All the budget Scarface swimming pool scene was lacking was Michael Barrymore. Woip.
I got bored very quickly
Yeah, struggling to care about any of the characters so far. Everything is surface.
It's always a risk bringing something back but I'm not enjoying:
Repetition of plot re smuggling weapons.
Boring villain and predictable twist in episode 3.
The way it's shot is not a patch on the first series. It seems dowdy and flat.
Good easy Sunday night watching and in lobe with Roxana. Spotted it would involve a son about ten minutes into the first episode.
The girl is something else
Oh her stepdad is Al Pacino
Say hello to my not so little friends
The twist you're referring to has the potential to reinvigorate the whole thing though.
Yes, perhaps they could break into song together
To be honest I'd been expecting that twist all along.
Saw exhibition Tradecraft yesterday. I haven’t read any John Le Carre but will read at least one and if anyone has a recommendation. The way he lived was quite Wow. I will miss Hugh Laurie’s Richard Roper one of best ever villains up there with Damian Lewis’ Soames Forsyte
Hugh Laurie and to a lesser extent Tom Holland (or Hollander, whichever) made series 1 great, without them its all a bit meh.
Christ
@Guy, take it you have not seen said twist.
No spoilers
Watch the third episode and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
ah no only seen first two episodes - presume Hugh not really dead? I will carry on watching then.
I will start watching then
Just finished season 1.
I was mislead with the name/ advertising. I was expecting a lot more administration, dealing with alarm calls, possibly some spreadsheets to enusure that all shifts were covered.
I did not sign up for a racy, exciting spy thriller with hotties and Hugh Laurie being terrifying. Disappointed.
Also, its astonishing to see how different tom
Hiddlestone looks pre and post Taylor. It aged him, like, 10 years
I mean, certainty, the passage of ten years may have contributed, but still
Must have been a dilemma for the BBC, because without publicising he is actually in it many who might have watched could well not have bothered.
I’ve given up with it. Just so thin. A conspiracy of juice-squeezing by the BBC and Le Carre offspring.
I’ve got back into the Alec Guinness TTSS series. Ian Richardson was so very, very good in it.
First series was lavish in terms of cast, location, cinematography, script, plot and production. Second series is a like a Thai market knock-off Rolex.
It is evident the first series was based on a novel by a decent novelist and second is a paint by numbers job.
What chance someone will film An Honourable Schoolboy? Isn’t that the only one left?
I doubt it. I don’t think it carries the ingredients of good TV/movie content for the current majority generation. Maybe old boys like me have a place for it.
The thing is, TTSS was so special that everyone has learned that what comes next fails. I have re-watched Smiley’s People with Guinness and it is very thin. Like N Manager 2 after the beauty and complexity of the first. Just Hiddlestone/Guinness replays and worse for it. The approach the TTSS film was to wait a generation and ensure everybody is dead before rewriting it and recasting it, and it was good but different. Oldman did not channel Guinness.
I think SP was pretty good tbf.
Top tip is record it in digibox whilst free, obvs.
I will give Smiley's People another go out of respect for your recommendation.
Mutters - assume you've watched slow horses? If not, pls do so.
We have a secure meeting room at work for our Executive Committee. I went through the frosted glass door today en route to the meeting. It has a silicon airlock seal. As I pulled the door open I noticed a paper clip attached to the seal, horizontally at about 5 feet. Easily missed. Not something accidentally put there. Something designed to flip off if the seal is moved. The aspergic pattern recognising brain and mapping of "normal" allows immediate identification of abnormal. It's bothering me.
No, Wang, I have not yet. But you are not alone in recommending to me. I don't know how I have missed this. Is it something only on Sky or whatever? I am fiercely anti Murdoch.
It's apple TV. You might be able to get it on Now?
You'd also enjoy on apple ted lasso (which i rebelled against instinctively but it's actually very good).
Best modern day spy series by far is Tehran, on Apple TV.
As I left the room I replaced the paperclip
You should have learned your lessons from Dirk Gently, mutters old boy. And added another paperclip a little lower down...
i turned it round...
You can often get free sign ups to Apple TV when you buy stuff online
Slow Horses has the advantage that they are only 5 or 6 episode per series, so you can knock them out pretty quickly.
I am currently working through the BBC TTSS which I realise I've never actually watched all of.
Have we done the forthcoming new Smiley adaptation with him off of Spooks? Sounds like they might start it all off at the beginning (Call for the Dead or Spy who came in from the cold)
No we haven’t, who?
The posh one married to Keeley Hawes whose name escapes me
Epicly good ep today of Nm2 btw. I take it all back
But McFadyen is intrinsically risible fwiw
He really is cookie. Saw him once as prince Hal hi he ry iv (i) and (ii). Southbank I think.
Gambon was playing Falstaff.
I have never seen someone so comprehensively upstaged in anything.
I saw him in Private Lives with Kim Cattrall and he was v good. Because he’s so farcical. Not remotely sinister.
Episode 4 is much better. Roper, Lord Langbourne. Getting the band back together.
Agreed. Hugh Laurie is if anything more compelling this time around. A bit less pantomime, a bit more frail.
For my suns, he gets right up my hooter. So much so I’m rewatching the first series ;)
Acting, script, direction not v good. Hugh Laurie and Alistair Petrie have come into just about save the day. Supposed to be baddies but everyone else so dull they will be forgiven pretty much anything now
All the budget Scarface swimming pool scene was lacking was Michael Barrymore. Woip.
