Blog: All The Telly

< previous

next >

Last year we got Netflix at home and I was QUITE EXCITED about it - rightly so, because it is GRATE!

Since then we have also got Amazon Prime (CUNNINGLY subscribing to it just before Christmas Shopping began) and recently also a NOW box - this latter was done so that I didn't have to PANIC about a) RUSSIAN PIRATES taking over my machine or b) THE POLICE coming round whenever I tried (and usually failed) to download a show off the interweb. I got it just before the most recent series of "Game Of Thrones" and it was a JOY to be able to watch each episode at the same time as everyone else, rather than EITHER spending three hours trying to work out how to get AT it online OR waiting a year for the boxset.

Now I find myself in the unusual, FUTURISTIC, position of being able to watch ALL THE TELLY. Previously I would look on with ENVY as people on twitter talked about all the exciting new shows they were watching, but now I can watch them too. "Star Trek: Discover"? I'm watching that! "The Good Place"? Don't tell me what happens, we're just about to start it! "Stranger Things 2"? I am already piling up IRONING to do while I steam (steam!) through it!

We also have access to a TONNE of old stuff, so we POWERED through ALL of "Seinfeld" a little while ago and are now just over halfway through "Curb Your Enthusiasm". This is particularly ACE because I finally get to see what everyone's been ON ABOUT for all these years, and also to see what about 50% of all comedy shows since then have been ripping off!

Having said all that though, the TV shows I am MOST enjoying at the moment are on the old-fashioned Terrestrial Telly, and are pretty flipping old-fashioned themselves i.e. "Cold Feet" and "Doc Martin". I know I should claim to be watching something DOUR about true crime in 1970s Denmark or something, but instead in our house we have been LAPPING up these two long-running, pretty straightforward, British STANDARDS.

The funny thing is that both series, according to me, are currently the best they've ever been. It's not what we expect of British shows, which are supposed to only run for two series of six episodes each and disappear, but is definitely the NORM for American programmes, which take at least two seasons to warm up, become GRATE after about four years, and then tail off with a disappointing final series full of Celebrity Cameos. "Doc Martin" did most of its Celebrity Cameos in the last series (Sigourney Weaver!!!) and the best "Cold Feet" has managed this time has been two of The Dragons of of Dragons Den, leaving them free to go "Here are the CHARACTERS what you have come to know and love, and here are some SITUATIONS which you will enjoy watching them get out of."

I think we maybe don't notice the GOOD STUFF on British Telly because we have access to so many fancy-dan BIG SHOWS from America, but there's a LOT. I'm also really enjoying "Upstart Crow" at the minute, for instance (though I am not quite ready to forgive my childhood hero Ben Elton for "We Will Rock You" just YET) and really LOVED "Count Arthur Strong". ALSO I was very happy to find that, after i recommended it to him, my baby brother watched and THOROUGHLY liked "The Detectorists".

Cor, all this talk of TELLY is making me want to go and WATCH it! We've got a new episode of "Designated Survivor" to watch tonight - is it hometime yet?

posted 20/10/2017 by MJ Hibbett

< previous

next >

Comments:

Your Comment:
Your Name:
SPAMBOT FILTER: an animal that says 'miaow' (3)
	(e.g. for an animal that says 'cluck' type 'hen')