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Post by fenris on Dec 27, 2020 20:40:25 GMT
I normally avoid shows like The Masked Singer like the plague. But some of my workplace colleagues kept talking about it each week, and as I'm a big & unashamed fan of Girls Aloud, I was intrigued by the rumours & theories that Queen Bee was Nicola Roberts (my favourite member of the band). As the Queen had reached the show's grand final, I watched it last night and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. With reported viewing figures of over six million for the final, it's almost certain the show will return, and next time I'll probably try watching it from the beginning. As I stated in my previous post (abridged version above), I've never watched the likes of The X Factor, The Voice, Britain's Got Talent, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Dancing On Ice or I'm A Former Celebrity Desperate To Revive My Career - Watch Me Degrade Myself and can confidently confirm that I never will. But as I predicted, I did watch the first episode of The Masked Singer UK's second season last night. And while we've yet to see the second batch of this season's dozen contestants, it does seem - based on the quality of the six who performed this week - that all those taking part this year are established singers (unless the producers have found some celebrities who can sing, but aren't known for being singers). Covid 19 might have helped in this regard - a lot of performers who would otherwise have been touring or doing stage work have found themselves completely available. Shame to see Sophie Ellis-Bexter get voted out first. She was clearly hampered and restricted by her attempts to disguise her voice, but re-watching her performance, there are still moments when her distinctive vocals keep breaking through; Watching the season opener, was surprised by the differing scales of production for the contestants. Robin and Dragon got large song-and-dance numbers with several dancers and elaborate props, Badger and Swan were both just accompanied by two dancers, while Alien and Sausage performed all on their lonesome. I don't think there's any bias or favouritism going on - it's probably just a matter of keeping the show on-budget, and some contestants are just randomly given more extras then others. I dare say that if Sophie have survived, she would have been granted a larger production number in a later episode.
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Post by fenris on Jan 9, 2021 12:57:05 GMT
Would just like to recommend WPC 56, which begins a repeat run on the Drama channel (Freeview channel: 20) tonight at 21:00. Originally screened on BBC1 between 2013 - 2015, it was one of several shows - along with Land Girls (an apparent spin-off from the 1998 film), The Indian Doctor and the ongoing Father Brown - with which the Beeb proved it was possible to deliver quality period drama on a reduced daytime budget.
Set in 1956 in Brinford, a fictitious location in the West Midlands (the series is vague as to whether Brinford is a district of Birmingham or an entirely separate town on the outskirts of Birmingham), WPC 56 focuses on young recruit Gina Dawson (played by Jennie Jacques) the first female constable on Brinford's police force, and the struggles she faces due to her colleagues believing she's only there to make the tea and comfort distressed female witnesses and victims. In addition to the entrenched sexism of the period, the show also tackled the issues of racism, mental illness and homophobia, and predictably was accused of being 'too PC' by some viewers. But the fact is that to have been female, covertly gay (homosexuality being illegal at the time) or belonging to an ethnic minority, etc, during the period when WPC 56 was set would have meant being faced with such attitudes on a daily basis. Refreshingly, Gina wasn't portrayed as being too good to be true. Yes, she was intelligent, brave, resourceful, and could see past her colleagues' prejudices, but she was also naïve, inexperienced and had a disastrous habit of falling in love with the wrong man. And despite being made for daytime, the show wasn't afraid to go to some dark places, with storylines about rape, child murder, sex slavery, suicide, and - with WWII still being a recent event in 1956 - Nazi atrocities. WPC 56 had problems keeping hold of it's actors. Practically the entire supporting cast changed between the first and second seasons, and Jacques herself left after Season 2 due to getting a regular role in Vikings. Her rookie replacement Annie Taylor, played by Claudia Jessie, was a very different character: whereas Gina was partly in awe of her colleagues and would often defer to them and be wary of speaking out, Annie came from a family of police officers (her father was retired from the force and both of her older brothers were policemen) and as she'd grown up amongst coppers and been around them her entire life, she wasn't impressed or intimidated by her Brinford colleagues at all, and was more than capable of standing up for herself. I watched all three seasons of WPC 56 when they originally aired on BBC1, and had looked forward to further seasons with Jessie as Annie Taylor, but with the exception of Father Brown, the Beeb's unofficial policy towards it's daytime period dramas seems to have been 'make three seasons, then stop.' Despite having developed a loyal fanbase and garnered highly favourable reviews (the Daily Mail's TV critic predicted that if WPC 56 had been initially shown at primetime, the BBC would have had another Call The Midwife-sized hit on their hands), the show - together with Land Girls and The Indian Doctor - didn't return for a fourth season.
