At the moment I really love the restoration shows. Ones like the UK's "Find it, fix it, flog it" and "Money for nothing" where they take stuff that people no longer want, fix them up and resell them then give the profits to the original owners. Also the US's show "American restoration" where they follow specialist restorers that people bring in old machines and things to, and they restore them to their original glory.
I used to enjoy things like The History Channel until it got "Redstoned" into a whole lot of naked reality shows and hillbilly swamp people. Even when they do rarely produce a show about actual HISTORY it's typically just politically correct, dead white male bashing. (notice how they change the background music to subconsciously influence the viewer?) I'm fine with lightweight pop history as it can be a gateway to more serious work but I really hate bad history.
Even when they manage to produce a successful show they just can't resist ruining it by pandering to safe space dwelling snowflakes. I quit watching Vikings when I realized that every single Christian priest was depicted as a fat blubbering coward, while Viking Paganism (which included human sacrifice) is depicted as eco friendly, new age shamanism.
Given the current climate it's unlikely we will see any documentaries dealing with the Civil War, WWII, Westward Expansion or the Crusades in a legitimate, unbiased manner.
There's nothing coming out of Hollywood that is of any interest to me, it's either yet another obscure comic book hero I've never heard of or a celebration of substandard people living sordid pointless lives. I can go to Walmart and watch that for free.
I much prefer Game of Thrones, now that's a well written big budget series comparable with Middle Earth. I'm told that The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad are quite entertaining but I just don't see the subject matter, zombies and drug dealers, as being appealing.
(I've already got the end game for GoT worked out. Ned's not dead, Varys hired a faceless man to be executed in his place and had him whisked away to the House of Black and White where he is teaching statesmanship to the secret Targaryon heir Aegon, also switched by Varys just before The Mountain killed the rest of the family. Jamie kills Cersei, Brienne kills Jamie, The Hound kills The Mountain, Arya kills Littlefinger, The Night King kills Jon Snow, Danerys kills the Night King and then marries Aegon, thus restoring the Targaryen line, appoints Ned as Hand and they all lived happily ever after.)
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
History Channel had "Men who built America". A series of documentaries about Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Carnegie, and other individuals who built America after the Civil War.
I didn't much pay attention in History class, nor any other classes for that matter. We grew up pretty poor with 9 kids, and a dad who worked until he was 83. Work came 1st, then school.
Anyway , I never realized how cutthroat and violent these people were. How , during this time there were no laws or regulations governing the large companies. I highly recommend this program.
I did a lot of work after Hurricane Katrina, so I like the gator hunting show. Im familiar with a lot of the places on that show. Wife loves it.
Pawn Stars is a show I watch when Im messing with my coins. I just have to hear it, not watch it.
Also Outsiders, A show about coal companies trying to kick people off their land in Appalachia, so they can take the minerals.
Quote: "Jarcek"I try to avoid tv shows, because I usually cannot stop watching all episodes after it catches me.
So I watched all Stargate, all Starwars and Game of thrones. Besides that, only Band of Brothers and Pacific caught me.
Did I mentioned I like when it has a story? :D
And I hate commercials too, so I do not watch then on TV, why should I waste twice the time for same fun?
I just finished watching Deep Space 9; so that caps off all the Star Trek series lol (star trek original, star trek enterprise, star trek voyager, enterprise). I'm mostly into netflix because I'm too cheap to pay for TV. I like detective/murder series....Murdoch Mysteries, Mrs Fischers Murder Mysteries, Poirot, White Collar, Bones, Castle and now i'm watching BlackListed. Else I like comedies too...How I met your mother, simpsons, futurama, raising hope, modern family, frazier etc. I watched GoT up to season 5, but I'm still taking my time moving forward since the last scene I saw was a guys face smashed in and I hurled my dinner.
Whenever I go to the gym in the evenings and if i'm on the treadmill/stationery bike/elliptical, i'll watch shows like Love it or List it, Property virgins, Canadian Pickers, Pawn stars and Property Brothers. I livestream news channels like CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and I'll watch the news for half hour a day if anything, to get my daily fix of trump. Oh yeah, did I mention I watch youtube clips of Stephen colbert, Seth Myers, Samantha Bee and John Oliver ?
