Best products from r/television

Oh, you've loosed the monster, now. :) Although I'm not sure how useful I can be for someone in the UK on where to source this stuff. Our Britbox service is ITV fare.

If you like The Storyteller, there are four more things I'd point you towards, though they may be hard to find.

Living With Dinosaurs (1990) is a one-hour special that works very much like a prequel or sequel to Truly Madly Deeply. It was written before TMD by Anthony Minghella, but has two of its stars, Juliet Stevenson and Michael Maloney. They play the parents of a ten year old boy with a stuffed toy dinosaur, Dog, who only comes alive when the adults are out of the room, Calvin & Hobbes style. In the US, it's on Amazon Prime.

There's a Gulliver's Travels (1996) that was done by Hallmark/Henson and starred Ted Danson (but don't let that put you off), which was directed by Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited) and produced by Duncan Kenworthy both of whom worked on The Storyteller, and has some fascinating scene transitions and it's the only version I know that does Laputa and the Houyhnhnms as well. It was on Channel 4 in the UK.

Sturridge also used similar scene transitions in Longitude (2000) an adaptation of Dava Sobel's non-fiction book about John Harrison's clocks. They did a dual storyline between the shell-shocked WWI veteran (played by Jeremy Irons) who restored the clocks for Greenwich Observatory, and the 17th century clockmaker (played by Michael Gambon)'s decades long struggle to make a timepiece that would be accurate at sea, while all the astronomers were sure astral navigation was the key to accurate longitude. I haven't seen this on streaming anywhere, but it did have a DVD release, long ago. It would have been on Channel 4 in the UK.

Another Hallmark/Henson fantasy miniseries I loved is Arabian Nights (2000). This one was directed by Steven Barron. Alan Bates is the storyteller, Dougray Scott was the sultan, and Mili Avital his Scheherazade. It's on Amazon Prime in the US, and was BBC One in the UK. It's a bit uneven between having Rufus Sewell as Ali Baba and Alan Bates as the storyteller, but also Jason Scott Lee as Aladdin and John Leguizamo as his Genie [eyeroll], but overall I loved it enough to get it on DVD.

My two favorite-ever 1980s UK TV literary adaptations are:

A 1987s Peter Wimsey series (I think it was called A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery as well as Lord Peter Wimsey) where Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walter were Peter and Harriet. Nicely done, although they fumbled Gaudy Night a little. The Have His Carcase adaptation, though, was Rosemary Anne Sisson, and I always knew to perk up when her name went by on the writing credits. She wrote for Duchess of Duke Street as well as the old Cosgrove-Hall stop-motion Wind in the Willows, if you can believe it. She also wrote a Young Indiana Jones episode (the suffragette one) with one of the funniest uses of subtitles ever.

And the 1983 Jane Eyre. Granted. Timothy Dalton's a little too pretty as Rochester, but Zelah Clarke is practically Jane from the page. And it's possibly the only adaptation I've seen (aside from the recent Fukunaga-directed one with Fassbender) that gets the sense of humor of the book. Everyone else adapts it as a gothic romance, like it's Wuthering Heights (eyeroll). And the adapter, Alexander Baron, was also the ringer that Hawkesworth brought in to write the pilot episode of Sherlock Holmes ("Scandal in Bohemia"). He set the tone by starting off Watson with the line, "What is it tonight, Holmes—morphine or cocaine?" so we'd all know we weren't in Basil Rathbone-land. His 1987 Vanity Fair adaptation (US Amazon Prime) may have been the last of the old-school BBC literary adaptations ever (perfect casting, adaptations done by novelists), before Andrew Davies hit the scene with Pride & Prejudice. (I admit, I have an unreasoning prejudice against Davies and am not looking forward to Sanditon).

I am going to disagree because I think you're viewing TDS as a fixed point when it's in truth evolving with the political climate and hosts.

• The Daily Show with Kilborn was much more in the mold of what Weekend Update was. It very much used the format of news to find whacky stories or people. It punched down. When Jon came on board he began heavily modifying the whole structure of the show, top to bottom. For more detail, on this, I would highly recommend The Daily Show ( The Book ) By Chris Smith.
  
  
• Once the structure of the Show was in place it was largely a response to the alienation liberals felt during the years of Bush and success of Fox News. This formula couldn't continue after the resurgence of the Democratic party and the election of Barack Obama. Stewart could no longer attack Fox because it was punching down rather than up, as it used to be. I highly recommend this Vox video on this shift in the tone of The Daily Show in these years. Now to address the host, Trevor Noah. I agree, initially, Trevor did flounder but because he was trying to be Jon. Jon worked in Juvenalian satire. Juvenal satire follows the pattern of abrasively ridiculing societal structures. Trevor Noah is a satirist in the Horatian style. Horatian satire is solving social problems through light-hearted, gentle, humor.
  
