TV to make you smile

I was commenting on the appropriateness of being on Forces TV, I didn't say anything about ITV.

As James rightly points out, they aren't ITV shows


A lot of successful and long running ITV sitcoms seem to be largely forgotten, certainly less well remembered and thought of than BBC ones. I don't know whether this is because they just weren't as good or have dated, or purely because a lot of them were Thames productions so even less likely to get a repeat than others.

After Henry is another good example

JKDerry probably quoted the wrong post, and meant to quote Rich Tea's earlier post which did mention ITV.

I’m seeking solace with the following:

• Frank Spencer
• Mrs. Slocombe
• Mrs. Bucket
• Cowley, Bodie and Doyle
• Starsky, Hutch and Huggy Bear.

I'll add to that with the following

*Dave Allen
*Jim Bowen
*Yes Minister/Prime Minister
*Last Of The Summer Wine
*Open All Hours

Dave are showing a Comedy Against Living Miserably from Tueaday at 9pm.

Speaking of Dave, there's the Red Dwarf special coming up on April 9th...



Two hours long (including ad breaks), the return of Norman Lovett, increased stakes and drama... should be interesting.

Hopefully it's better than Back To Earth was. Though that's a low bar.

Interesting that you mentioned Red Dwarf, one of the episodes in the last series was called M-CORP and that is your username... Big fan or are you doing a spot of advertising for UKTV?

Thought it would make a good web username (and stage name for my music making endeavours)...

So yeah. A fan. What can I say. I have no imagination.

Caught myself binging on the classic Australian children's TV Show Round The Twist. Surprisingly they only made four seasons/series? of it, albeit spread over 12 years. 1989, 1993, 2000 and 2001. All 52 episodes are on Amazon Prime.

A far more surreal show than I seem to remember, which is actually notable for a few things - firstly its fabulous theme tune:


And secondly a credit sequence that runs for 90 seconds. And they were still that long as late as 2001 which by a lot of TV networks standards was quite unusual. And thirdly I think it broke some taboos in children's programming as well with some of its storylines...

Anyway still escapist TV, well worth catching up on if you haven't seen it.

There's quite a lot of stuff in my list to keep me away from the pandemic.

I'm currently watching things on BBC Four like Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema on Thursday nights & some music documentaries on Friday nights. On ITV+1 on Thursday nights; I would watch things like The Station which is a documentary series about Birmingham New Street & King Cross station. On BBC Two since January of this year; I have been watching new episodes & repeats of Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys & new episodes of Great Asian Railway Journeys, Great Australian Railway Journeys & revised repeats of Great Alaskan Railroad Journeys & Great American Railroad Journeys Goes to Canada. I also watched the new series of Top Gear which aired on Sunday nights on BBC Two.

On RTÉ One in Ireland; I have been watching a lot of stuff like Nationwide, Cloch Le Carn, High Road Low Road & Big Life Fix. There is also a 2 part football documentary series on Jack Charlton's successful era as The Republic of Ireland football team. This new documentary is called The Boys in Green. It focuses on his time as Ireland manager when the team qualified for Euro'88 all the way up to their defeat against The Netherlands up until the Euro'96 play-off qualifier in 1995.

Started on Noughts + Crosses tonight. Well worth a watch.