The BBC has just launched an unbelievably cool searchable online archive where you can browse the listings from every copy of the Radio Times ever published, from 1923-2009 (in case your wondering, that’s 4,469 separate editions and 350,622 pages covering 4,423,653 individual programs. Imagine, 86 years of TV and radio history at the touch of a button.
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Sunday, all eyes will be on PBS and the return of Downton Abbey. In the wake of newspapers and print journalism giving way to the age of the Internets, fortunately, there still exists a small-town newspaper with a brilliant nose for news even though Lady Edith has her sights set a bit higher. While the […]
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Normally, at this time of year, the phrase “…it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” is on everyone’s mind. For the past several years, however, it’s sounding more and more like “…it’s beginning to look a lot like Downton” as people begin to ready themselves for the January premiere each year. In advance of […]
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Even the most casual Keeping Up Appearances fan of the woman who makes no bones about having a sister whose house has a swimming pool, sauna, and room for a pony, will no doubt ever forget her singing prowess designed to impress next door neighbor, Emmet Hawkesworth. To this day, I’ll never forget interviewing Ms. […]
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The recent U.S. popularity of the mega-hit, Downton Abbey, brings to mind not only the obvious, Upstairs Downstairs, but also the likes of PBS’ Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisited and, oddly, Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City broadcast from a water cooler popularity standpoint. With Downton Abbey, there’s a new sheriff in town at […]
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Hard to think of the word “teaser” when it refers to something that’s still almost four months away from filming and, roughly, nine months away from broadcast, but little mind-teasers are starting to leak out about the next set of the Sherlock series from the genius minds of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. With the worlds […]
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Having just watched a stellar 4-part documentary from the BBC on the history of NASA, it seems appropriate to begin today’s post with a space reference. T-minus 36 hours and counting until the premiere of Sherlock on PBS Critics agree from coast to coast. Perhaps the best example of the phrase “…if you watch one […]
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The British comedy team of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, a.k.a. The Mighty Boosh, were recently presented with a difficult task. Explain the core component of British comedy as we know it. Not too daunting a task to try and put into words. Using their own hugely successful series, The Mighty Boosh, as an example, Barratt […]
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Some say, if you remember the 80’s, you didn’t have fun. But, if you do remember, hopefully you also remember one of the great television talking heads of all-time….Max Headroom. For those that may have been absent in the 80’s, Max was born in Britain. He first appeared as the irreverent host of “The Max […]
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October 5, 1969. Not as momentous an occasion as, say, July 20, 1969 or August 15-17, 1969 but it is a date that will live in not only television comedy history, but comedy history. 40 years ago Monday, Monty Python’s Flying Circus hit the airwaves on the BBC. Maybe you remember, maybe you don’t. […]
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