British Telly

A galaxy far, far away came a little closer to home today after the dramatic landscapes of Coigach and Assynt took centre stage in the new episode of the Star Wars show Ahsoka.

Eagle-eyed residents of Wester Ross and Sutherland were left gobsmacked when the latest episode dropped on Wednesday morning when the instantly recognisable silhouettes of Suilven and Stac Pollaidh – and the dramatic lochans and knockans of the wider area – popped up on screen.

And the famous mountains' appearances were no fleeting, 'blink and you'll miss it' quick cuts either – with both them and the wider landscape playing an integral role not just in creating the atmosphere that permeates the entire episode, but even as key settings in the action.

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Although today's episode marks the first time that Star Wars filming has visited the far north, it is not Scotland's first appearance in the blockbuster franchise. Ben Cruachan, its famous hydro-power reservoir and the landscape in the immediate area played a very prominent role across a three-episode arc in the first series of Star Wars show Andor, which aired last year and is available now on Disney+

Strictly Birds of Prey is a love letter to the UK’s wildlife. Plus, The Woman in the Wall reaches its harrowing climax. Here’s what to watch this evening

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Destiny isn’t done with them just yet… Doctor Who returns with three special episodes ❤️❤️➕🔷

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5573362

Making this post because for some reason this show has flown completely under the radar for many. I had no idea it existed until it was mentioned on a comedian podcast I listen to (Bud Pod).

Of course, the BBC have kindly deleted it from their catalogue. Not sure of the rules here re pirated content so won't post any links, but I found it on both Internet Archive and torrent (torrent is much better quality). It also features a young Benedict Wong, his character is so different from how we know him today!

Well worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of Sean Lock.

And I'll copy over the note from fellow British Telly mod @Chris@feddit.uk:

The BBC did put it back on iPlayer after he died (it must have expired now), and it’s available on DVD. Please buy it, don’t pirate it.

15 Storeys High : Complete BBC Series 1 & 2 [DVD] by Sean Lock https://amzn.eu/d/aMULZv2

Otto Baxter's musical horror-comedy short The Puppet Asylum debuted at FrightFest in August to much critical acclaim, but it's the filmmaker's six-year journey to bring his movie to the screen that proves even more inspiring.

The filmmaker has spent much of his life in front of a camera. As an advocate for the Down syndrome community, he has appeared in many news reports and documentaries helping to raise awareness about the condition, but now he is ready to tell his own story, on his own terms.

Baxter does this in two ways: through his semi-autobiographical horror film The Puppet Asylum, which he wrote and directed, and the making-of documentary Otto Baxter: Not A F****ing Horror Story that he filmed with Peter Beard and Bruce Fletcher (both come to Sky Documentaries and NOW from 23 September).

Mentioned in the latest TV Tonight but worth flagging up separately.

A funny and fresh documentary about Otto Baxter’s autobiographical project. Plus, the moreish new thriller Black Snow. Here’s what to watch this evening

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From Jason Lefkowitz

"After “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” ended, Graham Chapman worked with an up-and-coming young writer named Douglas Adams on a new sketch comedy show for the BBC. It was called "Out of the Trees," and it bombed. Only one episode was made, and that aired only once, on January 10, 1976.

Once the Beeb gave up on "Out of the Trees," they did to it what they did to so many other programs of that era: they erased it. They wiped the master tapes so they could be re-used. "Out of the Trees" went into the history books as lost media.

That changed nearly 30 years later, when Chapman's partner, David Sherlock, approached Dick Fiddy, an archivist at London's National Film Theatre. Sherlock revealed that Chapman had in fact recorded a copy of "Out of the Trees" onto videotape from his home TV the one and only time it aired.

But there was a problem. That air date was in 1976, before VHS or Betamax became global videocassette standards. Chapman had recorded the show on one of the very earliest home videotape formats -- Philips' "Video Cassette Recording" (VCR), which had reached the market in 1972. The rise of Beta and VHS had, however, led Philips to abandon its VCR format. The last compatible players had been made in 1979. By the mid-2000s, they were impossible to find. Sherlock had been left with an historic tape, and no machine to play it on.

Fiddy says it took two years to build a compatible player, but eventually it was done. And that is why you can watch the one and only episode of "Out of the Trees" ever produced on YouTube today.

