Twin Peaks

Generally I'm not a massive fan of television. Quite allot of it is shite, there's no denying it. I'm thinking of the Big Brothers, the Geordie Shores, The TOWIEs of this world as the absolute dross. Then follow that up with the 3,457 singing and dancing shows and that's probably about 40% of the TV listings covered already. Sometimes it feels like clever, inventive TV has died, and now only only production value that matters is appealing to the lowest common denominator so lots of chavs will watch then go on twitter saying how lush Fred is cos like he's so like cool. That strategy works, they do, and that the lord my twitter allows me to filter out and ignore keywords. It's like soooo awesome.

Occasionally I find something I like though. Generally it's long after it was on TV and using the media of DVD, Blu Ray or Netflix. Such media has presented me with the likes of Dr Horrible (not really tele I know), Firefly (I never got round to watching it at the time, but now I know 'tis awesome) and many more. Most recently I watched Twin Peaks.

Now I was 8 when it was on first, I wasn't getting it then, I watched it half heartedly in the late 90s, but never saw it all. So now I thought, let's go, who did kill Laura Palmer? 30 episodes later I finished what must be one of the finest TV series ever made, it was funny, clever, dramatic, sometimes confusing, usually a bit odd, but of the highest quality. David Lynch and Mark Frost, take a bow.

I'm not going to post anything potentially a bit spoiler-y, although out of context not much would help. So I'll leave it with just a recommendation, go watch, it's a decent reason to get the Netflix free month on its own.

Then once you're done with that there's the film. A prequel! Fire Walk with me just had a new Blu-Ray and DVD press just for when I finish the series, what are the chances!?!

I shelled out my cash and I have a copy, it's flawed, technically I mean the audio track slows down randomly a few times, which isn't ideal but it doesn't bother actually watching it. It's much... harsher than the series, the tone is darker and it shows things (violence, nudity) the series generally only hints at. Nevertheless it's good stuff and well worth a watch, but series first or it'll spoil the who-done-it part of the series. And it'll make little sense at times.

OK it makes little sense at times anyway, but it all pulls together in the end. Plus for some reason Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Isaak and David Bowie all turn up (briefly).

Go on, give it a go. They really don't make TV like this any more. Plus with Lynch cold on the idea, can't see it happening again, even though there is a line in the script which leaves it wide open.

Amazon reviews

From time to time, and on a massive total of 32 occasions, I have written reviews for a website some of you may have heard of... amazon.co.uk. I do it for the same reason I write this, none in particular, but it's a nice diversion every now and again and with a bit of luck, the stuff I write does occasionally help somebody decide whether something is worth buying. The whole process is quite basic, but the weird part of it is their rating system.

Well not so much the system itself, but maybe some of the users.

Amazon works on a 'Was this helpful? yes/no' type scenario. But I get the impression a minority, but a vocal minority, of users read this is 'Do you agree? Yes/No', and as a result I do sometimes feel reviews are marked as unhelpful for not giving a popular item 5 stars. Also there's also some cases where people review an item, then mark the other reviews of the same item down, to hopefully push theirs up to the featured review. The Internet is a reasonably twisted place for self promotion.

However most reviews don't get any votes at all, I've only ever received 52 votes over my 32 reviews (40-12, 77% helpful, which is quite shit).

I honestly think this isn't the best way of running a rating system, especially if you're going to run some kind of league table off it to introduce competition. Why have a no button at all? Yes or ignore would be fine and remove the possibility of bitching. Or maybe require some kind of reason or feedback to go along with a negative vote? If people have to back it up...

But hey I'm sure the amazon dudes know what they're doing.

Well this morning I went up 100 or so places to crack the top 10,000 reviewers for the 2nd time (someone marked a review down straight away last time, so I dropped again) at 9,955th. This means nothing of course and I'll probably drop straight back out tomorrow, but for now I have a picture visible and everything. If anyone's interested here's a link to my 'public profile' but I'd imagine after making it this far, you're sick of my attempted wit and typos already:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/profile/A3SIES8A01NZAN?ie=UTF8&ref_=ya__56

Off topic, well kind of... kindle is amazon, there was just a guy getting off the train, reading his kindle intensely, but the screen saver was on, I could see it from here. It was the picture of John Steinbeck.  Some people are weird.

The I.T. Crowd

There's not massive amounts of TV programs that I like these days. We frequently see schedules cramped up with endless streams of reality bullshit, hopeless celebrity programs and talent shows. In fact I'm pretty sure I may have mumped on about this before.

However, there is good TV out there! Yesterday, using the last of my free trial from Amazon Prime (cracking service... not paying £50 a month to use it infrequently) 2 items dropped through my door. The first item was the 3 disc Anchorman/Wake up Ron Burgundy set (£3.99 when I ordered it, bargain and a true classic Will Ferrell film + extras!) and the second was The I.T. Crowd 4.0, which nicely supplements my versions 1-3 boxset!

The writer of this little slice of comedy gold for Channel 4 is a man by the name of Graham Linehan who also has such things as Father Ted and Black Books on his CV, he seems to be pretty good on the whole! However, the undoubted star of the show is Richard Ayoade who is an absolute delight as Moss and apparently, based on his first film, a pretty decent prospect as a director.

The show particularly appeals to 'the likes of' (to use someone elses phrasing) me as it uses quite allot of geeky humour and references but also has enough of general and observational humour to reach past that and appeal to a wider audience (e.g. Cerys likes it too).

The news that a 5th series will be complete and on screens this year is an undoubted bonus and will make my £8-£10 lighter in the pocket as soon as it's available. Even though I was a bit late on this one...

If I had to compare it.. it would be difficult, maybe somewhere in between The Big Bang Theory and The Guild but even that doesn't sit quite right.

Much recommended, but you probably guessed that by now.