A series of events leads to our own Ben Whishaw being arrested for a murder that he can’t remember doing as he wakes up from a drunken, drug fuelled stupor. His horrifying time in prison is compounded by his refusal to accept a lesser charge as his original solicitor is replaced by an expensive barrister. Reverting to his original solicitor (a great performance by the always reliable Con O’Neill) he attempts to prove his innocence.
This is a good 5-part drama with plenty of tension. A good cast with believable performances.
I’m looking forward to season 2. Streamed on BritBox.
7/10
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Fell short on Xmas telly this year, don't know why. It all seems a bit samey though Some Like It Hot is as welcome as ever.
Some stuff feels like it's on the wrong side of history. I caught the end of My Fair Lady on C5 - a wonderful print - but it feels odd to have Eliza's prize to be married to Higgins played by Rex Harrison, really too old for her; Hepburn did tend to get paired up with these types didn't she - Bogart, Holden, Astaire - I think Finney was one of her few young virile leading men, but in a dud of a film. Higgins' schtick just doesn't seem funny any more even if it's meant to be part of a learning curve, and I'm not sure there are many jolly or lovely anecdotes about Harrison as an actor, certainly not in Roger Moore's Hollywood tales - albeit Moore was in the David Niven camp, and Niven really disliked Harrison.
That is not to say that Rex Harrison doesn't turn in a tour de force performance in this film. He's brilliant.
I never really have sat down to watch Ghostbusters and it seems I didn't miss much. Again, even without allegations of Murray's behaviour lately, it's odd to see his character sort of stalk Signourney Weaver's, it just doesn't seem funny to me then again the film overall just isn't that funny imo. It came out the same week as Gremlins in the UK - now that really is a good movie, wouldn't mind seeing that again.
The late Robbie Coltrane's TV series Tutti Frutti was re-shown and that too had some odd stuff where he refuses to leave Emma Thomposon's flat though she is making it very clear. Perhaps I'm just having a sour Christmas. I think part of it was the really cold Crimbo weather a week or so ago - now THAT felt like Christmas the problem being when the warm or rainy weather resumes the actual week itself falls a bit flat.
In contrast, I watched Die Hard again last night and in terms of sexual politics it holds up very well. Not saying that in itself is what makes it great, of course not, but it helps. A few snags one notices - the changing colour of Willis' vest, and wouldn't have Hans Gruber have taken his own gun on his solo trip to the roof? - but largely forgivable.
The latest Bond is on New Year's Day - as woke as you please but largely joyless.
I saw two episodes of something called WRECK which was on BBC3. A murder mystery set on a cruise ship whose staff are sex obsessed drug couriers. Very peculiar and quite watchable. Apparently, the remaining four episodes are only available on iPlayer.
That's fairly typical of the BBC who really do not have their head on regarding a modern audience's viewing habits. They seem to want to push us - who pay the TV licence - to watch online / streaming services where they are starting to offer live sports and new dramas to binge or documentaries to scan. If you simply want to watch listed television and be held in suspense for a few weeks as a story builds to climax after climax, they really don't care anymore. There are four BBC channels now and during the tennis and the footie world cup, they couldn't resist mucking about with established programming just so they could have a match on BBC1. It doesn't matter which channel the footie or Andy Murray is on, people will watch it; but they hate switching between channels to accommodate the Beeb's thirst for ratings. A world cup quarter final would still be watched by millions even if they put it on BBC3. They just need to advertise where to watch it. Even worse is advertising events on iPlayer [like the recent International Horse Show] and then showing them live on the old Red Button service - which is never listed in the Radio Times and has ceased to be trailed by presenters. My Mum, who was an accomplished equestrian, was gutted to miss it, and worse because she never even knew it was on. Regards BBC4, it is rubbish now. All the good new documentaries and science / history programs which used to be on it are seldom made anymore; it is mostly repeats of things 1 or 2 or 4 have already shown. The corporation seems to have ceded this ground to Sky Arts; only those documentaries tend to be bought in or too slim. As for BBC3, well, they cancelled it, they brought it back, they still show fairly dire 'youth' orientated comedies on it and little else. The BBC has got to sort itself out. If it wants to do streaming, fine, do it and get advertisers in to support it, but don't trail programs on 1/2/3/4. Also decide which channel is going to show sports and use it appropriately. And why are 3 and 4 still only showing stuff from 7pm when they could repeat oodles of old classics [sport, documentaries, dramas, etc] during the day. Rant over. Back to my Dr Who reviews...
