Cult TV Blog

I honestly can only assume that I have missed this series because I didn't think I would like it. I have certainly seen the boxed set around, but because I somehow hadn't heard of it as a vintage TV series, I suppose I assumed it was a modern series and hence overlooked it. So let me be honest and admit that I am writing about this show with a HUGE bias. In fact I'm not so much biased as prejudiced. In its favour, that is, for the simple reason that it is not only set in my home city of Birmingham, but it is also filmed in the Birmingham of the 1970s and is wonderfully atmospheric of a certain time in the life of the Second City. To be frank, I think it quite likely that this series won't have done the city's reputation any favours, simply because it portrays it as as gang- and violence-ridden cesspit. It certainly wasn't that in the 1970s, and certainly isn't now, despite having a ridiculously high crime rate. Yes, if you look up Birmingham and gangs ...

This is of course one of the Avengers stories published as cartoons in Diana magazine in the 1960s and dramatised in recent times by Big Finish. I have written about at least one of them here before and commented on how hugely impressed I was. I remain hugely impressed: in fact these adventures give me hope that what I choose to call the 'authentic' Avengers formula can still be recreated. In fact this is an exciting time across the board for Avengers fans, what with a recently-discovered series 1 episode being released next month, and I have even heard a rumour that Big Finish are going to dramatise the novelisation Too Many Targets, which features all the Avengers girls at once and which I like enormously. You will note that I say the 'authentic' Avengers formula. You will also note that I set myself up as the arbiter of what is authentic and what is not. A lot of the Avengers fan fiction littering the internet is - in my humble opinion - marred by the fantasy th...

I am writing this post in reaction to somebody else who blogs prolifically about TV series of the era I write about here. It may seem like I'm being difficult but I'm not going to say who she is. My own opinion is that if I'm not going to put my opinion as a comment on her blog, I'm not really disputing with her but only publishing my own views, even if it does seem curmudgeonly not to say who I'm talking about. She has, anyway, commented at length that she will block those whose views she disagrees with, and I'm speaking as someone who left a fairly mild comment (not about gender) some time ago on her blog and received a withering put-down in reply. This is someone who is apparently an academic and I wonder how her students perceive her, despite her once commenting on her tumblr that she's sorry if anyone is offended by her response to their comments, and to let her know. Hmmmm. I suppose therefore I am debating the position because I have found the pers...