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[narfstar]

This was a media produced tape. The first two docs were never shown in this area. Since VCR's have been around since the late 70's it is not unlikely that the episodes were taped and are stored somewhere. SciFi fans like to collect.

[boox909]

Sources are reporting that a big screen version of Doctor Who, written by former showrunner Russell T. Davies, is slated for release in 2012. Those same sources are also reporting that Johnny Depp has been confirmed in the iconic role of The Doctor.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/johnny-depp-starring-in-big-screen-doctor-who-adaptation

[Nyarlathotep]

Sources are reporting that a big screen version of Doctor Who, written by former showrunner Russell T. Davies, is slated for release in 2012. Those same sources are also reporting that Johnny Depp has been confirmed in the iconic role of The Doctor.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/johnny-depp-starring-in-big-screen-doctor-who-adaptation

What... I mean...  what?!  As much as I would welcome a new movie, this doesn't exactly fill me with exuberant optimism...

[paw broon]

I have a few Dr. Who tele-snaps reconsructions of missing stories, on VHS.  As they are copies (of copies, in some cases) the quality can be poor but you get a feel for these old stories and I suppose Loose Cannon are the same sort of thing. They were done and circulated by the fan community. God help us if that Who-Depp movie ever sees the light of day
We have a new show on ITV, called Identity and we watched the first episode last night.  All about identity theft and a Scotland Yard unit dedicated to foghting it.  This was frightening and set us worrying just how safe our personal details were.  Definately want to see the next one.

[Lanfeust]

In France, we only had the fourth Doctor from 1989 - and I think the series wasn't that successful because I don't remember having seen the slightest bit of it in my childhood. The new series is being broadcasted since 2005, but I watch it on UK DVD - and I like it!

Other series I've been watching recently are Heroes (only have the first two seasons on DVD), Hero Corp (a French comic series with retired superheroes forced to fight again), Flash, Twin Peaks and Super Dimension Fortress Macross. I watch all on DVD, because there are basically no interesting series broadcasted nowadays on French TV. Still waiting for new episodes from House MD and Desperate Housewives.

[paw broon]

Last night on BBC1, Sherlock started.  This involves some of the folk behind Doctor Who and re-invents Holmes in the same way Who was done.  Set in the present, Cumberbatch makes a good, young Sherlock and his depositions sound just like Matt Smith in Doc. Who.  And the excellent Martin Freeman is Dr. Watson.  Lots of purists will be annoyed by this new version, I think, but it makes for wonderful, well shot and lit, fast, spooky entertainment.  At least this first story does.  Fingers crossed they can keep it up.

[narfstar]

BBC's Survivors was a good series unfortunately cancelled after the second season. Final episode concluded the "story arc" but left it ready for me and me wanting more.

Is anyone watching Hot in Cleveland? This is passing up Big Bang as the best current tV comedy. Absolutely hilarious.

[josemas]

This past year I have been getting into many of the British shows after a friend lent me collections of Dr. Who Season 3 and Torchwood Seasons 1 & 2.   Since then I've been watching many more such shows on BBC America-Dr. Who (almost all caught up on the current revival), Primeval, Survivors, Ashes to Ashes, Being Human, Demons, and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Among the current American shows I'm following are Warehouse 13, Haven, Leverage, Bones, CSI: NY, Criminal Minds, The Gates, Fringe and the occasional CSI.

Some old show I catch on the Encore Westerns channel are Maverick and Lawman.

I do a (nearly) weekly Movie Night over at some friends house where we watch old stuff on 16mm, DVD and VHS.  Last Night we watched Captain Video Chapter 7-(1951), Pop Tuttle's Movie Queen-(1922), The Second Hundred Years-(1927)-(Laurel and Hardy), Dog Shy-(1926)-(Charley Chase), The Knockout-(1923), Hula-La-La-(1951)-(Three Stooges), plus a bunch of rare Abbott and Costello stuff including several Easy Pop Popcorn commercials, Lou Costello home movies, and some newsreel footage of the boys (including two versions of them doing their "Who's on First" routine that I had never seen).

Joe M

[narfstar]

WOW Joe. Please make sure this stuff is preserved. Much of this stuff is public domain. PLEASE digitize and upload these to several sites.

[josemas]

Well most of this stuff is already available on DVD from one source or another and the gentleman who owns the Abbott and Costello material has plans to put out as much of it as he can on some DVD collection also.

Joe M

[paw broon]

josemas,  first off, how do you find the time for all this telly?  I'm retired and can't find time enough for half of that. But I see you've been watching Primeval and I should have mentioned this show before 'cos it's really good fun with great effects.  How far along are you with the series and do you know it was canceled by ITV?.  Rumour has it that BBC have bought the idea and will produce more, which would be good as it all finished a bit untidily with loose ends everywhere.  Don't want to say too much and give the game away.
Ashes to Ashes never got me the same way Life on Mars did.
I also enjoy a couple of American shows, particularly The Mentalist and Leverage and I've recently seen a couple of Warehouse 13 and I think I can catch up on one of our cable chanels. 
I don't think humour travels well and apart from Cheers and Mash, I don't find most of the other American stuff funny.  Oddly enough I love A.& C. ,3 Stooges and lots of American slapstick. British comedies I've been watching recently include Outnumbered, Miranda and The I.T.Crowd ( by the bloke who did Father Ted) but I don't think you'll get them in N. America, they're very British and IT Crowd's seriously socially incompetent cast ---well you have to see it to believe it.

