PBS: Viewers Like You. Thank You.

[BennyB]

Martin Yan is still on some of the PBS stations. Martin Yan's Taste of Vietnam is the show this season. Part travelogue and part cooking for an audience.

[Milz]

Yep. Loved a lot of shows on it back then. And into the 90's as well.

 

Anyone remember 321 Contact, Mathnet and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Man I loved watching those.

 

Yup, I remember them and I also remember something called Color Sounds which used music videos to teach parts of speech. Since my parents refused to get cable, it was really the only time I was able to watch music videos.

 

The 90s was good for kids programs. Wishbone, Kratt's Creatures (I had such a crush on the Kratts!), and Donna's Day, which was like a Martha Stewart Living show for kids were my favs. Yeah I was one of those college students who watched kids shows on PBS!

 

In the late 90s, I remember my little nieces and nephew watching Zoom, which was pretty good.

[AntiBeeSpray]

Yup, I remember them and I also remember something called Color Sounds which used music videos to teach parts of speech. Since my parents refused to get cable, it was really the only time I was able to watch music videos.

 

The 90s was good for kids programs. Wishbone, Kratt's Creatures (I had such a crush on the Kratts!), and Donna's Day, which was like a Martha Stewart Living show for kids were my favs. Yeah I was one of those college students who watched kids shows on PBS!

 

In the late 90s, I remember my little nieces and nephew watching Zoom, which was pretty good.

 

Cool! I remember Wishbone somewhat and Kratt's Creatures.

 

Nice.

[Milz]

I've watched some of the newer PBS Kids shows and  the only ones I can stand are Word Girl and Biz Kids. I don't count Arthur, Clifford and Martha Speaks as "new".

 

I really liked Jakers with the pig. I think it's on Qubo now.

[AntiBeeSpray]

I've watched some of the newer PBS Kids shows and  the only ones I can stand are Word Girl and Biz Kids. I don't count Arthur, Clifford and Martha Speaks as "new".

 

I really liked Jakers with the pig. I think it's on Qubo now.

 

Yea it's just not the same.

 

Only good stuff left are the Sesame Street show parodies :P.

[Milz]

Yea it's just not the same.

 

Only good stuff left are the Sesame Street show parodies :P.

 

It sounds like the characters are always screaming or they're talking really, really, fast.

 

BTW, great Sesame Street parody is SNL's Cookie from Empire goes to Sesame Street.

[AntiBeeSpray]

It sounds like the characters are always screaming or they're talking really, really, fast.

 

BTW, great Sesame Street parody is SNL's Cookie from Empire goes to Sesame Street.

 

Yea exactly. They seem to be copies off of one another too.

 

Nice. I'll have to catch that one. I remember one when I was a kid where they had Placido Flamingo :P.

[Crs97]

My boys loved Fetch! I still miss it because those kids got to do amazing things. My boys wanted us to move to Boston so they could try out.

[Rhetorica]

Did anyone watch the Crimson Field Sunday night? If it has enough viewers, I'd like to request a forum.

[Milz]

Did anyone watch the Crimson Field Sunday night? If it has enough viewers, I'd like to request a forum.

 

I fell asleep after Poldark. But I plan to watch it on the PBS website later today and will probably just watch it on the website.

[merylinkid]

I watched it.   A little distracted so not sure what was going on, but I'll stick around for it.   I am a sucker for WW1 stories and am reading a mystery series about a WWI British Nurse.

[Rhetorica]

I've requested a forum for Crimson Field. It should be up shortly. Be sure to post your thoughts there so we can discuss. I requested an All Episode thread since there aren't that many episodes.

[DkNNy79]

LMAO! About the Dibley choir, I love the Choir Master (I think his name is Cecil).

 

Another scene that made (and still makes me laugh) is Jim's striptease at the charity talent show. The audience's faces are such a classic mixture of horror, shock, and disgust, especially when Jim removes his thong.

OMG, what a great moment!!  The whole cast is awesome. 

[JudyObscure]

I watched "The Crimson Field," and I'm sure I'll stay with it.  Good, realistic sets, interesting subject and cast, but why, why I ask you, does the BBC seem to think that female protagonists have to be  rude, cruel, arrogant and snobbish?   Are we supposed to believe she's superior because she thinks she's superior?  This Kitty character seems like a clone of Lady Mary Crawley.  I know she was brave and kind with the mad, dying man in the end, but I had already taken a hearty dislike to her in her first few minutes on screen, snubbing poor Flora and everyone else in sight, so after the truly cruel attack on the prim, plain Rosalie, I was permanently over her. 

