The Year Zero

The brand new 8th series premiers this Wednesday at 9pm GMT on BBC1. It’s fair to say that Spooks is one of my most favourite TV series and certainly one of the very best things that the BBC airs each year.

From the BBC press office:

Award-winning drama Spooks is back in production, for a fantastic, high octane eighth series and is set to return to BBC One this autumn.

Following the dramatic climax of series seven, viewers will be on the edge of their seats, eagerly waiting to find out which of the country’s finest spies will return to their screens in the Kudos Film and Television production.

The critically-acclaimed last series saw the appointment of ice cold Ros Myers (Hermione Norris) to Head of Section D and the release of Lucas North (Richard Armitage) after eight years in a Russian prison.

Harry Pearce’s (Peter Firth) elite team of spies were forced to quickly adapt to their new dynamic following the death of Adam Carter, but there was no time to mourn their colleague as the Russians descended on London and a mole within Section D was discovered.

In the explosive finale of the series, old school spy Connie James was exposed as the Russian’s insider and, in a race to save London from a nuclear explosion, she paid the ultimate price for betrayal, sacrificing herself to save Ros and Lucas.

Although London was saved from disaster, it’s not over for Section D as Harry is missing in action following a meet with the Russian intelligence services, the FSB, and was last seen being bundled into the boot of a car…

Source: BBC

Preview from Radio Times:

British television isn’t much cop at straight-down-the-line thrillers; writers and producers get bogged down in characterisation and delivering right-on messages and lose sight of the fact that thrillers should be – yes – thrilling. Which brings us to Spooks. Those in the know are sniffy about it, claiming it’s nothing like MI5. I should hope not; it’s torrid, preposterous and frequently ridiculously overheated. And I love it to pieces, because Spooks is a rarity: a genuinely exciting, madly engaging drama that grabs you by the wrists and simply won’t let go. At the end of the last series it looked as if the game was up for spy boss Harry (the splendid Peter Firth) after he was kidnapped by a rogue band of utter rotters. As we start a new series, things still look bleak – and they get bleaker still when a familiar face arrives back on the Grid and lives are in danger. I’m being deliberately coy here, but there are simply too many surprises. It’s best just to buckle up and prepare yourselves for a trademark dizzying Spooks funfair ride as stern people in black stride down corridors and no one trusts anyone else. Part two is on BBC3 at 9:00pm on Friday.

Source: Radio Times

I don’t watch a massive amount of TV but what I do watch can sometimes be considered a little niche. I watch a lot of documentaries – especially stuff on BBC4 which is probably my favourite channel (though most people don’t watch it). I’ve loved all the Apollo 11 stuff they’ve aired for the 40th anniversary, has been really good – much of it original programming, quite quirky (‘Astronaut’s Wives Club‘, for example).

I don’t have Sky as I’ve always balked at the thought of paying a monthly fee for TV. There is a lot about the UK that is sub-par but our TV isn’t one of those things. We have some really good stuff, much of it original. The BBC is a leviathan of an institution which also gets a lot of negative press from time to time, but not many people could really imagine life without it. Yes, every household in Britain pays a license fee, which pays for it, but as money spent goes – it’s worth it.

I have a DVD recorder which is very good, a Panasonic, which I bought a few years ago. However, I only got the regular recorder, rather than the more expensive models with built-in hard-drive. In retrospect this was a mistake. For recording, I use re-recordable RAM disks which are the most convenient, for day to day TV, which are double sided and hold 4 hours each side. I use cheap blank dvd-rs for permanent recording of things I want to keep).

Trouble is, remembering to keep setting the recorder and knowing it only holds 4 hours – especially for series, can be a pain. I loved the first series of Mad Men, for example, but ended up missing all of series 2 because I missed recording early episodes. This was very annoying.

So I’ve bought a PVR (I think that stands for personal video recorder) and so far so good. Can hold a couple of hundred hours of recorded TV, has twin-tuners (meaning you can record Freeview whilst watching another digital channel) and the picture is really clear and sharp. It also lets you record whole series at the touch of a button (I believe those with Sky+ can do this) and it’s really good to be able to do this at last.

