Now What Have You Been Watching?

[Nyder]

I shall be tucking into Hustle Series 2, Ep 1 tonight. Hoorah!

[Alex]

I caught about 10 minutes of Sharknado last night. My GOD it's woeful. It really is cheap & poorly done.
At one point a house was on a hill & way above the water line, then 2 minutes later the water was not only at the house but actually 2 feet deep in the house...where it stopped rising so a bit of action could take place with a shark that kept changing size to fit the scene they wanted. At one point it was the size of Jaws chewing on a bookcase & the next it was swimming in the house hallway as if it was in a swimming pool.

Well, yeah there are some reasonably terrible continuity issues (the scene you mention being by far the worst, but there are others too), and it's in no way a good movie in the traditional sense, but it's so silly and ridiculously over the top that I couldn't help but enjoy it, especially as the amount of sharks and death scenes get crazier by the minute.

I'm currently on a marathon re-watch of The Venture Bros, an adult swim cartoon series which is just beautiful, beautiful stuff (and where my avatar comes from, incidentally). I could write pages and pages on why I love it, but hopefully the following pictures will persuade folks to give it a go...

[Jeff]

Speaking of Sharknado, I read today that it's stars were recently on Shark Week's "Shark After Dark" where Tara Reid had this to say;

"Today, I was like, all right, I don't wanna, like, sound stupid when I do this show today, like. . . so I learned a little education on sharks," Reid explained to host Josh Wolf. "So I look up sharks on the Internet and I see whale sharks, so I'm like, 'That must mean that a whale and a shark have sex.' And then it made me think: how do a whale and a shark have sex?"

Amazingly, Reid kept talking.
"There is a thing called whale sharks and then I realized whales are mammals and sharks are animals so they have nothing to do with each other," the actress continued. "So basically, the dolphins have sex with each other but the sharks don't, so then I thought, how is it such a thing?"

[Dirk Gently]

Words. Fail. Me!

Is she for real!? How does someone that thick stay alive?
She reminds me of Jillian from Family Guy.

[Dirk Gently]

See what I mean.

[Perry Vale]

Sharknado was excellent, what are you talking about?

Funniest film I've seen for a while, and Cassie Scerbo was quite easy on the eye too. The CGI was absolutely appalling though.

Caught some of Arctic Predator earlier, now that was a bad film. Nice to see whatsername who changed into whatsername from Primeval in it.

[Jon Masters]

Taggart continues - tonight we had the murder of Commander Uvanov and one of the old ladies from Gridlock.

[Jeff]

Words. Fail. Me!

Is she for real!? How does someone that thick stay alive?
She reminds me of Jillian from Family Guy.

It sounds like this isn't even close to the first time she's said really stupid things, so I'm guessing she's really that thick.

[Jeff]

We watched Wrath of the Titans recently. Not really that memorable, but it was ok.

[SiHart]

I have been watching The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4s and it's brilliant stuff. I loved it at the time (well at the time it was repeated in the late 80s anyway) and it's lost none of its humour in the intervening years. Despite being set in the early 80s, there's something quite timeless about it- probably because it's all about growing up and being a pompous teenager- there are still plenty of those about!

[Perry Vale]

I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but I've been watching a few of the Little House On The Prairie repeats (on True). They're running from the beginning, and I'd forgotten just what a strong show it was. Can't remember how the quality keeps up over later series, but that original core is just brilliant.

Likewise, been watching a lot of The Royle Family on Gold. Didn't catch a lot of it at the time (probably out socialising), but it's so well observed. Had forgotten about some of the guest cast too, Jessica Stevenson (Hynes), Sheridan Smith, and most of all, the guy who plays Kirk in Corrie!

South Park S16 - Faith Hilling...

[Rob McCow]

I've been watching a few of the Little House On The Prairie repeats

The main reason to fall asleep on a Sunday afternoon in the late 80's / early 90's. Never mind if it was a strong program, the tone of it was so very snoozeworthy... and that music... I'm feeling sleepy just thinking about it!

Not like Lost In Space of course

[Perry Vale]

The main reason to fall asleep on a Sunday afternoon in the late 80's / early 90's.

Well it was a weekday afternoon showing (when I got home from school) for someone of my age.

[SiHart]

Got to the end of Adrian Mole series one. I can't see that replacing Julie Walters with Lulu next series is going to be in any way an improvement.

[Rob McCow]

Got to the end of Adrian Mole series one

I've only been gone two days! Back in the old habits, eh?