[Crisopera]

I'll keep watching The Crimson Field because I'm a sucker for English costume dramas, but it seems like a farrago of clichés.  It might as well be titled Call the Downton Battlefield Nurses.  Do you think we'll get to see them nursing Matthew Crawley?

[editorgrrl]

It might as well be titled Call the Downton Battlefield Nurses.

The PTV review asks, "The Downton Abbey and Call The Midwife connections will draw you in, but are they enough to make you stay?" http://forums.previously.tv/topic/27951-is-the-crimson-field-worth-a-visit/

[applecrisp]

Is anyone watching The Forsyte Saga?  I am enjoying it and would like another's perspective.

[editorgrrl]

Is anyone watching The Forsyte Saga? I am enjoying it and would like another's perspective.

There's a thread in the Masterpiece board: http://forums.previously.tv/topic/27717-the-forsyte-saga

[applecrisp]

Thank you editorgrrl, I saw it on the schedule on PBS but did not wanted to start at the beginning.  I am watching it on Netflix.

[roseha]

I just saw for the first time a BBC mystery show on Channel 21 (Long Island, New York) called Death in Paradise.  It apparently takes place in a fictional (?) Caribbean island and has very entertaining characters.  I'll admit I'm generally stupid at this, but I didn't guess exactly whodunit or howdunit, so I thought it was pretty good and I'm going to try to record it Monday nights.  It does seem to have a bit of a Law and Order quality in the sense that 

characters come and go a lot - I'm disappointed to find that Camille, the main character's co-worker, has since left though she wasn't killed off.

   Anyway, I liked it a lot.

 

Oh, I see there are a few references to the show above :)   I guess I had just never heard of  it before, but I think I saw ads for it while watching some cooking shows on the same channel.  I never watch Food Network anymore, but between Channel 21 and Create, it is interesting to watch those shows and actually learn something, though I keep thinking about all the cleaning up the chefs (or more likely their staff) will have to do :)

Edited June 30, 2015 by roseha

[biakbiak]

Netflix is adding season 3 of Death in Paradise tomorrow.

[roseha]

Netflix is adding season 3 of Death in Paradise tomorrow.

 

Thanks very much biakbiak!  I've been meaning to check Netflix and see if they had it.  It's nice to discover a new show you've never seen before.

[hendersonrocks]

Anyone remember 321 Contact, Mathnet and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Man I loved watching those.

 

Holla! Loved them all. 

 

Can we also pour some out for WonderWorks? (Anne of Green Gables was my favorite of their shows, of course, but their programming with PBS was such good stuff.)

[Milz]

Holla! Loved them all. 

 

Can we also pour some out for WonderWorks? (Anne of Green Gables was my favorite of their shows, of course, but their programming with PBS was such good stuff.)

 

Loved, loved, LOVED! WonderWorks. Even though the special effects are cheesy, I still think adaptations of 4 books of The Chronicles of Narnia was great.

 

I vaguely remember another PBS children's show called Once Upon a Classic. Bill Bixby was the host and it was sort of like a Masterpiece Theater for kids. I remember King Arthur and The Last of the Mohicans.

[editorgrrl]

The scenery in Shetland is gorgeous—and Doug Henshall is, too! http://www.wgbh.org/programs/Shetland-3236

[SmithW6079]

"If Yan can cook, so can you!" I still can barely cook, but I always enjoyed his show.

One thing I didn't understand about "As Time Goes By" -- if Jean's secretarial agency frowned on sending secretaries to men's apartments, how come she was OK with sending a secretary to a strange man's hotel room?

[Crs97]

It always looked to me like Lionel and Sandy were meeting in a conference room, but now that you mention it he asked for a suite so it was probably just the other room. Good question!

[roseha]

It's funny watching repeats of Antiques Roadshow from 1998 or 2000 and looking at the updated "values" of  the items on the bottom of the screen.  Not everything has gone up. 

[Sharpie66]

The Great Recession really hit a lot of values hard and they haven't necessarily bounced back. I remember when Rosehill pottery was going for some outrageous amounts, and it's down at least 1/3 from its peak for most pieces.

[methodwriter85]

I feel like those historical reality shows were another big victim of the Great Recession. That stuff couldn't have been cheap, and the last one was Texas Ranch House, which hit just a year or two before.