I’m going to start recording the original Swedish dramatisations of Wallander which are airing on BBC4, among other things.

Tonight I’m going to watch The Street. Not sure I’ve caught it in the past but has good previews. If it’s anything like Clocking Off I’ll really like it.

The Street

Monday 13 July
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC1 London & South East
1/6

Jimmy McGovern’s Bafta-winning series returns with more morality tales about ordinary Brits on a terraced street in Manchester. When he’s on song McGovern is as good as anyone at dramatising the letdowns and wrong turns of everyday life, dressed up as hard-hitting, high-stakes tragedy. In this opener, he’s not in full flame-thrower mode, but it’s a tense, involving story nonetheless. Bob Hoskins stars as pub landlord Paddy, who one day catches teenager Calum smoking in the gents’ loo and bars him. But Calum’s father is Tom (Liam Cunningham), a local Mr Big whose interests span building, drug dealing – and funding the pub’s football team. When Tom demands his son be served, he and Paddy move towards a violent confrontation with a weird formality, rather like 18th-century duellists choosing their pistols. As the ritual unfolds we have plenty of time to reflect on issues like honour and the heroism of the little man. Cunningham is good and there’s a brief cameo from Timothy Spall, who returns as hopeless minicab-driver Eddie, but Hoskins’ performance is what makes this worth watching.

(Source: Radio Times)

I’m not actually a big watcher of TV. That said, I was looking through the tv guide showing what’s on over the next 7 days and there is a lot that caught my eye. Namely:

Sunday

South Pacific

Sunday 14 June
8:00pm – 9:00pm
BBC2

6/6 – Fragile Paradise

Documentary series. The South Pacific is still relatively healthy and teeming with fish, but it is a fragile paradise. International fishing fleets are taking a serious toll on the sharks, albatross and tuna, and there are other insidious threats to these bountiful seas. This episode looks at what is being done to preserve the ocean and its wildlife.

I’ve watched most of this series since it started and have really enjoyed it.

Monday

The Secret Life of the Airport

Monday 15 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC4

1/3 – Preparing for Take Off

From the makers of the hugely enjoyable The Secret Life of the Motorway, this three-parter explores the history of civil aviation. Nowadays, airports are steel and glass behemoths with art installations and fancy cafes, but Britain’s first was more spartan. Forgetting the teeny-tiny matter of runways, excitable architects wanted to build slap-bang in the centre of London. Although in the end it was to Croydon that pioneering toffs (flying was the preserve of the wealthy in the 20s) trooped to be weighed alongside their baggage. Crammed full of archive footage and quirky anecdotes, this should be shown in airport lounges, so disgruntled travellers can be grateful they’re not in tents – as Heathrow passengers were for the first decade of its existence. Oh yes, and again last year: during the disastrous opening of Terminal Five.

I am a big BBC4 fanboi and love their interesting documentaries on subjects that wouldn’t get airtime on the terrestrial channels. This will be good.

Goodbye London Aerodrome

Monday 15 June
10:00pm – 10:35pm
BBC4

Glyn Worsnip presents a history of RAF Hendon. Originally called London Aerodrome, this extraordinary airfield has been an RAF station since 1918. Current and former pilots talk about their memories of Hendon.

Tuesday

Occupation

Tuesday 16 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC1

1/3

A word to the wise: you’ll need to take a deep breath before sitting down to Occupation, which runs nightly until Thursday. Peter Bowker’s visceral drama about British soldiers struggling to cope with life during and after the invasion of Iraq is shattering. We’re immediately pitched into the hell of combat in an unbearably tense sequence that introduces us to the characters at the heart of Occupation: Sergeant Mike Swift (James Nesbitt), Corporal Danny Peterson (Stephen Graham) and Lance Corporal Lee Hibbs (Warren Brown). As the men enter a hospital, there’s a grenade attack that leaves a girl grievously injured. Swift becomes a media hero when he returns to Britain with the child, who is treated at a British hospital. For entirely different reasons, all three men’s ties with Iraq are complex and deep: Swift has a strong romantic and emotional bond, Peterson needs the buzz of war and Hibbs wants to do the right thing for his country. All three central performances are towering and Bowker’s superlative script grips right from the start. Make no mistake; this is an important, unmissable piece of drama.