OK, I guess it's good I don't have TV. After reading above all the stuff I watch, its a wonder I get my ass off the couch at all lol
I love the shows where couples are trying to buy homes and get shown a trio of homes...Great Britain has a show like that where folks want to move from London to the country side. I love this show. Wales...Cornwall...if I wasnt smack dab in the country of US I would love to be there.
Library Media Specialist, columnist, collector, and gardener...
We don't have cable or satellite so we don't watch a lot of TV. Mostly stuff from Netflix and occasionally downloads. Some of our more recently viewed programs include Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Victoria, The Crown, A Series of Unfortunate Events. Currently we are watching the US version of House of Cards, which seems almost quaint in today's political climate.
My favourite at the moment is The Last Kingdom which is set in Britain around the end of the 9th century, as the various separate kingdoms come together to unite against the Viking invaders. I caught the first series recently on Netflix and the second series has just started on BBC2. It's thoroughly entertaining (a little gory at times), well founded on fact and best of all - no commercials! Since I have recently been working on the Anglo-Saxon issues of the England catalogue from the same era, I was absolutely hooked and can't wait until the next episode.
Just because you can't see it ... doesn't mean it isn't there - Anon.
I mostly watch nature programs and those dealing with space and world war 2. Do not watch much else apart from the odd decent looking series.
Just finished watching SS-GB. Totally confused most of the time in this although it was on for 5 weeks.
I am out two nights a week at football, so that helps reduce the rubbish I keep away from.
That swamp people show seems to be one you either love or hate. John seems to be in the former category and Phil seems to be in the latter. I've watched a couple of episodes of it and I think it's probably like any other show about people doing their jobs, like ice road truckers and most dangerous cach. It's fine for the first couple of episodes. After that you're just watching them do the same thing over and over again. I did enjoy one of the episodes I watched where the chubby guy with the beard was commissioned to build an aluminium boat and he built it from scratch by himself inside a week. That was pretty cool.
I used to watch quite a bit of TV, at least 3-4 hours a day. Now that the kids are bigger and doing things after school I just watch the breakfast news in the morning, a couple of shows on Tuesday night, which is the only day we don't have something on after I finish work, and a little bit in the weekend.
I do stick my headphones on at work and listen to some shows and podcasts though. Usually satire and comedy like the daily show, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, last week tonight and the bugle podcast (The thing that John Oliver did with Andy Zaltzman before he was on the daily show and last week tonight) They even talked about my letter on the latest episode. The other one is a British podcast called "Answer me this"
Over the last 20-ish years, I have gotten pulled into (via box sets):
Alias
Babylon 5
Battlestar Galactica (2000s)
Burn Notice
Chuck
Coupling
Day Break
Doctor Who (9th)
Early Edition
Farscape
Firefly
Futurama
Have Gun Will Travel
The IT Crowd
Pushing Daisies
Quantum Leap
SeaQuest DSV
The Simpsons
Star Trek: Next Gen
The Unit
Wonderfalls
WKRP in Cincinnati
Trying to keep up with:
Agents of Shield
Big Bang Theory
Game of Thrones
Quote: "radrick007"My favourite at the moment is The Last Kingdom which is set in Britain around the end of the 9th century, as the various separate kingdoms come together to unite against the Viking invaders. I caught the first series recently on Netflix and the second series has just started on BBC2. It's thoroughly entertaining (a little gory at times), well founded on fact and best of all - no commercials! Since I have recently been working on the Anglo-Saxon issues of the England catalogue from the same era, I was absolutely hooked and can't wait until the next episode.
+1 for The Last Kingdom. I really enjoyed the first season. It takes little liberties (a must when you're working with sources that old) but at the same time it's really well researched and really well put together.
I also really like Black Sails. It's about the characters of Treasure Island as if they were real life pirates living along side actual historical pirates set in the golden age of piracy, which is about 20 years before the events of the novel.