[Alex]

Well it's taken several years, and four episodes, but I'm now really in to Mad Men. I'd watched an episode every so often and just not felt involved in any way, but having seen the fourth episode I then watched another two back to back last night, and am now all a bit addicted. Just who is Don Draper? (No one tell me, or I'll be distraught! )

I've also been watching Bob's Burgers, which really is a delightful animated sitcom, and refreshingly free of all of the Seth MacFarlane crudeness that populates so many other animated shows at the moment. And also Hebburn, with the lovely lovely Kimberley Nixon. Mmmm.

[Nyder]

1st Ep of Frasier Series 4 - "The Two Mrs Cranes". This is how I like my Frasier - high, breathless farce!

Unfortunately a good few minus points incurred for the APPALLING "Manchester" accent adopted by the American actor playing Daphne's ex-boyfriend. It was 10% Bronx and 90% Dick Van Dyke. Why couldn't they have used a British actor??

[SiHart]

A Bit of Do. Quite sublime writing and performances.

Just starting Dear John series 2. Fabulous series, very funny. Sadly. rather forgotten now.

[Nyder]

Do you know, I never saw Dear John.

I have a feeling I'm going to have to add it to my DVD backlog (which is now approaching infinity)

[SiHart]

It's very, very good.

[Rob McCow]

I've been watching Press Gang. Despite an absolutely abysmal pilot episode and possibly the cheesiest, most awful opening credits sequence and music I've ever seen, this has shaped up to be rather good. It gets a bit melodramatic and soapy in the second year, but Moffatt seems quite good at the soap-style writing.

They tackle a lot of 'issues' from glue-sniffing to child abuse, plus the characters are quite endearing. What I'm particularly impressed by is that the lead character, Lynda Day, is one of the most unsympathetic, manipulative and bossy people you could hope to meet. They even make a point of this in the storylines. Yet you still want to know if she's going to get together with Spike.

Some of the jokes even get quite funny as the series goes on....

But how they are going to sustain it for another three series when they are going to break-up from school in a few months is a mystery to me!

[duncan]

I've just finished Merlin series one and have embarked on Lost season 4. ON TV, The Walking Dead season 3 is coming to it's conclusion on 5* and we intend to go straight into season 4 on Fox early next month.

[Dirk Gently]

I watched a film called Apollo 18, yes that's right, Apollo 18. It is supposed to be the unknown mission to the moon, the covert one that was to put spy equipment on the moon to observe the Russians back in 1974. Or this is at least what the D.O.D tell the astronauts.

In reality the D.O.D know that there is some kind of lifeform on the moon & the equipment is to spy/interfere with them. The whole movie is supposedly based on camera evidence, a-la Blair Witch Project, discovered/released/unclassified in 2011.
Now all this hangs together within the movies own logic. The camera shots look like they are either from the POV of the astronauts personal cameras, their rover camera, the L.I.M cameras, the orbiter cameras or actual movie cameras the astronauts brought with them. One of the crew is in orbit, the other 2 on the surface.
All good, they encounter the parasites on the surface which until late on in the movie all look innocuous. They encounter a Russian L.I.M & a dead Cosmonaut & this is all well & good.
One Astronaut is 'infected' & one is terrified into trying to escape in the Russian L.I.M, he makes orbit & then he realises that he isn't alone, he screams for his colleague to leave him (as the D.O.D have been saying on the radio) and then is attacked by the parasites, he fails to reduce speed, he collides with the orbiter...this is where I have a real problem...everything up until now has happened to the movies own logic but...BUT...how the hell does all this footage get back to Earth to be seen nearly 40 years later if all the film was destroyed/lost in a lunar orbital accident!!??
The whole movie is based on this one premise from the very outset & the final scene makes it complete BOLLOX!!!!

I don't mind movies stretching the truth, or more to the point taking liberties with science or reality by claiming stuff to be "based on the truth" but for crying out loud stay within your own bloody rules!
Suffice to say it was an OK film until the last scene ruined it for me.

[Rob McCow]

it was an OK film until the last scene ruined it for me.

So awful when a movie just goes off the rails like that. I wanted to enjoy your film, but you made it displeasurable in the last few nanoseconds!

[SiHart]

I've been watching The Six Wibes of Henry VIII over the last couple of weeks. Splendid BBC stuff, with all the actors you'd be expecting, and in his first post Who work, Patrick Troughton splendidnly playing The Duke of Norfolk. Long episodes, an hour and a half each, but you get very drawn into the stories of his various wives.