The BBC have been airing a lot of adverts for this. Major 3 part drama about soldiers in Iraq – before, during and after the invasion. Looks like it will be powerful stuff and not for the faint hearted.

Personal Affairs

Tuesday 16 June
9:00pm – 10:10pm
BBC3

1/5 – A Decent Proposal

BBC3’s big new summer series wears its Sex and the City colours proudly, even giving it a cheeky namecheck. Office quickies, dream sequences, filthy innuendo…they’re all here, dappled with crazy bits of animation. The attention-seeking opener introduces us to willowy Grace, gobby Lucy, fame-mad Midge and catty Nicole, and their romantic entanglements, while the male characters are the kind who are barely visible when they turn sideways. It’s a mad storm of different styles, but it may just capture the Carrie Bradshaw crowd.

This looks interesting. Kind of a UK ‘Sex and the City’. It clashes with Occupation, but everything is repeated so I’ll just record it. The thing to remember about BBC3 is most stuff on this channel is deliberately quirky and off the wall. Take Being Human, for example. Was like a humourous horror.

Wednesday

Occupation

Wednesday 17 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC1

2/3

All three of Occupation’s soldiers have returned to Iraq in the second part of Peter Bowker’s stunning drama. Their reasons for going back differ, but each has an overwhelming need to be in the crumbling, chaotic country. For tiny, restless scouser Danny Peterson (the brilliant Stephen Graham), it’s simple: “The madness here – I get it.” He is, you feel, a man on his own private road to hell. For Mike Swift and Lee Hibbs (James Nesbitt and Warren Brown, both memorable) there are more complicated emotional reasons. Hibbs needs a sense of purpose – that he’s doing something useful. Swift needs to find the love of his life. Around them, Iraq is awash with coalition money supposedly for rebuilding, yet the cash never seems to get to where it’s needed the most. More dangerously, the insurgency is gathering momentum, which has appalling consequences for one of the trio. Be prepared for a heart-rending, harrowing climax to the episode.

Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer?

Wednesday 17 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC4

1/2

Architectural historian Jonathan Foyle explores the paradoxes of Henry VIII’s cultural life, which looked back to medieval chivalry, but also took in the new humanism of the Renaissance. Foyle is good at the detailed examination of Henry’s buildings such as King’s College Chapel in Cambridge and extends into looking at tapestry and the paintings of Holbein. What gives it all a distinctive twist is that this journey into Henry’s past progresses against the backdrop of contemporary London.

Thursday

Occupation

Thursday 18 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC1

3/3

The searing effect of Occupation is cumulative, as anyone who has watched the first two episodes will know. So the tension and the pervading sense of a world spinning out of control are heightened as we reach the final instalment. It’s December 2005, but there is no Christmas cheer for Danny, Mike and Lee (Stephen Graham, James Nesbitt and Warren Brown, a trio of actors for whom no praise can be high enough). Emotions – ours and the soldiers’ – are ratcheted to breaking point as catastrophe piles upon catastrophe and lives are fractured for ever. This is a very adult drama about the terrible reality of the Iraq invasion and its aftermath, so there can be no happy endings and Peter Bowker’s script is grown up enough to leave its characters, and its audience, weighed down with sadness.

