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Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

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Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#51

Post by m_stone_code »

fiftyacorn wrote: post #46
salimmadjd wrote: post #2

I love Smiley's People as well as the BBC version of the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It's one of the smartest spy genre movies ever. I'd definitely think about watching this. But, maybe: "This makes me want to quit watching. I’m not sure I have the stomach to know a storyline and its characters are going to be abandoned. That’s one of the two main problems with TV as a medium: that it might end too soon or that it…

Did smileys people have alan rickman and patrick stewart in?

It had Patrick Stewart

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#53

Post by zeristor »

Slartibartfast.

Just a heads up that Richard Vernon plays Slartibartfast in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

I hope one day to have a machine that can speak with the voice of Richard Vernon (as Slartibartfast "My name is unimportant."), or of course Peter Jones who was the voice of The Book in HHGTTG.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jones_(actor)

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#54

Post by zeristor »

triplesec wrote: post #43
cerealbad wrote: post #16

The Prisoner (1967-1968) is mesmerising. Le Voyage dans la lune - Georges Méliès 1902 (link provided) holds up after 115 years. Don't be so surprised! Timeless storytelling and design transcends it's delivery medium. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk To the people questioning whether good television is still being made, yes of course it is, it might just take you a few years to find it. True Detective, Farg…

Is there a place here for Blake's Seven, (esp the early episodes) and of course Tom Baker's Dr Who incarnation? Incidentally, for those who didn't know, Douglas Adams wrote some classic episodes and was script editor (head writer) on Dr Who for at least a season or so. And I think Dad's Army remains a classic, about the Home Guard in WWII, with some of the finest comic actors. There's even a case to be made for The S…

I did want to bank this thread skywards, but of course there's "Star Cops".

Is there any other hard science fiction series set in space?

The sets are a tad shoddy, but they are good enough; a shame about the last episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWWFwLWJZEc&list=PL5nu0EE47Y...

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#55

Post by Retric »

mason55 wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game of Thrones for example is somewhat popular, but IMO that's mostly because of how bad the average TV show is not how great it is. It's closest 70's show would probably be Dallas which had 350 million people worldwide watch an episode. That's a well done hook even if they could not show nudes etc. As to offending people, M A S*H had men in drag show up regularly which really would offend people. Yet, apparently 60…

> * It's closest 70's show would probably be Dallas which had 350 million people worldwide watch an episode. That's a well done hook even if they could not show nudes etc.* You can't compare numbers directly like that. Cable was not invented yet (or at least wasn't common) so there was a choice of about 4 channels.

On the flip side the US population was only 2/3 as large and no DVR's etc.

Anyway, my point was not to compare numbers which is why I did not show GoT numbers. My point was simply a ridiculous number of people thought it was worth watching.

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#56

Post by rwmj »

flukus wrote: post #4
Jun8 wrote: post #3

I had never heard of this show, but speaking about wacky British 70s series that still hold up, I think The Avengers should be up there, for similar reasons: great acting, out of this world plots, mixed with a quaint British attitude. The Emma Peel era was the best, you can check out all the episodes here: http://theavengers.tv/forever/peel.htm . Almost all episodes are gold, but my favorites are The Cybernauts and H…

Thanks for the link, I've tried searching for torrents of the show before but only ever found those other avengers.

Not sure about streaming, but I'm working my way through the reissued Blu-Rays of Avengers Series 5 & 6, and they are superb restorations. (Series 6 with Linda Thorson, not Diana Rigg, is a bit underrated, but IMO the storylines are better)

It's interesting that you get a better experience than the original transmissions. It was all recorded on 35 mm film and broadcast in PAL on the very new, small and highly unreliable TV sets of 1967. The restored versions redigitised from film look incredible.

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#58

Post by open-source-ux »

ghaff wrote: post #44
owebmaster wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the golden age is already in the past (the Lost trend, 2004-2010, which finished terrible but in the mean time other great shows with world-wide audience were released) and today is already the after-party that nobody wanted to miss, mostly for the late adopters (which is the majority, anyway). But a lot of people are becoming "series"-averse. I myself included.

Complex series with ongoing storylines can be great but they also get a bit exhausting after a while. There is a definite limit to how many Game of Thrones or Lost plotlines and character backstories one can keep in one's head when you just want to sit down and watch some TV. It's fine that there are TV shows that are basically crafted for uber-fans who want to carefully watch every episode multiple times but these s…

I disliked Lost and always felt it had a fake (and dishonest) complexity. So many details were introduced, but later forgotten and never resolved.

From the very first episodes, the way they started slowly cycling through each character's backstory, I realised this was going to be a really long drawn-out series that was clearly going to be stretched (and milked) to maximum running length. I'll credit it for it's glossy production look and design. That's one thing that really separates productions today from old: many TV series have the same glossy, high-end look of Hollywood films.

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#59

Post by rhino369 »

owebmaster wrote: post #37
olavk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well 90% of everything is crap (or is it 95% ?) We just disagree about what 10% is non-crap. Due to the financial structure of TV production, you can be sure the majority of what is produced is considered worth watching by somebody . In any case, we are in a golden age of TV production with more high quality (writing, action, production) TV shows produced than ever. Enjoy it while it last, so you can complain when it…

I think the golden age is already in the past (the Lost trend, 2004-2010, which finished terrible but in the mean time other great shows with world-wide audience were released) and today is already the after-party that nobody wanted to miss, mostly for the late adopters (which is the majority, anyway). But a lot of people are becoming "series"-averse. I myself included.

I think you can argue that the golden age died with breaking bad and mad men ending. But we are still in a silver age. There has never been more good TV. But we lack truly great consensus shows.

Probably because the talent pool is diluted. There are probably 10X as many serious cable/streaming dramas now than there were 10 years ago.

Re: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sandbagger: sometimes TV from the 70s holds up

#60

Post by criddell »

pmiller2 wrote: post #25

Plenty of shows from the 1970s still hold up today: MASH, Hogan's Heroes, Columbo, The Incredible Hulk, Battlestar Galactica, Sesame Street, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Roots, etc. It was a great decade for TV, especially if you consider shows like All In The Family (which doesn't really hold up anymore, but is basically Married With Children for the 70s), Good Times, Mork and Mindy, etc.

I still think about The Six Million Dollar Man. For the past decade I've been working out how a new season could be written for that show (and the book, Cyborg) and I think there's a ton of potential there. The story arc about a destroyed man, the struggle to rebuild and recover, and the protagonist's dealing with being a literal tool of the military.

First though, the surgery budget would need to be increased. These days, a six million dollar man is a person that's had a kidney transplant.

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