  
• Now, look at the legacy of the Daily Show. John Oliver and Samantha Bee all follow a more Juvenal (Stewart) model. Stephen Colbert is interesting because he alone of the former TDS staff follows a more Horatian style. Seth Meyers is very Juvenalian in his delivery in A Closer Look. I agree Seth would be a great fit for TDS but only at the time of Jon Stewart, in the same way, another Juvenalian, John Oliver, was a successful stand in. It will be interesting to see how Noah uses TDS and Horatian satire now that he is in a similar situation that Stewart was early on in the show.

I really wonder sometimes how people would have seen Six Feet Under if it would've aired a few years later, when we got used to genuinely great TV shows. Back then there were barely any worth mentioning (other than certain other HBO shows), but today there's almost too many great shows out there.

And I feel like Six Feet Under would've been mentioned right among the likes of Breaking Bad or Mad Men as one of the all-time greats. But now the show is in this odd spot of being some kind of barely known insider tip that very few people have watched, even on here, despite its outstanding quality.

Also, if you are a big fan of the show, do yourself a favor and have a look at the companion book, Six Feet Under: Better Living Through Death. It's not one of those books that's a bunch of screenshots from the show with some unimportant accompanying text. It's 100% new, original content in the form of (fictional) newspaper articles, handwritten letters from and to the main characters throughout their lives, ads, etc.

Want to read Claire's short stories mentioned in the show? Love letters between Nathaniel and Ruth while he was in Vietnam? Excerpts from that book about Brenda? It's all there. It's amazing how much effort went into that book.

It's not about sitcoms, but Alan Sepinwall's The Revolution Was Televised is a fantastic look at the dramas of the last twenty years or so, and features interviews with the creators and others involved with the shows. Great behind-the-scenes information, and also an interesting look at how TV has changed.

And if you like oral histories, Live From New York is an amazing one all about Saturday Night Live.

Patriot (Amazon Prime)

First 4 episodes have been great, has a very Fargo feel to it.

7.6/10 so far, def keeps you wanting to see what comes next

Edit: just finished and man did it finish strong! That 50 second scene in ep 8 in front of the warehouse was one of the funniest yet tense scenes I have ever seen in film, absolutely brilliant. The writing and dialogue and general feeling of the show was so different than anything you'll see. The definition of a dark comedy/thriller

Solid 8.5/10 for me and I highly recommend at least watching the first 3 or so episodes to see what you think. You gotta be the type of person who enjoys a good dialogue, this is not an action thriller spy show. But rather a well crafted web of fucked up situations one after the other.

The soundtrack kicked ass too

If you are a fan of Fargo or any thing Coen brothers you'll love this.

You may have to play around with different types of antennas. I am 40 miles from several antennas, but all should be in range. When talking to the company's tech support because I could not get a specific network, he suggested the one below because of the type of signal the station was using. I tried it - and it works great. I just returned the other one Saturday. I wish I could explain the low-range / high-range frequencies he talked about, but that is out of my tech knowhow.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BY033S0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Oz is fine...and a lot of people don't give it enough credit. Tom Fontana was given the greenlight by HBO to make a show about basically anything he wanted without censorship. It was like a pet project for the network. Pretty much anything went. It was unprecedented in its brutality and grittiness. Oz is what gave interest in people like Chase and Simon to work with HBO, knowing that they could have so much creative freedom. It was revolutionary. People like to say there would be no Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc. without The Sopranos, which is true, but there also would have been no Sopranos without Oz. If anyone really wants to learn more about how Oz changed television, you should check out Alan Sepinwall's book.

The show was really great until that mid-season change in four (I think) when a major character died. Then some of the ludicrous storylines came in, like the anti-aging (which Fontana has apologized for since and they obviously got rid of it quickly on the show) bit and those immigrants staying in Oz. I'm not saying the show went to absolute shit (hell, a scene in the final season tore me up), but there is a definite and obvious decline in quality there. Probably one of the worst changes is how frequently people died in the later seasons....do you remember the guy that died in the first episode of season 1? It was a massive deal and there was a huge investigation. Toward the end of the show, people were dropping like flies and no one even cared. It was never super realistic, but it definitely lost a ton of its realism in the later seasons.