 

I would love to see them do a concept that BBC America did- Electric Dreams, where a family has to live through 1970 to 2000 at a pace of one year a day in order to learn about how technology affected British society.

Edited July 7, 2015 by methodwriter85

[applecrisp]

I feel like those historical reality shows were another big victim of the Great Recession. That stuff couldn't have been cheap, and the last one was Texas Ranch House, which hit just a year or two before.

 

I would love to see them do a concept that BBC America did- Electric Dreams, where a family has to live through 1970 to 2000 at a pace of one year a day in order to learn about how technology affected British society.

They had great reality shows.  Colonial House and Manor House were my faves.  I will say that like all reality shows there was often unpleasant effects from being on these shows which I hate. Remeber the Clunes from Frontier House?

[Milz]

They had great reality shows.  Colonial House and Manor House were my faves.  I will say that like all reality shows there was often unpleasant effects from being on these shows which I hate. Remeber the Clunes from Frontier House?

 

Or Texas Ranch House where the ranch hands walked out en masse because they couldn't stand the ranch owners. The horrible thing about that one is that the ranch owners had a garden full of produce that they watered but didn't harvest for some reason or the other and the account book was all messed up when the ranch owner in real life was the finance director at a hospital......

Edited July 7, 2015 by Milz

[Ohmo]

I watched "The Crimson Field," and I'm sure I'll stay with it.

 

My mother loves British period dramas.  I found The Crimson Field by reading this forum, so thanks to all from my not-extremely-tech-savvy mother.  She loves The Crimson Field. Problem is, we discovered articles online that said it was cancelled in Britain.  This six-episode run is it.  Mom's totally bummed out.

 

The Crimson Field axed by BBC, 'gutted' writer Sarah Phelps confirms

 

Has anyone heard if/when the United States is getting Season 2 of Grantchester?

[Wax Lion]

Did anyone catch Frontier House when it was repeated on a cable channel recently? (I think it was on DYI.) Surprisingly, they chipped in for a catchup segment.

[applecrisp]

Did anyone catch Frontier House when it was repeated on a cable channel recently? (I think it was on DYI.) Surprisingly, they chipped in for a catchup segment.

I did they changed the narrator. I only saw the end of it.  What a good series.

[Milz]

Did anyone catch Frontier House when it was repeated on a cable channel recently? (I think it was on DYI.) Surprisingly, they chipped in for a catchup segment.

 

Oooo...how are they doing?

 

What I liked about the old TWoP forums was that we had some of the participants from Colonial House and Texas Ranch House posting in the forums, answering questions, giving insider information, etc.

 

Editing to add..during Fourth of July we were invited over to the neighbor's. A friend of a friend of the neighbor works for my local PBS station.  So I asked what's with all this Suze Orman, Dr. Amen,  etc. etc. all the time during Pledge Year. Why not show DIY show marathons, music shows or Masterpiece Theater marathons? Answer: The programming heads think Viewers Like Us, would rather watch programs that aren't on the usual schedule, so they air Suze Orman, Wayne Dyer, etc. etc. etc. instead because they think that's the stuff we want to watch during Pledge Year.

Edited July 8, 2015 by Milz

[pandora spocks]

Do you know what would make a great series on PBS? A remake of I, Claudius. I know nothing could match the perfection of the 1970's series but a new generation (or two) would get to experience this wonderful series.

My dream cast:

• Lena Headey would make an excellent Livia. As Cercei on Game of Thrones, Headey has proven that she can do evil in her sleep.
• Derek Jacobi could now perform elderly Claudius with no makeup.
• As younger Claudius, Rory Kinnear of Penny Dreadful could capture the nuances of someone who feels the scorn and pity of others.
• If he could be persuaded to break his retirement from acting, Jack (Joffrey) Gleeson would make a perfectly evil and bratty Caligula.
• Ciaran Hinds could play Tiberius with a mixture of ruthlessness and decadence. As seen in Rome", Hinds looks at home in a yoga.

I would love hear from other readers' about their dream casts.

Edited July 10, 2015 by pandora spocks

[Constantinople]

PBS aired an interesting 5 part series called First Peoples this summer.  It's about human evolution, the spread of humans across the world and their interaction with other human species.  There's a 1 hour episode each for the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.

 

Just thought I'd pass it along.

[walnutqueen]

PBS aired an interesting 5 part series called First Peoples this summer.  It's about human evolution, the spread of humans across the world and their interaction with other human species.  There's a 1 hour episode each for the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.

