TV Tuesdays Free Talk

I just watched a show called Ghosts from the BBC. I recently saw the trailer for the American remake,which didn’t look good, and people in the comments recommended to watch the original.

I first watched this clip and I was sold. Found out it was streaming on HBO Max and I binged it in less than 24 hours.

It is phenomenal, and the American remake looks so much worse now that I’ve seen the whole show. And not just in terms of writing and performances, but even the technical stuff like the cinematography, the make-up, and costume design.

Saw the first episodes of Picard. It's bad. The clean glossy environment screams "generic 2020 sci-fi". The world is lifeless, and Picard is simply not Picard. The plot is presented without proper introductions, there's no time for character development. Things just happen because the story needs them to happen, but they do not make much sense. The dialogue is contrived, predictable and cringe inducingly weak. The push for naturalistic acting makes everything trivial. This is a Star Trek show trying very hard to not be a Star Trek show. It succeeds in that goal, but not at much else. It even manages to be worse than Discovery -- not an easy feat.

Channel 4 in the UK had another programme about the criminal justice system and paedophiles. These programmes are calm, not sensationalised, and very disturbing as a result. Catching Paedophiles: Crime and Punishment. This one off programme follows a single case. Police are given information by CEOP about a person using Tumblr to post images of child sexual abuse. They visit his house, arrest him, and seize his devices. He's initially dishonest ("No, I don't have laptops" and then they find 4 lying around.) He's clearly got some problems -- he's living in squalid conditions; there's human excrement on the floor. He's taken to the police station for questioning. He's told that they know he's using the email address "proud child lover" (He's made and used multiple of these). They ask if he has a sexual interest in children. He says that paedophilia is a valid sexuality and that while he does have a sexual interest in children he would not physically touch a child in real life. They ask him for his passwords: "fuck-cunt-slut-69". His admissions aren't enough to convict him, so they need to get evidence from his devices. He's released on bail while that happens. There's a "sexual risk order" (SRO) that's been imposed on him: he has to tell police if he gets any device that can connect to the Internet and he's not allowed unsupervised contact with children. The programme shows a visit by public protection officers to a different sexual offender to show what the SRO visits involve. The programme then comes back to forensic officers checking his devices. This takes about three months. He has hundreds and hundreds of "category A" images and film on each of his devices (category A includes images of penetration, or sadism, or children and bestiality). These images include very young children - infants and babies. And then the officers find some "first generation" images -- these are photos he has created of potential sexual assault, not downloaded, and a lot of chat about these images. Police pull him in for questioning. He says "it's not me, and that's not my flat / apartment". Police remind him that they've been in his flat, they know what it looks like. Police want to charge him. They put the case to the Criminal Prosecution Service. Police want to "remand him" - hold him in prison until the court date. CPS decline to remand him, and on the evidence they have they decide not to charge for the contact offences. CPS agree that the other charges are very serious, but they say that the SRO and lack of evidence of bail breaches mean an emergency charge isn't allowed. So, he's released on bail until trial date. The SRO mean that police can visit him at any time to check his compliance with the order. Police visit him. He's been made homeless which makes monitoring and supervising him much more difficult. He spends his nights in McDonalds. Police remind him to stay away from children. He says he is doing his best. Police tell him they know he visits the cinema in the daytime to watch children's films. Police also know he's hanging out at sports centres when children are swimming. Police find this worrying - the lack of honesty, the fact he's creating opportunities, and his continued sexual interest in children. Seven months later he's charged with some of the contact offences, but some charges are dropped for lack of evidence. The programme talks to CPS about why it took so long to get a charging decision. She says that he appears to be a very dangerous man and that he does pose a risk of harm, but that the police can supervise him and monitor him because of the SRO, and that he hasn't admitted the offences nor been convicted and so the balance means he can't be locked up. Three months later he pleads guilty to the distribution and possession charges, he pleads not guilty to the contact offence. So a trial date is set. At trial, 25 months after his initial arrest, he was found guilty of all charges. He's given a 10 year prison sentence.

In much lighter news, Bake Off the Professionals is back. I enjoy watching it, even though it follows the reality competition format of putting people under extraordinary pressure.

We're just about to finish up The Irregulars on Netflix. It's been pretty good. Not great, but good. It's about a group of young street kids in Victorian England helping Sherlock Holmes and Watson solve paranormal mysteries. I think the best part about it so far has been how they knock Sherlock and Watson down several pegs throughout the season. It's definitely not your typical Sherlock Holmes retelling.

Still cracking away on The Mosquito Coast. Like others, I'm left with the question of why the family doesn't change their appearance if they're so desperate to escape all the people trying to catch them. But if you can set aside that little issue, it's pretty engaging.

Mythic Quest was pretty amazing this week, particularly Ian and Rachel's discussion while driving Poppy's Porsche back to the office.

So...I've been watching Grey's Anatomy with my wife because we needed some light easy going TV between Handmaids Tale and other gritty depressing shows. I've never seen it before other than the odd clip here and there and had no hope for anything more than mild entertainment. We're currently on season 7 out of 18 (!) still running. We're talking 3-4 episodes a night.

I gotta say this show is the most extensive collection of "Hey, isn't that the guy from...?" I've ever seen. It's staggering how many known faces appear in this show when you watch it today. I wonder if it became a thing for upcoming actors and actresses to be on this show back then.
I really don't know how to fell about this show because saying it's bad would be dishonest because I had no other expectations. It's OK and sometimes I'm even moved a little by the patients stories. The whole love drama (everyone fucks everyone) is ridiculous from the start and the flanderization starts early on but that is to be expected. Luckily they're not afraid to kill off main characters and have decent twists and reveals so that's always fun. This has to be the most action packed hospital in the world and I'm only a season 7. I can't imagine how they'll top this further on but I'm a little exited because I know nothing about the later seasons and I just want it to be as crazy as possible. You know all the things you hate about how your favorite show has become? Think GoT and Dexter. That's what I want here.

I'm curious to what you people think of this show? Please (I know it's ridiculous) no spoilers from season 7 and on.