

I will avoid Succession!

kingstongraham

tailwindhome said:

I don't get Succession

I've watched every episode, but much like Billions, I've no idea why.

I really enjoyed the first series, kind of enjoyed the second and have no idea why I've ploughed through 5 tedious episodes of the third.

johngti

“Close to me” is interesting We’re on episode 4 and it’s developing nicely.

kingstongraham

johngti said:

“Close to me” is interesting We’re on episode 4 and it’s developing nicely.

We're up to episode 4 and I haven't got a clue what's going on.

drhaggis

I've just started the final season of Battlestar Galactica. Old news, I know. For some reason Mrs. Haggis finds it too depressing, so I've been delaying this for far too long.

daniel_b

kingstongraham said:

johngti said:

“Close to me” is interesting We’re on episode 4 and it’s developing nicely.

We're up to episode 4 and I haven't got a clue what's going on.

I had noted this was on, planning to watch it at some point - has the Ecclestone (not Bernie) in I think?

Tashman

kingstongraham said:

johngti said:

“Close to me” is interesting We’re on episode 4 and it’s developing nicely.

We're up to episode 4 and I haven't got a clue what's going on.

Watched Ep 5 last night, it brings a lot of elements tgether. i must admit though that trying to work out "reality" from imagination at times was a touch tricky

davidof

daniel_b said:

Engrenages...

It's more about the relationships between the police, the judiciary and all of the people interwoven into it - a real masterpiece to my mind.

I'll have to take another look, you make it sounds like a Gallic "The Bill".

If it hadn't been on Canal+ I might of watched it. I suspect it has been more seen outside of France than within due to that fact.

What is interesting in France is you can come straight out of Higher Education and be a judge, maybe 23 years old. This puts some very young, very inexperienced people in charge of very complex cases and for most trials there is no jury, a judge makes a report based on what was submitted by the lawyers and this is reviewed by other judges. The caseload is also incredible and this causes a couple of issues: very long delays to trial in some cases and errors of justice. The judiciary is not totally independent either - which is probably one of the reasons the Economist classes France as a "failing democracy".

daniel_b

davidof said:

daniel_b said:

Engrenages...

It's more about the relationships between the police, the judiciary and all of the people interwoven into it - a real masterpiece to my mind.

I'll have to take another look, you make it sounds like a Gallic "The Bill".

If it hadn't been on Canal+ I might of watched it. I suspect it has been more seen outside of France than within due to that fact.

What is interesting in France is you can come straight out of Higher Education and be a judge, maybe 23 years old. This puts some very young, very inexperienced people in charge of very complex cases and for most trials there is no jury, a judge makes a report based on what was submitted by the lawyers and this is reviewed by other judges. The caseload is also incredible and this causes a couple of issues: very long delays to trial in some cases and errors of justice. The judiciary is not totally independent either - which is probably one of the reasons the Economist classes France as a "failing democracy".

Oh wow, if Spiral is premier league (Which in my opinion it very much is) the bill would be the diadora league

I'm already 4 episodes through series 1 (I think series 1-3 are new to me, but the rest I have seen) so this is a real treat, or my memory is so shot to pieces that I simply cannot remember watching them.
It's quite a treat seeing most of them some 15 years younger, and how the relationship dynamics are very very different from what they were in latter series, as they should be.

Very interesting what you say about the judiciary over there, I hadn't realised that at all - a very young judge was in fact in the final series, and during all of the series you often see the characters making some potentially less than ethical decisions.

I am not familiar with Canal+ (As in I am well aware of the name, but haing sadly never lived in France don't know what issues it might cause), is it our equivalent of channel 5, or just loaded with adverts or something, or a channel you have to subscribe to?

I think worldwide it has been a massive success, and clearly had longevity spanning some 15 odd years, with no drop in quality, even the opposite in my opinion.

Series 9 with Miriam Leone anyone?
*I realise she is not French!

blazing_saddles

daniel_b said:

davidof said:

daniel_b said:

Engrenages...

It's more about the relationships between the police, the judiciary and all of the people interwoven into it - a real masterpiece to my mind.

I'll have to take another look, you make it sounds like a Gallic "The Bill".

If it hadn't been on Canal+ I might of watched it. I suspect it has been more seen outside of France than within due to that fact.

What is interesting in France is you can come straight out of Higher Education and be a judge, maybe 23 years old. This puts some very young, very inexperienced people in charge of very complex cases and for most trials there is no jury, a judge makes a report based on what was submitted by the lawyers and this is reviewed by other judges. The caseload is also incredible and this causes a couple of issues: very long delays to trial in some cases and errors of justice. The judiciary is not totally independent either - which is probably one of the reasons the Economist classes France as a "failing democracy".

Oh wow, if Spiral is premier league (Which in my opinion it very much is) the bill would be the diadora league

I'm already 4 episodes through series 1 (I think series 1-3 are new to me, but the rest I have seen) so this is a real treat, or my memory is so shot to pieces that I simply cannot remember watching them.
It's quite a treat seeing most of them some 15 years younger, and how the relationship dynamics are very very different from what they were in latter series, as they should be.

Very interesting what you say about the judiciary over there, I hadn't realised that at all - a very young judge was in fact in the final series, and during all of the series you often see the characters making some potentially less than ethical decisions.

I am not familiar with Canal+ (As in I am well aware of the name, but haing sadly never lived in France don't know what issues it might cause), is it our equivalent of channel 5, or just loaded with adverts or something, or a channel you have to subscribe to?

I think worldwide it has been a massive success, and clearly had longevity spanning some 15 odd years, with no drop in quality, even the opposite in my opinion.

Series 9 with Miriam Leone anyone?
*I realise she is not French!

Canal+ isn’t a single station, it’s France’s equivalent and Sky tv.
It is subscription tv carrying premium content, including films and live sports etc.

Worth noting that BBC4 is/was also involved in the production of Spiral.

davidof

daniel_b said:

Oh wow, if Spiral is premier league (Which in my opinion it very much is) the bill would be the diadora league

I've not watched The Bill but I know it was the most appreciated police show amongst the police in terms of realism. Never seen it shown in Europe though. Inspecteur Barnaby is more the French cup o' tea and they like all the new grittier stuff like Broadchurch, Liar etc. I suspect they see that in the same way "we" view Engrenages or Bron.

For Canal+ you need a set top box, they don't have that many subscribers, especially since the rise of streaming. It is a walled garden.

I spoke to the missus at lunchtime about "Spiral" (she's an ex-judge and is a visiting professor at the École nationale de la magistrature)... "you are not watching that claptrap" I was told :-(.

I'll have to try and watch a bit when she's at work if I can find it anywhere. You've whetted my appetite, plus if it is forbidden by the missus !