 

Just thought I'd pass it along.

 

I DVR'd it and am just getting around to watching the final episodes.  Good stuff.

 

My current favorite series is Operation Wild - veterinarians saving wildlife all around the world.

[dalek]

Living in DC, I get to watch 3 different PBS stations, WETA (and I spend WAY too much time watch WETAUK), WMPT, and WHUT.  WHUT seems to show the most iteration of POV and Independent Lens.  It's been a while since they've run the documentary series about the history of the anti-apartheid series <i>Have You Heard From Johannesburg</i> and I wish they'd run it again. WMPT is running Dr Who again. Yay!  They're running the Pertwee episodes in movie format, sort of, but they've been cutting some of the super long ones such as Ambassadors of Death and Inferno into a couple parts.

 

As a kid, I watched a lot of PBS on WNET Ch 13: Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Vegetable Soup, Big Blue Marble, Electric Company and Villa Allegre. 

[Milz]

Living in DC, I get to watch 3 different PBS stations, WETA (and I spend WAY too much time watch WETAUK), WMPT, and WHUT.  WHUT seems to show the most iteration of POV and Independent Lens.  It's been a while since they've run the documentary series about the history of the anti-apartheid series <i>Have You Heard From Johannesburg</i> and I wish they'd run it again. WMPT is running Dr Who again. Yay!  They're running the Pertwee episodes in movie format, sort of, but they've been cutting some of the super long ones such as Ambassadors of Death and Inferno into a couple parts.

 

As a kid, I watched a lot of PBS on WNET Ch 13: Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Vegetable Soup, Big Blue Marble, Electric Company and Villa Allegre. 

 

I live in the DC area too. After Memorial Day, I can't get MPT anymore (it happens from time to time. I think it's the security stuff because I live in within that Bermuda Triangle of the military installations.)

 

LA la-la la LA la-la la La la-la la LA! Ville Allegre!

[treeofdreams]

I am enjoying season 4 of Death in Paradise.  I started watching this show with season 3, and liked it so well I had to buy seasons 1 and 2.  Seasons 1 and 2 had a different Detective Inspector (Richard Poole); seasons 3 and 4 have Humphrey Goodman.  The mysteries are sufficiently challenging, I like all the characters, and of course any tropical setting will win me over.

[pandora spocks]

I realize that PBS has to do fundraising to make ends meet but does it have to be so freaking annoying? It seems like every month, my local station subjects us to Deepak Chopra, Suze Orman, Wayne Dyer, and Bee Gees: One Night With You. Deadly dull programs all.

PBS, don't insult my intelligence by offering me a flimsy tote bag for a $200.00 donation. Yakking nonstop about how PBS brings the viewer interesting programming while airing Ed Slott's Retirement Roadmap doesn't help your cause.

[Sandman87]

Yeah, our local affiliate is fundraising too. The thing that most irritates me about it is that whenever they need to shuffle programming around to make room for the breaks, they always drop the BBC World News but keep PBS Newshour. It wouldn't bother me so much if not for the fact that the BBC America channel no longer carries any newscast whatsoever (because they're doing blocks of Star Trek: Next Generation), so PBS is preempting the only available halfway decent source for international news on my TV.

[QueerGirrl]

I just want to send a shout out to my PBS station for showing Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on Saturday nights. I've been recording them and I forgot how much I loved this crazy show!

[Miss Dee]

Is this where we talk about Death in Paradise? I like Humphrey Goodman, but I am SO PISSED at how they did the substitution! And after he came back too!

Edited August 9, 2015 by Miss Dee

[whatsatool]

Seen Making of a Lady for third time so I know to only watch beginning and end and skip the middle.

[selhars]

Aaaaah, my PBS station is airing the Sister Wendy art critiques.

I've always marveled at the nun with the bucked-toothed overbite. So soft spoken, yet so passionate -- and she was talking about sex and naked bodies...albeit on artistic masterpieces.

When I was younger, of course, I didn't "get" her. She as just a strange bird.

I even look up her bio. She really did have quite a life. Now, I can watch her with much more appreciation.

Edited August 10, 2015 by selhars

[Milz]

My PBS station has a new Pledge Month musical program---Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park.

[Crisopera]

I watched the 25th-anniversary-of-"The Civil War" last night, and, holy fucking shit, by the end I could recite the interstitial begging segments along with them.  Enough already!  I AGREE, it's one of the greatest achievements of long-form documentary.  Now shut up and leave me alone!