Rubbish Christmas Tv

[Smokin Joe]

Why do we seem to have an endless run of films glorifying war and reruns of war films? I lived through the war but it was many years ago. I still remember but why do we have to continually harp back, surely it is time to move on. Slight thread drift but there seemed to be lots of war films on this Christmas.

I was working in the shop one afternoon this summer when a boat load of German tourists were deposited at Fishguard harbour. A few of them wandered in and it was highly embarrassing when they started looking at the magazine shelf and shaking their heads. There seems to have been a glut of war magazines in the past year or two and staring down at them was one with a full cover picture of Hitler on the front and next to it another with a Lancaster bomber, plus a few more with similar covers.

They must have thought we were a sad bunch.

 

[pawl]

I suppose not strictly Christmas telly.I watched goodbye Mr Chips this morning.Made me realise what an accomplished actor Martin Clunes is.

Before any one says it I had intended to get out on the bike but woke up felling yuk I.

 

[snorri]

TV has never been the same since they started transmitting in colour, bring back the old programmes in black and white I say.

 

[oldwheels]

Doubt if it will appear on telly but how about M. Hulot’s Holiday? Almost silent but gentle old fashioned comedy.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Watched telly at my mum's this Xmas. I liked the old Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim, Dambusters, and Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets.

 

[PaulSB]

These days I find I'm more and more completely disinterested in TV. My wife, always to my surprise, will watch just about anything. I tend to sit in the backroom and read.

My overall feeling is there is so much TV that it has become extremely difficult for writers to come up with something new.

Two things I can recall being on over the last few days. I can't even remember anything else. Gavin and Stacey which was simply very bad - why do they try to go back and repeat former success? Just leave it be. This was, for me, awful and nothing more than an attempt to up the Christmas Day viewer numbers. Cynical.

Watched a couple of hours of documentary about Fleetwood Mac/Christine McVie. I'd seen much of it before but it was great for the music and to be reminded of events which influenced their music. As FM has been part of my life soundtrack since the late 60s I suppose enjoying this had more to it than just being good, or bad, TV.

 

[gavgav]

Gavin and Stacey was great, recorded Scrooge, not yet watched it. Other than that, garbage!

 

[randynewmanscat]

Why do we seem to have an endless run of films glorifying war and reruns of war films? I lived through the war but it was many years ago. I still remember but why do we have to continually harp back, surely it is time to move on. Slight thread drift but there seemed to be lots of war films on this Christmas.

You weren't tuned into one of the Hitler channels were you? Dave, Challenge, Yesterday, perpetual nazi gold, nazi megastructures, Hitlers dog, Hitlers cat, Hitlers aunt, Hitlers stamp collection. On and on and on, the British are obsessed with retreading the past.

 

[randynewmanscat]

One stand out programme for me this Christmas, Cunk & other Humans.

 

[randynewmanscat]

The Snail and the Whale was this year's Donaldson/Scheffler adaptation and it was, as ever, an absolutely wonderful, lovingly crafted piece of television. Diana Rigg narrating, too.

Ah good! I recorded that and look forward to watching.

 

[randynewmanscat]

I don't know how many adaptations of A Christmas Carol got aired this year, my own favourite is A Muppet Christmas Carol and by a country mile. I saw a colourised version of the Alastair Sim film once, just why would they do that?

 

[Blue Hills]

I was working in the shop one afternoon this summer when a boat load of German tourists were deposited at Fishguard harbour. A few of them wandered in and it was highly embarrassing when they started looking at the magazine shelf and shaking their heads. There seems to have been a glut of war magazines in the past year or two and staring down at them was one with a full cover picture of Hitler on the front and next to it another with a Lancaster bomber, plus a few more with similar covers.

They must have thought we were a sad bunch.

mm - i think they were perhaps being a tad oversensitive.
Hitler is history.
Some folks are into planes and the Lancaster was a hell of a plane - and the folk who flew in them hell of folks.
Those folk, if your interpretation is correct, put me in mind of some germans who object to the bomber command memorial.
In truth it had to be done and they were heroes.
I prefer to think of the german who put a simple honest appreciation in the visitors book of the Turville church used in Went the Day Well - most of the Brit entries were from folk who associated it only with the Vicar of Dibley.

Those Germans should go to Italy if they are after a frisson - not rare to see Mussolini commemorative junk - and not as history.

 

[AuroraSaab]

One stand out programme for me this Christmas, Cunk & other Humans.

I really liked the Cunk on Britain mock documentaries but found the Xmas one less funny. There is so much tv now, what with Netflix and a million Virgin and freeview channels. It's a golden age of tv drama but I am a bit overwhelmed. Everybody keeps recommending stuff to me but I am not sure I can comit to 5 series of Peaky Blinders.

 

[winjim]

mm - i think they were perhaps being a tad oversensitive.
Hitler is history.
Some folks are into planes and the Lancaster was a hell of a plane - and the folk who flew in them hell of folks.
Those folk, if your interpretation is correct, put me in mind of some germans who object to the bomber command memorial.
In truth it had to be done and they were heroes.

They were brave men, committing atrocities.

 

[randynewmanscat]

Everybody keeps recommending stuff to me but I am not sure I can comit to 5 series of Peaky Blinders.

You are spot on there! After dinner/pub/phone conversations, "oh you should watch this, that, the other". I must have had recommendations to watch totals into the hundreds of hours of viewing. During the last year, recommendations to watch Peaky Blinders, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Wire. I have not bothered to watch any of them because they are multi series shows and must number into days and days total viewing.
Life is just not long enough for such luxuries.