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Uk Tv Progs Showing Internationally; Progs not discussed on other threads
Topic Started: Jul 3 2006, 08:47 PM (1,242 Views)
campgrrls
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There's a few Brit progs now showing on NZ TV or about to start a new series that interest me & that I'd like to chat about. But I can't find any online forum that discusses them each for more than a post or two.

A couple of years back that I thought US TV had most of the best series, but lately I've been more interested in Brit ones. I'm not quite sure what it is I like about them all.... maybe different things for different progs. So I'd like to see if it's possible to have a thread that can discuss a range of theses shows.

There's always a problem of spoilers when people are watching progs internationally at different times. Maybe its best if people can say which series they have last seen & if possible the ep if they go into a lot of details about an ep/s.... so that it's possible to scroll quickly thru a post if someone hasn't seen that ep/series?

I have watched a bit of Bodies. We are well into the 2nd series now (around ep 8 I think). I have to turn away from the screen when they show ops. I like the grittiness of the prog and the way it shows the dept of incompetence & corruption, and often disregard of women's bodies, and the way it seems to be impossible not to be compromised by the system. But it's nasty stuff.

I saw one ep of the IT Crowd which was quite funny tho tended to stereotype men as geeks and women as better in dealing with people. I like the standard reply the geek gives when someone rings up and asks for expert technical help with their computer: "Yes [pause] Have you tried switiching it off and on again."

Also starting in the next week or so we have a new series of "New Tricks". I like Amanda Redman. And Murder in Suburbia, first series - sounds like the banter between the 2 women is worth watching even if it's not such a great crime series. And the latest series of Dr. Who which has already been showing in the UK & US, to mixed resposes from what I hear. I think some Brit progs mix humour & drama quite successfully.

Oh and this week I also watched an ep of The Last Detective with the dad from At Home With the Braithwaites - now there was a great prog. The LD was OK but not great.

I have watched a little of Judge Deed that Richard has mentioned a few times. It's quite interesting but I've often only seen half an ep. It was on quite late here and the couple of times I taped it I didn't have enough room on the end of the tape to get the whole ep - each ep is very long.
Carolyn
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campgrrls
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I just watched the first David Tennant ep of Dr Who, The Xmas Invasion - spoiler space........












what a bit of fun!!! It has a zanny kind of understated tongue in cheek humour that reminds me a bit of the Avengers, but with a touch of East Enders. Like the jokes about tea and picnicking in the Tardis and artefacts of Xmas turning on people. It was both fast paced action and a bit of a spoof of sci fi progs/films like Independence Day.

I really liked the opening with the Tardis crash landing into a London street. I quite liked the idea of the woman PM but in the end she seemed to be a bit of a foil - and she seemed to represent a return to British imperialism.
Carolyn
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Evangelist
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I love Tennant as Doctor Who!

I'm also a big fan of HUSTLE...the 3rd series just began airing here in the US on cable channel AMC. They get high marks in my book....the first showing of each new episode is scheduled in a 75 minute time slot...so they can put in all the commercials, and we still get to see the entire episode as originally broadcast!

I've also seen a few episodes of New Street Law which features Lara Cazalet (Zandra)....it's a quirky lawyer show.

"Good girls go to heaven; bad girls go everywhere...."
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Lisa289
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Jul 8 2006, 10:00 AM
I've also seen a few episodes of New Street Law which features Lara Cazalet (Zandra)....it's a quirky lawyer show.

I watched that when it was on TV here in the UK. I loved it, thought it was a great show.
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I'm Not Just Perfect - I'm Welsh
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campgrrls
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David Tennant is a really good actor. I thought he was pretty good in Blackpool (a TV musical drama) - great prog! and it had the wonderful Sarah Parrish in it.

We've had at least the first series of Hustle here, maybe the second one 2 - sometimes they run short series as one. I enjoyed it. We haven't had New Street Law so far, but will keep a watch out for it. I thought Lara did a great job with Zandra. Also NSL looks like it has several women characters.

So many UK, US, NZ and Oz drama series are male dominated these days with just a token assertive female amongst the guys. Women seem to come to the fore in soaps, but crime and adventure/sci fi series are much more male dominated. BG straddles conventional masculine and feminine genres enabling it to have asssertive women characters, with many kinds of relationships between women. It aso has a range of different kinds of women characters not just the young and impossibly pretty.

I watched the openers for the latest series of New Tricks & Murder in Suburbia to show in NZ on Friday night. They are both described as "also-rans" amongst TV progs, tho they showed in Prime Time. Neither are great progs but they are both watchable and provide a vehicle for women characters that are rare in more successful series.

New Tricks is unusual for being a crime show featuring older characters, with Amanda Redman being an older sexy woman - rather unusual as the lead in a drama series, tho that is more common in UK shows.