What I love most about this is the thought they put into it. They know well ahead of time roughly where characters will end up and by when and they don't have characters doing things willy nilly just for kicks. The story and characters all feel very considered in terms of production.
A warning though, both of those shows are pretty bloody and can get a bit gruesome. And Black Sails does not shy away from nudity of any kind. I will say this though, they're equal opportunity nudists and beyond the brothels they're not throwing in nudity to because they can.
Another one I've been enjoying in the last few years is TURN. It's about George Washington's Culper spy ring. Don't expect dedicated reenactment or anything but still a well done take on it based on fact.
My all-time favorites include Futurama, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica the reimagined series. I'm sure that I'll come up with more now that you have me thinking about it.
I watch way too many TV shows to be comfortable listing them here
Quote: "pnightingale"Even when they manage to produce a successful show they just can't resist ruining it by pandering to safe space dwelling snowflakes. I quit watching Vikings when I realized that every single Christian priest was depicted as a fat blubbering coward, while Viking Paganism (which included human sacrifice) is depicted as eco friendly, new age shamanism.
I much prefer Game of Thrones, now that's a well written big budget series comparable with Middle Earth. I'm told that The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad are quite entertaining but I just don't see the subject matter, zombies and drug dealers, as being appealing.
I do agree that Christians are not depicted under a good light (although there is Athelstan), but Vikings are shown as a bunch of pillagers, rapists and slavers. They're also bad, just tougher. This is actually what prevents me from really enjoying that show: not a single character is sympathetic (except the aforementioned). Why should I care about what happens to them?
I highly recommend Breaking bad, even if the subject matter doesn't seem appealing. It wasn't to me, yet the show grabbed me and I hold it as one of the best TV show ever made, along with The wire (also dealing with drugs). It's just tremendously well-crafted TV.
The walking dead is just more of the pointless same, season after season.
Quote: "BryanJ" I watch way too many TV shows to be comfortable listing them here
Quote: "pnightingale"Even when they manage to produce a successful show they just can't resist ruining it by pandering to safe space dwelling snowflakes. I quit watching Vikings when I realized that every single Christian priest was depicted as a fat blubbering coward, while Viking Paganism (which included human sacrifice) is depicted as eco friendly, new age shamanism.
I much prefer Game of Thrones, now that's a well written big budget series comparable with Middle Earth. I'm told that The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad are quite entertaining but I just don't see the subject matter, zombies and drug dealers, as being appealing.
I do agree that Christians are not depicted under a good light (although there is Athelstan), but Vikings are shown as a bunch of pillagers, rapists and slavers. They're also bad, just tougher. This is actually what prevents me from really enjoying that show: not a single character is sympathetic (except the aforementioned). Why should I care about what happens to them?
I highly recommend Breaking bad, even if the subject matter doesn't seem appealing. It wasn't to me, yet the show grabbed me and I hold it as one of the best TV show ever made, along with The wire (also dealing with drugs). It's just tremendously well-crafted TV.
The walking dead is just more of the pointless same, season after season.
I haven't watched the show before, but I daresay that back in the day, the vast majority of priests would turn into blubbering cowards when confronted by a horde of angry Vikings raping and pillaging their way across the country. Considering the wealth of the churches at the time (often the belief back then was that if you left your estate to the church when you died then you were guaranteed to get into heaven) then churches were often prime targets for Viking invaders.
We're in the midst of yet another expensive and time consuming legal battle to keep Abby out of the hands of her worthless junkie egg donor right now so I'm cramming six years of family law study into a single month. The case will be heard on the 27th so please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we battle the evil rich, their hired minions and a corrupt court system.
Win or lose I'll have more free time shortly so it's something I'd like to take a look at, with two seasons already aired and a third in production. It's a tale of a 1962 dsytopia where events took a slightly different turn and the allies were defeated in WWII. I've watched a few of the trailers and it seems to be a refreshing change from the usual predictable Hollywood tripe with clownish Nazis goosestepping around and shouting.