[josemas]

josemas,  first off, how do you find the time for all this telly?  I'm retired and can't find time enough for half of that. But I see you've been watching Primeval and I should have mentioned this show before 'cos it's really good fun with great effects.  How far along are you with the series and do you know it was canceled by ITV?.  Rumour has it that BBC have bought the idea and will produce more, which would be good as it all finished a bit untidily with loose ends everywhere.  Don't want to say too much and give the game away.
Ashes to Ashes never got me the same way Life on Mars did.
I also enjoy a couple of American shows, particularly The Mentalist and Leverage and I've recently seen a couple of Warehouse 13 and I think I can catch up on one of our cable chanels. 
I don't think humour travels well and apart from Cheers and Mash, I don't find most of the other American stuff funny.  Oddly enough I love A.& C. ,3 Stooges and lots of American slapstick. British comedies I've been watching recently include Outnumbered, Miranda and The I.T.Crowd ( by the bloke who did Father Ted) but I don't think you'll get them in N. America, they're very British and IT Crowd's seriously socially incompetent cast ---well you have to see it to believe it.

josemas,  first off, how do you find the time for all this telly?  I'm retired and can't find time enough for half of that.

Careful budgeting of my time.  I work nights and usually watch a couple of shows in the morning when I get home before hitting the sack.  Of the shows I mentioned they don't all run at the same times- a number of them are in summer reruns now while a batch of the others are summer cable or network replacement shows.  I often work my way through series on DVD collections too.  Either re-watching old favorites or catching up on series I missed.

But I see you've been watching Primeval and I should have mentioned this show before 'cos it's really good fun with great effects.  How far along are you with the series and do you know it was canceled by ITV?.  Rumour has it that BBC have bought the idea and will produce more, which would be good as it all finished a bit untidily with loose ends everywhere.  Don't want to say too much and give the game away.

I just started watching season three.  Didn't know that it had been canceled.  Sorry to hear that.  I hope BBC does pick it up.

Ashes to Ashes never got me the same way Life on Mars did.

I have yet to catch the original Life on Mars.  I've only seen the American remake with Harvey Keitel.  I keep hoping that BBC America will rerun the original one of these days.

I also enjoy a couple of American shows, particularly The Mentalist and Leverage and I've recently seen a couple of Warehouse 13 and I think I can catch up on one of our cable chanels. 

Warehouse 13 is now in its second season here in the USA and I'm very much enjoying it.  They did a recent episode that was very comic book orientated which I got a real kick out of.

I don't think humour travels well and apart from Cheers and Mash, I don't find most of the other American stuff funny.  Oddly enough I love A.& C. ,3 Stooges and lots of American slapstick. British comedies I've been watching recently include Outnumbered, Miranda and The I.T.Crowd ( by the bloke who did Father Ted) but I don't think you'll get them in N. America, they're very British and IT Crowd's seriously socially incompetent cast ---well you have to see it to believe it.

I haven't followed American sitcoms closely for some time but thanks to DVD collections over the last year or so I have started catching up on some-Third Rock From the Sun, Friends, Sex and the City, Seinfeld, The Office (the American remake) and a few others (with more waiting in the wings until I can fit them into my schedule).
The only recent Britcoms I've seen (courtesy of BBC America) are the two seasons of The Inbetweeners and occasional episodes of The Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look.  Over the years I've enjoyed a number of older British comedies that have played here in the states such as The Goodies, Monty Python, Benny Hill, The Two Ronnies, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Mr. Bean, Ripping Yarns, and several others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Joe M

[narfstar]

I watch a lot of tv because I am ADD and a multitasker. I am uncomfortable doing only one thing at a time. If all I am doing is watching TV I will start tapping on something or whatever. This used to annoy my family when I was a kid and before anyone ever heard of ADD. Now I usually do whatever I want on the computer while watching TV and often carrying on a conversation. So when kids at school try to use ADD as an excuse I tell them channel and get more done not less.

