Films/series we don't really need

[Amor de Cosmos]

I just discovered there's a Helen Reddy bio-pic. I'd rather stick my head in a bowl of cold semolina.

[Hot Pepsi]

Got a 56 on metacritic.

One reviewer likened it to a Hallmark version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Not inspiring.

[Benjm]

Not a fan, AdC? I recognise the name without remembering anything about her music or life.

[elguapo4]

Anything factual or fictional about Hitler, Henry VIII or the Krays. They've all been flogged to death at this stage.

[3 Colours Red]

Can we just throw whole channels in the bin? I nominate ITVBe - the channel that caters to people who have given up difficult things like thinking.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Not a fan, AdC? I recognise the name without remembering anything about her music or life.

Not so much her music. I Am Woman was expressive of it's time, in a pure pop sense though it's kinda camp these days, but I still like Delta Dawn. It's just that there's nothing about her that was even vaguely interesting. Certainly not her voice, nor can I even remember what she looked like, though I must have seen her dozens of times on TV. I mean would you watch a biopic of Captain and Tenille, or more appropriately just Tenille? Helen's in that category charisma-wise. Also I do wonder who the audience is for this film. Suburban grandmothers perhaps? I can't imagine anyone else being that interested.

[Hot Pepsi]

Can we just throw whole channels in the bin? I nominate ITVBe - the channel that caters to people who have given up difficult things like thinking.

TV shouldn’t necessarily require thinking

[johnr]

I liked Angie Baby a lot.

In terms of the thread title, about 99% of them.

[Felicity, I guess so]

The Little Mix talent show which has a very long trailer just before the news. Every day.

[3 Colours Red]

TV shouldn’t necessarily require thinking

But it should require better than 24 hours a day of relentless "scripted reality" sludge that makes your brain melt from your ears.

[pebblethefish]

Anything factual or fictional about Hitler

Are you trying to close down 90% of the History Channel?

[Guy Profumo]

Anything factual or fictional about Hitler, Henry VIII or the Krays. They've all been flogged to death at this stage.

(Unless it was the one with Ken Stott playing Robert Carlyle)

[Sporting]

But it should require better than 24 hours a day of relentless "scripted reality" sludge that makes your brain melt from your ears.

How about books? Should reading for pleasure always demand some cerebral input?

[Jah Womble]

I just discovered there's a Helen Reddy bio-pic. I'd rather stick my head in a bowl of cold semolina.

Well, she's not going to be to everyone's taste, sure, but I don't fully understand the antipathy here. Reddy was a perfectly okay artist for her time, who recorded a number of songs dealing with subjects as contentious as domestic violence and mental illness - ie, when nobody else in her position was doing so. She scored a dozen or so US Top Twenty hits (three of which made number one), so I think in her homeland, she just about merits a biopic. (I mean, given some of the other names that seem to warrant them.)

Not a fan, AdC? I recognise the name without remembering anything about her music or life.

She recorded Angie Baby. Therefore she's exempted from all censure, in my book.

[Patrick Thistle]

How about books? Should reading for pleasure always demand some cerebral input?

Books are totally different to TV in terms of active versus passive engagement. Reading is a cerebral activity. Watching, less so.

[Sporting]

Books are totally different to TV in terms of active versus passive engagement. Reading is a cerebral activity. Watching, less so

I'd have to think about this.

[Patrick Thistle]

I'd have to think about this.

Because you read it

[pebblethefish]

(Unless it was the one with Ken Stott playing Robert Carlyle)

Plunkett and MacLeane? Wasn't that Victorian?

[3 Colours Red]

How about books? Should reading for pleasure always demand some cerebral input?

I'm all for big, dumb fun but that's the point - FUN. Endless tabloid-on-screen shite ain't fun.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Well, she's not going to be to everyone's taste, sure, but I don't fully understand the antipathy here. Reddy was a perfectly okay artist for her time, who recorded a number of songs dealing with subjects as contentious as domestic violence and mental illness - ie, when nobody else in her position was doing so.

Most of which I said in my second post. It isn't about the music she produced, it's just that she lacked any shred of charisma, hence the bowl of cold semolina.

[Sits]

The lowest common denominator “reality” stuff here is relentless, depressing, and very far from reality.

[Benjm]

I watched Gogglebox earlier and the gleefully ignorant gobshite factor seems to have been turned up to eleven. There was a pointlessly nasty bit dwelling upon a contestant who had a nightmare on Countdown too. So, Gogglebox, time to go.

[Jah Womble]

The media’s relentless celebration of stupidity is indeed hugely depressing.

[Eggchaser]

Anything factual or fictional about Hitler, Henry VIII or the Krays. They've all been flogged to death at this stage.

Can I add documentaries where the producers have raided the Costume Department, grabbed some local am dram society and told them to mime <insert name here's> reaction to <historical event>, or show <insert historical intellectual here> [looking thoughtful/scratching away with a quill/writing on a blackboard/bending over lab instruments].

I know what they looked like, you showed me a painting of them three minutes ago. I can imagine them at work.

[Sits]

Can I add documentaries where the producers have raided the Costume Department, grabbed some local am dram society and told them to mime <insert name here's> reaction to <historical event>, or show <insert historical intellectual here> [looking thoughtful/scratching away with a quill/writing on a blackboard/bending over lab instruments].

I know what they looked like, you showed me a painting of them three minutes ago. I can imagine them at work.

See also: making authentic longbows, arrows, broadswords...