It's based on the work of Phillip K Dick, one of the 20th century's greatest writers and the inspiration behind many cult classics including everyone's favorite - Blade Runner. It's much more 3 dimensional than drivel like "Inglorious Basterds" and seems historically plausible. I might become a fan.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
I quite like those alternative reality programmes. I've seen a couple that postulated what the world would be like if the internal combustion engine was never invented and instead we developed steam technology, basically the idea behind steampunk. There's a really good steampunk centre in a town about an hour from my hometown. It's pretty cool http://steampunkoamaru.co.nz/
Quote: "pnightingale"Does anyone watch The Man in the High Castle?
We're in the midst of yet another expensive and time consuming legal battle to keep Abby out of the hands of her worthless junkie egg donor right now so I'm cramming six years of family law study into a single month. The case will be heard on the 27th so please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we battle the evil rich, their hired minions and a corrupt court system.
Win or lose I'll have more free time shortly so it's something I'd like to take a look at, with two seasons already aired and a third in production. It's a tale of a 1962 dsytopia where events took a slightly different turn and the allies were defeated in WWII. I've watched a few of the trailers and it seems to be a refreshing change from the usual predictable Hollywood tripe with clownish Nazis goosestepping around and shouting.
It's based on the work of Phillip K Dick, one of the 20th century's greatest writers and the inspiration behind many cult classics including everyone's favorite - Blade Runner. It's much more 3 dimensional than drivel like "Inglorious Basterds" and seems historically plausible. I might become a fan.
I have not seen this (yet) but I recently read an interesting article about how the show includes a CG-rendered panoramic shot of 1962 Berlin that is based on the urban renewal plans of the Nazi's chief architect, Albert Speer.
I do watch some tv, but more like the new wave of tv..
HBO Now and Netflix, this too provide me enough of the necessary things I need to watch, some decent movies, comedy shows and series.
I have watched so many series from the past in my past 15 years that I cannot remember them all, but they were more related to police-crime or comedy... which its almost 50% of all series broadcasting out there.
Currently I watch
Big Bang Theory... mostly on planes as I don't have cable! You can imagine how much I travel that I think I have watched the last three seasons mainly on planes...
Game of Thrones (HBO) whenever they release their new season...
The new pope (HBO)
Westworld (HBO)
House of Cards (Netflix) I don't know how they will do to make the new series not so realistic
Narcos (Netflix)
Criminal Minds
Law & Order
And the list keep going on...
Will copy some of the names listed in this post for rainy days...
My main interest now is obscure movies on Escape, Grit, This, Bounce, Comet, Get, Decades, Cozi, and Retro free digital networks; MGM HD, HDNET Movies, and Universal HD pay channels; and Turner Classic Movies. Also keep my Netflix DVD queue at about 380 titles. I retired about 2 1/2 years ago from a work at home job and have no idea how I kept up with movies then (there were fewer networks but I depended more on premium pay channels) as I still have trouble keeping up.
I mainly watch American crime or mystery. I watch a lot of PBS. One show I've been watching lately that you might be familiar with is "The Dr. Blake Mysteries", which I believe is produced in Australia. It is an entertaining show.
Crime shows, particularly cold case. To be honest I watch very little standard TV anymore, mostly Netflix and Disney Plus and our local Sky TV satellite stuff. However its fuxated with ads which are now 4½ minute long breaks with 2 or 3 TV trailer commercials either side. Even on Xmas Day and Good Friday where ads are banned, they will still have breaks and play 4 or 5 Programme trailers in a row along with jingles up to a minute long about the Channel of TV company.
I say this as excessive ads have put me off TV, especially as they are mostly for bad products like Junk food (McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hutt), Alcohol (After 8.30pm) and dodgy shops that flog hire purchase to low income people (Harvey Norman, a electronics, appliances retailer with high interest and high prices). We also have lots of “Infomercials” that are played basically between 12am and 12pm on some channels, one until 2pm.
So I watch many old shows or stuff on Disney+ and Netflix.
Favourites
Bones (One of my faves)
New Tricks (British show in the 2000s/10s about retired policemen solving old cold cases)
TVNZ news - not so much anymore as its racist, full of crime, boring sports news and endless Islamic wars and Ukraine.
