Television Programs Thread

[Mongoose]

I agree, OF. Holding his baby in front of a croc with families watching in the crowd. Bending down to a snake, then pulling back exclaiming 'Wow! The most dangerous snake in the world just licked my face!'

[Ernest]

Fair comment OF, he got bit the other night with pythons in a programme I was watching, so did the presentor.

But you do get to see some rare wildlife, in spite of his antics.

PS: I don't mean his public shows, I mean his trecks into the wind unihhabliable places, no his public antics don't impress me, not the contrived BBC new style Ocean wildlife, flimed in a gloryfied fish tank, that put me off for good.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Mongoose

Attenborough is, and has long been, the best man on telly.

Interestingly.. it was his role behind the scenes that he perhaps did most good: Life on Earth, The Living Planet and Trials of Life were all stunning and set new benchmarks for public service programming (as, much later, did The Private Life of Plants)... but as director of programming for BBC2 he was behind so much more:

Originally Posted by http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/522034/

Within a year Peacock was replaced as channel controller by the wildlife broadcaster David Attenborough, whose first act was strangely at odds with his naturalist credentials - he killed off the Kangaroos, which he saw as the embodiment of "demented public relations". Other changes quickly followed, including the launch of regular science, business and natural history programmes as well as slots for new comedy talents such as Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Attenborough also started Match of the Day, partly as a production training ground for the forthcoming World Cup. But it was with authored documentaries that BBC2 really made its name. Alistair Cooke's America (1972-73), Dr Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man (1973) and Kenneth Clark's Civilisation (1969) transformed the channel's image from being BBC1's predominantly uninteresting twin in to the home of groundbreaking and innovative programme making.

"BBC2's brief, as far as I was concerned, was to cover all those aspects of human activity that BBC1 didn't," Attenborough later explained. But it was his contagious enthusiasm for the creative process as much as his vision that transformed the channel's fortunes.

Attenborough's success with the new channel earmarked him for promotion, but the veteran broadcaster decided that he'd rather make programmes than commission people to make them on his behalf. This was a major disappointment for the corporation's senior executives, but by the time Attenborough returned to programme making with The Tribal Eye (1975) BBC2 had already reshaped the TV landscape.

Not bad :-)

Originally Posted by Ernest 54004

Yes Minister was about the best sit com ever, I don't like the American sit coms

I don't know if it counts as a "sitcom"... but Northern Exposure always impressed me more than ONly Fools and Horses and the other BBC things you mention. Hugh Laurie's new thing "House" (a surprise hit in the states) isn't bad either. Certainly better than hospital-based versions of Neighbours like ER and Casualty!

[Kirsty Harris]

Originally Posted by Rachael

I don't know if it counts as a "sitcom"... but Northern Exposure always impressed me more than ONly Fools and Horses and the other BBC things you mention. Hugh Laurie's new thing "House" (a surprise hit in the states) isn't bad either. Certainly better than hospital-based versions of Neighbours like ER and Casualty!

I used to watch Northern Exposure...I thought it was pretty good too! Thought I was the only one watching it

Never been a huge fan of Only Fools and Horses - I think if you've seen one episode you've seen them all. That's not to say it hasn't had it's moments, but it's gone on for too long. Mind you 'Last of Summer Wine' has been consistantly bad for more than 20 years, has had most of the orignal cast die and still manages to get made - that says it all for the state of British comedy!!! I don't much like the current batch of 'comedy' programmes like 'Little Britain' and 'The League of Gentlemen' - I just don't think they are funny at all.

My favorite sit com is proably Porridge - I think it's really funny!!! Richard Beckinsdale was a great foil for Ronnie Barker.

[R W S]

Talking of obscure british comedies - did anyone ever watch 'Chance in a million' on channel four with Simon Callow in the lead role? I think Brenda Blethlen(?) was also in it.

[Occasional Fan]

That must have been one of the earliest programmes on C4, RWS - the channel opened in 1982 and I'd say that Chance in a Million would have been on around 1984/5 or so. I can barely remember it, but it was certainly Simon Callow in the title role. My recollection is that I quite enjoyed it, whatever it was about ...

