Bits and pieces, news, views, reviews and stuff
The first time I went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.
The Potions Classroom, though a magnificent piece of film set design and full of amazing props, didn’t have a festive theme….
If you are watching The Trial of Christine Keeler you may recognise some scenes which were shot on Broad Street in Bristol. This is a screen grab of tonight’s broadcast.
You can see three old cars and this is the view down towards the Church of St John the Baptist on Christmas Street.
Here is another screen grab of Broad Street at night.
As it happens back in January 2019 I was walking around the area on my lunch break so I took a few photographs of the filming.
I was impressed with the number of 1960s cars they had used to dress the street.
We were on a break…..
This is my 2019 Televisual Advent Calendar. I did a musical version in 2011 and a cinematic one in 2012. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the TV series that I am blogging about. These TV series have either made me think, I have enjoyed or have had some impact on me. These are scripted TV series, some are drama, some are comedy, some are both. I found it really hard to narrow this down to just 24.
The last in this series is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary that year, and that series is Friends. Though I have posted in no particular order I was tempted to have 24 as my 24th entry, however I realised that I only ever made it through the first season of 24 and then stopped watching it. So this entry is not about 24, but about Friends.
Friends was a comedy series which started in 1994 and went on for ten seasons.
I am the same age as the Friends characters, and I certainly empathised with their challenges and issues, though I never lived in New York. I was never a Joey, but could certainly identify with Chandler.
Another reason I guess I like this series, as with Fraiser, is that there is a fair amount of time where the action takes place in a coffee shop, this was in a time before coffee shops became the staple of the UK high street. I think there was an yearning to have a local coffee shop like Central Perk, even if you didn’t want Gunther to be the manager! I remember when they opened a version of Central Perk in London, going out of my way to have a look (and hopefully a coffee) alas, the queue was horrendous so I never even got into the place to have a coffee and sit on *that* couch.
I think after Friends finished, I stopped watching as many American comedies that I had before. It was like they were all trying to be Friends, but were nothing like it. I think that’s the reason I didn’t even look at or attempt The Big Bang Theory, as it felt like a nerdy version of Friends, and I didn’t see how it could even come close. Of course The Big Bang Theory is nothing like Friends, and was never trying to be Friends, and I think the passage of time helped too. So when I came around to watching The Big Bang Theory, my affinity for Friends had passed.
I have been amused by my eldest son (and his friends) discovering Friends for the first time, now the whole series is on Netflix. They really seem to enjoy it and seeing all the Friends merchandise in shops such as Primark, shows how popular it is.
So there we have it, that’s my televisual advent calendar for this year. It was hard to narrow down the list to just twenty four, but I am pleased with those I have chosen. I could certainly have done another twenty four…. hmmm maybe next year!
Get Friends on Blu-Ray.
Get Friends on DVD.
Get Friends on Amazon Video.
Get Friends on iTunes.
As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
This is my 2019 Televisual Advent Calendar. I did a musical version in 2011 and a cinematic one in 2012. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the TV series that I am blogging about. These TV series have either made me think, I have enjoyed or have had some impact on me. These are scripted TV series, some are drama, some are comedy, some are both. I found it really hard to narrow this down to just 24.
I never saw the first season of Blackadder until much later, so really only started watching from the second season. This was a wonderful piece of comedy writing and excellent acting from Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson.
The second season was set in the Elizabethan era and Miranda Richardson played the part of the Queen superbly. I loved the machinations of Blackadder only too often to be foiled at the last moment.
The third season saw Blackadder as butler to the Prince Regent. Hugh Laurie was wonderful as the bumbling mad prince, though this time more often than not the machinations of Blackadder ended in disaster.
The fourth season saw our “hero” as Captain Blackadder in the horror of the trenches of the Great War. Could a comedy set in that period work, I think it did. The escapades of our heroes as they try to avoid going “over the top” often worked, but not in the way they thought it would. I really enjoyed seeing the bumbling general staff looking at war as a game of cricket, Stephen Fry was particularly good at the, in some ways, horrifying, General Melchett.
That poignant final episode of season four, one of the most moving pieces of television ever, nothing more to be said.
Get Blackadder on DVD.
Get Blackadder on Amazon Video.
Get Blackadder on iTunes.
The truth is out there!
This is my 2019 Televisual Advent Calendar. I did a musical version in 2011 and a cinematic one in 2012. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the TV series that I am blogging about. These TV series have either made me think, I have enjoyed or have had some impact on me. These are scripted TV series, some are drama, some are comedy, some are both. I found it really hard to narrow this down to just 24.
