Who doesn't love television?
We have our own preferences which will be featured on our individual pages - it may be some time before they are populated - but that's the fun of creating a web-site like this.
There is also a special link which will be devoted to the BBCs Television Centre, Wood Lane, London which was purpose built in the 1960s and is now up for sale. I have fond memories of working in this building.
Poldark
What a joyful couple - Ross (Robin Ellis) and Demelza (Angharad Rees) Poldark in the original 1975 BBC TV dramatisation from Drama Serials - image courtesy of Twitter
Comparison images of the original cast members and the 2015 re-make starring Aiden Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson - image sourced from frockflicks with thanks
We gave the re-make a go and watched all the episodes comprising the new adaptation. Neither of the central characters appealed to us and in truth we looked out for the scenes featuring Robin Ellis as we knew he had taken a cameo role. Sadly Angharad Rees had died many years ago but being the mischievous woman she was she would have enjoyed reeking some sort of havoc if only to brighten up the re-make. We didn't find it a worthy successor or an enjoyable re-make, it lost much of the original and the interaction between the characters was wooden. So, the original wins hands down and luckily we have the DVDs to be able to re-live the series that made churches alter their Sunday evening services to accommodate the viewers! Nice touch!
Roswell High
l to r Isabel, Max, Liz, Michael and Maria - image sourced from Netflix
The 'Roswell High' Graduates - image sourced from screenrant.com
The 2019 re-make 'Roswell, New Mexico' may have had superior graphics but nothing much else! - image sourced from goodfon.com
So why have we, once again, decided that we prefer the original 'Roswell High' as opposed to the updated 'Roswell New Mexico' which it has to be said is slicker and obviously more technologically advanced than the original series which mainly featured angsty teenagers? Doh! The answer is in the question isn't it? The original series, as we are finding out now, is true to the books written by Melinda Metz which we are both currently reading one at a time to savour and prolong the fun!. (At the time of writing Andrew is ahead of me, but I did get to read one of them and thoroughly enjoyed it whilst in hospital!). Apparently the makers of the original series cut it short, giving it a conclusion of sorts, reacted to a perceived 'turn off' by viewers because the episodes were becoming too sci-fi! How can you have a series set in Roswell about aliens if it doesn't include sci-fi which is overt from the very beginning when we witness Liz, Max, a bottle of ketchup (thank goodness it wasn't the Tabasco) and a silver handprint? But, so be it, the producers know where the money comes from and need to massage the souls of the sponsors to keep them sweet. By the sounds of that Andrew and I may still have some surprises to come whilst reading the books (and re-watching the series on DVD) if indeed the story was curtailed. We decided to give the new show a try and have watched the first two series through to the end so it's not as if we haven't given it every opportunity to engage us! The first scene after the credits have rolled features - guess what? Yes, you've got it - Liz, Max, a bottle of ketchup (thank goodness it wasn't the Tabasco) and a silver handprint! The intro (pre-credits) was a little different, it showed Liz returning to Roswell after several years away, we wondered if this was going to be a sequel showing us what had happened to the five major characters : Isabel, Max, Liz, Michael and Maria - it soon became apparent that one of the five was missing - there is no sign of Maria! Her replacement is Liz's long-dead drug-addict sister. The price of the resurrection is the near destruction of Max who becomes a sort of wraith-like figure. The action borrows much from the original storyline and tries to pad it out with flashbacks to the fate of the original 'visitors'. We thought we might enjoy the appearance of the original 'Max' (portrayed by Jason Behr) who was to take a cameo part in the new series. He appears in the 'flashback' scenes and seems at first to be a bad guy who wants to eradicate the aliens at all costs; the character then becomes ever more mysterious and by the end of series two has become 'a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.' If series 3 materialises we may watch it and I will then add to this review.
Foyle's War & Downton Abbey
Andrew and I have managed to 'share' two of the most popular tv shows (as voted for by the public) without shedding blood. I have opted for Foyle's War and he has a slight preference for Downton Abbey. We also managed not to shed further blood by sharing a joint appreciation of three more of the named programmes Home Fires, Life on Mars and Spooks.
