What Are You Currently Watching (on tv/dvd)?

[Dahls]

I never could passed those annoying audience sounds in BBT, the laughter and all.
Can't understand why they need that, seems unnecessary on what looks like a good show.

[Ian]

The Bill: We Also Serve. Great little episode from 1991 entirely focused on a bunch of uniforms waiting in a van to potentially get called up as backup to deal with a riot situation. The first ten minutes is all done in one shot!
Great ending too, as they get stood down, only to then drive right into a mob. Having barely escaped from being beaten and set on fire, Reg notes: "Well, one good thing I suppose... We're definitely into overtime now."

[DMt.]

I never could passed those annoying audience sounds in BBT, the laughter and all.
Can't understand why they need that, seems unnecessary on what looks like a good show.

Well, it's recorded 'live in front of a studio audience', not using a pasted-on laugh track, but I guess it's not to everyone's taste in any case.

[Ian]

It's pretty much standard for sit-coms, or it was anyway. Never bothered me, I always rather like hearing the audience reaction.

[Dahls]

I know, many great shows uses the live audience.

It's just so grossly overdone at times, like when after one little witty remark, or even just a short movement is made, they laugh hysterically like they heard the funniest joke in history.
While sleep deprived and drunk.

That kinda spoils it for me.

[DMt.]

Pay attention, program editors. Credit us with at least a little subtlety and restraint.

Though to be fair I do find BBT one of the least unpleasant examples of this practice.

[Dahls]

Les Revenants had it's tv premiere in Norway tonight.
(Yes yes,we're far behind, as usual)

Noticed it in the papers this morning, so was able to give a heads up to some close friends and family as well.
Those who took my recommendation, thanked me and said they most definitley will be watching the rest.

No wonder,it still gave me the shivers, even though I've seen it already.



Also, I just finnished up on the New Zealand mini-series Top of the Lake.
Anyone seen it?
Thought it was a great and mysterious crime drama, with Elisabeth Moss playing the lead brilliantly.

[DMt.]

Filming of Les Revs S2 has been put back because of problems with the scripting, apparently...

[Ian]

The Bill: Downtime. When a single mother and her teenage son disappear from their home, Sun Hill CID fear the worst when the house is found in disarray and bloodstains in the bedroom... You can tell this is a PJ Hammond episode; he has a tendency to write these quiet, contained, eerie little episodes that stand at askew to the series' normal tone and take a good prod at the weirdness bubbling away under the facade of "normal life". Creepy.

[fish]

...Creepy.

What did you just call me?

[Ian]

I would never!

The Bill: Out of Order. There's been a slow-burning story developing over several months involving PC Phil Young, so subtle and so in the background you could be forgiven for not even noticing it - until now. Ever since he found the corpse of a suicide victim, Young has been changing. He asked for sick leave complaining of headaches and insomnia and claiming "something's just not right" and since he came back his behaviour has become increasingly argumentative and aggressive, subtly at first but gradually more and more noticeably, including in his obvious unrequited attraction to WPC Datta. A couple of weeks ago his response to a prisoner trying to escape was perhaps a little too enthusiastic. But still, you could have overlooked this little background story entirely - until this episode. When Young and WPC Datta chase a thief into a warehouse, the last thing Datta was expecting was to be assaulted - by her fellow officer. This episode is a little shocker, and this plot thread is now front and centre. It's official now folks - Young is losing the plot big-time.

[Ian]

X Files: War of the Coprophages. A series of mysterious deaths in a small country town seems to be attributable to killer cockroaches, and Scully's rational explanations fail to prevent a wave of mass hysteria sweeping through town. This classic comic-horror episode is every bit as funny as it is skin-crawling, and you have to love the sheer chutzpah of the fourth-wall-breaking moment when a cockroach actually runs across the camera lens (and thus seemingly your TV screen!). Genius.

[fish]

...cockroaches...

Something I seriously hate.
No way I could watch that.

[Ian]

Wimp.

The Bill: On The Take. Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Meadows has been appearing in the show on-and-off for the last year and more and more of late, making it increasingly obvious that the producers really want to make him a regular - but that's tough to do with his rank. Well, this episode starts the process of solving that problem, when his trusted second in Murder Squad, DS Chris Lovell, turns out to be a bent cop, and Meadows' own career ends up in the frying pan. In fact, he'll very conveniently get demoted to DCI - just in time to take over CID at Sun Hill when Kim Reid leaves in a few weeks. It's a strong episode, a neat little plot device and a rather delicious if utterly unintentional foreshadowing of what will happen in nine years time, when the even more disastrous consequences of Meadows being unable to spot a bent cop right under his nose - Sun Hill's own DS Don Beech - will again nearly wreck his career!

[fish]

Wimp. ...

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

This Meadows guy sounds like a real winner too.
He needs to delegate blame, I think.