Brilliant. Actually watched episode 1 tonight and enjoyed it. 🤙
I learned my lesson the hard way with starting a series that never got to a second one. I think it was Alcatraz with Sam Neil. It was definitely set up for a second series which never came. I was fuming.
Newly installed Detective Inspector Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) has a hard time getting his team onside as they tackle a Jack The Ripper copycat killer in modern day Whitechapel, London. Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton put in good performances and the rest of the team become interesting characters.
Season 2 involves copycat twins recreating the Kray gangsters and seasons 3 and 4 moved into British style X-Files territory albeit remaining very watchable. I would have liked to have seen more but in their wisdom ITV decided to not renew the series leaving the events of the final story in Season 4 unresolved.
Streamed on BritBox - very enjoyable.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
@Lady Rose It’s certainly worth a rewatch, I had seen the first two seasons before but not the last two, which were impressive. Steve Pemberton writes one of the stories and you can clearly see a likeness to future series Inside No. 9 that he co-writes with Reece Shearsmith.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Re the rant by @chrisno1 about the BBC, there is an argument that as with all such public-funded institutions - see formerly British Rail and currently the NHS - the plan by the Conservative Party is to deny it funds and run it into the ground so folk will say, this is rubbish, we're getting conned! Hence the mood improves to abolish it altogether. BBC4 is in line for cancelling - not sure when but it's slated - and it tends to show rubbish repeats of Top of the Pops from a pre-Britpop year with zero nostalgic value. But this is likely deliberate - the current director general is a Tory stooge and there to advance Tory plans. The claim has precedent of a kind - BBC DJ Paul Gambaccuni claimed that Matthew Bannister was brought in to wreck Radio 1 by dumping its uncool but generally still popular DJs and replace them with trendier models - all very well but ratings plummeted. It's claimed this was done to stop other radio stations complaining about unfair competition from the BBC due to its licence fee, therefore make the whole thing more competitive by undermining the BBC's radio output, problem solved.
Wasn't there some talk of closing the BBC World Service because the powers-that-be didn't believe people listened to the radio anymore - completely forgetting that many people listen to the World Service through the Beeb's own online Sounds Service. If the World Service became amalgamated with BBC Sounds it would soon deteriorate in the same manner BBC4 and BBC3 have done, a watered down, lowest common denominator type service instead of the insightful version we currently have. An attempt to compete instead of inform.
I'm very sceptical of anything written in the Daily Express, but it does strike me as similarly astounding the execs may have funded to the the tune of £7m the search for and creation of eight new BBC logos which, frankly, look like illustrations by children drawing straight lines with fat nosed crayons.
Yes, but wearing my 'smart Alec' hat, I have to say that's an example of 'elite socialism' which is everyday apparent. Lots of money in the public purse, put it about... If you're not at the top table, your loss. Other examples - Lady Mohne getting her hooks into the PPE farrago; a million or so for a rehash of a No 10 publicity room - used precisely twice I think - not to mention the £30bn Track and Trace stuff - you can bring it close to home with the number of aborted scripts for recent Bond films - Paul Haggis for QoS, Danny Boyle and chum for NTTD - no probs, we don't like your idea but here's some dosh, just spread it around!
No harm in it, just a sense of other folk feeling a bit conned and left out the loop.
That's TV - channel 65 in the UK - began to re-run classic 70s sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads this week. It's written by Never Say Never Again's Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais who - I'm very pleased to say - are both still alive.
This week the late Margaret Nolan popped up in one episode as an old flame - that's Dink off Goldfinger. Looking a bit taller and more knowingly sexual this time, then again it's 10 years on of course.
