Cult TV Blog

Gideon's Way is a series I have never seen, and am only just starting today with this episode, since I found it is available online. I actually came round to this series in a rather roundabout way. I have been watching Budgie, a show I know for a fact I watched several years ago, didn't like at the time, but thought I would give it another go. It strikes me as very old fashioned because of the way Adam Faith speaks cockney, even Cockney rhyming slang - old fashioned because Cockney has largely given way to London Multicultural English out here in the real world. The other cockney sparrow I could think of on TV was Ben in Dr Who, played by Michael Craze, which led me straight to Boy with Gun. The plot goes like  this: A tale of boys gone wrong. Chris Kirk ( Howard Knight ) has been mothered too much but his father, Police Surgeon Doctor Kirk ( Anthony Bate ) is overbearing. When cornered by three leather-coated, knife-wielding yobs who want to steal the shotgun his father b...

Real life TV presenter Raymond Baxter in string underwear Remaining in the 1970s (terribly modern by my standards), we come to another episode of The Goodies. I see that the boxed set of the whole BBC series is out at a huge price, and I might get it when it comes down a bit. I also have several double disc sets as it is, so I'm not sure what to do, especially as I sometimes find having everything can be a bit wearing. After all the best bits are selected for selection boxes. One of the best things about this episode is not to do with string at all. It is the spoofs of UK brand advertising at the time. The brands include Mr Kipling's cakes (notorious for its cosy olde worlde adverts for its mass produced cakes) and Birdseye fish fingers. Not only are fish fingers the world's weirdest food in my humber opinion, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who found Captain Birdseye frankly rather creepy. On one level the advertising part of this episode is as much social ...

I have previously commented that the rock on which Target floundered was the amount of violence it depicted, and I suspect this was one of the episodes which most shocked people. There are two occasions in the episode. One is where a jewel robber gets burned in the face by an oxyacetylene torch. One of his companions comments that they might as well finish the job, but they kindly dump what's left of him outside a hospital. The other occasion is where the escaped convict throws boiling water over his wife who has been cheating on him while he has been in prison, and whom he has caught in flagrante delicto. Personally I feel the violence in this episode isn't out of what can be expected for a show designed to depict the criminal underworld, but of course that is only a personal opinion. And this episode shows the working of a gang of jewel thieves rather well. What I do think is shocking is the way Hackett reveals his wife's whereabouts to the criminal they enlist to he...

Adam Adamant is one of my dream series, largely because so much of it was wiped - I particularly would like to see the missing episode where a whole train vanishes, but I doubt that this quintessentially English series was exported, so would be unlikely to turn up in Nigeria, or wherever. My few posts about the show here are among the most popular, which I suspect reflects a lack of coverage on the internet. For that reason alone I have been interested to read Grant's recent posts about this series (including  this episode ). The post highlights that another possible reason for the series's lack of popularity is the silly price the box set is currently going for, and unfortunately the Dutch-released set I bought much more cheaply also seems to have vanished from the market. I largely agree with what he says about the annoyance of the repeated dream sequence of Adamant being conked on the head, but I disagree with seemingly everyone - Adamant himself describes it as cacophonous...