Family Guy
A touch of Frost
Doctor Martin (Hilarious, a doctor who has Aspergers Syndrome)
Only fools and Horses (This needs no explaining)
Father Brown (Although its a bit saccharine at times)
Inspector George Gently (British TV show from 2000s, set in 1960s Tyneside)
Inspector Morse
Death in Paradise (Another of my faves) British crime show set on a fictional French Caribbean island
Any slow TV (They play South and Further south on Xmas day and Good Friday)
Fair Go (Consumer rights show)
Country Calendar (Rural show)
The Bill (British cop show from 80s to 2000s)
Bergerac (80s British cop show set in Jersey)
I will find others, but I think you get the gist.
I like mostly British and local TV, less fond of US and Australia, but some of their shows like Bones, I love.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
pnightingaleI used to enjoy things like The History Channel until it got "Redstoned" into a whole lot of naked reality shows and hillbilly swamp people. Even when they do rarely produce a show about actual HISTORY it's typically just politically correct, dead white male bashing. (notice how they change the background music to subconsciously influence the viewer?) I'm fine with lightweight pop history as it can be a gateway to more serious work but I really hate bad history.
Even when they manage to produce a successful show they just can't resist ruining it by pandering to safe space dwelling snowflakes. I quit watching Vikings when I realized that every single Christian priest was depicted as a fat blubbering coward, while Viking Paganism (which included human sacrifice) is depicted as eco friendly, new age shamanism.
Given the current climate it's unlikely we will see any documentaries dealing with the Civil War, WWII, Westward Expansion or the Crusades in a legitimate, unbiased manner.
There's nothing coming out of Hollywood that is of any interest to me, it's either yet another obscure comic book hero I've never heard of or a celebration of substandard people living sordid pointless lives. I can go to Walmart and watch that for free.
6 years later, still interesting and true. Although our History channel is 85% documentaries about Hitler, Nazis and WW2 and I feel that some seem to be rather “admirative” of them. The rest is sports documentaries and some watered down Australian stuff. It used to be good with Time Team and more pre WW1 or WW2 dosucmentaries. Ours is controlled by Foxtel some Australian group and as we know many Australians are much less woke and liberal than NZers are.
Even worse is I pick White Supremacy to death on this channel, 99% of it is documentaries on white people, mostly USA and Europe and in the past 150 years. You seldom if ever see a show on Black people before 1800, Asians of any stamp or Mesoamerican cultures unless its appealing to violence and brutality or narrated on by a White guy. Well its owned by Rupert Murdoch, so what do you expect - Kum ba yah at the United Nations? I mean they mentioned the first emperor of China, but only how many people he killed and how horrible he was, and a show on Aztecs focused mostly on human sacrifices - like that was their whole culture and the peaceful civilised Spanish came along made them happy Christians and everything simmered down!
You get very low quality content on Discovery now, all the hillbilly swamp people and Alaskan Grizzly Adams lookalikes with endless car do up shows, I would say the IQ level it aims at is around 67 to 83 (Studies show the low IQ people watch more TV than high IQ ones, who likely watch streaming services if at all). The worst channel is TLC, apparently back in 1980s and 1990s it showed proper documentaries and stuff, now its all Fat people losing weight shows, of fat and proud, bridezillas, Karadashians, some group called the Derricos with like 1 guy and 2000 babies to 600 different women and that rubbish.
UKTV still has some good shows, but is being ruined by endless talk show reruns and bad quiz shows like 8 out of 10 cats which to me is dumb chewing gum TV.
Living channel used to be good, but now is ruined by endless Travel and cooking shows instead of better gardening and do up shows. Crime TV is all American crimes in which i have little interest with some token Australian cases.
Even MTV classic 80s is rerunning the same 200 songs ad nauseaum and plays a lot of lower quality songs like NKOTB, Rick Ashley, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Joe Le Taxi and some weird Frenchie stuff like Yekky Yekki and Cest a ouaite and artists you choose to forget rather than remember.