It's a great comedy. Til Death Us Do Part is also shown but it hasn't aged as well for some reason. It's odd to have the channel bleep out the offensive words as it's almost the whole point of it, not to approve of it but it is what it is. Oddly, in Likely Lads they showed a really quite risque strip club routine in the opening episode, no cuts, but bleeped a mild swear word later on. Anyway, I the series is a bit depressing when shown night after night, esp the killer line from the downbeat theme song 'the only thing to look forward to... the past.'
New seasons of FATHER BROWN and DEATH IN PARADISE on BBCiPlayer - wonderful !!!
STONEHOUSE was good as well. The true story of the Labour MP who faked his own death in Miami and fled to Australia to be with his sexy secretary. Kevin R McNally as prime minister Harold Wilson is marvellous - his first movie credit was a bit part in TSWLM.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,920Chief of Staff
I must chase these up, I was listening to a bunch of original Hancock’s Half Hour a few months ago, a comic genius, aided and abetted by the fabulous Sid James.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,920Chief of Staff
Following a recommendation of sorts by @chrisno1 I am watching Wreck on BBC iPlayer.
It's BBC3 fare - hard to place but not C4 and not quite right for terrestrial either though that may be because at the end of episode 3 there's a very gory death out of the slasher playbook.
Not bad at all, it's set on a huge cruise ship which it makes clear is like a mini-city with nooks and crannies and hideaways and cliques. Chris said it was staffed with sex-obsessed teens, not quite true as they're more party- and drug-obsessed. It's based around the staff rather than the passengers, though they get a side look-in. Actually, are slasher mysteries ever that sexy? Sex tends to be a theme in the US movies but usually setting them up for a fall - I think it's the American puritan way, as if to say, seek sex and you will be punished. Could be wrong, but not sure any of those teen slasher films are that sexy.
It's watchable but as Chris pointed out, might be better on TV as imo iPlayer sort of deadens the tension as you can stop it at any time.
The fifth of the Strike series see JK Rowling’s private detective Cormoran Strike and partner Robin Ellacott hired to investigate a woman who went missing in 1974. Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger have really settled into their roles and this is an absorbing mystery with lots of suspects and twists and turns. We also get to see more of the leads family life and a possible blossoming romance.
Excellent.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Spent the last couple of Saturday's watching a documentary about the hit makers Stock, Aitken and Waterman which proved nostalgically diverting. I watched this primarily because they evoke those long hid memories of yesteryear for my late adolescence - discos, girlfriends, dodgy haircuts and clothes, your first drink in the pub, your first 'lads holiday', your first serious adult fight, clubs, pubs, camping, and I was at the butt end of the music biz selling the stuff by the barrel load.
This trio were for five / six years the British equivalent of Motown. Virtually unstoppable chart-wise, I can't even recite the statistics. Suffice to say they had million sellers with Never Gonna Give You Up, I Should Be So Lucky, You Spin Me Round, Especially for You, Too Many Broken Hearts, etc etc and a host of other singles and albums which I used to dread being released.
Oh, here, we go, we'd chuckle, when the next single from Bananarama or Kylie, or Sonia or Donna Summer came out. You'd play it a couple of times and before the day was out the damn thing was in your head like an ear-worm. The documentary gets a bit sketchy towards the end, but the initial half was very interesting, how they set up the business, managed it and found artists to breakthrough. The tragic story of Mel & Kim Appleby was particularly heartfelt. The SAW trio come across as very likeable and you feel that business wasn't their top priority, making hit records and breaking new artists was. When business had to take over, the treadmill which bonded them collapsed underneath.
Subsequently they have all had success with other artists, but the legacy of SAW lives on in the eighties revival. There was a seventies revival in the 2000s, are we having a nineties revival this decade? Doesn't seem cheerful enough to be fair. I hated SAW when I had to sell the records, but they were hard to ignore and had a hi-energy dance feel which [almost] resembles Northern Soul. Some of their very best work [Better the Devil You Know, I Just Don't Have the Heart, What Do I Have To Do, Shocked, Never Gonna Give You Up, etc, etc, etc] are classics of the dance floor. I remember having to do the dutiful thing at weddings, birthdays and Christmas parties and hit the boards to this kind of music - Kathy, Kathy, Kathy, we never lived that Especially For You kiss down - and how ever much I loved the Cure and the Cult, they never play Just Like Heaven or Wild Flower at weddings, birthdays and Christmas dos, but you'll usually catch a SAW number.
