UKH

Currently watching The Terror on I Player...I expected an imagined dramatisation but it became obvious this was something else and had only a passing attempt to link to likely outcomes of the lost expedition trying to find the North-West passage. It is a fairly major production but I feel really uncomfortable about tragic historic events being used as a frame for such overblown melodrama, especially on a fantasy horror theme. I guess most of the blame goes to the author of the book on which this is based but I won't be reading that in a hurry. Let's hope things improve in TV viewing in the next few months.

I've been watching this too. It seems like a real opportunity squandered. I thought the first few episodes were brilliant with a real sense of foreboding and menace, but it is then badly spoilt by the supernatural nonsense - wouldn't getting stalked by a normal real polar bear have been gripping enough? It could have been a perfect chance to fill in the gaps between the known facts of the expedition with plausible speculation to produce a fantastic series.

I watched Your Honour and have to say it was fairly compelling stuff, I thought, excellent bit of tangled web narrative.

Currently involved in Dealer which I mentioned in the film thread.

The Great is undoubtedly the greatest thing on TV for ages.

Looked good but missed the start by two weeks so the first episode was no longer available so need to wait until it's free again.

I missed the first episode but managed to see it by getting a free trial somewhere!

Agree with you on Terror. Barrows Boys by Bella.Bathurst is a great read and an In depth look at the events that probably took place during the expedition as well as the findings of subsequent followers.

Your Honor (sic) sucks you in right from word go. If you can get Cranston's Breaking Bad alter ego out of your head you're onto a winner.

Having read both Palin's Erebus & Fergus Flemming's Barrow's Boys I did wonder what was going on for a minute then realised that this was no documentary drama in the accepted sense. Well produced and acted but the story turned me off. I wonder how many watching this realised that they actually were all suffering and dying from lead poisioning from the lead seals on their canned food. This was discovered recently when autopsies were performed on three exhumed bodies found on Beechey Island. However other theories abound whenever someone goes misssing but the BBC ha produced s a turkey here!

I surprised myself by watching the first three hours of Cloudstreet last night, especially after the muddled and mumbling opening 20 minutes. 

Enjoying it but my breath is taken away by the lavishness in cast and costume of "Elizabeth R" currently on BBC4.  I missed it 50 years ago and I see now why it is a byword for BBC Drama.

I have been watching it. Riveting and amazing in it simplicity - quite unlike today's TV.

I have not seen Elizabeth R but.....Aren’t there lots of “today’s TV” programmes built very much around being amazing in their simplicity?

I actually agree with Robert... it's more like a TV play, except for the second episode where they had too many clips of people riding back and forth on horses.. The writing is impressive (again for those hard of hearng rather butchered by the subtitles). Highly recommended.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p033w6j5/elizabeth-r

Almost entirely dependent on the dialogue.

Huzzah!

Huzzah indeed!

OK, thanks. I am not very up to date with modern television, so I have no argument with that. I do see modern films still almost entirely dependent on the dialogue (depending upon one's subjective definitions of "almost", "entirely", and "dependent" )

I can't remember if you are a fan or not but Line of Duty returns tomorrow.

For my money it's one of the most compelling dramas the BBC had produced over the past few years. 

Series 6 so it's a bit late for any newcomers to catch up, may as well just jump in the deep end.

I often wonder if Jed Mercurio  himself knows yet if Ted is a wrong 'un or not.

Oh yes... auto records like all series linked as favourites but thanks for the heads up.

No problem, fella.... 

I watched "Land of Mine" on Saturday, a joint German Danish production about teenage Germans being forced to clear mines on the Danish coast in 1945.  I felt as if I'd watched a film about horrific child abuse - I'm still quite troubled by it.

I've recorded it and will report back when I watch it.

In reply wercat

Watched this afternoon... very moving despite being harrowing at times. Well worth watching on iPlayer before permissions run out. I get your point but the reality was many German POWs were very young at the end of the war. The UK military were part of the deal that was agreed for this to happen. It needed to be grim given about half of the 2000+  working on clearing the mines were killed or injured. The food shortages were also real... thousands of refugees died in camps

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000th6y/land-of-mine

Yes I knew times were very hard then.  The heartbreaking thing I found was that these youngsters had probably felt relief at thinking they'd survived the war before ending up being pressed into mine clearing.   It is a very brutal film - I think it has had an equally sombre effect as when I went to see the Polish film Katyn - that stayed with me, as did Stalingrad and Das Boot.

In a way I'm not sure you could have a better way of showing the utter futility of war - the hatred and death in the aftermath.