Tag: British Television

News Roundup

Queen of the United Kingdom: A unique story out of England as Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest reigning monarch in history surpassing Victoria 63 years and 216 days reign. It’s a pretty unique event although I doubt that much will really be made of it since that would be considered gauche

Netflix: It has been announced that Charlie Brooker’s dystopian sci-fi television series Black Mirror has been picked up by Netflix. They will be making original episodes. This is a huge get as Black Mirror has been on of the biggest hit by people telling other about the show. I myself have even raved about it since it is a unique show about the future of technology and the world that might be created by it.

Bernie Sanders: There a big article about how Sanders is surging and leading Hilary Clinton even though he is expressing some socialist ideas. Although as the article points out that Sanders is more like a Social Democrat or even a New Deal Democrat.  But the bigger thing about the article is how socialist ideas have become things that young Americans are craving, Free college tuition. Doubling the minimum wage. A single-payer, universal health care system. Sanders advocates the Nordic model where basic needs are provided for so everyone can get on the same level. This would be a wonderful place to live if the United States tried this sure taxes would be higher, but there could be a high percentage on the rich. This would be a great way to build the middle class and all that jazz.

QI

Over here in America we have just gotten a network to pick QI (Quite Interesting) the comedy quiz show from BBC. It’s a brilliant show as it is informative and funny at the same time. It seems like this would be something that networks would be pushing to bring to America and do their own version. However according to wikipedia this hasn’t happened since the show is very expensive to air since there are lots of copy-written images used on the show. John Hodgman is one of the more vocal of US comedians who want the show in America. BBC America has picked up the show and started broadcasting it. It has also been available on Hulu. It’s a fun show and would/should be a perfect fit for like PBS this would also greatly grow the audience of the show and they could air the XL episodes in full and without commercials which I think ruin the pace of the show. It you missed it this week BBC America will be airing the show on Thursday evenings over the next 5 weeks. The  episodes are from the “J” series every episode has a theme or topic starting with the letter J. This is the same for the previous and future series as well, “L” just finished airing across the pond. If you want to learn something and be entertained at the same time check out this show.

Black Mirror and Boyhood (2014)

Over the weekend I stumbled upon, well I finally got around to watching Black Mirror. I’ve heard great things about the show some people describe it as a Twilight Zone for science fiction stories.  It is a wonderful series the episodes all bring about some interesting topics, use of social media living in the cloud, wasting money, police state, politics and memory. They touch on a bunch of topics and they are all real fresh takes. Some of the stories felt like they could happen in a matter of years especially the first episode where we have a ransom video posted on Youtube for the safe return of a popular political figure, while others seems like they could happen in a matter of years where after her husband dies a wife get involved with a program that can simulate her husband based on what he wrote of the internet and making an algorithm so the program would respond like her husband.  It is a fantastic show and as is typical with most shows across the pond it is easy to catch up on the show since there are a small number of episodes. The producers are in talks about bringing the show to the United States, but the real question that this brings up is will it be a completely different show or will they just do US versions of the episodes that have been made already. I just don’t understand why it seems that most of television these days is simply redoing shows that were popular somewhere else

I also got around to seeing Boyhood, and I really wonder what people what the big deal with the movie is. Sure filming it over a twelve year period and watching the actors age in real time is an interesting thing and that’s a cool idea instead of having a different actor playing the same character or having heavy makeup to make them look older. One of the most remarkable things was that the film flowed really well, the years went by and we saw people grow up. Sure it’s bound to win the Oscar for Best Picture but I think that is mostly going to be for the span that it took to make the movie.  Although it will be cool if a independent film won Best Picture which will hopefully say to Hollywood that we want more films with actual substance. it should also inspire young filmmakers to try and make whatever films they want to and try to get them released.

Doctor Who

Joining in celebrating the fiftieth with the March on Washington and the Kennedy Assassination is the celebration of a little show called Doctor Who. I’ve been a fan since I saw my first episode in 2007  The Shakespeare Code. I really didn’t get totally into the show until later on in 2008 after I graduated college and had time to finally start watching it. Ever since I have watched all the new series and some of the older episodes as well, thankfully there are some episodes available to watch on Netflix. I really like this past year how they re-aired a story for each Doctor along with a breakdown of their run as Doctor

Fifty years in to the run of the series it is still an entertaining show and it is looking set for perhaps another fifty years, especially with the new regeneration coming at Christmas. During the past week there has been many specials on television in the days preceding today’s global broadcast of the Doctor Who Fiftieth Anniversary special.  BBC 4 aired An Unearthly child, the first ever story aired in Doctor Who a couple of days ago. There is the TV movie An Adventure in Space and Time, about the genesis of Doctor Who and a whole bunch of other special about Doctor Who.

Included in this group are two mini episodes that act as prequels to the main event The Day of the Doctor. The two prequels set the stage for the events which are about to transpire. In the first released The Night of the Doctor we meet up with the 8th Doctor once again, this time during the Time War. In the second The Last Day we are a solider at Arcadia which is called the safest place on Gallifrey, both of these prequels seem to point that the Time War will be a central thing in this special. It sounds exciting.

