TV Episodes You Have Just Watched

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Coronation Street, 20 February 1974

Len Fairclough and Rita Littlewood are engaged to be married. Old age pensioners Albert Tatlock and Minnie Caldwell consider getting married for financial reasons, but Minnie decides against it. The marriage of Ken and Janet Barlow is clearly already on the rocks, and they spend the night in separate bedrooms.

Three Salons At The Seaside

BBC 'fly on the wall' production from 1994. Clients and staff at three Blackpool hairdressing establishments chat away, apparently spontaneously, on the premises. What can you say about this? If you're in the mood for listening to stories about heart attacks, strokes, funerals, people dying on the toilet, etc, then please step inside!

I've always been a bit skeptical about this sort of thing though. Can ordinary members of the public really act naturally in this sort of situation without a fair amount of coaching and even scripting? How much editing and reshooting takes place? I also wonder about the motives and attitudes of the middle class university-educated BBC producers - are they consciously or unconsciously holding up their subjects to ridicule?

Discuss (or not...)

I don't know how natural that is. I can't click the link because it sounds like proper hell to me. I can't stand random chatter especially when it's unstructured like that. I hate going to hair salons for that very reason.

I just watched Gentleman Jack S2 Ep 1&2.

Coronation Street, 25 February 1974

Betty Turpin's husband Cyril dies from a sudden heart attack. They'd been married for thirty years, but Cyril had only appeared in a handful of episodes. Billy Walker sells a customer a faulty car, and gets a lot of comeback, which ends with the customer crashing the vehicle into the doorway of the Rover's. Billy was a horrible character.


Coronation Street, 20 March 1974

One of the worst episodes I've seen. Centres around rehearsals for a performance of The Importance Of Being Earnest, directed by Ernie Bishop. Annie Walker, Deirdre Hunt, Emily Bishop and Jerry Booth are among the would be thespians. LOL, can't imagine the likes of Deirdre and Jerry being into Oscar Wilde in real life.

Billy The Kid.
Better Call Saul.
Gaslit.
61st Street.
Fear The Walking Dead.

Coronation Street, 24 April 1974

The Importance Of Being Earnest is finally performed on stage by the cast. It goes down well with the audience, partly because it's 'so bad that it's good'. The biggest laugh of the evening comes right at the end, when a local lady rushes onto the stage to retrieve her aunt's sugar bowl, which had been 'borrowed' as a prop against her wishes.

Coronation Street, 10 June 1974

A friend of Lucille Hewitt, an unmarried mother, is homeless and asks various residents to take her in. Rita eventually obliges, much to Len's annoyance. Stan Ogden is reported to the Council for keeping a donkey in his back yard. Another poor episode, further evidence that the show needed some new ideas by the mid-1970s. These were finally provided by the arrival of Bill Podmore as producer in 1976.


Coronation Street, 10 July 1974

Maggie Clegg marries Ron Cooke (a newcomer to the show), and the couple emigrate to Zaire. This looks like a plot device to write Maggie out of the show. The Hopkins family arrives to take a look at the corner shop, with a view to buying it from Maggie. This seems to have been the first appearance of Tricia Hopkins (played by Kathy Jones) in the show.

Daredevil.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Coronation Street, 30 September 1974

There's a party hosted by Ernie and Emily Bishop, attended by a number of the street's residents. Ray Langton spikes Jerry Booth's brown ale with vodka, and Jerry makes a fool of himself by standing on a table and declaring his love for his former fiancee Sheila, who is one of the guests, much to the horror of his current love interest Mavis Riley. The drunken tirade is appallingly acted and directed, bringing yet another indifferent episode to its conclusion.


Coronation Street, 16 October 1974

Eight of the street's women go on a week's holiday in Majorca, as winners of a 'Spot The Ball' newspaper prize competition. Mavis has an unlikely romance with a Spanish waiter called Pedro, and Bet Lynch gets involved with a horrible, slimy rat-like man played by Stephen Yardley (of 'Howard's Way' fame). Bet is so besotted that she misses the flight back to the UK in order to be with him, but he tells her he's not interested, leaving her stranded in Majorca.

The Dame Edna Experience, 3 shows from around 1990

Found these among dozens of VHS tapes that I took from my mother's house after her death in 2014, and thought I might as well watch them before I throw them out, as I'm running out of storage space.

Had never seen this show before, but 'Dame Edna' is a comic character played by the Australian comedian/satirist/actor Barry Humphries. It's a sort of spoof chat show, where most of the guests are from the showbiz world. Really it's a blown opportunity - the guests are potentially interesting (Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis, Tom Jones, Julio Iglesias, Dr Christian Barnaard, etc) but the interviews are far too short and superficial, and are characterized by crude innuendo throughout. Gina Lollobrigida looked very bemused as to what she was doing on the show. Edna/Humphries is certainly a very imposing, larger-than-life character though, I'll give him/her that.

Daredevil.
The Flash.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The Man Who Fell To Earth.

Finished watching Atypical with my aunt.

Coronation Street, 4 November 1974

The Bishops' marriage seems to be going through a rough patch. Maybe Emily is disappointed to be back home with Ernest after the excitement of her stay in Majorca. Bet Lynch finally arrives back in Weatherfield.


Coronation Street,4 December 1974

Hilda Ogden and Bet Lynch almost come to blows over the sideboard from Maggie Clegg's old shop which they both want to buy. Ray Langton and Bet play a prank on Mavis Riley, which results in her going to Manchester Victoria station under the impression that she will be meeting Pedro from Majorca. In fact she is met by Bet's neighbour Carlos, who is a participant in the hoax.

The Flash.
Daredevil.
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.
Real Time With Bill Maher.
Family Guy.

Coronation Street, 30 December 1974

Eddie Yates has arrived in the street, straight out of Walton prison. He is staying with Minnie Caldwell and Ena Sharples, and will be a regular fixture for the next decade. The Bishops have been fostering two small children, but their father arrives unexpectedly to take them back home.