Psychoville

Thursday 18 June
10:00pm – 10:30pm
BBC2

1/7

The League of Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton join forces once more as writers and stars of this weird, black comic drama…and at this point it would be handy to give a plot precis but, frankly, I have no idea what’s going on. A handful of apparently unlinked, disparate people in different parts of the country are sent wax-sealed letters bearing the words “I know what you did”. But what did they do? No idea, though the recipients include a barmy midwife obsessed by the doll from her childbirth classes (Dawn French), a telekinetic dwarf, and a wildly inappropriate children’s entertainer, Mr Jelly (Shearsmith) – a cross between the evil clown from Stephen King’s It and the League of Gentlemen’s infamous creation, Papa Lazarou. There are some funny bits, the gothic atmosphere is very Royston Vasey-ish, and the cast is stellar, but I suspect Psychoville will take a wee while to get going properly.

I’m not a huge watcher of comedy but this kind of highly eccentric stuff I’ll probably like. I always found League of Gentlemen and Little Britain very watchable.

Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil

Thursday 18 June
11:30pm – 12:30am
BBC4

One of the most momentous events in the UK’s postwar history has to be the discovery of large reserves of oil and gas in the North Sea. A country saddled with balance-of-payment problems was able to reap many benefits from the windfall, but what has been the impact on today’s economy? This three-part doc promises a fresh perspective on the origins of the find 40 years ago and a look at how the tide has ebbed in recent years, beginning with the story of risk-taking and technical innovation that brought the oil ashore.

Friday

The Fallen: Legacy of Iraq

Friday 19 June
12:30am – 1:10am
BBC4

Don’t miss this updated re-showing of Morgan Matthews’s extraordinarily moving film from last year, for which he rightly won a best-director Bafta. It commemorates the 300-plus British troops lost in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, one by one, through frank interviews with their surviving family members – the parents, siblings and (most heartbreakingly) children of those who died. The result is a remarkable portrayal of the way grief can shred families. It’s a giant mosaic of bereavement and loss, every piece of which is powerful in itself. That may sound grim but there are moments of humour and wisdom here too. Yes, at times The Fallen is almost too much to bear, but if you don’t feel up to the full four hours, it’s worth watching as much as you can handle.

This is the update to the 3 hour documentary I blogged about last year. Immensely powerful. Whether you like it or not, these people are fighting (and dying) in our name. Ordinary people whose deaths will shatter the families, friends and communities they leave behind.

Leonard Cohen Live in London

Friday 19 June
9:00pm – 10:00pm
BBC4

When the Canadian singer-songwriter and poet started performing again last year after five years in seclusion as a Zen Buddhist monk and the disappearance of his retirement fund, he received rave reviews. If you haven’t seen this performance, catch it now and marvel at his spare lyricism. Live in London is a parade of old and recent favourites, delivered with authority, tenderness and humour. It’s followed by a 1973 BBC film combining an interview, biography and concert footage plus there’s also a tribute show featuring famous fans.

Leonard Cohen – Songs from My Life: Omnibus

Friday 19 June
10:00pm – 11:10pm
BBC4

Portrait of Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen, originally recorded in 1973. Featuring interviews, archive film and live performances from London, Paris, Athens and New York.

What Leonard Cohen Did for Me

Friday 19 June
11:10pm -11:40pm
BBC4

A celebration of the career of Leonard Cohen, one of contemporary music’s most revered singer-songwriters. The Canadian poet and novelist has gradually transformed over the years into an international star. Contributors include Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright, Ian McCulloch, Arthur Smith, Kathryn Williams and Paul Morley.

Source: All listings from The Radio Times website.

I saw this on BBC4 late last night. It’s not that new, maybe a year or so old, but it passed me by when it first came out.

It is a docudrama about Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, aka the ‘Andes flight disaster’. In 1972, a small aeroplane carrying a Uruguayan rugby team crashes deep within the Andes. The plane went down in a huge storm, nobody knew where. All were missing, presumed dead.

Against truly Biblical odds – 16 out of 45 would ultimately survive. They were completely isolated and cut off from the world for 2.5 months. Without food. Without shelter. Without anything. In the end, they had to resort to cannibalism to survive.

These young people were pushed to the very edge of extinction. How they endured such unimaginable hardship is nothing short of a miracle and quite impossible to comprehend.