I was recommended to watch the X-Files and I was so glad I gave it a go, as this was a magnificent series, well for the first seven seasons anyhow, as then I stopped watching it. I have started to re-watch the series again and I am looking forward to seeing the seasons I missed as well as the new season which was broadcast in 2018.
This is one of the few series in this advent calendar in which I have not seen all the episodes. The same can be said for The West Wing, which I am also not a completist. I think it was only with services such as iTunes, Netflix and Amazon Prime that has made it, not only possible, but also much easier to see all the episodes of a television.
I am not usually a fan of horror, and there are some downright scary and horrific episodes in the X-Files, however the alien conspiracy arc kept me watching. I loved the interplay between Mulder and Scully.
I was a bit like Scully and slightly sceptical about some of the plots, but I think that was the point. She rarely saw the paranormal, the alien or the weird. So was what we saw, and what Mulder believing he saw, real, or just in our and his imaginations? Could we explain the unexplainable?
From a production perspective, I liked the look and feel of the X-Files. The way in which it was filmed, the look of the final broadcast, the costumes, the cars, the buildings, it was all so cleverly developed to create the atmosphere of the series.
Get X-Files on Blu-Ray.
Get X-Files on DVD.
Get X-Files on Amazon Video.
Get X-Files on iTunes.
Okay, okay I know I shouldn’t like this as much as I think I will….
However it is taking me back to when I was 17 when the first one came out…
Which I think I might need to watch again, haven’t seen it for years.
Oh boy…
This is my 2019 Televisual Advent Calendar. I did a musical version in 2011 and a cinematic one in 2012. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the TV series that I am blogging about. These TV series have either made me think, I have enjoyed or have had some impact on me. These are scripted TV series, some are drama, some are comedy, some are both. I found it really hard to narrow this down to just 24.
I really liked Quantum Leap, yes some of the stories were downright silly, but most were really good and it was enjoyable television.
Sam Beckett finds himself trapped in time due to an experiment gone awry, leaping into the body of a different person each week. Al Calavicci, at first known only as The Observer, is Sam’s holographic adviser — he provides Sam with some details about his new identity and gives him guidance on how to help the people affected by his presence. But with little memory to help guide him, our hero is forced to bluff his way through many a wacky situation.
The science behind the series left a lot to be desired, but if you could suspend your disbelief for a while then there were some really good stories in the series. The premise was very much about changing the past, putting right, things that were wrong.
Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home…”
There was a limitation that Sam could only travel back in his own lifetime, which I think limited the stories, though there were a few exceptions when he did travel back further. Having said that the series did try and address the challenges society was facing in his lifetime, from inequality, racism as well as political upheaval.
I remember when they released the series on VHS, I was so pleased and then really disappointed that the release wasn’t the whole thing, but just some selected episodes. Obviously the distributors didn’t think it would sell, so only released a “best of” release. In today’s era of story arcs, you couldn’t get away with that.
Get Quantum Leap on Blu-Ray.
Get Quantum Leap on DVD.
Get Quantum Leap on Amazon Video.
Get Quantum Leap on iTunes.
You should be more like him, Him I could believe, you know, with the crazy hat and that flashy umbrella, what else could he be but an agent? You should all be like that, makes my job easier.
This is my 2019 Televisual Advent Calendar. I did a musical version in 2011 and a cinematic one in 2012. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the TV series that I am blogging about. These TV series have either made me think, I have enjoyed or have had some impact on me. These are scripted TV series, some are drama, some are comedy, some are both. I found it really hard to narrow this down to just 24.
I was not around when the original Avengers was broadcast, but I do remember watching the New Avengers. It was broadcast originally in 1976 and 1977, so I wasn’t that old. It was a sequel to the original 1960s series, something which I have seen, but not a great fan of to be honest. It’s fun, but I can take it or leave it.
In The New Avengers there were three stars, Patrick MacNee returning as John Steed from the previous series, Joanna Lumley as Purdey and Gareth Hunt as Mike Gambit. Did Purdey have have a surname?
You never really know who the New Avengers were, were they British Intelligence? A special police unit? Regardless, each week they would be undertaking some dangerous mission or stopping some fiendish plan from taking place.
Unlike some older series I have in the calendar I do remember some of the stories, the first episode the Eagle’s Nest, where a scientist with the ability to resuscitate frozen bodies is kidnapped by Nazis hoping to revive Hitler’s frozen corpse, was one I remember well. As was
Target where vacationing agents die after attending a training centre, they got hit by the “fake” weapons and had. a red dot on them. The series was about what happens after Purdey attends the training centre.