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Music and Singing

I was one of the few, i expect, who was waiting for the new show on the USA network It takes a Choir, it was supposed to air last night  and lo and behold the programmers decided that they want it to have a better time slot, so they are holding it until 2014 hopefully it is only until like January or after the Olympics. Some of you might not understand my passion for a show that hasn’t aired yet.

There is a minor flaw in that statement as the show has aired numerous times on the BBC as the new show is based on The Choir a show in which Gareth Malone goes around and teaches people to sing. The series has gone through many groups, high schoolers, boys, a whole town, military wives, and office workers and turns them all into passable choirs. The whole thing about the show is that Gareth Malone is bringing singing to people who wouldn’t even thing about it.

Music is an important part of most of our lives, some listen to music to wake up, some to fall asleep, some during their commutes. For many individuals the closest we get to singing is at church or in the shower or quietly along with the radio\iPod\music service you are listen to. Now when I was in high school I was in all the musicals and I even was in the school choir for a year, but learning to sing can teach you a lot. Not only breath control, diction, and articulation but it also can  build your skills as working together as a unit in both sections (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass) and as a group. The individual section need to been all together in tune with each other and each section in turn needs to be able to blend well to work together to produce the best music.

Also Choral music covers a wide range of musical genres it isn’t just the hits of today like on Glee, but a wide variety of music in different languages as well. While in a choir you are also given song in foreign languages, and learning the language in the song is a unique part of the process so you understand what you are singing. There are some times when a top 40 hit might be sung but they are rare, usually focusing on hymns and Masses or other Classical music and standards from Broadway and some popular music from the later half of the 20th century.

I hope that whenever the show does finally makes it to air that it inspires people to go out and sing or at least go to some choral performance. Getting involved with the fine arts should be a civic duty.

 

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News Round up

Sports- The World Series has started, The Boston Red Sox face the St. Louis Cardinals. Two team that you either love or hate. I hope St. Louis win, but it doesn’t really matter to me who does.  In other sport observations, over on youtube there is a condensed version of the Redskins game from Sunday and I guess there are others as well, but the remarkable thing is that in the three and a half to four hours of a NFL game it is only 30 minutes of action and the rest is standing around.

Tech- Apple has announced a new iPad Air, it’s thinner and lighter, a new iPad mini and people are predicting that Apple will have a huge Holiday season again this year. Then again Apple products are not cheap, a Macbook costs around a grand and sure they are great products, and are safer than most PCs.

Government- Angela Merkel believes that the NSA was hacking her cell phone or something to that effect. Obama has come out and said that this is not happening. Yet, the NSA could be listening to all our conversations and keying in on key words or phrases,  so I am not sure that Obama’s defense is legitimate.  He also went and gave a 20 minute apology on the state of the healthcare website. I think that it is sort of funny how this was the big thing that he campaigned on in the last election (last year) and his people had over a year to get the website up and running .

Television– The biggest news came from PBS as they announced the airdates for both Sherlock and Downton Abbey. Downton returns January 5 and is like the past couple of series eight episodes long followed by a Christmas special. From what I’ve heard about this new season American viewers can look forward to more shocks to come. Sherlock, will return on January 19 and is three more episodes long. There is no telling if there will be anymore after this series is over with the rising stars of  Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

in quasi-television news TeamCoCo has a new long form interview Serious Jibber-Jabber with Conan O’Brien talking with Mel Brooks and it is brilliant. Conan has done a couple of these longer interviews and they are really interesting. It’s a little like Jerry Seinfeld‘s Comedians in Cars getting Coffee except without the cars and getting coffee. So Mel Brooks was on this newest  installment and that is how I discovered this thing. If you like Mel and have a spare hour go an watch this video, if you have more time afterward you can watch Mel Brooks and Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars, Carl Reiner, Mel  and Jerry.

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Derek

This past weekend I took some time and watched this  new Ricky Gervais series, it ran on Channel 4 in England and is on Netflix currently. This series is like The Office as it is a documentary film it is set in a nursing home and is about the workers who work there. notably Derek played by Ricky Gervais.

The show portrays the home’s workers and residents as outsiders who struggle in life due to being disadvantaged, excluded from, and unwanted by, mainstream society. The show looks at a serious problem so often in the world today the elderly are though of as less than people and are often cast off to live in nursing homes. On the show they explore the role of how many times it is volunteers that come back time and again to help out as seen with Victoria. Early on in the series Derek is asked by a nursing home inspector if he is autistic and Derek says that being diagnosed wouldn’t make a difference in his life. This is a key moment as

I found this series to great, as it doesn’t for the whole humor of old people in a nursing home nor does it get preachy about the need to treasure the old. It’s really an ensemble show but the star is Derek who Ricky Gervais describes as better than us because he lacks ego and guile and merely wants to be nice. This is the type of message that I think needs to be transmitted over television. So often on television meanness, egotism and narcissism are glamorized and it is about time that this changes. I liked the first series and am looking forward to the second

 

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