Is it any good? Ehhh, not really. It's not Chapman or Adams' best work, that's for certain. But it's a good example of what the future will hold for lots of cultural artifacts, if we're not careful."

I quite enjoyed it and had no idea it existed before now. So, thank you, @jalefkowit@octodon.social

The concept of Married at First Sight is still fresh as season eight begins. Plus, Ken Bruce’s PopMaster approaches the finale. Here’s what to watch this evening

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This three-parter starts in the brothels the artist visited as a young man. Plus: how TikTok has triggered riots. Here’s what to watch this evening

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2548762

During a preview at the BFI last night (September 19), it was announced that the series will premiere on Friday, October 6 at 8.30pm on BBC One, with the whole series dropping as a boxset on BBC iPlayer on the same day.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5406053

Here you go, another nice bit of history. You'll love the "flopper" technique.

From Old Country S2 E16 broadcast on Channel 4 in 1984.

The naturalist explores how far activism can go legally – and beyond. Plus Never Mind the Buzzcocks is back, with Greg Davies in the chair. Here’s what to watch this evening

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2499564

In an episode of Food Unwrapped, TV presenter and farmer Jimmy Doherty paid for kebabs from nine different takeaways and delivered them to forensic scientist Paul Hancock to find out what was really in them. And the results were surprising.

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And Jimmy was visibly shocked to learn that only one of the nine kebabs was made from 100% lamb. "Most of them contain chicken,” Paul told him. "We've also got a couple which contain beef. Fortunately, we found no goat, no donkey, and no horse in any of the products."

Asked what he would expect to see with a larger sample size - around 900 kebabs - Paul estimated that he would see around a 60% failure rate. Viewers were quick to share their thoughts.

"So just like fast food burgers, it's mystery meat," one commented on YouTube, while a second echoed: "Question should be, what is not in a doner kebab?!" A third wrote: "Noticed how 10% was called bulk…"

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Not everyone was put off, however. "I love a doner kebab," one viewer wrote. “"I even eat it sober. It's bloody delicious! My issue is finding a decent chilli sauce seems to be an issue these days!" Another second noted: "I don't care what it is made of - as long as all the ingredients are honestly listed so I can make an informed choice."

A third advised: "If you want 100% of a specific meat either chicken or lamb doner then only go to a restaurant that serves Yaprak Doner. It translates as leaf doner, the cut gives you smaller pieces instead of the long strip of meat but you are guaranteed the meat you want as it's made in-house.

"They basically stack thin, leafs of meat over each other a bit like how they do in this documentary but here it was more blobs of meat they compress to form the industrial doners. Anyway, contrary to popular belief, doner is actually a Kurdish invention, throwing that trivia out there in case it pops up as an entry question at the gates of heaven!"

Our favourite British astronaut delves into the secrets of the universe. Plus, the truth about the Ozempic ‘skinny’ jab. Here’s what to watch this evening

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If only there was a way to take the burning outrage that a new Channel 4 documentary about disruptive climate activism is likely to generate and use it as a source of renewable green energy. In Chris Packham: Is it Time to Break the Law?, the broadcaster and conservationist asks whether illegal acts of civil disobedience are justified in the face of the ever-worsening environmental crisis. With last year making a high point for worldwide CO₂ emissions — and the UK government granting 100 oil and gas licences in the North Sea just this summer — eco-conscious campaigners such as Packham are being disabused of the notion that meaningful change can be enacted through traditional political channels.

Packham’s unstinting sympathy and support for divisive protest groups such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion — whom he follows on road-closing marches and targeted strikes of vandalism — seem primed to invite a backlash. But this isn’t a one-sided recruitment drive for those movements. In a conversation that tacitly refutes the idea that environmentalism is a preserve of the left, the Conservative former chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord John Deben, makes a case that disruptive protests only undermine the cause and provoke the public. The Swedish activist Andreas Malm — author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which was recently made into a film — calls for direct, destructive action against the oil industry.

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On Channel 4 on September 20 at 9pm

So with its allegations and the alleged perpetrator’s denial already known about, and even the culture-war battle lines around it already drawn, what currency does Russell Brand: In Plain Sight have? Plenty. As well as organising deeply harrowing testimony into a cogent narrative, the Dispatches film places the women’s claims into a wider context within the industry and our culture as a whole, pinpointing a collective culpability that resonates well beyond whatever one man might have done.

