Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

[Ray de Galles]

I intensely dislike most if not all "reality" or "celebrity" shows but absolutely adored both series of '(Celebrity) Love Island' which I don't think troubled the ratings or even the tabloids that much.

I have no idea why apart from the fact that you could convince yourself that it had actually deliberately set out to expose the vacuous heart of that whole genre of TV and of "celebrity" status, except it had done nothing of the sort.

I actually watched and enjoyed a whole series of a show presented by Patrick Kielty and Kelly Brook, it still seems wrong to even say it.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

[Ray de Galles]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Yeah, a critical success though, wasn't it?

You also may want to resize the picture.

[Guest]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

I quite liked fortysomething,then half way through the series ITV moved it to a midnight slot so I was obviously the only one who did.

[Guest]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

I really liked Carnivale, but they cancelled it. Likewise Rome, I suppose. And of course Firefly.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

I don't know if these count as 'unsuccessful', because most of them were broadcast at a time when there were only four terrestrial channels and they must have got a fairly big audience share just by default... but here are a few shows I loved but nobody else seems to talk about nowadays.

The Kelly Monteith Show
Kevin Turvey Investigates
Scully
OTT
Who Dares Wins
Dream On
My New Best Friend

Actually, my mind's gone a bit blank, but I'm sure there were loads of other things from the days when Channel 4 was a bit left-wing and a bit alternative, and when BBC2 used to show well-meaning teen dramas about kids in Fred Perrys and Terry Hall haircuts.

[My Name Is Ian]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

I've got most of OTT and, I have to say, it hasn't aged very well. Dream On, I had completely forgotten about.

[erwin]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

.

I only know Kevin Turvey from a little feature slot on another show (What was that called?)

Favourite bits:

"I got up this morning - well you do, don't you."

and

"I was standing outside Woolworth's this morning and a lady tried to put a coin in my head."

.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Oh yeah, goes without saying that most of these shows won't have aged very well. I'm sure I'd cringe if I watched half of them now.

It's just that if you were 13 or 14 (or maybe any age) in 1981 or 1982, all that alternative comedy stuff felt genuinely groundbreaking and exciting.

[evilC]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

Kevin Turvey Investigates
OTT
Dream On

I watched each of those too, but I thought that each of those were quite successful in their own right.

Two more (similarly-themed) comedies I watched were:

Operation Good Guys
Sledgehammer

Whilst on the American comedy tip, how come the TV version of...

Weekly World News

...never got a bigger run over here? Do you think it was it was just so close to American news documentaries in parts as to be indistinguishable from the real thing?

[My Name Is Ian]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

RS: Yes, indeed. I saw a torrent of the complete Kevin Turvey a couple of months ago, hovered my pointer over the "Download" button for a few moments and then thought better of it. I can't imagine that it is nearly as good as I thought it was when I was whatever age I was when it was first on.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

erwin wrote:

.

I only know Kevin Turvey from a little feature slot on another show (What was that called?)

Favourite bits:

"I got up this morning - well you do, don't you."

and

"I was standing outside Woolworth's this morning and a lady tried to put a coin in my head."

.

A Kick Up The Eighties. Which is another show I could have added to my list.

[evilC]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Kevin Turvey was great. Had me in stitches every week.

Favourite Turvey Quotes:

"I opened up the fridge door, and I heard this terrible ringing sound. I thought "oh no, I've smashed me face open on the fridge door again"."

"He said "'Scuse me mate, have you got the time?" which is like prostitutes' code. And I said "about sixteen quid"."

"Don't ask me why. I'm just a strange and interesting person, I suppose. A bit like Anita Harris, only without the bullet hole, y'know."

"I'll tell you what maked me really sick, though. Drinking a pint of salt water and jamming my fingers down my throat. That makes me really sick, that does, so, like, whenever possible, I try to avoid doing that, y'know."

I still say (when appropriate) "You wanna be like him? ...Fine!" occasionally too. That was Turvey, right? I'm doubting myself now!

[Guest]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Freaks and Geeks.

I really liked Dream On too.

[Guest]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Who Dares Wins ranks with Absolutely as my favourite remembered shows from when I was little.

[kugelrund]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Homicide: Life on the Street.
Best police series ever. Appointment TV that became increasingly difficult to make an appointment with, because you never knew when it was going to turn up.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Ah, the daddy of that type of show (i.e. shunted to irregular hours of the schedule) is The Larry Sanders Show, which is so highly-praised that it doesn't really belong in this thread, even if a statistically tiny slice of the UK population actually watched it...

[evilC]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

I can't remember if 'This Is David Lander' was rated as popular, in its day. Anyone? In the same field, I think 'People Like Us' was counted as popular, wasn't it?

[Spearmint Rhino]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Ahh, I've just remembered a trashy series I was glued to in the late 80s/early 90s, which possibly belongs on this thread.

Midnight Caller, in which Gary Cole played an Eddie Shoestring-style talk radio host who solves crimes and stuff, and whose sincerity and solemnity elevated the show to unintentional high camp.

"Goodnight America... wherever you are."

[evilC]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

One programme that - when people ask me what my favourite TV programmes or films have been - I often use as an answer, but which routinely befuddles the person doing the asking, is Lars von Trier's 'Das Boot'. Personally, I think this is the best thing of any sort I have seen on telly ever. It just blew me away. These days, though, people are more likely to have encountered the criminally cut-down version that was re-packaged as a 'feature film'.

[Gangster Octopus]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Time to mention Private Schultz again, although that was a single self-contained series. I loved Broaden Your Mind, but that became The Goodies, which is remembered.

Kevin Turvey did a sort of Week In The Life Of special, which both me and my little brother can still quote from...

[kugelrund]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

The Larry Sanders Show, which is so highly-praised that it doesn't really belong in this thread, even if a statistically tiny slice of the UK population actually watched it

Yip. Same with Seinfeld. And often, if you ever remembered to try to watch them, you'd find yourself confronted with The Weather Show With Suzanne Charlton instead.

These days, though, people are more likely to have encountered the criminally cut-down version that was re-packaged as a 'feature film'.

That's like Fanny and Alexander, which also started life as a six-hour mini-series, and was really good, but most people have only seen the (admittedly three-hours-plus) film.

[Guest]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

evilC wrote:

One programme that - when people ask me what my favourite TV programmes or films have been - I often use as an answer, but which routinely befuddles the person doing the asking, is Lars von Trier's 'Das Boot'. Personally, I think this is the best thing of any sort I have seen on telly ever. It just blew me away. These days, though, people are more likely to have encountered the criminally cut-down version that was re-packaged as a 'feature film'.

I'm a little confused here. Is the von Trier 'Das Boot' different to Petersen's?

[Wyatt Earp]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

Since PG's not about much these days, it falls to me to mention A Very Peculiar Practice. I think the Horse may possibly be a fan as well.

[blameless]

Unsuccessful programmes you were addicted to.

I liked the 2006 show Heist, but was annoyed to find out that NBC had binned it after only seven episodes, and even more annoyed that Channel Five started showing it over here knowing that it had already been cancelled in the States and so the story would never be finished.

I mean, what's the point in that?