Netflix lockdown list

There's nothing worse than yet another lockdown Netflix list.

Sons Of Anarchy¶

Heard about this series from Linux Outlaws many years ago. Jax Teller is a very handsome man. I am convinced he is the bastard son of Kurt Cobain and Brad Pitt.

A decent series about biker gangs in California that inevitably features gratuitous violence and goes through peaks and troughs (the season when they went to Ireland was very weak).

Tiger King¶

A slow burner. Almost gave up on it after one episode but this turned out to be worth the hype. A truly bizarre story.

The Innocence Files¶

Recommended by rpcutts. A sobering reminder of man's inhumanity to man. Prosecutors who steadfastly refuse to admit defeat in the face of scientific DNA evidence. Innocent men locked up for years (sometimes on Death Row) and yet emerge with unbelievable grace and humility.

Fear The Walking Dead¶

My wife's choice. Eerily, I knew what was coming. Catastrophic event. Zombie apocalypse. Society breaks down.

A group of people find a settlement, encounter zombies on the march, spear zombies with sharp implement, find another settlement, zombies on the march, spear zombies with sharp implement, find another settlement. Rinse and repeat.

One of the most enjoyable elements was Alicia. This actress was just stunning. I don't know if the distance between her eyes, nose, ears, cheekbones and chin all match the perfect ratio but she was strangely compelling.

After Life¶

It's Ricky Gervais. If you've seen 'Derek', you've seen 'After Life'. Why, he even uses the same actors so you get that comforting sense of familiarity.

Take Us Home¶

I'm a sucker for football documentaries. I've watched the City one which revealed Pep Guardiola to be a rather intense manager. I hugely enjoyed the Sunderland one with the idiotic, pretentious, self-important marketing manager. This series felt more like a 'David Brent' spinoff than a true David Brent spinoff. And now we move onto the Leeds one. Only two episodes in but, disappointingly, there's little insight into the coaching methods of Marco Biesla.

'Is this Grimm ?'

'No'

'Adventures of New Grimm ?'

'No'

'New adventures of Grimm ?'

'No'

'New: Adventures of New Grimm ?'

'Yes'

'Is this a repeat ?'

'No'

On Saturday night, BBC2 broadcast a retrospective on The Office and broadcast all of Series 1 together with soundbites from the creators (Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant), the cast (Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook, Lucy Davis) and celebrity fans (Ben Stiller, Christopher Guest, Matthew Perry, David Baddiel, Richard Curtis).

My favourite episode of Series 1 is 'Staff Training' for all the normal reasons and for this rendition of 'Free love on the free love freeway' - I just love the harmonising from Gareth at 1:24 ('She's not dead').

I really enjoyed this comedy co-written by Steve Coogan.

The opening sequence features Coogan struggling to keep his calm in an 'Anger Management' course and is always hilarious.

Unfortunately, the final episode of the series was on Monday night but, no doubt, it will be endlessly repeated on BBC3 in the near future.

On message boards and blogs around the interweb, fans of the TV series Lost are discussing the many, different storylines speculating about what is actually going on and proposing far fetched theories.

One such undercurrent is the periodic entry of a secret code '4 8 15 16 23 42' into a computer located in an underground bunker. People want to know what will happen if the code is not entered.

Warning: Spoiler ahead. I know this because yesterday I failed to get there in time...

A corporate screensaver appears displaying perplexing, enigmatic, dark, cryptic words which, in turn, only fuels more mystery and suspense...

We lead by example
We work together
We respect the individual
We seek the facts and provide insight
We are open and honest in our communication
We are committed to our communities
Above all, we act with integrity

BBC News 24 mistakenly interviewed the wrong man about music downloads. The original news story was funny enough but the actual footage (his face at the start of the interview) is absolutely hilarious.

I sincerely hope the BBC reward this gentleman with the job he was applying for.

A Channel 4 documentary about 9/11 and the controversial photographs capturing the final seconds of people who jumped to their deaths.

Harrowing and yet compulsive viewing. Not for everyone and the sort of program you might expect a warning about the content (21:00-22:30) which some may find disturbing, upsetting or offensive.

Instead, Channel 4 announce ‘This program contains images and video footage featuring repetitive patterns that may cause problems for people with photosensitive epilepsy’. Bizarre. Truly bizarre.

May the 2,967 innocent people who lost their lives that day rest in peace.

The Armstrong's is a BBC2 fly on the wall documentary about a small, family owned double glazing company in Coventry.

While this subject doesn't sound too inspiring, the program is absolutely hilarious. Last week, the husband and wife owners travelled to France in an attempt to diversify and increase dwindling sales.

Amazingly, they chose to translate their business proposition using Babelfish which may be adequate for children's homework but resulted in an unfortunate translation of 'conservatory' to 'music academy'. Consequently, the subtitles revealed that couple asked their French prospects:

'Are there a lot of music academies in France ?'

A van driver crashed into the bosses' expensive, prized Jaguar and then wisely chose to resign on the spot.

And we await with baited breath, the update on the young man who joined the company and immediately asked for time off to participate in the World Championships of Othello.

One of the candidates on BBC2's The Apprentice is a management consultant. He was very keen and virtually begged to be allowed to do the sales pitch on this week's show.

'Please, let me do the pitch. This is what I do. I am world class. There is no-one better.'

And then, in his sharp suit and with his short haircut, he opened his stilted, stuttering, unrehearsed, nerve-ridden pitch to various hard nosed businessmen (about a charity calendar for Great Ormond Street Hospital) with the immortal words.

'Now, please, forgive me if I get a little emotional...'

And all over Britain, the viewing audience cringed with the exception of management consultants everywhere, who exclaimed:

'Oh my God. This guy is simply appalling. I could do so much better. He's not even using Powerpoint. And another thing, just look at that tie.'

Most Haunted is a fantastic TV program hosted by Yvette Fielding, where a Liverpudlian psychic medium, Derek Acorah, visits haunted properties resurrecting the spirits of dear, dead departed souls.

The program is notable for absolutely superb acting by Acorah who can fulfil a variety of roles, effortlessly adopting the voice of tortured, Victorian ladies, in pitch darkness, without the aid of a script.

The supporting actors (Fielding and the camera crew) are also superb. They are simply wasted on Living TV. A career in Hollywood surely beckons.

I was fortunate enough to catch a 'Best of Most Haunted' over Christmas. It was simply the most riveting, compulsive, hilarious viewing.