The allegations themselves are disturbing enough. Being able to see and hear the words spoken, even by anonymised interviewees filmed in silhouette or, in one case, replaced by an actor, lends every awful detail alleged a piercing immediacy.

Surrounding the interviews are the words of Brand himself, on stage, TV and radio. Even in the best-case scenario for Brand – the one in which all these specific, independent accusations turn out to be false – we view him as a sleazy, sexist creep because he has told us.

“Don’t be afraid of your own sexuality,” we see him tell a guest on his chatshow, in a clip dug up by Dispatches. “Do be a bit afraid of mine though.” During an interview on Conan O’Brien’s US talkshow, Brand told the host: “You don’t wanna be around when the laughter stops.” One old standup routine, joking about enjoying “them blowjobs where mascara runs a little bit”, spookily echos the exact words of one of the programme’s allegations.

The title In Plain Sight has been carefully chosen. Dispatches has found further evidence of Brand not hiding his misogyny, drawn from the same stint as a Radio 2 presenter that led to his biggest previous controversy in 2008, when he was fired for broadcasting crass voicemails he’d left for the actor Andrew Sachs. In retrospect, it is amazing Brand lasted as long as he did: Dispatches plays the audio of him making demeaning sexual remarks about his show’s female newsreader, and conducting an interview with a celebrity guest where he joked about sending his (named) female assistant to visit the star, stripped naked. The interviewee in question: Jimmy Savile.

This fascinating documentary hears voyagers’ hopes and fears. Plus, chaos and debauchery in Domina. Here’s what to watch this evening

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But there’s much more to it than you’d expect. Plus: the truth about ballet schools, and Starstruck concludes. Here’s what to watch this evening

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Despite the UK’s late summer heatwave, it’s almost time to swap daylight for darkness, shorts for sweaters, and boozy pub lunches for lounging on the sofa watching the best new LGBTQ+ TV shows.

Despite the ongoing Hollywood actors’ strike, there’s still a fair bit of great TV coming your way this fall. There’s the queerest season of Doctor Who yet, the most star-studded American Horror Story cast list in a while, more gay zombies and about a dozen series of Drag Race – plus loads more.

Here are the best bits of queer TV coming to your screens this autumn – happy streaming!

• RuPaul’s Drag Race UK series five (BBC Three, TBC)
• The Wheel of Time season two (Prime Video, 1 September)
• Selling the OC (Netflix, 8 September)
• The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (AMC, 10 September – US only)
• The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4/Netflix, 12 September)
• The Morning Show (Apple TV+, 13 September)
• Strictly Come Dancing (BBC, 16 September)
• Neighbours (Amazon Freevee, 18 September)
• Married At First Sight UK (Channel 4, 18 September)
• American Horror Story: Delicate (FX/Disney+, 20 September)
• Sex Education (Netflix, 21 September)
• Gen V (Prime Video, 29 September)
• Everything Now (Netflix, 5 October)
• Our Flag Means Death (Max, 5 October – US only)
• Big Brother UK (ITV, 8 October)
• Living For The Dead (Hulu, 18 October)
• Elite (Netflix, 20 October)
• Fellow Travellers (Paramount+/Showtime, 27/28 October)
• A Murder at the End of the World (FX/Hulu, 14 November)
• Doctor Who (BBC/Disney+, November)
• The Traitors (BBC, TBC)

This Australian four-parter starts with the lead-up to the night of the bombings. Plus, it’s the last night of the Proms. Here’s what to watch this evening

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/7182708

Series 16 starts on September 21st, 9pm on Channel 4.

A rare documentary about environmental hope. Plus, the Rugby World Cup kicks off in France. Here’s what to watch this evening

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In a love story with laughs, Johnny Flynn and Roisin Murphy will warm up the autumn nights. Plus the late Paul O’Grady returns briefly to the screen. Here’s what to watch this evening

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It's a cheap listicle but a good excuse to kick off a general discussion.

The list is:

1. Black Mirror
2. Dr Who
3. The Prisoner
4. Red Dwarf
5. Life on Mars
6. Ashes to Ashes
7. Survivors
8. Ultraviolet
9. UFO
10. Blake's Seven

So any favourites there? Did just sorting by votes miss anything off you think is worthy of a mention?