Very nostalgic and a lot of good hearted bad singing was had watching this. A bit of dancing too.... Oops, probably shouldn't admit to that...
This does sound like The Wedding Singer doesn't it? Thing about SAW is they were known as producers but it was their songwriting that was very very good, as producers it was just chug-a-lugga stuff with the exception of Dead or Alive's No 1 and a few latter day Kylie songs oh and Mel and Kim. Most of it was brain numbing though, just never ending.
I finished that Wreck thing on BBC iPlayer sort of pretty good but too violent for a series on telly really. Left itself open for a sequel with a very unexpected ending which really didn't match up to what had gone before esp as there's unlikely to be a second series. Good though, got better as it went on.
I am currently watching 1923 on Paramount+. It started off slowly but has got going now. Helen Mirren is a tour de force, Harrison Ford is mumbling worse than ever and Timothy Dalton has appeared. I also have a soft spot for Jerome Flynn so what's not to like?
I'm watching these all out of order. I'll do 1883 next but not sure I'll bother with the up to date Yellowstone.
Comments
CRIMINAL JUSTICE Season 1 (2008)
A series of events leads to our own Ben Whishaw being arrested for a murder that he can’t remember doing as he wakes up from a drunken, drug fuelled stupor. His horrifying time in prison is compounded by his refusal to accept a lesser charge as his original solicitor is replaced by an expensive barrister. Reverting to his original solicitor (a great performance by the always reliable Con O’Neill) he attempts to prove his innocence.
This is a good 5-part drama with plenty of tension. A good cast with believable performances.
I’m looking forward to season 2. Streamed on BritBox.
7/10
A few people here have watched Vienna Blood.
I've just noticed it's back tonight on BBC2 at 9pm.
Fell short on Xmas telly this year, don't know why. It all seems a bit samey though Some Like It Hot is as welcome as ever.
Some stuff feels like it's on the wrong side of history. I caught the end of My Fair Lady on C5 - a wonderful print - but it feels odd to have Eliza's prize to be married to Higgins played by Rex Harrison, really too old for her; Hepburn did tend to get paired up with these types didn't she - Bogart, Holden, Astaire - I think Finney was one of her few young virile leading men, but in a dud of a film. Higgins' schtick just doesn't seem funny any more even if it's meant to be part of a learning curve, and I'm not sure there are many jolly or lovely anecdotes about Harrison as an actor, certainly not in Roger Moore's Hollywood tales - albeit Moore was in the David Niven camp, and Niven really disliked Harrison.
That is not to say that Rex Harrison doesn't turn in a tour de force performance in this film. He's brilliant.
I never really have sat down to watch Ghostbusters and it seems I didn't miss much. Again, even without allegations of Murray's behaviour lately, it's odd to see his character sort of stalk Signourney Weaver's, it just doesn't seem funny to me then again the film overall just isn't that funny imo. It came out the same week as Gremlins in the UK - now that really is a good movie, wouldn't mind seeing that again.
The late Robbie Coltrane's TV series Tutti Frutti was re-shown and that too had some odd stuff where he refuses to leave Emma Thomposon's flat though she is making it very clear. Perhaps I'm just having a sour Christmas. I think part of it was the really cold Crimbo weather a week or so ago - now THAT felt like Christmas the problem being when the warm or rainy weather resumes the actual week itself falls a bit flat.
In contrast, I watched Die Hard again last night and in terms of sexual politics it holds up very well. Not saying that in itself is what makes it great, of course not, but it helps. A few snags one notices - the changing colour of Willis' vest, and wouldn't have Hans Gruber have taken his own gun on his solo trip to the roof? - but largely forgivable.
The latest Bond is on New Year's Day - as woke as you please but largely joyless.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I saw two episodes of something called WRECK which was on BBC3. A murder mystery set on a cruise ship whose staff are sex obsessed drug couriers. Very peculiar and quite watchable. Apparently, the remaining four episodes are only available on iPlayer.
