What TV show did you last watch?

Angela Rippon at the BBC
She turned 80 so got to relate her life story, though omitted her Top Gear stint. She seldom mentions TV-am, but was proud of Masterteam. She won an Emmy during a year sabbatical in the USA, something seldom mentioned despite being really genuinely impressive.

Artist of the Year - Masterclass
1/20 Blimey, another spin-off. Past contestants (and in this opener, judge Tai) talk through a method, offering advice etc. The first topic, Exploring Tone, leads to a boring pic of a grey sphere on a grey block.
2/20 Sara Reeve takes on Alla Prima, also known by the too-good-to-be-true phrase "wet on wet". Her painting, based on a photo of someone's face, is more impressive.

Towards a Nature Positive Future - A Mission for National Parks
Marking 90 years of National Parks in Japan, from the initial 3, to the current 35, and how they are hoped to play a part in the "30 for 30" initiative to thwart climate change. Some of those parks (like the one with a volcano) look both pretty and less terminal than the mountain ranges do. I still the premise of visiting Japan for a walking holiday sounds too crazy to go for.

The Traitors (UK) Series 3
Early days, but this run is already taking a similar pattern to the previous Series. My observation is that the Faithful are really bad at spotting the Traitors. Do the other contestants not see anything of what we see in the final edit. One of the 3 chosen all women Traitors, Armani is a Financial Investigator, her skill-set should best lend itself to being a good Faithful. Having read her Bio & Q & A she rates herself as having a 10/10 poker face, watching her at the round table during banishments, she reacts exactly how I'd expect a Traitor to look, just seems fake. The one person who should know her the best is her sister Maia who has notice her behaving differently.
The format makes it heavily biased in favour of the traitors to succeed. The faithful almost struck lucky at the 1st banishment, when they have little to go on, but Linda escaped by one vote & looks safe for now. Unless Traitors get removed early the deeper they go the numbers favour them even more.

Talking Movies - Review of 2024
Tom Brook links a highlights show repeating a few films, such as his visit to Auschwitz. Can it really be 12 months since a similar show hyping "Barbenheimer" and with someone this time talking of "Glicked" ?

Lockerbie - A Search for Truth. Episode 1.

The Story of Dr Jim Swire and his relentless search for the truth about what exactly happened to his 23 year old Daughter Flora, her 269 fellow passengers and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie who were all killed when a bomb exploded on Pan AM Flight 103 causing it to crash on the Scottish town on December 21st, 1988.

The reconstruction is extremely well done and it's obvious they've taken extreme care to keep things as accurate as possible. It always amazes me with productions like this how they manage to source cars, clothes etc from the period and even recreate the sort of decor & furniture people had in their homes!

The Film Fan's Guide to... Durham
From Get Carter to Harry Potter.

Becoming... Wonka
Ali Plumb again, talking to Timothee Chalamet in late 2023.

Lives Well Lived
Kirsty Wark gets 2 shows to offer extra eulogising for this year's new corpses. Donald Sutherland, Quincy Jones and Maggie Smith were one thing, but hella load of in-house fawning for Steve Wright and Annie Nightingale - they even included that clip of Paul Weller going "yeah, she's great, she's not a celebrity"

(02-01-2025 14:21 )Doddle Wrote:  Artist of the Year - Masterclass
1/20 Blimey, another spin-off. Past contestants (and in this opener, judge Tai) talk through a method, offering advice etc. The first topic, Exploring Tone, leads to a boring pic of a grey sphere on a grey block.
2/20 Sara Reeve takes on Alla Prima, also known by the too-good-to-be-true phrase "wet on wet". Her painting, based on a photo of someone's face, is more impressive.

AotYM
3/20 Adebanji Alade was impressive at trees in his Landscape turn, so showed how one could copy him. Lots of layers is part of the unsurprising answer, but the results spoke for themselves.
4/20 Previous Portrait winner Morag Caister had a live model to show how to do Miniatures.

101 East - Saving Red Pandas
They're more like red squirrels than giant pandas, and similarly endangered (though not from gray pandas). They live high in the Himalayas and care not a jot for the borders of man.