While Must See TV was derived as an advertising slogan that was used by NBC to brand its Thursday night primetime programming during the 1990s, it was just that….an advertising slogan. Originally assigned to whatever sitcoms scheduled on Thursdays such as The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Cheers, etc., dramas were traditionally promoted separately. Fast forward to Sunday nights on PBS and […]
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It’s repetitive…it’s predictable…it continues to be brilliantly funny every year and it’s worthy of an annual mention on Tellyspotting every New Years Eve. On the surface, Dinner for One is a short British cabaret sketch from the 1920s that has become a German New Year’s tradition. Whether or not you understand the cultural significance of this, Dinner […]
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Fresh on the heels of one of the all-time greats of the acting world (Dame Judi Dench) turning 89 earlier this month on December 9, we now have the brilliant opportunity to celebrate another ‘Dame’ as she also turned 89 this past week – Dame Maggie Smith. Although she has achieved worldwide recognition with […]
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The alternative Christmas message is a message broadcast by Channel 4 since 1993, as a sometimes humorous and sometimes serious alternative to the traditional Royal Christmas Message. Usually featuring a contemporary, often controversial celebrity delivering a message in the manner of Queen Elizabeth II (and now King Charles III), the tradition started by accident when, running a series of programs on “Christmas in […]
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Much like watching It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, Tuna Christmas or, as evidenced by a recent admission, Die Hard, one of my annual Christmas traditions is to listen to John Cleese’s adaptation of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas from podcast No. 28. Never mind that there have been endless readings over the years by the likes […]
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While Larry, the Chief Mouser at 10 Downing Street, deservedly grabs most of the headlines these days in the British press, there’s another British cat the warrants a bit of ink (and, not just on page 3 of the The Sun). England’s Winston Churchill gained a well-deserved reputation as one of the best known and […]
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File this one under ‘reason #(I’ve lost count)’ that I would love to live in the UK. In keeping with their long-standing tradition of airing brilliant telly on Christmas or Boxing Day, Sir David Jason hosts The Story Of Only Fools and Horses at Christmas, the 90-minute feature documentary reflecting on the show’s Yuletide episodes, including […]
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By the mid-’60s, the British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon that had taken America by storm. So much so that even popular TV sitcoms wanted to join in the fun. Often mistaken for another British singing duo, Peter & Gordon, Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde, aka Chad & Jeremy, made the leap to the small […]
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Filming is underway on an all-star production of Gill Hornby’s best-selling and much loved novel Miss Austen. Miss Austen takes a literary mystery, one where Cassandra Austen notoriously burns her famous sister Jane’s letters and then reimagines it as a fascinating, witty and heart-breaking story of sisterly love, while creating in Cassandra a character as captivating as any […]
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In keeping with the brilliant UK practice of making both Christmas and Boxing Day a day to stay home and watch great telly, Beyond Paradise will premiere its first ever Christmas special slated for broadcast this holdiay season on BBC1. As with its predecessor, Death in Paradise, guest stars have traditionally queued up to be either the prime […]
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