That's fairly typical of the BBC who really do not have their head on regarding a modern audience's viewing habits. They seem to want to push us - who pay the TV licence - to watch online / streaming services where they are starting to offer live sports and new dramas to binge or documentaries to scan. If you simply want to watch listed television and be held in suspense for a few weeks as a story builds to climax after climax, they really don't care anymore. There are four BBC channels now and during the tennis and the footie world cup, they couldn't resist mucking about with established programming just so they could have a match on BBC1. It doesn't matter which channel the footie or Andy Murray is on, people will watch it; but they hate switching between channels to accommodate the Beeb's thirst for ratings. A world cup quarter final would still be watched by millions even if they put it on BBC3. They just need to advertise where to watch it. Even worse is advertising events on iPlayer [like the recent International Horse Show] and then showing them live on the old Red Button service - which is never listed in the Radio Times and has ceased to be trailed by presenters. My Mum, who was an accomplished equestrian, was gutted to miss it, and worse because she never even knew it was on. Regards BBC4, it is rubbish now. All the good new documentaries and science / history programs which used to be on it are seldom made anymore; it is mostly repeats of things 1 or 2 or 4 have already shown. The corporation seems to have ceded this ground to Sky Arts; only those documentaries tend to be bought in or too slim. As for BBC3, well, they cancelled it, they brought it back, they still show fairly dire 'youth' orientated comedies on it and little else. The BBC has got to sort itself out. If it wants to do streaming, fine, do it and get advertisers in to support it, but don't trail programs on 1/2/3/4. Also decide which channel is going to show sports and use it appropriately. And why are 3 and 4 still only showing stuff from 7pm when they could repeat oodles of old classics [sport, documentaries, dramas, etc] during the day. Rant over. Back to my Dr Who reviews...
I was talking about this with my hubby today. We enjoyed series 1 but bailed after a couple of episodes of series 2.
Do you think we could go straight to S3 without finishing 2?
Brilliant. Actually watched episode 1 tonight and enjoyed it. 🤙
I learned my lesson the hard way with starting a series that never got to a second one. I think it was Alcatraz with Sam Neil. It was definitely set up for a second series which never came. I was fuming.
WHITECHAPEL (2009-2013) 4 Seasons.
Newly installed Detective Inspector Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) has a hard time getting his team onside as they tackle a Jack The Ripper copycat killer in modern day Whitechapel, London. Phil Davis and Steve Pemberton put in good performances and the rest of the team become interesting characters.
Season 2 involves copycat twins recreating the Kray gangsters and seasons 3 and 4 moved into British style X-Files territory albeit remaining very watchable. I would have liked to have seen more but in their wisdom ITV decided to not renew the series leaving the events of the final story in Season 4 unresolved.
Streamed on BritBox - very enjoyable.
I used to love Whitechapel. It was one of my favourite programmes at the time. Might be worth a rewatch.
@Lady Rose It’s certainly worth a rewatch, I had seen the first two seasons before but not the last two, which were impressive. Steve Pemberton writes one of the stories and you can clearly see a likeness to future series Inside No. 9 that he co-writes with Reece Shearsmith.
Re the rant by @chrisno1 about the BBC, there is an argument that as with all such public-funded institutions - see formerly British Rail and currently the NHS - the plan by the Conservative Party is to deny it funds and run it into the ground so folk will say, this is rubbish, we're getting conned! Hence the mood improves to abolish it altogether. BBC4 is in line for cancelling - not sure when but it's slated - and it tends to show rubbish repeats of Top of the Pops from a pre-Britpop year with zero nostalgic value. But this is likely deliberate - the current director general is a Tory stooge and there to advance Tory plans. The claim has precedent of a kind - BBC DJ Paul Gambaccuni claimed that Matthew Bannister was brought in to wreck Radio 1 by dumping its uncool but generally still popular DJs and replace them with trendier models - all very well but ratings plummeted. It's claimed this was done to stop other radio stations complaining about unfair competition from the BBC due to its licence fee, therefore make the whole thing more competitive by undermining the BBC's radio output, problem solved.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Wasn't there some talk of closing the BBC World Service because the powers-that-be didn't believe people listened to the radio anymore - completely forgetting that many people listen to the World Service through the Beeb's own online Sounds Service. If the World Service became amalgamated with BBC Sounds it would soon deteriorate in the same manner BBC4 and BBC3 have done, a watered down, lowest common denominator type service instead of the insightful version we currently have. An attempt to compete instead of inform.