World War II police drama Foyle's War tops list of 21st Century TV shows that Britons want to see back on screen, ahead of Downton Abbey, Life on Mars, and Spooks*
By Alisha Rouse Showbusiness Correspondent for The Daily Mail | Published: 30th July 2019 | Updated: 30th July 2019
Confronted with murder and profiteering on the Home Front, TV viewers could rely on DCS Foyle to put matters right. Now they have voted Foyle's War the 21st century show they would most like to return to our screens. The ITV Second World War detective drama starred Michael Kitchen as Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle and Honeysuckle Weeks as his resourceful driver Samantha. Written by Anthony Horowitz, it was first broadcast in 2002 and ran until 2007 as a spiritual successor to the Inspector Morse series. It returned for a further three series between 2010 and 2015, taking the story beyond the end of the war to Cold War-era criminal intrigue. In a poll for Radio Times, it was named as the show from this century which viewers would most like to see again, followed by police drama The Bill, which ran from 1984 to 2010, and comedy Count Arthur Strong (2013 to 2017). Other shows that made the top ten include Spooks, Home Fires, Life On Mars, Detectorists, Downton Abbey, Phoenix Nights and Happy Valley.
Horowitz told the latest issue of the magazine: 'It really cheers me up to think that Radio Times readers still hold it in such high regard. 'It reminds me that years ago, ITV decided to axe the show – we missed the whole of 1944 as a result – and it was only thanks to pressure from viewers that they were persuaded to change their minds. 'The repeats still get high viewing figures. I'd certainly be up for a Christmas special or two. There's still that missing year to cover! Foyle's War was a passion project for me and I miss it to this day.' Another ITV drama, the long-running police soap The Bill, came second in the poll. Originally broadcast in 1984, the Sun Hill set drama ran for 26 years before coming to an end in 2010. BBC1 spy drama Spooks, broadcast between 2002 and 2011, came fourth in the poll.
NCIS
No, we didn't love the world's most successful and favourite show when it first appeared in 'JAG' in series 8 episodes 20 'Ice Queen' and 21 'Meltdown' when three of the main characters 'Leroy Jethro Gibbs, 'very special agent' Tony diNozzo and Donald 'Duckie' Mallard were introduced to us together with 'Agent Blackadder' who didn't migrate to the forthcoming stand alone series. Gibbs had the effrontery not to treat 'Harm' and 'Bud' in an appropriate manner - we resisted watching the first two series for a very long time .....
This can of course be interpreted as 'Gibbs is the Boss' or that he has a set of rules! But along with many thousands of others we know that Gibbs and his team 'Rock!'
Leverage
New Dad's Army
Additional information here
Mapp and Lucia TV Series x 2
Confirmation now announced that there will not be any further series of the new version of 'Mapp and Lucia' - it is a shame as it was very enjoyable, but the original, really was classier!
New version getting ever closer! From the Daily Mail
Rivals: Steve Pemberton (as Georgie Pillson) separates actresses Anna Chancellor (left, as Emmeline 'Lucia' Lucas) and Miranda Richardson (right, as Elizabeth Mapp), socialite rivals in new TV show Lucia and Mapp
Mapp And Lucia are back... with Duck Face and Queenie starring as waspish social rivals in an eagerly awaited BBC adaptation of the E F Benson comic novels.
The Original
DVD cover for the television series starring Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and the late Nigel Hawthorne
The original television series was brought to our screens by my first Drama Plays Producer, Gerald Savory, with whom I worked on all 26 episodes of the ill-fated 'Churchill's People' based on the volume of books of the same name which were Winston's oeuvre. My love of the original and follow-on books is chronicled in the Books Preferences section. I'm also delighted to have discovered a recent news update which announces that a new television (this time BBC) version is soon to be produced. Steve Pemberton is to adapt the books.
Chancellor (right) was seen recently in The Hour while Richardson is a familiar face to Blackadder fans
To understand the English, slip away to Tilling
No one captured small-town snobbery quite like EF Benson in his Mapp and Lucia novels - from the Daily Telegraph
Sparkling: Prunella Scales and Geraldine McEwan in 'Mapp and Lucia' Photo: REX FEATURES
Lamb House, in the exquisite town of Rye in East Sussex, is a fine early Georgian property belonging to the National Trust. Henry James once lived there, as did E F Benson. It was also home, at different times, to two fictional characters: the title pair in Benson’s six Mapp and Lucia novels, written between 1920 and 1939. Miss Elizabeth Mapp, the original mistress of Mallards – as it is called in the books – rents it out for a summer to the widowed Mrs Emmeline ''Lucia’’ Lucas. Later Lucia buys the house from Miss Mapp.
The funniest joke of all is the central, ongoing paradox, wherein incidents of utter pointlessness – such as whether Mapp can acquire Lucia’s recipe to “Lobster à la Riseholme” – spiral into an ever more deadly significance. Benson is a poet of triviality. But his people are real; and they are dazzlingly alive, because of the joy in their creation.
“I lingered at the window of the garden room from which Miss Mapp so often and so ominously looked forth,” wrote Benson from Lamb House, as if in hope of seeing them, bustling merrily about Tilling.
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