If I were asked to name my favourite TV programmes of all time, then ‘Sapphire and Steel’ would be right at the top of the list. I absolutely loved this show and my DVD box set of it is one of my most prized possessions!
David McCallum and Joanna Lumley were perfectly cast in this Sci-Fi programme and all six of their adventures were genuinely creepy. Anyone who grew up in the 1970s will remember ‘Sapphire and Steel’ with great fondness… and the chances are that it also scared the pants off of them!
If you grew up in the 1970s (like yours truly!!!), you will know just how lacking today’s televisions programmes really are. There is precious little to watch these days whereas thirty odd years ago there were all manner of cracking shows on the box!
Here are just a few of my all-time faves from the golden age of TV –
Bagpuss
Today’s kids programmes really are pants when you compare them to classics like ‘Bagpuss’! There may only have been thirteen episodes of this show in total, but every one of these was an absolute masterpiece.
Professor Yaffle, Madeleine, Gabriel and the mice (with their ‘Amazing Magical Mouse Organ’) were all thoroughly lovable and anyone who watched this programme as a child will never, ever forget about it!
As Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss continue to state their love for Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories in the modern update of the famous Baker Street sleuth, I decided to get myself in the mood by watching the old Granada series. I remember watching it when it was first on in the 1980s and 90s. My youth almost behind me, I caught up again with the Jeremy Brett version, wondering aloud if it had dated. I needn’t have worried they were excellent.
Granada’s production ran for almost 10 years and was only cut short by Brett’s death at 61. Outside of several feature length episodes, such as the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ and ‘The Sign of Four’, most of the episodes were grouped together under Conan Doyle’s short story collection. First of all there were ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ (1984-85), then ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes’ (1986-88), ‘The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes’ (1991-93) and finally The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes’ (1994). Unlike the BBC’s production, Granada made sure to set the episodes during the time Conan Doyle wrote them, when Queen Victoria was still on the throne.
Just by watching the programmes you can tell that this was a high quality production. The actors they cast, the detailed period costumes, plus the location filming, all these show that money was spent to get as close to realising the Holmes stories as humanly possible. So far I’ve mentioned only Brett but it would be mistake to think it was a one man show, two actors played Dr John Watson during the 10 years the series ran. David Burke played Holmes in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, before leaving to spend more time with his family. He was replaced by Edward Hardwicke who played the role until the series ended. Both were equally great, with Burke somewhat more humorous and Hardwicke gruffer.
The bulk of the series was shot in Manchester, and if you’re familiar with the city it’s possible to identify certain areas that feature in the background. For instance near the beginning of the Final Problem, Holmes is in Paris and heads towards the entrance of the Louvre. To my eyes it more resembled the inner courtyard of The University of Manchester. One of the most featured highlights of the series was the Baker Street backlot set that was built by Granada and was part of a studios tour until 1999.
If you haven’t already seen them then see if you can track down the series on the internet. They’re well worth your time.
I was sorting fur fabrics with a friend of mind at his store one night when we started talking about the CBS new series Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior.
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior is a cranking tale about how righteous public officers are guarding us against human monsters. I believe that CBS should be named the Ministry of Fear since they seem to be blurring our minds with “Flashpoint”, “48 Hrs. Mystery”, Hawaii Five-O”, “The Mentalist” and many more such TV series.
They talk about and solve lurid cases of passion killing, child molestation, rape, abduction, serial murder, sexual enslavement, drug dealing, organ theft etc. This portrayal makes one feel like today’s America is a kind of hell-on-earth with bloodthirsty highwaymen stalking every road, with streets smeared with bleeding cadavers and vultures feasting on corpses.
Although even Fox, ABC and NBC also run crime shows, they do not build a prime time schedule around stories of crime denied and justice. These CBS programs have something singularly American and icky about them. The crime oriented shows on ABC, FOX and NBC too have a flashy edge about them, but they are much more subtle. Moreover, they do not bank on their pretensions to make a point.
Suspect Behaviour is yet another CBS show that centres around the outrageous theme it depicts. The show highlights how the fact that there are crazy and complicated people out there who commit some of the weirdest crime ever known to man. It is similar in some ways to its sister show Criminal Minds.
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Fly on the wall reality TV stars have been clogging up the news for a while now, the botox infused stars from The Only Way Is Essex now have to compete for column inches from the cast of Newcastle’s Geordie Shore and Liverpool’s Desperate Scousewives. Now the main movers and shakers in The Only Way Is Essex are relatively well known by now, The two Laurens, Lucy Meck and the now departed Amy Childs are gossip page regulars. Therefore I thought I would share with you some facts about two of the leading ladies from Geordie Shore and Desperate Scousewives so you can get to know these ladies a little bit better.
As I browse the television time and time again, hoping to find something good on TV, sometimes I wonder what happened to all the old shows? I tend to think that most of the greatest TV shows and movies were those from many years ago. This is true because this is the time when TV was just invented and ideas were spurring, so these television shows were the first of their kind!
It doesn’t matter which news station you’re watching, there’s generally a simple rule: the men are allowed to be older and the women are generally younger. It may be just me, but it seems as though the second you start noticing wrinkles on someone’s face, they’re hauled off air faster than you can say “where’s the weather forecast gone?!”
And here’s the really weird thing – nobody is trying to cover this up. In many parts of the televisual spectrum, we’re used to rumours abound and all kinds of controversy which is never openly aired. Yet several female newsreaders have been pulled from the UK screens in the last years, and although we all know it’s happening, nothing is happening about it!
Only one major magic show exists on TV…and that is the one hosted by Penn and teller…
Where would our TV talent shows be without the bad guy on the judging panel? I think that question has been quite resoundingly answered in recent weeks as BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing has been whipping ITV’s X-Factor in the Saturday night ratings war. Simon Cowell was always going to be a tough act to follow, and Gary Barlow is just too nice. He’s great on TV, very supportive and actually quite funny, but still too nice. Take away Simon Cowell and you’re left with Louis Walsh as the evil one – and that’s like getting a bollocking from a leprechaun for stealing his gold and silver rings. Not very scary at all!
For the entertainment buffs, we all know that it is no longer news that Beyonce is pregnant. This story however came as a surprise to many because the couple were very careful at hiding their piece of joy. The expectant mother over the past few weeks has hinted at the possibility of being a mum, but she was quite smart in the way she went about it. Beyoncé was so smart about hiding her pregnancy that she did not make fans expect any baby bump soon. This is why the news of a younger ‘Bey'or ‘Jigga'took the entertainment world by storm. There was no better place to announce the former Destiny Child singer’s bundle of joy than at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Appearing as colourful as a Doug Hyde piece of art in a beautiful orange gown, Beyoncé told onlookers while on the red carpet that she has a surprise for everyone. That was the moment she revealed the tiny bump in her tummy to the world. This announcement not only became one of the main topics of the event, it also sparked into global entertainment news. It became a major topic on social media networks like Facebook and twitter. Her husband, Jay Z was also seen wearing an elated look while the world went frenzy about the news of a child fans have been waiting for. The pregnancy did not however stop Beyoncé from giving a world class performance during her performance at the awards. She was even treated to a standing ovation when she rubbed her tummy after performing.
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“If you read a lot of books you are considered well read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you’re not considered well viewed.”