Another aspect of the series I remember was the Corgi models, and they probably reinforced the memory of the series, though I never actually had any of the toys, I did see them in the Corgi catalogues of the era. Purdey had a yellow Triumph TR7, Steed had a Range Rover and Gambit a Jaguar XJS. Though today this does appear to be reinforcing both class and gender stereotypes, which was probably something prevalent in the series as well.
That’s the thing these days with being nostalgic about old television series, often those series reinforced the inequalities of their day, with stereotypical portrayal of gender, class and ethnicity. You can sometimes feel guilty about enjoying an old TV series, this was something that Friends has had to deal with when it became popular again after being available on Netflix. I do think though that the fact we now recognise that these series got it wrong, is a good thing. Imagine if we though it was all okay!
On my way to do a pick up from the Vue Cinema, I took a photograph of the festive Cabot Circus.
Searching Flickr I found this similar images from December 2012.
Its interesting to see the differences. Cafe Rouge has gone and has been replaced by Five Guys. I noticed recently that Giraffe had closed and the unit was now a Slim Chickens. On the ground floor was was SoHo (which has moved around the corner) is now a Tortilla and a Typo. In 2012 Patisserie Valerie was still open, today it’s closed and boarded up.
You bally well are informed, Jeeves! Do you know everything?
This is my 2019 Televisual Advent Calendar. I did a musical version in 2011 and a cinematic one in 2012. It is in no particular order and I make no apologies for the TV series that I am blogging about. These TV series have either made me think, I have enjoyed or have had some impact on me. These are scripted TV series, some are drama, some are comedy, some are both. I found it really hard to narrow this down to just 24.
This was one of the first series I watched having purchased it from iTunes having missed it when it was broadcast on ITV. One of the nice features of purchasing it from iTunes was no adverts. I think having being really spoilt with boxed sets, iTunes, and today Netflix and Amazon Prime, when I watch live commercial TV I feel the advertising is really intrusive. I do realise that advertising is essential for commercial TV, as it pays for the programming, so I really shouldn’t be precious and complain, but…
I really enjoyed A Bit of Fry and Laurie when it was broadcast on the BBC, a classic comedy series with some really sketches. I have since then been a real fan of Stephen Fry and what he has done. Hugh Laurie, probably less so. It was first broadcast from April 1990, when I was still at university, so didn’t watch it “live”. I actually watched very little TV at university, mainly as I only had a small portable black and white television (remember those) and generally didn’t have the time to sit down and watch a TV series on a regular basis.
Jeeves and Wooster was one of the first things I bought from iTunes when it was launched. We watched Jeeves and Wooster on a regular basis, trying not to binge watch the series in one go… restricting ourselves to a single episode only.
It was a marvellous period piece, beautifully acted and very funny. The interaction between the bumbling Wooster and the rather suave (and clever) Jeeves combined with excellent stories (from the pen of P G Wodehouse) made for an engaging and delightful television series.
I stopped buying iTunes videos, well we moved house and I lost my fibre broadband. You couldn’t really use iTunes films and TV programmes on a slow 1Mb/s ADSL connection. Even when I got a 4G contract, because it wasn’t wifi, iTunes wouldn’t let you download or stream content. In the end I moved over to Amazon Video and Netflix, because they would work over 3G and 4G. Now I have fibre again, I have started to buy videos again from iTunes, mainly when they are on special offer. As I like to stream stuff over 4G when I am on the move or staying away, I have started more to purchase films and TV shows from Amazon. Trouble is I now have a film library in iTunes, one in Amazon and due to the demise of Flixster I also have a film library on Google Play. This along with the physical film library (DVD and Blu-Ray) means it can be challenging to remember what I have already, but also where it is. As a result I have duplicated purchases more than once.
One of the challenges with digital purchases are when titles are withdrawn, are you still able to access your films and TV programmes. As it happens at the time of writing Jeeves and Wooster is no longer available on iTunes to purchase, nor is it available on Amazon Video or Google Play. It’s not on the new Britbox service either. I have checked my iTunes library and it is still there and I am able to download it, so I haven’t lost it.
So if you want to watch Jeeves and Wooster you’re going to need to buy the DVDs…
It’s the bally ballyness of it all that makes it all seem so bally bally.
Get Jeeves and Wooster on DVD.
At the time of writing Jeeves and Wooster is not available to buy on Amazon Video.
At the time of writing Jeeves and Wooster is no longer available on iTunes.