Cult TV Blog

The way I have blogged here has changed slightly over the past couple of years. I have moved towards general posts about series or what I am watching, and away from the more analytical posts I used to write about specific episodes of series. I would like to return to a more episode-specific form of blogging, although it will probably mean I am unable to post as frequently as I have been, because I will need to put more effort into each post. I also want to concentrate more on what I would consider 'good' television, since my mission here has always been to appreciate quality television better and luckily it seems as if others in the blogosphere like this too. I selected this episode by picking an Avengers series at random and jabbing my finger on the box to select an episode, and am delighted to see that I have selected this episode since it is one of my favourites. The first thing I have to say about The Secrets Broker is that despute being black and white it is *so* visually ...

As I write this I am watching a programme called The Feathered Serpent, which is a show I bought completely on spec. Although I was alive when it was broadcast I have no recollection of it and will presume to quote from the blurb on the box: 'Starring Diane Keen and Patrick Troughton, The Feathered Serpent is a story of murder, intrigue and political manoeuvring set amid the splendour and turmoil of ancient Mexico. This release comprises every episode of the children's drama series from Thames Television, memorable for its spectacular sets and lavish costumes, originally transmitted between 1976 and 1978.' Watching this show has caused me to reflect rather waspishly on vintage children's TV, and particularly the few children's shows that I have written about here. These shows are so few because I have found that TV shows I remember from my actual childhood rarely stand up to the rosy memories I have of them: mym memories of shows from my adolescence onwards are much...

This may seem like I'm going completely off-topic but one of my other interests is architecture and I have been watching a film called Utopia London  about the idealistic planning involved in reconstructing London before and after the Second World War. In Utopia London's vision, egalitarianism featured highly and everyone was to have the same opportunities. In my humble opinion, the egalitarian bright future dreamed of in the 1940s was a red herring. On the whole people don't want to share and even if you were to share out the world's resources completely equally, some people would still manage to be penniless after the first week. As a result of these elements of human nature we find the kind of alternative economies we see in Steptoe and Son (you see, I was going somewhere with that introduction). This is also not something which is different anywhere in the world: where I used to live in Bearwood, if you wanted rid of something you just had to put it out in the st...