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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

#61

Post by thenomad »

bazzargh wrote: post #30
thenomad wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it does feel like the current crop of TV is somewhat weaker than it has been for a while. (I'd argue that Top Of The Lake, which is 4 years old now, doesn't fit in "current crop".) That might just be a taste thing on my part, or it might be a response to the tremendous commercial pressures that were forcing execs to look anywhere, everywhere for a story a couple of years ago.

There's a second series of Top of The Lake, it finished airing in the UK last week, it's definitely current. Apparently coming to the states next month.

Oh, didn't know that. Cool. Added to my to-watch list :)

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

#62

Post by _b8r0 »

coldtea wrote: post #26
jimjimjim wrote: post #9

Maybe it's just that people only remember the good tv shows/films/music/things from those years and ignore the boring chaff. Maybe there are just as many good tv shows these days. but in my opinion the vast majority of current tv shows/films/music/webcontent is utter undiluted mind numbing banal drivel and there isn't a circle of hell worthy enough to hold those responsible.

> but in my opinion the vast majority of current tv shows/films/music/webcontent is utter undiluted mind numbing banal drivel and there isn't a circle of hell worthy enough to hold those responsible. Well, for tv shows there was been a marked and well established uptick, if not in storytelling, surely in production values (huge, expensive productions) and acting (a-rate actors from movies). That's how we got shows li…

I get where you're coming from and mostly agree, but I had to chuckle. House of Cards is a remake of an 80s show of the same name :)

It's also worth a watch if you enjoyed the remake.

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

#63

Post by falsedan »

thenomad wrote: post #61
bazzargh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a second series of Top of The Lake, it finished airing in the UK last week, it's definitely current. Apparently coming to the states next month.

Oh, didn't know that. Cool. Added to my to-watch list :)

I mentioned it 5 comments up…

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

#64

Post by o_____________o »

pmiller2 wrote: post #22
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…

I loved The Prisoner! I especially enjoyed how they would change certain details from episode to episode. It's like gaslighting the audience: highly appropriate, given the subject matter.

Can you give some examples?

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

#65

Post by ashark »

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.

What?

Atlanta, Fargo, You're the Worst, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Kimmy Schmidt, Hannibal, Review, Twin Peaks (The Return), Stranger Things, The Good Place, Santa Clarita.... and probably three dozen other ongoing or started-after-2010-but-now-finished shows I'm forgetting right now that are excellent, by the standards of all TV before 2010. Many others are top-5%-of-TV-series-ever material but kinda skippable now because there's just so damn much excellent TV. I've dropped ongoing shows that are merely very very good because I can do that and still have more TV left than I can watch.

Right now is the best TV's been. It's frustratingly good, almost, because I know there are lots of good things I'm not watching simply because there's no time (I do other stuff too, ya know?).

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

#66

Post by simonh »

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…

Blakes Seven had great characters and a fantastic concept. I binge-watched the whole run about 5 years ago. It had great moments in the first couple of series, but like a lot of TV back then the pacing was painfully slow at times. That's one of the big advances in the last decade or so, the best TV now is paced almost like a movie.

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

#67

Post by WorldMaker »

criddell wrote: post #60
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…

There was a Bionic Woman reboot in the oughts that failed to do justice to the concept, so it will probably be another decade before we see it tried again.

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

#68

Post by JdeBP »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #5

It amazes me that someone could see Darkplace and think it was set in anything other than the 80s... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OO-ZGP68-3w

... especially as they prefixed it with a station ident for a channel that did not exist in the 1970s.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_CIEYUF9Rg

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

#69

Post by criddell »

WorldMaker wrote: post #67
criddell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There was a Bionic Woman reboot in the oughts that failed to do justice to the concept, so it will probably be another decade before we see it tried again.

I've been watching for news and there have been a bunch of projects started but none have gone the distance. Mark Wahlberg is supposed to play Steve Austin, but the project has been delayed a bunch of times (it was supposed to come out this year and has been pushed into next year).

Before that, there was going to be a comedy version (like the Starsky and Hutch reboot a few years ago). I'm so glad that never made it.

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

#70

Post by sbmassey »

DanBC wrote: post #57

I'd really like to see a Sapphire and Steel reboot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDGmv6zRM84

Some of Sapphire and Steel was amazingly terrifying, given how low budget it was. But I suspect modern film makers would not be able to avoid ruining the ambiguous feeling of the series by trying to depict what is going on in the larger scale.
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