The documentary was made by a childhood friend of the survivors and was very powerful. Certainly not like most tv ‘docu-reenactments’ which aren’t usually up to much. This was incredibly good. The survivors, 30 years on, finally felt able to recount their story in their own words. Still so many tears. Such emotion.

Of the many voices heard in the film, the closest one to a group spokesman is Fernando Parrado, aka Nando, who lost his sister and his mother in the crash. Carrying no equipment, he and a fellow survivor, Roberto Canessa, hiked 44 miles over peaks more than 13,000 feet high until they discovered signs of civilization. Three days before Christmas, they were spotted by a Chilean shepherd, who remembers, “They smelled of the grave; no animal would go near them.” (Source: New York Times)

I thought this was far more rewarding to watch than Alive, the 1993 film starring Ethan Hawke. This was so deeply moving on so many levels. Really profound. One of those things that stays with you for a long, long time. It was their companionship and camaraderie that got them through; and their trust in God.

You can read more about it on the survivors’ own website.

If you are in the UK with access to BBC iPlayer, it’s up for another 6 days. I recommend it.

It’s also available on DVD.

Enjoyed the first episode in the new eight part second series which has returned to the BBC.  Series one was one of my favourite TV shows last year. Hard to say why I like it as I have little interest in police dramas usually. I just love the depiction of the 1980s. That decade has so much resonance and seems so formative. The attention to detail in the series is great – seeing all those reminders of that decade – also the music.

The sexual chemistry between the two main characters – Alex Drake (aka ‘Bolly Knickers’) played by Keeley Hawes and Gene Hunt (aka Phil Glenister) appears to be toned down somewhat. The rest of the cast are all still there which is good.

No sign of the David Bowie ‘Ashes to Ashes clown’ so far – which haunted her throughout the last series. Instead, she hears voices spoken through random people and even a police dog!

What looks to be a recurrent theme throughout the series is police corruption (at senior levels of the Met police). I imagine that was fairly rife back then but I don’t know that for sure.

I really do quite like Keeley Hawes. Thought she was fantastic in Spooks as well.

Watch series 2 episode 1 again on BBC iPlayer.

Incidentally – the only other police drama that I really did enjoy very much indeed – was Wallander which aired last year for three episodes. I really, really would like to see more of that; it was brilliant.

Really very much looking forward to this. Series 2 premieres on BBC1 next Monday 20th April at 9pm. I really did enjoy the first series which aired last year.

As mentioned at the time, I don’t watch cop shows normally. I have little to no interest. But it’s the depiction of the 1980s, a decade hot-wired into my brain for reasons I’ve never quite been able to grasp. Just something about that era. The music. The things that happened. Extremely formative years for me (I was born in 1976) and I do see myself as a child of the 80s.

PS The (somewhat underwhelming) trailer doesn’t really do the series justice in my opinion!

I am incredibly happy.

Not only has the second season of Mad Men begun its UK premier (Tuesday nights on BBC4) – Damages starring Glenn Close returns to our screens this Sunday. And I am supremely excited. Season 1, last year, was absolutely electric.

Like Mad Men – it’s not for the masses. Neither is what I’d call ‘mainstream’ (based on how many people I know who watch them) – but they are phenomenal and to my mind the two very best US imports we have on our television screens. I completely agree with the Radio Times preview:

The fact that this legal thriller is back for a second series will be of no interest to roughly 95 per cent of the population. It’s like other acclaimed US imports (Mad Men, The Wire, The Sopranos etc): all the plaudits in the world won’t turn it into a popular hit, so it’s destined to be beloved but cult viewing here, which is fine. What makes it such a hard cult to leave is the way the show gets its narrative hooks into you.

The main thrust this time round is that elfin lawyer Ellen (Rose Byrne) is helping the FBI investigate her boss – the show’s anti-heroine, Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). But in a flash-forward to six months later, we see Ellen is caught up in something far more dreadful. What, and why, we’ll discover only slowly. Meanwhile, William Hurt bolsters the already superb cast as a whistle-blower from Patty’s past.