I'm very sceptical of anything written in the Daily Express, but it does strike me as similarly astounding the execs may have funded to the the tune of £7m the search for and creation of eight new BBC logos which, frankly, look like illustrations by children drawing straight lines with fat nosed crayons.
Yes, but wearing my 'smart Alec' hat, I have to say that's an example of 'elite socialism' which is everyday apparent. Lots of money in the public purse, put it about... If you're not at the top table, your loss. Other examples - Lady Mohne getting her hooks into the PPE farrago; a million or so for a rehash of a No 10 publicity room - used precisely twice I think - not to mention the £30bn Track and Trace stuff - you can bring it close to home with the number of aborted scripts for recent Bond films - Paul Haggis for QoS, Danny Boyle and chum for NTTD - no probs, we don't like your idea but here's some dosh, just spread it around!
No harm in it, just a sense of other folk feeling a bit conned and left out the loop.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That's TV - channel 65 in the UK - began to re-run classic 70s sitcom Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads this week. It's written by Never Say Never Again's Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais who - I'm very pleased to say - are both still alive.
This week the late Margaret Nolan popped up in one episode as an old flame - that's Dink off Goldfinger. Looking a bit taller and more knowingly sexual this time, then again it's 10 years on of course.
It's a great comedy. Til Death Us Do Part is also shown but it hasn't aged as well for some reason. It's odd to have the channel bleep out the offensive words as it's almost the whole point of it, not to approve of it but it is what it is. Oddly, in Likely Lads they showed a really quite risque strip club routine in the opening episode, no cuts, but bleeped a mild swear word later on. Anyway, I the series is a bit depressing when shown night after night, esp the killer line from the downbeat theme song 'the only thing to look forward to... the past.'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
New seasons of FATHER BROWN and DEATH IN PARADISE on BBCiPlayer - wonderful !!!
STONEHOUSE was good as well. The true story of the Labour MP who faked his own death in Miami and fled to Australia to be with his sexy secretary. Kevin R McNally as prime minister Harold Wilson is marvellous - his first movie credit was a bit part in TSWLM.
Kevin McNally is marvellous as Tony Hancock in The Lost Hancocks on BBC Radio 😀
Early Doors on iPlayer . https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001gzqs/early-doors
Early Doors is also on BBC4, Saturday night, I think.
I have been watching Marie Antoinette. Interesting. Lavish. The first episode was quite harrowing. I feel for the poor girl.
I must chase these up, I was listening to a bunch of original Hancock’s Half Hour a few months ago, a comic genius, aided and abetted by the fabulous Sid James.
I recommend them for any Hancock fan…McNally is spot on as Hancock, gets the tone, weariness, manic joy and timing perfect 🍸
Both series are being re-shown of Early Doors on BBC4 - this really is an outstanding show, a bonafide modern day classic 🍸
Following a recommendation of sorts by @chrisno1 I am watching Wreck on BBC iPlayer.
It's BBC3 fare - hard to place but not C4 and not quite right for terrestrial either though that may be because at the end of episode 3 there's a very gory death out of the slasher playbook.
Not bad at all, it's set on a huge cruise ship which it makes clear is like a mini-city with nooks and crannies and hideaways and cliques. Chris said it was staffed with sex-obsessed teens, not quite true as they're more party- and drug-obsessed. It's based around the staff rather than the passengers, though they get a side look-in. Actually, are slasher mysteries ever that sexy? Sex tends to be a theme in the US movies but usually setting them up for a fall - I think it's the American puritan way, as if to say, seek sex and you will be punished. Could be wrong, but not sure any of those teen slasher films are that sexy.
It's watchable but as Chris pointed out, might be better on TV as imo iPlayer sort of deadens the tension as you can stop it at any time.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I am currently enjoying Tulsa King with Sylvester Stallone. It's actually quite funny and reminds me of Lilyhammer. Similar premise.