Murder in Subutrbia is not terribly realistic as a crime show, but the repartee between the 2 lead women characters is fun & very entertaining. They are kind of like a couple of young women dealing with being young single career women and spend a lot of time making jokes about male-femake relationships and the pros and cons of being young single women. They play off each other well. I think I'm going to enjoy the series.
Carolyn
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Lisa289
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campgrrls
Jul 8 2006, 06:43 PM
We haven't had New Street Law so far, but will keep a watch out for it. I thought Lara did a great job with Zandra. Also NSL looks like it has several women characters.

I also think she did a great job with Zandra.

There aren't as many strong females characters in NSL though, mainly male. In my opinion there are only 2 lead actresses on NSL, and 3 or 4 lead male actors.
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campgrrls
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Well very timely.... Hustle series 3 ep one starts showing on NZ TV One next week. And it's in a timeslot of 1 hr 05 minutes (referring to the discussion on the N & H section about eps getting cut in the US to fit into an hour slot).

I like Hustle but not as much as I like Spooks. These 2 progs seem to me to be made with a US audience in mind. They both have a mixture of qualities that I associate with US & UK TV drama. They are more slick and glossy than most UK dramas. In that way they are more like US TV progs with lots of impossibly beautiful young people. They still have some of the UK drama tendency to have a little more of the texture of everyday life, and quirky charcters than many primetime US TV fantasies. But the 2 progs are firmly in fantasy territory, which is something US TV excels at.

UK TV fantasies try to keep some elements of social realism so that they look less like fantasies (eg Bad Girls) even though, in fact, something like BG is not really as realistic as it pretends to be.

Hustle tho is clever and entertaining. I quite like the main female character in it, but not as much as I like the female characters in Spooks. Both progs, unfortunately, tend to be quite male dominated.
Carolyn
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campgrrls
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I just caught up with Friday's ep of Murder in Suburbia. I do like these two women detectives. They have a great relationship. Also there was a BG tie up to this ep - BG screw, "Mark Waddle" I think, made a guest appearance. Also the 2 women detective's boss is one of the lead actors from Bombshell.

Also on the tape is an ep of The Last Detective, which I haven't watched. But it has Tony Slattery as one of the actors for this ep - he was the detective in the BG series 7 ep ... the second to last ep of the series?
Carolyn
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campgrrls
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During Waterloo Road tonight there was a trailer for a prog called "The Ghost Squad" which is coming to NZ television soon. It seems to have women detectives as the main characters. Is it any good?
Carolyn
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campgrrls
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I saw the first ep of series 3 of Hustle last night. It was well done, slick and entertaining as usual. However, I think this show is just entertaining and doesn't have the depth and complexity of the best of Brit TV progs.

One or two minor spoilers for this ep.





It's quite formulaic in a way. You know the Hustle team is going to win. You know there will be a compication that will catch them off-guard. The only thing we don't fully know is how they pull it off. There is some good characterisation of Danny and Ash ithat keeps me interested. Mickie Bricks is too perfect to be very interesting. Stacie has her moments. I liked how she dead panned being lesbian to put off the guy who gave them access to the studio. It was a way of rejecting him without getting his back up.

However, even tho I tend to get sucked into wanting the team to win, I think it would make for much more interesting TV and character development if they suffered a major loss.
Carolyn
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silverballnz
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Hi from the land of the Kiwi.
Hi Ya,
I saw Hustle last night also.
I quite like it, sometimes its good to watch something that just entertains you without having to concentrate to much.Agree that you always know that they are going to win and get away with the dosh.
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campgrrls
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Yes, I don't mind Hustle as a bit of entertainment. Just saw the first ep of Ghost Squad. Now that is RADICAL!!!!! I thought it was excellent. I ca't believe they only made 7 eps then stopped making it. Or maybe I can. It doesn't make the police look too good.
Carolyn
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silverballnz
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Hi from the land of the Kiwi.
Hiya campgrrls,
I watched Ghost Squad also and really enjoyed it.Excellent TV.
Agree that it makes the Police look bad and corrupt.
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campgrrls
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I think Ghost Squad is in Between the Lines territory, but with less focus on the media and more women as main characters. I know Between the Lines ran into trouble with the police after the first series was shown on TV. They got some complaints from the police which resulted in the prog toning down the critiques of the police in the later series. So this could be why Ghost Squad got the axe.... or because it's fairly woman centred. It seems to me there are a few Brit progs around that are women centred, but they don't have very high status.
Carolyn
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campgrrls
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2nd ep of Ghost Squad.......

Gee I love this show. Just to repeat... I cannot believe they haven't signed up for a 2nd series of this show. Ep 1 showed how cops can get drawn into corruption due to the culture they work within. Ep 2 showed how cops can get drawn into doing criminal things in order to protect themselves when working under cover amongst dangerous people. Really it's about how the people get drawn into courrpt and criminal cultures: the system corrupts - how does anyone stick with their morals in such situations

Elaine Cassidy is really good as the lead character. I think maybe it's a bit unrealistic that she's such a fresh-faced young person working in such dangerous situations. OTOH it suits the story that she looks like an innocent finding her way amongst all the corruption and dangerous stuff. And presumably older b/f is the m\nark in the force?????
Carolyn
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