I'm in the UK so I'm watching the version on the BBC, on iPlayer. Please, no spoilers as I'm only a couple of episodes into series 2.

The concept is great. It's a really good crossover mix between reality TV style of Big Brother (chatting about each other, making alliances), The Crystal Maze (group puzzle solving) and on top of that, it's playing detective.

If you haven't seen it, I can highly recommend it. To anyone that has seen other international versions, are they better than the BBC version and worth a watch? I usually find US versions of things way too OTT. I refer to the styles of things like Kitchen Nightmares.

I thought I'd take the time to post about a series I've been looking forward to for over a year now.

Hidden is a fantastic crime drama set in Wales, and a third series was announced early last year. The Welsh version, Craith, aired late last year. This week, the bi-lingual version airs on BBC One Wales and BBC Four. In my opinion it's the perfect crime drama: set in the mountains of North Wales, with a great soundtrack and unconventional storyline. Some shows focus only on the investigation and the victim, who probably just admits to the crime at the end. Not so here.

Sian Reese-Willams, who plays DCI Cadi John, explained what the series is about back in 2018:

It’s not a classic detective drama in that it deals with the whodunit and the police catching the bad man. It’s much more of a personal drama. It takes time to delve into the lives of everybody that gets caught up in the crime - the detectives, the victims, the family of the victims and even the bad guy. You’re trying to understand him.

It really plays with the idea of nature versus nature and almost tries to twist you into sympathising against your better judgement; it’s exciting and thought provoking. The characters are really interesting and it covers a lot of human emotion.

Here's another interview ahead of the second series.

Series two picks up around nine months after series one ends. We find Cadi trying to deal with the grief of losing her father, while trying to keep her head in her work.

It’s a difficult time for her - just as one begins to come through the initial shock of losing someone and start to try and deal with it, that’s the time that everyone around you starts to forget and move on. She’s also faced with dealing with the estranged daughter of the victim of the case, and the parallels she sees between the two of them are difficult for her to navigate professionally.

The first two series are on iPlayer now, and if you speak Welsh (or like subtitles) the third series is already on S4C Clic under the title Craith. Hidden is on BBC One Wales this Wednesday at 9pm, and BBC Four this Saturday at the same time.

Channel 4 describe the programme "Series that captures the work of police, probation, prison, prosecution and parole".

Here's a link to the first episode: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/crime-and-punishment/on-demand/64655-001

Crime and punishment is a documentary series that looks inside prison to tell the stories of the criminal justice system from the viewpoint of those involved.

The first episode spends some time talking about the unjust "Imprisonment for Public Protection"[1] sentences (these are no longer given by the courts but there are thousands of prisoners still imprisoned on them), how they went wrong, and the awful effect they have upon prisoners. It's a difficult watch. It shows how severely the mental health of prisoners is when they're on this type of sentence, including their serious self harm.

Episode two talks about pressure inside prisons and how that results in "riots", about how prisoners use the only power they have available to them.

I like the programme because it avoids judgmentalism. The prisoners are not reduced to the bad guys; the officers are not simplified to the good guys. You hear a little bit about some of the offences committed by the prisoners

Here's a Twitter thread from someone working in the English NHS. She works in forensic services as a psychologist. https://twitter.com/SarahE_Davidson/status/1173707912981700608

I guess Channel 4 On Demand have geo-blocking. I don't know if it's available on other services, or on torrent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_for_public_protection

This is a British cookery show. They take a bunch of people who cook for a living but who have basic skills. These people are paired with a chef who has four Michelin stars and eighteen restaurants. They visit different restaurants around Europe to have competitions to cook that restaurant's own food.

Things I enjoy about it: it does a good job of showing that people who have somewhat fucked up lives will always find a place in cheffing. They could have stayed in the UK but they decided to go around Europe.[1] There's a couple of incidents of poor behaviour being corrected (some of the women chefs are ignored and spoken over by some men, the women stand up for themselves and get an apology).

Things I don't like: there's some cheffy bollocks around the pressure and discipline of a brigade; it's still a reality-show competition and that introduces some artificiallity; they send people home each week and I always hate that aspect of programmes.

It's available on Pirate Bay.

Here are some reviews which I think are fair.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jul/30/the-chefs-brigade-review-a-cookery-challenge-worthy-of-willy-wonka

https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/the-chefs-brigade-bbc2-episode-1-review-jason-atherton/

[1] I can't describe how pathologically awful Brexit has been for the UK. :-(

Mythbusters is back, but in a tweaked format.

Adam Savage fronts with a team of six young people. Jamie, Kari, Tory, and Grant are absent, only appearing in video flashbacks to the previous show.

Mythbusters with kids could have been horrific, but they've managed to make this entertaining and informative. They've increased the amount of STEM stuff. We see people doing a bit of math while planning something out. The kids are smart, and the show allows them to be smart while also being children. Adam is a great fit, being a big kid himself but also filling the role of a pseudo parent and giving friendly advice (often around safety, such as the tag strap used to manoeuvre huge steel plates).

The old show had a some problems. They'd have too many pre-break "what's coming next" and post-break "here's what happened before", and they'd chop up the myths being tested into tiny little bits. They still do that, but not nearly as much.

It's a fun, entertaining watch, and it's safe for families to watch together.

Years and Years is a British political near-future soft SF programme. Being British it's one short series - 6 episodes, 1 hour per episode. Mainstream broadcast SF isn't going to push all the boundaries, but this has some neat ideas. The political stuff feels realistic enough to work.

Emma Thompson is always impressive and she does excellent work here as a populist, fascist, politician. Jessica Hynes plays Edith with suitable intensity.

Here are a bunch of links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8694364/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[spoilers] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/years-and-years-1220415

[spoilers] https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/years-and-years-review-emma-thompson-hbo-1203243714/

[spoilers] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/14/years-and-years-review-a-glorious-near-future-drama-from-russell-t-davies

I don't have a lot to say yet; I'm on episode 9 so far. That series has been on my watchlist forever, so the moment I saw it pop up on Netflix I jumped on it.

It's as awesome as described. Moreso. It's funny and quirky. Despite watching two 12-year-olds hang out, it doesn't feel like a kids' series at all (the humour is quite adult, similar level as Futurama). It knows when to make fun of itself. It's pushing all my buttons and I'm having a lot of fun watching it.

My biggest laugh so far has been Mabel's "Scout's Honor" shirt. In my head I was waiting for the punchline and loved seeing the delivery.

Solid recommendation so far. And the theme song is so fucking catchy.