It’s high-class fare, like chewing rare fillet steak, except with the uncomfortable feeling that at any moment you could crunch on a nugget of broken glass. And as usual it’s Glenn Close, as the haunted, unknowable Patty, whose performance burns out of the screen.

Source: Radio Times.

It is unbelievably good.

At last the day has come. Mad Men series 2 finally aired on BBC4. I have waited a long time for this and seeing it again on our screens has been sublime.

I love how the Radio Times described it:

The first season of Mad Men probably won more awards than it did viewers. But its tiny band of devotees on both sides of the Atlantic treasured it as a polished pearl, a television series of wit, thoughtfulness and elegance. So bless the BBC for keeping the faith and bringing us series two. Source: Radio Times.

It’s so true. Very few people I know watch it, but that’s such a shame as it’s one of the very best things on British television right now. In the sea of mind-numbing, amorphous, celebrity crap – this really is delicious. The attention to period detail is absolutely exquisite – like no other TV program I’ve seen. The smoking, the drinking, the womanising, the clothes, the marital dysfunction, the desperate housewives, the search for meaning. All very powerful stuff and highly compelling viewing.

Episode 1 of season 2 followed on from where the last series left off. The arrival of the revolutionary photocopier has the office abuzz. I won’t write too much more as it can be watched again on BBC iPlayer.

Masses of photos on AMC’s website.

Series 2 episode 1 on iPlayer.

PS OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG they’ve just advertised the second season of Damages beginning on Sunday! My two favourite US imports restarting on television for their new seasons! Happy days indeed!

Following the lives of the twenty-somethings and their secret double-lives – as a werewolf, vampire and ghost – Being Human was first transmitted in February 2008 as a 60-minute special as a part of BBC Three’s drama pilot season.

Popular with viewers and critics alike, the pilot peaked at nearly 450,000 viewers whilst gaining rave reviews and online petitions begging for a series to be commissioned.

Russell Tovey reprises his role as the lovable George, battling with his double identity as a mild-mannered and geeky hospital porter who for one night a month is transformed into a flesh-hungry, predatory werewolf.

Aidan Turner plays the good-looking and laid-back Mitchell who, in contrast to George, has the gift of the gab and an easy confidence with the ladies. But he is also a blood-sucking vampire struggling with going cold-turkey from the blood he craves.

Completing the flat-share trio is Annie, played by Lenora Crichlow, a talkative ghost lacking in self-confidence and desperate for company. Annie is still pining after her fiancé, whom she was due to marry before the fatal accident that left her with her ghostly affliction – and who happens to be the landlord of their flat.

The series follows the trio as they do their best to live their lives as normally as possible despite their strange and dark secrets.

But with unwelcome intruders into their world, rumblings about an impending revolution from the vampire underworld and constant threats of exposure – on top of the usual issues faced by young people surrounding love, work and mates – the only thing they may be able to rely on in their heightened world, is each other. Source: BBC

I quite enjoyed this. Fairly eccentric stuff – it was a cross between This Life, Casualty and Interview with a Vampire. Theree twenty-somethings sharing a house together in Bristol. The two guys work in a hospital and the girl stays in the house.

George, the werewolf:

Mitchell, the vampire.

Annie, the ghost.

This is the first thing I’ve watched on BBC3 as I tend to not watch comedy. This definitely wasn’t a ‘comedy’ in the usual sense of the word but it did have a humorous streak running through it which worked pretty well. Also a fair amount of gore and drama.

The emerging plot line is that of the wider vampire population wanting to take over the rest of society (at least I think that’s what it was).

Anyway, quirky enough to watch next Sunday evening as 9pm is when I do the week’s ironing and having something half decent to watch whilst doing it is important!

Episode 1 on BBC iPlayer and Being Human page on BBC website.

PS The snapshot of episode 1 which appears on the front of iPlayer is downright scary!!

Loving this song at the moment. For those who watched (and loved) the BBC’s Life on Mars, it should bring back some memories.

(Click to play)