Oddly, my wife and I enjoy British TV dramas much more than those that originate here.
Our favorite at the moment is Downton Abbey because it has a wealth of interesting characters that range from the sympathetic to the downright beastly. With only one episode scheduled to air in the season, we want to know if Bates murdered Green.
Those of you who live in the UK can tell us because we run a season behind you. Please, if you share our interest, tell us!
I don't watch Downton Abbey, but I do watch Top Gear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzKjbCGAB8A).
I don't watch Downton Abbey, but I do watch Top Gear.
In this case, you qualify as a Downton fan.
BTW, my wife always refers to it as
Downtown Abbey.
So there's no TV drama in your area?
I watch Keuringsdienst van Waarde. You can see here (http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1124763) how Kellog's cornflakes contain metallic iron and here (http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1390050) how we apparently ship over significant amounts of Estonian peat. Some potentially interesting fragments around 8:00, 15:20 and 19:00.
Another show I like(d) is De gouden eeuw (http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/programmas/9044-de-gouden-eeuw), a documentary about the 17th century.
I watch Keuringsdienst van Waarde.
Another show I like(d) is, a documentary about the 17th century.
In other words, two documentaries, which are my favorites. As I indicated above, I do like some British programs but can't stomach the American ones. Even
Downton Abbey is something of a chick drama but my wife would kill me if....you know. I could do without any of them for one good documentary on how the Sun is going to expand until it engulfs the Earth in 4 billion years, take a few hundred million. It's likely that I won't be around then.
House of Cards (netflix original series) is my current show of choice.
A damn good one too!
Also have been watching the House of Cards from the UK back in the early 90's.
In other words, two documentaries, which are my favorites.
Well, right now I also watch NCIS, Dirk Benedict Smokes Cigars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(1978_TV_series)), Castle, White Collar, and such.
I can't watch Antwerp-based equivalents (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379685/) because I don't wish to pay for cable and from the Netherlands it's geographically restricted by IP. Somehow Dutch cop shows are inferior to Belgian and American ones. Or perhaps I'm just a self-deprecating Dutchman. :)
Also have been watching the House of Cards from the UK back in the early 90's.
I'll have to give it a try, but the new version. I'm a Kevin Spacey fan. And, joy of joys, I found a site that streams is free of charge.
Or perhaps I'm just a self-deprecating Dutchman.
Odd that none of us have noticed that.
A few years ago I found myself teaching the Wilhelmus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelmus) to about a dozen fellow Dutch people who apparently did not know the lyrics! x.X
But, I'm also only one of the two out of those dozen people who left the country for greener pastures elsewhere. ;)
So solemn.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U2HsdbbDgI[/video]
Pretty much the only way I can tolerate TV these days is on netflix, without annoying breaks for annoying ads. And even then it's not much more than the more or less annual Mythbusters binge whenever a 'new' season becomes available ( and I notice, which may well take another half year )
ׂ
I almost forgot "Breaking Bad" which has been cancelled after five seasons. There will be a spin-off that focuses on the lawyer who represented one of the characters, Jesse Pinkman.
Breaking Bad looked potentially interesting on Mythbusters, but I haven't seen it.
ׂ
Television is a weapon. Against you.
And Breaking Bad sucks.
Belfrager, even this? :)
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pBT8n-SNWk[/video]
Stuff like that it's used as bait so people get convinced television is a good thing.
At least it doesn't have David Attenborough hidden behind the bushes while watching a couple of animals to mate...
You say that as if anyone just turns on the damned thing and watches whatever comes on. Back when I still had one, I'd examine the TV guide and pick something to check out if it seemed interesting, and ignored the thing otherwise.
You say that as if anyone just turns on the damned thing and watches whatever comes on.
Oh but they do, that you can be sure about. Chew-gum for the eyes, that's how it works.
Back when I still had one, I'd examine the TV guide and pick something to check out if it seemed interesting, and ignored the thing otherwise.
Selective watching, as well as with a critical mind, should be the norm but it isn't. Most viewers don't even notice or understand the manipulation techniques that are used for mass propaganda.
Goebbels was an innocent child compared with what is being done with television.
Nice turn! I like it! :yes:
Let's move the topic to "Central", serious!.:)
You say that as if anyone just turns on the damned thing and watches whatever comes on. Back when I still had one, I'd examine the TV guide and pick something to check out if it seemed interesting, and ignored the thing otherwise.
I'm selective and have a simple rule.
Record the show and watch it later so that I can fast forward through the commercials... :D
unless it's a sporting event that interests me, in which case I suffer through the commercials. Examples, PGA events (professional golf for those of you who aren't familiar with them) and NASCAR (stock* car racing...900 horse power behemoths). In 2002 my wife bought me a ride around a track in Florida @ 160 MPH.
* Calling them stock cars is bullsh*t. My stock car won't go 200 MPH.
TV Show Popularity in Your Neighborhood
Slow TV has been kind of the thing in Norway the last five years.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ibe17-JMCU[/video]
This clip condenses 134 hours of programming down to 37 minutes (in turn making it a rather peculiar concept as frenetically sped up slow tv).
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uXzkNYsQfM[/video]
Never will understand why, as I view the show as being as terrible as "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo", but Duck Dynasty still remains popular in this region.
So it's a show about how the nouveau riche are having trouble being accepted into high society?
Are tv shows the same as tv series? If yes, I like The Game of Thrones.
