Be Excellent To Each Other

I really enjoyed it. Did you enjoy it live? When was it filmed, was it this year?

I did, though the distance from stage was a thing. I'm not sure, but think it was January this year, at the Ally Pally - bit of a work in progress, restoring the theatre, and the acoustics aren't quite there, so I remember hearing bits wasn't great. I still enjoyed it, but I'm sure it will look completely different on screen - there will be subtleties I missed.

6th of Jan 2022!

He was useless at the Gamecube questions, so I’m not sure he’s a good fit.

Just watched the whole series of Traitors. It needed more drunk ghosts and loud whispering.

5 points on a round 1 question on tonight's Only Connect! Yay!

We watched 'The Rig' on Amazon Prime, it's new for 2023.

There's lots of Scottish accents, so I'm gonna put it as UK TV.

Anyway, the trailer for The Rig made it look a bit supernatural and suspenseful. I was hoping for a 'creeping dread' sort of feeling watching it, but I didn't really get that. I had the feeling that the show wasn't sure exactly what it wanted to be, so it just sort of chucked everything into the slow cooker pot.

It was very slowly paced too, not as bad as Outer Ranges but still, too slow. The character-drama aspect, the supernatural component, and the 'corporate secrecy and shenanigans' didn't seem to complement each other very well and I felt like each element was simultaneously given too much screen time, but also due to how slow it was, they were not expanded on enough. Maybe it was a little unfocussed, and some better editing may have made it better. The acting was quite good though, but there were some instances of characters making some miraculous development in understanding or knowledge just to move the plot along.

The reveal was a touch disappointing and not much got resolved, and then it seems likely there will be another series to wrap things up (or, as i feel is more likely, just add more mysteries). All in all not a bad watch but a touch disappointing.

Yeah, I watched The Rig and can pretty much sum it up by shrugging and saying "meh". It wasn't offensively bad, but it was still below average.

Yep, I thought it had an interesting premise that started well, and then didn't really do much

I did enjoy all the Scottish accents though. I really thought it was going to be a bit like The Mist or The Fog, but no.

Yeah, I saw it through to the end, but it did feel lacking something.

When I first saw that Martin Compston was in it, I was expecting it to be something like Vigil, but on an Oil Rig, then as I watched a couple of episodes I was expecting something more like The Thing, but in the end I just kept thinking, it's okay, a bit cheap, but okay, it really needs to get going in the next episode, but it never really did. It managed to do enough for me to keep watching, but that's it.

It's also been about the third Amazon Prime Series, where I didn't realise that the final episode was indeed the last one (the other two that spring to mind recently are the Lord of the Rings prequel and The Peripheral). Although maybe that says more about me than it does those programs

Bit of trivia. Most of the main characters are named after oil rigs or oilfields.

It was a Dr Who story with swearing.

That feels like a pretty good summary, to me.

Casualty! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... ranslation Staring Mrs Squirt in the Award Winning role of "Onlooker with pushchair" at about 16:50!

Was the child supplied by the BBC?

Yeah, the BBC purchases orphan babies for exactly this sort of thing.

Gritty reboot of Call the Midwife.

Currently on Iplayer is John Betjeman's Metroland, his poetical 1973 TV loveletter to the suburbs. A nostalgic view of a time long gone back in its day, now a period piece of its own.

Well worth a look.

Watch out for some bad improv between a sentry and a proto-sloane, a bit of height-shaming from Betjeman, and a twitching Craster in Neasden.

Oh, I was about to ask if I’m this is the one with the Neasden segment. I’m from Neasden so this is a must-watch for me.

Rewatched this. Loved it even more this time.

The posh cafe at the start is now an ornate Wetherspoons.

I watched Cunk on Earth on Netflix.

It was very, very funny. I really enjoyed the short Cunk sections in things like Newswipe and Screenwipe but initially had doubts how well it would work in a full episode format - that doubt was very quickly dispelled. I really enjoy that mix of smart-dumb humour with a touch of the absurd. I think I'll go back and watch again soon.

I didn't realise that there had been previous Cunk series, so I'll track them down too.

'Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone' on iPlayer- What it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy. A series of (7) films by Adam Curtis.

"Showing everyone from reindeer herders to scientists wrapping themselves in sticky tape to head into Chernobyl, this fine series traces the latterday Russian revolution that brought in a kleptocracy and paved the way for Putin." - The Guardian.


Weird, scary, fascinating. Each episode consists of a multitude of clips from a multitude of film makers, with no narration. Working its way through the collapse of communism, with its ridiculous bureaucracy, the chaos of attempting a 'big bang' adoption of capitalism that was bound to fail, the criminal chancers who became oligarchs and the lack of stable leadership. But there is much, much more to this series. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

The most recent episode of Taskmaster (C4; S15 E2) had a moment that left me in stitches.



Actually left me banging my armchair in joy.

BBC2: Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

An oral history of what we call "The Troubles". Slowly revealing the identities of some of the interviewees was a clever editorial decision that showed how they affected everyone. It's uncompromising in its use of archive film, but I think I would have liked more indications of time/location.

Watching the footage reminded me of something I read a while back about how if it were happening anywhere else we would have considered the UK a failed state.