Our SKY tv appeals to the dumb sports watching demographic (Here thugby and thugby league), along with basketball and car racing, their movie channels are mediocre, some classic movies are good and ads only between the movies (I bet in 10 years its a 5 minute break every 12 minutes), but their Premiere always shows the flops that got 2 stars or less.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
I managed to get rid of my cable TV (Sky) of course there is a 1 month cancellation period and they were despearte to keep me on, saying they would give me the league channel for free, after I told I destest all forms of Football and rugby related sport and any commercialised championship based sports.
However I have discovered Trailer Park Boys - its the funniest show ever made.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
I'm into TV-shows that are shown by one of the 16 channels that we have on our basic cable connection for €20 a month.
Shows that I've followed recently: Peaky Blinders, The Mentalist, Elementary, House, Wheeler Dealers and Columbo. The latter was shown once a week over the summer in a digitalized format - the old US TV-format made TV-shows look “foggy” when shown on European networks.
TV-shows that turns me off are those where half of the time is spent with recaps after the commercial break of whatever came before the commercial break. Mostly US-shows.
Me too Hapertas - I think its because either ad Breaks in the USA are just so long, people channel surf (I have heard networks that are over 50% ads in an hour). Or just the fact many Americans have short attention spans.
Plus you know most British shows run 59 or 58 minutes in an hour due to state funding all but eliminating ads (Not ITV, Granada or TV4 - just BBC channels) - but these shows are often edited down to 43, 39 or even 36 minutes for countries with excessive advertising and the fact private companies have taken over state networks or new independent channels have started up and need funding through sales of commercials.
New Zealand has a system where most shows have 18 minutes of advertising per hour, but channels often play trailers for programmes and promotional jingles in addition which make the average break time per hour 22 or 23 minutes. Often we notice opening songs, jingles, recaps and the credits are zoomed past at the end of a programme, whilst another show is advertised here.
The shows I really can't stand are the ones with lots of ads, especially low brow ads like Fast food, government entitlement type ads, loan sharks, sports, Harvey Norman and other retailers offering hi cost hire purchase. After 8.30pm its worse with alcohol advertisments (Our TV execs live in 1955 and think everyone under 18 is in bed by 8.30pm). After 10.30pm and until 4, the lowest ads are shown, infomercials, fast food, loan sharks, alcohol and even ads for gambling and pornographic websites.
Shows like endless talent competitons, Masterchef and the baking one, survivor type shows - the new one with people being fugitives hunted down, celebrity anything, car do up shows, shows that love following around marginalised people like beneficiaries, gypsies, fat people, gangsters, the mentally ill, drag queens, druggies, religious cults, bridezillas, islands that involve people sexing each other and other human tragedies are the worse as they feed on the defenceless and are aimed at those with mid 2 figure IQs.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
TVNZ news - not so much anymore as its racist, full of crime, boring sports news and endless Islamic wars and Ukraine.
Family Guy
A touch of Frost
Doctor Martin (Hilarious, a doctor who has Aspergers Syndrome)
Only fools and Horses (This needs no explaining)
Father Brown (Although its a bit saccharine at times)
Inspector George Gently (British TV show from 2000s, set in 1960s Tyneside)
Inspector Morse
Death in Paradise (Another of my faves) British crime show set on a fictional French Caribbean island
Any slow TV (They play South and Further south on Xmas day and Good Friday)
Fair Go (Consumer rights show)
Country Calendar (Rural show)
The Bill (British cop show from 80s to 2000s)
Bergerac (80s British cop show set in Jersey)
As our cable channels are flow-TV, the shows that you mention are currently not shown, but they were years ago.
From your list I previously followed Brokenwood Mysteries, A touch of Frost, Doctor Martin, Father Brown, Inspector Morse and Bergerac. Death in Paradise has changed actors too many times for my taste. American Dad and Familiy Guy are not shown anymore, which is too bad since they were always fun to watch and a sure laugh.
Series like Judge John Deed, The Blacklist, Hercule Poirot (starring David Suchet) were also series that I used to follow. Going further back in time, series like Bottom, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and ‘Allo ’ Allo! are hilarious.