Not as good as Roma, from the same producers I suppose, but the best thing that can be seen in television today.
Of course, with popularity, it will dive into an insupportable pastiche of itself.
Technically a series is a particular kind of show (i.e. a recurring one) but in the context of this post I don't think anyone is talking about one-time specials. :)
Are tv shows the same as tv series? If yes, I like The Game of Thrones.
Not as good as Roma, from the same producers I suppose, but the best thing that can be seen in television today.
Of course, with popularity, it will dive into an insupportable pastiche of itself.
You could claim that
A Song of Ice and Fire/
The Game of Thrones is already a pastiche of the War of the Roses and other English and European history (and beyond to Asia and Africa). Westeros is a kind of a Late Medieval Europe with the sex, violence, and treachery dialled up.
If you like sexed-up history like Rome and sexed-up pseudo-history like GoT, as do I, you would probably enjoy series like The Tudors (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758790) and The Borgias (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582457) as well.
You could claim that A Song of Ice and Fire/The Game of Thrones is already a pastiche of the War of the Roses and other English and European history (and beyond to Asia and Africa). Westeros is a kind of a Late Medieval Europe with the sex, violence, and treachery dialled up.
If you like sexed-up history like Rome and sexed-up pseudo-history like GoT, as do I, you would probably enjoy series like The Tudors (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758790) and The Borgias (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582457) as well.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=reporttm;topic=186.29;msg=22276)
GoT and Roma have their own merit that separates them (each one at it's way) from the other series you mention.
The inclusion of a decent amount of boobies is certainly welcome but it goes further than that.
Roma tried to be a portrait of the entire Roman society, with all social classes, while maintaining a reasonable amount of Historical likelihood. Fictionally, they created an ensemble of interconnected characters, ranging from the very low to the higher possible classes, who's mixed destinies explained History.
Innovative and brightly done. The other series you say just does the traditional, focusing on the life of the powerful, the usual thing.
The historical recreation of life at those times was brilliant.
Game of Thrones, yes it recreates a Middle age full of sex, violence and treason but it adds an element of fantastic. The formula is not new but the way it's done, is superb.
Instead a final product that would be sordid or, even worst, something like Lord of the Rings it results at probably the higher moment in fiction that television has ever created.
It's going to be very very difficult to do better. GoT is at a different championship.
Of course, as Mary Pickford says at my sig, I'm totally against what I above said. :)
I am purely pragmatic. If a sea of naked breasts is what it takes for ridiculously costly series to succeed, bring them on. Roman society, not to speak of Medieval European society in most centuries, was allegedly fairly puritan and hypocritical, and not the sequence of Roman orgies and debaucheries fantasised about, just like rock'n'roll usually isn't as rock'n'roll as legend would have it.
But as long as the characters think as Romans and not as thinly veiled morality play figurines in a toga, libertine liberties are quite acceptable. Likewise God and a mystical universe was real to the Medieval world, and people behaved thereafter. The characters might be villainous, nasty, and treacherous, but still unwilling to risk going to Hell. The plot and the setting in these modern series might have upped the viewer attraction beyond the realistic, but still with fidelity to the historical setting and world view. That is why I am less keen on The Vikings, which I should have been enthusiastic about, as it has too many shortcomings as TV and in reaching the appropriate mind space.
Roman society, not to speak of Medieval European society in most centuries, was allegedly fairly puritan and hypocritical, and not the sequence of Roman orgies and debaucheries fantasised about, just like rock'n'roll usually isn't as rock'n'roll as legend would have it.
Maybe we were closer to the truth by saying that those societies were simultaneously puritan and hypocritical
and a sequence of orgies and debaucheries.
Such is life and always has been and will be.
What's this TV thing? Quit talking nonsense, people :irked:
During my holidays I had the time to watch some episodes from a French tv series very interesting, Un Village Français.
Life at the Jura during the German occupation at WWII.
So refreshing to listen to people speaking French against the anglo saxon attempt of cultural colonization.
I'm not sure if the second most influential language in the world necessarily counts as a valiant act of resistance. :P
Der gleiche Himmel (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5424556/) about spy games between DDR and West Berlin. The first episode is promising.
If you enjoy Estonian subtitles, here you go https://jupiter.err.ee/1152509/seesama-taevas
If not, turn them off.
Some Estonian TV channel started showing Zelensky's famous series (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6235122/). It is a commercial TV channel, so I will probably not watch it. I might watch it by some other means, maybe.
This is an interesting common point that Zelensky has with Trump - both were TV stars before becoming president. I know that Russians based their impressions of Zelensky on this fact - until the invasion.
The sun-baby in Netflix reboot of Teletubbies is a total disaster. People demand the old sun-baby back.
I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference.
Der gleiche Himmel (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5424556/) about spy games between DDR and West Berlin. The first episode is promising.
If you enjoy Estonian subtitles, here you go https://jupiter.err.ee/1152509/seesama-taevas
If not, turn them off.
Sofia Hedin speaking German was a nice complement to her speaking Norwegian (well, Swedo-Norwegian, she played a Swedish princess) and English in other roles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zqhncmYeBY
The Same Sky had promise, but didn't reach it. Enjoyable in a way, as all series set in Berlin are, but ultimately 🐴🐴🐯🐯 as they say in Chinese.
Speaking of which, we got Counterpart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpart_(TV_series)), which I enjoyed, but not enough others, so it got cancelled after two seasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRuaNHLp6OU