What's on tv tonight?

You not read the book? Series 4 is going to be something else

I'm enjoying The Rings of Power as well, though at the moment I find the Harfoot storyline to be a bit dull. Other than that it's been great. Visually it's stunning.

Not quite tonight, but Sally Lindsay ruining Pointless in one episode is worthy of attention. Keep her away from quizshows, and most dramas too.

I too liked the sound of the other spin-off, as I've never been that keen on the Targaryens. They were interesting side characters, but not nearly likeable enough to be main characters, and I still stand by that a bit. I thought this week's episode of HOTD was the best so far, but it's still setting up a big political struggle between one set of power-hungry awful people against another set of power-hungry people who are awful in a slightly different way. I dare say it comes down whether they've been able to come up with a good plot. 

I knew there was to be a biggish time jump (we already had a two year one, followed by another year jump) and I've been waiting for it to happen as the episodes before this week had back story vibes and the only reason was bothering to watch each episode as soon as possible after it aired was to avoid spoilers. But this week's episode impressed me and was easily the best so far for me. 

Ratings are excellent and continue to grow, albeit not yet reaching GOT peak. The big benefit this series has for overnight ratings is that a lot of people who avoided GOT when it aired started to watch it afterwards, especially during lock-down. It remained the most streamed tv show in the world for a couple of years after it had finished and continues to out-perform a lot of new, successful drama. 

It's a shame Miguel is leaving as he directed some of the best episodes of GOT, but it sounds as if he only ever intended to do one season, so I'm not reading anything into it. 


The other show I make a point of watching as it airs is Bake Off, which I'm delighted is back. 

Cunk On Earth on BBC iplayer.
Just watched the first episode which is about Shakespeare. It's hilarious and even has Simon Russell Beale in it.

Those two may have given good performances but the entire police squad were laughably bad. It was like Tess Daly and Claudia Winkelman coached all their linereading.Just cringe. And how long does it take to replace a boiler? Mine took less than two days and that included a complete set of radiators. Plumber was obviously dodgy from episode one.

Agree with this about the useless detective characters. Talk about Chekhov's plumber. Thought The Suspect started strong but it's gone a bit ITV.

I watched the first episode and a half and then bailed out. I might watch a few more, but it was gruelling - I don't think I can do 10 episodes but it has been a ratings hit for Netflix. The film My Friend Dahmer, based on the comic book memoir by a cartoonist who was a school classmate , was on recently and was very good. 

I caught up with more House of the Dragon. Finally some action and a more GoT feel, with the horrible bickering kids ! Shame it was so dingy you could hardly make out what was happening though. 

Very true, and LOL at that description. I know they were distracted, but how come none of them questioned why the plumber was there for so long. And how did he get the contract in the first place?

I've paused my viewing of HOtD because my NowTV subscription expired, and the new deal offered wasn't great. I kept reading spoilers of what would happen in the next/future episodes anyway, so I might as well wait and watch the remainder in one go when I'm in the mood. 

Before I was hiding from spoilers, one good tip I picked up to help with names is to watch with sub-titles. Not only do you see them written down when they are mentioned, but they sometimes give the name of the person talking. I'm in favour of an option where name badges are superimposed over characters, like they're in a zoom meeting.

On the sad news about Robbie Coltrane, if you want to look back on his work, Cracker is on the ITV Hub and a lot of his comedy work from the 80s is on Youtube.

I haven't got round to listening to any of their podcasts yet, but Kermode and Mayo's podcast is interviewing Martin McDonagh tomorrow. Simon McBurney is co-producing (or something) a radio adaptation of 'The Dark is Rising' for Christmas, with a cast including Toby Jones and Harriet Walter.