Do we live in a golden age of television?

[Jimmy Floyd]

As mentioned earlier it is / they are the purest distillation of the Netflix drama model. Gripping plot with more holes than a moth-eaten Emmenthal. One big name, a couple of recognisable faces phoning it in and a few fit birds/hunks dressed in upper-mid range fashions. Every ethnicity and sexuality represented to make sure no viewer feels excluded (no lesbian in this one, though could have missed one). Vast amounts of product placement. Quick cuts and vast cuboid houses in pastel colours. Kitchen islands the size of Sicily. Crucially - and this is the most important bit in many ways - fictitious and generic world-building. You cannot afford to establish a realistic sense of place, as this will only serve to alienate some viewers. You're not going for the relevant national market here, you're going for generic viewer from generic country because Netflix is everywhere and Netflix is everything. Stay indoors, glued to your sofa. You are a unit of humanity, you are a potential statistic, and you must retreat unto yourself.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Oh so much lol at episode 7.

[Baz]

Has anyone watched Loudermilk. Saw a clip on Instagram and it looked okay.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

The eighth episode

[Waffdon]

Fuck me, isn't it just.

I've just realised there's another 4 or 5 of these Coben things on Netflix I haven't seen.

Do not watch The Shelter on prime.

[Yevrah]

Oooh, there's a new series of the Tourist out. I quite enjoyed the first one and loved how dark as fuck it was.

[Waffdon]

Oooh, there's a new series of the Tourist out. I quite enjoyed the first one and loved how dark as fuck it was.

Watched it last night.

Not great. Full of hilarious wannabe Irish gangsters. Like a shit BBC rip off of Kin (BBC needs to hurry up and release that 2nd season)

[phonics]

+1 for Slow Horses is fantastic. Ripped through 2 seasons in 48 hours.

[Lofty]

Oooh, there's a new series of the Tourist out. I quite enjoyed the first one and loved how dark as fuck it was.

I don't even know how it merits a second season, never really struck me as anything other than a one shot.

Season 4 of Slow Horses should just be just 6 hours of Jackson Lamb abusing everyone, whilst being a mess. Fuck the exotic locations, that's the real gold.

[Kikó]

I can't get past how much Jackson would stink.

[Lofty]

Top, top spycraft.

[Yevrah]

It's staggering how much good (and rightfully so) this Post Office tv drama is going to do, to the point where I'm struggling to recall anything similar that's had as big an impact.

[Jimmy Floyd]

With the newspaper industry having been whittled down to a grotesque husk of itself, and TV news lacking the patience for nuanced and detailed stories like this, ones concerning ordinary people like this that lack the eyeball hook of a famous name, is there any other way of holding the powerful to account other than making drama or very accessible TV docs about their wrongdoings? Especially in an era when people are not going out and reading or finding things out for themselves and require their entertainment to be shovelled into their homes for them.

Obviously even then you have to be able to convince a massive network to put your show on the air, which must stack the power games against you as well.

[Lofty]

Especially when one of the Royal Mail culprits now works for ITV.

[Kikó]

It's genuinely disgusting that it took a TV programme to make the police do something about this considering it's been non stop reported on for ten years (especially by PE). What a disgrace of a situation.

[Spikey M]

Can someone get on with making an ITV Drama about Epstein Island please?

And yes, It is some rage inducing TV. Unbelievable that they are STILL using the same system, too. How could anyone have any faith in it?

[Yevrah]

I think the most refreshing thing about it was that in a World where almost everything made these days comes with a MESSAGE, the directors/producers/actors in this had clearly kept at the front of their minds that first and foremost they were making a piece of entertainment and that the more people were entertained, the more the message would land. Many others could take note of this.

[Yevrah]

It's genuinely disgusting that it took a TV programme to make the police do something about this considering it's been non stop reported on for ten years (especially by PE). What a disgrace of a situation.

Another thing that absolutely has to happen is that their powers to prosecute people without involving the police need to be revoked.

[niko_cee]

It's good to see a bit of heat coming on to Crozier, a man who has failed upwards his entire life and is pretty much a poster boy for everything that is wrong with the way the executive world works in Britain. Jobs for the boys. I remember lolling about his role at Royal Mail to someone seconded there in the early 2000s when they were still in their ludicrously lavish Unilever Building riverside offices in the wake of whatever shitshow he'd just overseen at the FA. Taxpayer value for money and all.

Also lol at Gillian Keegan's husband being CEO/Chairman of Fujitsu for some of the latter period. Absolutely mired.

Apparently there is also some stuff going around that internal policies stated certain 'types' were more likely to be dishonest.

Will be interesting if any of the professional standards bodies, chiefly the SRA, end up doing anything about the people they are apparently investigating or have had referred to them. Self-reg probably says no, but there has clearly been some industrial malfeasance by quite a lot of people along the way, so it would be good to see at least a few sacrificial lambs up against Boydy's Wall.

[niko_cee]

Although, on the subject of the programme, as good as it was, it did seem a bit naughty that most of the central legal actions where made to appear as if they were contemporaneous with the general timeline of the piece, ie from the formation of the action group/the computer weekly piece etc in around 2009/10, and therefore under the stewardship of this hapless Vennells character, when they were mostly from the early/mid-2000s when she was probably shilling hard somewhere else. Also interesting that both central evil characters are women and at one point it is commented "aren't there any men at the post office?" or some such. Interesting narrative choice, unless there weren't.

[niko_cee]

For fans of all things miscarriage of justice:

View Tweet

[Dquincy]

On that post office tv show, Radio 4 did a great podcast series on it a couple of years ago with recent updates. Definitely worth a listen.

