[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: BBC movie series recommendations please :)

[Shaun Hately]

From: "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com>


> Shaun:
>> There are so many British TV series I would recommend in general. 'House 
>> of
>> Cards', 'To Play the King', and 'The Final Cut' are three sequential BBC
>> series from the 1990s, each of which explore the political career of a 
>> truly
>> evil and Machiavellian politician (and his wife who is even worse) who is
>> prepared to do anything, anything at all, to become Prime Minister and 
>> then
>> to hold onto office.
>>
>> 'GBH' from Channel 4 in 1991 is another political drama series. This 
>> depicts
>> the Mayor (again, an evil politician who will stop at nothing) of a city 
>> in
>> Northern England and his conflict with a decent, honest, school teacher 
>> who
>> finds himself accidentally in opposition to him).
>
> Alla:
>
> Hmmm, do those shows have the characters I can sympathise with though? If 
> the main character is evil evil,
> no matter how well it is done, I will probably pass on this one. Ah I see 
> there is a teacher in opposition,
>  maybe when I am done with these, I will take this one too.

GBH might be OK - the teacher is a very sympathetic character and the series 
is as much about him as anybody else. 'House of Cards' etc, probably not - 
nasty things happen to the sympathetic characters in that.

> Well, what I want since indeed I am sure there is a lot to choose from is 
> the very best, you know?
> Not just good, there is of course no time to see everything which is good. 
> Any genre will do though
> except horror movies or series.

The genres can be a bit mixed in some cases - especially given that in 
Britain some shows that are intended as series, rather than as mini-series, 
may nonetheless only have seven episodes (a standard British series 
(equivalent to a season in the US) tends to have 13 episodes, and there are 
quite a few 'half series' with only seven).

The following are my opinions, of course, although quite a few of them match 
general consensus quite well.

'Hope and Glory' (1999-2000 BBC) - this series revolves around a man who 
takes over as Head of a run down and struggling high school and turns it 
around.

'Foyle's War'  (2002-, ITV) - a detective series set during World War II.

'The Duchess of Duke Street' is another period drama in the same vein as 
House of Elliot, or Upstairs, Downstairs.

'Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister' - this is quite a long series, but every 
episode stands pretty much alone. Comedy, revolving around a government 
Minister (who later becomes Prime Minister) and his struggles to get his 
agenda past the public servants in his department (who would rather advance 
their agenda... or better yet, leave everything the same as it already is).

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
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