[paw broon]

O.K. that makes sense.  Quick ramble here as we've just finished dinner and I've eaten a alot of pasta and drunk a few glasses of wine.  I'm glad I checked the listings for tonight 'cos Sherlock is on half an hour earlier.  Josemas, try and find New Tricks, a BBC show - perfect casting of great British actors and good stories.  Also Hustle.  As for comedy, the Miranda show I mentioned is really good and she is credited with bringing back the pratfall to British tv.  Most of the older shows you mention are still very funny but I don't enjoy M. & W. but David Mitchell is seriously good in a couple of comedy quizzes currently on tv and radio. As he is in Jam and Jerusalem, which is very English (as opposed to British)
Checked on our Watch Again and there are lots of episodes of Warehouse 13 to watch.  Should have said, I still enoy CSI, although the Miami one stinks.
Narfstar, I read while watching certain tv shows and I think I understand, although maybe you're watching not very good tv. My wife was a teacher and I've shown her your kids ADD approach.  I think she approves.
Al of you, try to find the Quatermass tv serials from the BBC.  There is a box set and it pulls togetherthe surviving episodes of Q. Experiment, Q 2 and Q. and the Pit. Seriously good and frightening, old fasioned b&w tv s.f.

[bowers]

BBC America is showing the season finale of Dr. Who-- really good season! Only one episode I didn't much care for (the stairway one). Hope they can keep up the quality for next season. PBS is also giving us new (at least new to us) episodes of  Poirot, Lewis, and that Swedish guy played by Kenneth Brannagh. Also new episodes of Leverage. Anyone remember Timothy Hutton's previous series, "Nero Wolfe"? He both produced and co-starred in this series, along with the recently deceased Maury Chaykin. The series had a wonderful '50s look and feel. Hutton also cleverly used the same group of actors to play different characters throughout the series, giving it a real  "theatrical group" type of feeling. Definitely some very good TV. Cheers, Bowers

[narfstar]

I did not watch Nero Wolfe sounds like I missed a good series. I tried the PBS British mysteries several years ago but found them too low key. I too really thought this to be one of the Dr's best seasons

[josemas]

I very much enjoyed Timothy Hutton's take on Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe when it ran on A & E.  The adaptations generally stayed quite faithful to Stout's original stories.  I just wish it had run longer.

Anybody here remember Tim's actor father the late Jim Hutton in the 1970's series Ellery Queen?   Another favorite of mine back then which I'd like to see again.

Joe M

[bowers]

I remember the "Ellery Queen" series very well. Well written scripts which never told us whodunnit until the last moment. My favorite part was the end where Hutton  addressed the audience, gave a clue or two, and then challenged us to solve the mystery. You actually had to use your "little grey cells". I don't believe their famous radio sleuth character, Simon Brimmer, ever did correctly deduce the solution. Great show! Cheers, Bowers

[CharlieRock]

I don't watch actual broadcast television. I watch DVDs or Netflix. So here is what I have currently frying my brain:
The Tick (the too-short live action series)
The Greatest American Hero (Complete Series)
Torchwood (Ssn.2)
Black Adder (ssn. 2)

The only time I actually watch something on regular TV is Pro Wrestling or somebody else was watching something and I don't change it to be polite.

[narfstar]

I do not think I will ever understand why anyone watches Pro Wrestling but a lot of people do. I guess I could say I do understand why they watch it but just don't see the entertainment value myself. To each his own.

[Roygbiv666]

I do not think I will ever understand why anyone watches Pro Wrestling but a lot of people do. I guess I could say I do understand why they watch it but just don't see the entertainment value myself. To each his own.

Live-action stunt work, performance art without the pretentious pseduo-intellectual artsie fartsie, fit women in tights.

[narfstar]

fit women in tights.

Now that is something I can understand and appreciate 

[CharlieRock]

All those are good reasons, especially the fit women in tights. lol
There is also the old "Face vs Heel" aspect still going on in wrestling today. I used to like it a lot more then I do now. But compared to America's Got Talent or <Insert Reality Show Name Here> I find it comforting that there was a time when we watched TV to get away from reality and Pro Wrestling is not reality.

[josemas]

Some of the vintage films we watched at this week's Movie Night included-

CAPTAIN VIDEO-Chapter 8-"Invisible Menace!"
One of the more interesting aspects of this serial is the way they tint scenes red or green when they are on planets other than Earth.  I've seen tinting used on plenty of silent films but it became pretty rare after talkies took over.

HIS DAY OUT-1918-King Bee-
A Billy West comedy short with a young Oliver Hardy in support.  West was considered the best of the Charlie Chaplin imitators.  This was a cut-down version.  I've seen prints that run considerably longer.

THE STRANGER-1918-King Bee-
Another Billy West short comedy.  Actually we watched two different prints of this film- both of which contained footage absent from the other.  The owner of the prints plans to do an edit/restoration to come up with a more complete single print.

FOLLOW THE CROWD-1918-Rolin-
It seem like 1918 films were the theme of the night.  At least this one didn't star Billy West but was one of Harold Loyd's early films featuring the "glasses" character that would make him one of the most famous comedians of the silent era.

QUEEN OF HEARTS-1936-
Our feature film of the week was this very enjoyable British musical-comedy starring the great Gracie Fields.  Directed by former silent comedian Monty Banks (who would wed Gracie a few years after this film was made).

Joe M

[narfstar]

I have watched some "old" stuff on the computer. Not really a lot of fun. I think your way of doing it with others is the way to make it more enjoyable.