STRIKE: TROUBLED BLOOD (2022)
The fifth of the Strike series see JK Rowling’s private detective Cormoran Strike and partner Robin Ellacott hired to investigate a woman who went missing in 1974. Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger have really settled into their roles and this is an absorbing mystery with lots of suspects and twists and turns. We also get to see more of the leads family life and a possible blossoming romance.
Excellent.
Spent the last couple of Saturday's watching a documentary about the hit makers Stock, Aitken and Waterman which proved nostalgically diverting. I watched this primarily because they evoke those long hid memories of yesteryear for my late adolescence - discos, girlfriends, dodgy haircuts and clothes, your first drink in the pub, your first 'lads holiday', your first serious adult fight, clubs, pubs, camping, and I was at the butt end of the music biz selling the stuff by the barrel load.
This trio were for five / six years the British equivalent of Motown. Virtually unstoppable chart-wise, I can't even recite the statistics. Suffice to say they had million sellers with Never Gonna Give You Up, I Should Be So Lucky, You Spin Me Round, Especially for You, Too Many Broken Hearts, etc etc and a host of other singles and albums which I used to dread being released.
Oh, here, we go, we'd chuckle, when the next single from Bananarama or Kylie, or Sonia or Donna Summer came out. You'd play it a couple of times and before the day was out the damn thing was in your head like an ear-worm. The documentary gets a bit sketchy towards the end, but the initial half was very interesting, how they set up the business, managed it and found artists to breakthrough. The tragic story of Mel & Kim Appleby was particularly heartfelt. The SAW trio come across as very likeable and you feel that business wasn't their top priority, making hit records and breaking new artists was. When business had to take over, the treadmill which bonded them collapsed underneath.
Subsequently they have all had success with other artists, but the legacy of SAW lives on in the eighties revival. There was a seventies revival in the 2000s, are we having a nineties revival this decade? Doesn't seem cheerful enough to be fair. I hated SAW when I had to sell the records, but they were hard to ignore and had a hi-energy dance feel which [almost] resembles Northern Soul. Some of their very best work [Better the Devil You Know, I Just Don't Have the Heart, What Do I Have To Do, Shocked, Never Gonna Give You Up, etc, etc, etc] are classics of the dance floor. I remember having to do the dutiful thing at weddings, birthdays and Christmas parties and hit the boards to this kind of music - Kathy, Kathy, Kathy, we never lived that Especially For You kiss down - and how ever much I loved the Cure and the Cult, they never play Just Like Heaven or Wild Flower at weddings, birthdays and Christmas dos, but you'll usually catch a SAW number.
Very nostalgic and a lot of good hearted bad singing was had watching this. A bit of dancing too.... Oops, probably shouldn't admit to that...
This does sound like The Wedding Singer doesn't it? Thing about SAW is they were known as producers but it was their songwriting that was very very good, as producers it was just chug-a-lugga stuff with the exception of Dead or Alive's No 1 and a few latter day Kylie songs oh and Mel and Kim. Most of it was brain numbing though, just never ending.
I finished that Wreck thing on BBC iPlayer sort of pretty good but too violent for a series on telly really. Left itself open for a sequel with a very unexpected ending which really didn't match up to what had gone before esp as there's unlikely to be a second series. Good though, got better as it went on.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Just discovered "Traitors" Really enjoying it. Usual format of people in a reality show but three members of the group are out to
destroy others chances of getting a piece of the prize fund. I've started with the American version first, Before the BBC version. It
has a small Bond connection as it's hosted by Alan Cummings
I watched the first half last and recorded last nights second half. I absolutely loved their stuff.
The speed at which they wrote was what amazed me. Literally they would have Kylie in for an afternoon and would just a write a song then and there.
It did inspire me to put a SAW playlist on my Spotify. 🤪
I am currently watching 1923 on Paramount+. It started off slowly but has got going now. Helen Mirren is a tour de force, Harrison Ford is mumbling worse than ever and Timothy Dalton has appeared. I also have a soft spot for Jerome Flynn so what's not to like?
I'm watching these all out of order. I'll do 1883 next but not sure I'll bother with the up to date Yellowstone.
I'm addicted to "Great canal journeys". Let's form a suicide pact. Anyone addicted to the European Song Contest?
Eurovision you say? That will be me 😁