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Post by fenris on Feb 15, 2021 20:25:50 GMT
Have enjoyed the second season of The Masked Singer UK (Sue Perkins can sing! Who knew?). Highlights of the season finale included guest judge Nicola Roberts getting two correct guesses - thereby matching in a single episode what some of the regular panel had achieved all season - and Joss Stone making it to the final and winning, without any of the judges speculating it was her throughout the entire season. However, the announced spin-off The Masked Dancer already feels like a step too far (expect lots of former Strictly and Dancing On Ice contestants to turn up in it), reeking of desperation. What next - every successful TV format of the last 10 - 15 years to be given a Masked variant? The Masked Baker anyone?
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Post by fenris on Mar 7, 2021 13:37:40 GMT
The Champions (the original TV series about a team of superheroes) is being rerun on Talking Pictures TV, starting today (7th March) at 21:00 and presumably continuing every Sunday. It's a classic show, but the only problem looking at it through modern eyes is that it's (unavoidably) very much of it's time. As was standard for Sixties TV shows, the storyline in every episode is rigidly self-contained - for example, in 'The Experiment' Sharon McCready (played by Alexandra Bastedo) encounters villains who have in-depth knowledge of Nemesis' inner-workings and even the finer details of the assignments she's carried out, to the extent that they've deduced she has above-human abilities - something that even her superiors at Nemesis haven't realised. If The Champions was filmed today, how the villains came by this knowledge - logic dictates there's a leak or mole at Nemesis at the highest level - would be the subject of a sub-plot that would probably run an entire season, but instead it's simply never explained or referred to again. Another way in which The Champions shows it's age is that Sharon never gets much to do - in a couple of episodes she only appears in a single scene. Even in a handful of episodes that initially seem to be centred on her (such as 'Shadow of the Panther' and 'The Night People'), within 15-20 minutes into the story she calls the boys in to help and they proceed to take over. It's still a series that definitely worth watching though. Here's hoping Talking Pictures gets the rights to The Champions' stablemate Department S.
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Post by fenris on Jul 6, 2021 19:27:02 GMT
Would just like to recommend WPC 56, originally screened on BBC1 between 2013 - 2015. It was one of several shows - along with Land Girls, The Indian Doctor and the ongoing Father Brown - with which the Beeb proved it was possible to deliver quality period drama on a reduced daytime budget. Having been repeated several times on both Drama and Alibi, in an unusual move WPC 56 is returning to BBC1. The first season is being repeated on the Beeb's premier channel, starting next Monday (12th July) at 13:45 and continuing every weekday.
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Post by fenris on Sept 25, 2021 16:05:04 GMT
Having cancelled Holby City for purely political reasons (see the What is Everybody Else Watching at the Moment? thread), the BBC - in an amazingly bizarre, unimaginative and risk-averse piece of back-stepping - are using the money freed up by that decision to revive Waterloo Road (?!), a series that was cancelled after to it's ratings plummeted due to near-identical BBC political meddling. The irony. www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58662762And it's been announced that Derry Girls will end after it's third series; www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-58663416Call me cynical, but I suspect in a few years we'll see a spin-off called Derry Women, set in the 2000s with the characters as twentysomethings. No objections here.
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