I got bored very quickly
Yeah, struggling to care about any of the characters so far. Everything is surface.
It's always a risk bringing something back but I'm not enjoying:
Repetition of plot re smuggling weapons.
Boring villain and predictable twist in episode 3.
The way it's shot is not a patch on the first series. It seems dowdy and flat.
Good easy Sunday night watching and in lobe with Roxana. Spotted it would involve a son about ten minutes into the first episode.
The girl is something else
Oh her stepdad is Al Pacino
Say hello to my not so little friends
The twist you're referring to has the potential to reinvigorate the whole thing though.
Yes, perhaps they could break into song together
To be honest I'd been expecting that twist all along.
Saw exhibition Tradecraft yesterday. I haven’t read any John Le Carre but will read at least one and if anyone has a recommendation. The way he lived was quite Wow. I will miss Hugh Laurie’s Richard Roper one of best ever villains up there with Damian Lewis’ Soames Forsyte
Hugh Laurie and to a lesser extent Tom Holland (or Hollander, whichever) made series 1 great, without them its all a bit meh.
Christ
@Guy, take it you have not seen said twist.
No spoilers
Watch the third episode and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
ah no only seen first two episodes - presume Hugh not really dead? I will carry on watching then.
I will start watching then
Just finished season 1.
I was mislead with the name/ advertising. I was expecting a lot more administration, dealing with alarm calls, possibly some spreadsheets to enusure that all shifts were covered.
I did not sign up for a racy, exciting spy thriller with hotties and Hugh Laurie being terrifying. Disappointed.
Also, its astonishing to see how different tom
Hiddlestone looks pre and post Taylor. It aged him, like, 10 years
I mean, certainty, the passage of ten years may have contributed, but still
Must have been a dilemma for the BBC, because without publicising he is actually in it many who might have watched could well not have bothered.
I’ve given up with it. Just so thin. A conspiracy of juice-squeezing by the BBC and Le Carre offspring.
I’ve got back into the Alec Guinness TTSS series. Ian Richardson was so very, very good in it.
First series was lavish in terms of cast, location, cinematography, script, plot and production. Second series is a like a Thai market knock-off Rolex.
It is evident the first series was based on a novel by a decent novelist and second is a paint by numbers job.
What chance someone will film An Honourable Schoolboy? Isn’t that the only one left?
I doubt it. I don’t think it carries the ingredients of good TV/movie content for the current majority generation. Maybe old boys like me have a place for it.
The thing is, TTSS was so special that everyone has learned that what comes next fails. I have re-watched Smiley’s People with Guinness and it is very thin. Like N Manager 2 after the beauty and complexity of the first. Just Hiddlestone/Guinness replays and worse for it. The approach the TTSS film was to wait a generation and ensure everybody is dead before rewriting it and recasting it, and it was good but different. Oldman did not channel Guinness.
I think SP was pretty good tbf.
Top tip is record it in digibox whilst free, obvs.
I will give Smiley's People another go out of respect for your recommendation.
Mutters - assume you've watched slow horses? If not, pls do so.
We have a secure meeting room at work for our Executive Committee. I went through the frosted glass door today en route to the meeting. It has a silicon airlock seal. As I pulled the door open I noticed a paper clip attached to the seal, horizontally at about 5 feet. Easily missed. Not something accidentally put there. Something designed to flip off if the seal is moved. The aspergic pattern recognising brain and mapping of "normal" allows immediate identification of abnormal. It's bothering me.
No, Wang, I have not yet. But you are not alone in recommending to me. I don't know how I have missed this. Is it something only on Sky or whatever? I am fiercely anti Murdoch.
It's apple TV. You might be able to get it on Now?
You'd also enjoy on apple ted lasso (which i rebelled against instinctively but it's actually very good).
Best modern day spy series by far is Tehran, on Apple TV.
As I left the room I replaced the paperclip
You should have learned your lessons from Dirk Gently, mutters old boy. And added another paperclip a little lower down...
i turned it round...
You can often get free sign ups to Apple TV when you buy stuff online
Slow Horses has the advantage that they are only 5 or 6 episode per series, so you can knock them out pretty quickly.
I am currently working through the BBC TTSS which I realise I've never actually watched all of.
Have we done the forthcoming new Smiley adaptation with him off of Spooks? Sounds like they might start it all off at the beginning (Call for the Dead or Spy who came in from the cold)
No we haven’t, who?
The posh one married to Keeley Hawes whose name escapes me
McFayden that's it
Ah right, bit more information here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/legacy-of-spies-le-carre-series
Epicly good ep today of Nm2 btw. I take it all back
But McFadyen is intrinsically risible fwiw
He really is cookie. Saw him once as prince Hal hi he ry iv (i) and (ii). Southbank I think.
Gambon was playing Falstaff.
I have never seen someone so comprehensively upstaged in anything.
I saw him in Private Lives with Kim Cattrall and he was v good. Because he’s so farcical. Not remotely sinister.
Episode 4 is much better. Roper, Lord Langbourne. Getting the band back together.
Agreed. Hugh Laurie is if anything more compelling this time around. A bit less pantomime, a bit more frail.
For my suns, he gets right up my hooter. So much so I’m rewatching the first series ;)
Acting, script, direction not v good. Hugh Laurie and Alistair Petrie have come into just about save the day. Supposed to be baddies but everyone else so dull they will be forgiven pretty much anything now
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