[Ernest]

Well Rachael I aways thought of Yes Minister being a sit com, because it was situated in the Palace of Westminster, having said that, sit com as it used to be is not a dirty word, when you look what we have now.

Porrage Kirsty could be funny, but then again Ronnie Barker was a very funny man.

Last Of The Summer Wine, I quite liked that, it was a gentle comedy, and they managed a different plot every week, but I think when Bill Owen died, than the show should have also.

I think of the site coms of the past, and I look at what we have now, thebrash girl with pink glasses who lives with that camp bloke, that's comedy??.

For clever comedy-love them or hate them, the Royle Family was one of the cleverest ever, they made those shows with no audience, no canned laughter to gee them along, but it needed rating, after 9, if any kids are in bed after 9 these days.

[R W S]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

That must have been one of the earliest programmes on C4, RWS - the channel opened in 1982 and I'd say that Chance in a Million would have been on around 1984/5 or so. I can barely remember it, but it was certainly Simon Callow in the title role. My recollection is that I quite enjoyed it, whatever it was about ...

It was about a guy that was almost as hapless Frank Spencer (who I never thought was funny) and kept having outrageous coincidences occur around him. There was one episode about a cricket ball . . . (i'm going to see if i can find a script).

Originally Posted by BBC

Chance In A Million
UK, C4 (Thames), Sitcom, colour, 1984
Starring: Simon Callow, Brenda Blethyn, Hugh Walters

Tom Chance is trouble in human form, someone for whom life is one long uninterrupted litany of misfortunes. He must have run over a dozen black cats and smashed as many mirrors, so dogged is he by coincidental bad luck. As a result of one of his confusions, Tom meets Alison Little, a shy and retiring librarian (Brenda Blethyn), and right from the start she too becomes embroiled in his catalogue of disasters, returning home from their first meeting dressed only in her underwear. (This turns out to be portentous, for under her timid, mannered surface she is a simmering cauldron of desire.) The pair become engaged (in the second series), much to the despair of Alison's parents, and married (in the last), in Tom's usual disastrous circumstances: the wedding day begins with the bride and groom in jail, no best man, bridesmaids or guests, and the in-laws and the cake trapped in a sewer.

If this all sounds a little extreme it was meant to be, for Chance In A Million was a sitcom that set out to send up the sitcom genre. Writers Norriss and Fegen's intention was to take to their most ludicrous extremes the plethora of unlikely coincidences that litter comedy scripts. The 'hero' here - with his strange staccato way of talking and odd vocabulary; beginning each sentence with a verb and omitting all definite articles - suffered ridiculous flukes, such as when a paratrooper descended right into his house on a quest for bizarre objects and Tom discovered - to his own surprise - that he had them, including a nude photograph of Shirley Williams and a cricket bat signed by Alec Bedser. Or when - just as Alison's parents were about to visit for the first time - his bedroom was invaded by young women undressing in rehearsal for their attempt on the greatest-number-of-girls-in-their-underwear-in-one-telephone-box world record.

The best comedy series channel four ever did was " The Comic Strip Presents ..."

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Lemming

Ask ten mathematicians to solve a soluble partial differential equation they'll be having tea and biscuits in a relaxed atmosphere in no time because they all agree on what is correct, if someone doesn't agree with the other nine, then he's giong to have made a mistake!

LOL.

But maybe that is because solving equations and such like is a fairly mechanical task, rather like putting up new wall-paper or fixing a car; any trained chimpanzee should be able to do it. It's unfair to maths or automobile repairs when we compare them with disciplines requiring the exercise of the higher critical and cognitive faculties

A very good friend of mine at Cambridge read Classics, and addressed our engineering and science acquaintances thus: "People such as you exist so people like me can enjoy life" - ie they can can contemplate on the meaning of life without having to worry about how things work, or even whether they work at all


ps: I did not read Classics
pps: I have nothing against maths or mathematicians; its an eminently useful tool. Portions of my first degree involved a lot of maths, and that was the part I really did enjoy, but rather like some people enjoy fixing cars...

[Ernest]

Richard whiteley the presenter of Channel 4's Countdown had died aged 61.

I have enjoyed this programme for years, and no one will ever be able replace him.

When you watched him, he came accross as an Englishman, the way he dressed, the way he talked, he will be missed by many.