The Great Post Office Trial - BBC Radio 4

[Kikó]

For fans of all things miscarriage of justice:

View Tweet

It's a complete travesty.

[niko_cee]

Yeah, it's all completely batshit, along with some of the other stuff getting ranted about on twitter. The unfairness of the bottomless pockets of the state versus no help for, essentially, victims. Institutionalised abuse of process, institutionalised arse covering.

One of the interesting things about the post office thing is that the early period of it clearly demarcates the transition between the ability of a large body to effectively cover something up and the reality of the modern information age which makes it all but impossible. Broadband becoming commonplace in the early 2000s and then the growth of social media in the latter part of the decade made it impossible to isolate indivudals form each other. They had a means to know they weren't the only ones. I wonder, if in a similar way, the growth of the whole crowd funding thing hasn't taken another string from the bow of those who seek to surpress and cover up by legal means. The sub-postmater mob could probably raise tens of millions of pounds to cover legal costs on the back of this latest round of publicity. In a similar vein a reasonably small youtube channel [c.1m subs] was instrumental in raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to help with this case, although it was all for nought in the end as the government always has the power to not just change the rules of the game but deny participation in it entirely if they want. For all the shit that social media has inflicted on the world, and in balance it probably is still a bad thing, it has done some good things too.

Unfortunately I suspect the unfettered wild west of an internet which evened the playing field somewhat is probably going to be degraded over the next 10 years or so, if it hasn't already been, meaning we'll never get to a point where simply trying to lie and delay and cover something up isn't the go to option for most organisations.

BBC should commission a show about the commissioning of the Mr Bates show and cast Crozier as the central bad guy making sure he isn't in any of it.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The conspiracy-sympathising part of my brain, a very small part, has often wondered if the Musk twitter takeover wasn't mainly about closing it off as a democratic avenue. It certainly hasn't made much business sense, let's put it that way.

[Lofty]

Ironically on the crowdfunding point professional internet clown Man Behaving Dadly tried to piggy back onto this by setting up a GoFundMe campaign independent of the main one for some reason and was rounded on so quickly he deleted his entire internet prescence

[Kikó]

LegalGengar is killing some real grifters - it's heartwarming.

Re: Musk / Twitter. I think he wanted to use it for the big data opportunities (for his shitty AI) and then also relive his dream of having a payments platform while also having a place where everyone thinks he's cool. Unfortunately he's failed on all of them and X is now a spam bot and porn ridden website.

The right to compensation thing is crazy as it asks you to prove you're innocent which is a very high burden to prove without doubt (and completely swings the justice system after you've been exonerated.)

[niko_cee]

Under the system every person on the planet is presumed guilty unless they have an ironclad/evidence-able alibi.

And for what? To save a few million quid a year?

[Yevrah]

He’s admitted as much no? Which may well be arse covering given how it’s gone.

@Jim

[hfswjyr]

It's interesting to me that even though Musk has managed to almost single-handedly kill twitter/X, as far as I can see the userbase hasn't shifted anywhere. It looks like Threads isn't catching on, and nothing else has risen to take it's place.

At the end of the day, the whole thing just seems superfluous? What did we need this particular platform for anyway?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Connecting / information sharing. I find it very useful / interesting because I can read in one place what all kinds of different people are thinking and saying about different subjects.

[Don]

Real-time information dissemination fuelled by memes means it's engaging enough to withstand most bs criticisms, it'd need a big change like charging users for them to move to another place. These things presumably only die when they stop getting the new generations to engage.

[Giggles]

I've got access to BBC again for the first time in 2½ years. Richard Osman has really changed.

[phonics]

Its absolutely useless as a community now because the first 45 replies are ChatGPT replies trying to make 0.000000003 cents per impression or porno bots. Every post looks like this within 3 seconds of it being made

[Jimmy Floyd]

We need a posting moratorium on Richard Osman, I feel like penning a 3,000 word hit piece every time anyone mentions his name.

[Manc]

Raced through The English in recent days. Without a doubt one of the best shows the BBC has ever made.

[Bam]

I can't see the problem with that Phonics.

[Spikey M]

Liked and followed.

[wullie]

Finished Fool Me Once and agree with everyone saying it's addictive nonsense. Do all the other Harlan Coben things follow the same pattern of endless cliffhangers and twists that eventually render the previous episodes pointless?

[Waffdon]

Pretty much. Some are okay and some are beyond bad

[Boydy]

This new Gladiators is gonna be a bit shit if regular people don't stand a chance against these roided up freaks.

The old gladiators weren't that bad, were they?

[Waffdon]

Mattdoesfitness

[Ian]

The old gladiators weren't that bad, were they?

I reckon they were still pretty huge just not as obviously shredded. Given these lot on as contestants are all gym rats it's probably not that big a difference when you think a lot of the old contestants were, like, somebody's dad who jogs.

[niko_cee]

Yeah, they were as bad, but there was always Wolf to even it up.

Diamond.

Not sure the early evening softcore element of the original is so much of a draw in 2024.

[randomlegend]

From a quick google image search reminder, the old ones look as big if not bigger on average.

[phonics]

One of them comes in my shop all the time. She is massive.

[Boydy]

Yeah, had a look too and so they were. Fair enough.

I think it was mostly that game at the start where the guy got knocked off the podium after two seconds that made me think it was gonna be shit. The rest has been alright.

[wullie]

I like the gladiator who was described as moody in his little video and just spends the whole time putting a mean face on.

[Spikey M]

Is there a disabled and a trans-gladiator?

[niko_cee]

Have they made the eliminator much smaller or am I just bigger now?