However, a lot of the social commentary is still relevant today. Not to mention, the characters were great. The actors were great. Alexa Fogel was the casting director, and she also cast The Wire, so there are a ton of the same actors. The dialogue was sharp and I loved the way they portrayed the religious figures, like Sister Peter Marie, Kareem Saïd, and Father Mukada. For such a nihilistic show, they could have easily have made religion out to be a complete joke, but the religious characters on the show were actually very intelligent which I think contributed it to making it a very clever show.

Not to mention, Schillinger is one of tv's most terrifying and evil villains ever. J.K. Simmons is awesome.

It's not a video documentary but Sepinwalls' book is pretty known and respected:

> Alan Sepinwall: The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever
>https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1476739676/

If you get a chance, check out The Revolution Was Televised, such a fantastic book on how the shows came about

According to The Daily Show book published last year, primarily because Viacom completely beefed their previous contract situation prior to them leaving, which kinda exacerbated the situation when the end was near and Stewart was just done with doing the show and needed to stop. Colbert was in a similar situation, but got offered the Late Show, and since their contracts were linked, it kinda all came down at once.

Cool book if you've been a long fan of the Daily Show to read, but really one just for the fans. All told first person from the staff.

Parks and Recreation, "Ann and Chris" is the thirteenth episode of the sixth season and the one hundred third episode overall.

It originally aired on January 30, 2014.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 01:21 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip Off Classic" is the third episode of the sixth season and the ninety-third episode overall.

It originally aired on October 3, 2013.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 04:12 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip Off Classic" is the third episode of the sixth season and the ninety-third episode overall.

It originally aired on October 3, 2013.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 09:55 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Recall Vote" is the seventh episode of the sixth season and the ninety-seventh episode overall.

It originally aired on November 14, 2013.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 18:46 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Leslie vs. April" is the seventh episode of the fifth season and the seventy-fifth episode overall.

It originally aired on November 15, 2012.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 16:31 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Two Parties" is the tenth episode of the fifth season and the seventy-eighth episode overall.

It originally aired on January 17, 2013.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 15:39 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip Off Classic" is the third episode of the sixth season and the ninety-third episode overall.

It originally aired on October 3, 2013.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 14:22 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "The Pawnee-Eagleton Tip Off Classic" is the third episode of the sixth season and the ninety-third episode overall.

It originally aired on October 3, 2013.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 08:10 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Bailout" is the sixteenth episode of the fifth season and the eighty-fourth episode overall.

It originally aired on March 14, 2013

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 10:25 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "The Comeback Kid" is the eleventh episode of the fourth season and the fifty-seventh episode overall.

It originally aired on January 12, 2012.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 04:02 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Ron and Diane" is the ninth episode of the fifth season and the seventy-seventh episode overall.

It originally aired on December 6, 2012.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 08:42 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Ben's Parents" is the sixth episode of the fifth season and the seventy-fourth episode overall.

It originally aired on November 8, 2012.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 09:36 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Campaign Shake-Up" is the seventeenth episode of the fourth season and the sixty-third episode overall.

It originally aired on March 1, 2012

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 11:12 mark.
____
Parks and Recreation, "Bus Tour" is the twenty-first episode of the fourth season and the sixty-seventh episode overall.

It originally aired on May 1, 2012.

The episode is available on Amazon, Hulu Plus, iTunes, Netflix, and Vudu.

The scene begins at the 09:40 mark.

The Daily Show book makes it pretty clear that these types of stuff isn't the kind of stuff the daily show would do or look into or that Jon would even be aware of.

In fact in the earliest days of taking over the show, Jon veered them away from celebrity stuff very forcefully to do politics mainly, and he personally wasn't really in the loop with anything except stuff for the show as they discuss that his life really changed with the show from his comic days, both personal and professionally. Its incredibly reasonable to say he would have no idea of any of this stuff

Lloyd Braun was not hired back. He was ousted and he stayed gone.

If you're interested in the way TV shows have changed and been revolutionized, I recommend the book The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall. One of the chapters is about Lost.

I recommend reading The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall.

Amazon Link

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Link text: The Revolution Was Televised

• UK: amazon.co.uk
  
• Spain: amazon.es
  
• France: amazon.fr
  
• Germany: amazon.de
  
• Japan: amazon.co.jp
  
• Canada: amazon.ca
  
• Italy: amazon.it
  
• China: amazon.cn
  
  
  This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting).

Here you go.

Edit: not sure why this is being downvoted.

Alan Sepinwall wrote a whole book on this called 'The Revolution Was Televised' featuring The Sopranos, LOST, Breaking Bad, Mad Men etc. Great read from the best TV critic in the business.