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TV shows worth watching


Old Koreelah

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Very few shows I enjoy. Anh's Brush with Fame (ABC), Who Do You Think You Are (SBS and UKTV Foxtel) and Long Lost Family (Foxtel Lifestyle channel). They had an interesting LLF special this week, Born Without A Trace, where they DNA-traced the background of children left on doorsteps, in a hospital garden, etc. People who had no idea where they came from.  

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The Witcher

A Game of Thrones (apart from the last season)

Battlestar Galactica (new one)

Deadwood

True Blood

Breaking Bad

Shameless (US version)

After Life

Star Trek (all of every version!)

 

These are a few I've really enjoyed.  Probably missing dozens that I can't remember because my brain is rotted from too much TV.

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I cannot stand TV, it's a total waste of time with incessant useless repetitive babble, annoying ads by the thousand intruding upon your personal peace, and flashing extreme colours, that must have serious long-term effects on your brain.

I think I've watched about 20 hrs TV in total, in the last 20 years. A mate in the bush doesn't even have a TV, because there's no TV signal where he is - he only just manages to get a poor mobile phone signal. More power to him, he gets a lot done.

 

I prefer my desktop for entertainment, where the interaction is two-way (as in forums), as against TV, where it is only one-way.

I must confess to watching the odd WW2 docos on Netflix on my desktop, but I have little time for fictional stories or movies. I get fed too much fiction already, under the guise of truth, on a daily basis in my personal life!

 

TV is full of extreme violence, it's rare to see 5 mins of TV where someone is not being threatened with death, being murdered, people trying to solve violent murders, cars and buildings being blown up or set on fire - and people using firearms as a constant hourly event.

 

In my daily life, I have only been threatened with death once in the last 30 years, when I encountered a particularly violent individual in public, assaulting his partner. I have never seen a firearm being used in a criminal act in my life - although I do have friends who worked in banks who were threatened with firearms. I have never seen a car or building blown up or set on fire in everyday life - although it does appear there's the occasional case of arson - which makes headlines.

But I have lived and fought a war in a place where violent death was a daily event, and people sought to kill me (and the civilians of the country) 24/7/365, in any manner that they could turn their evil minds to - by getting blown up, getting booby-trapped with devices that were designed to kill you, getting shot at, or getting bombed with mortars. If you were a civilian, murderous armed thugs would just roll up and murder you or your family at will, simply because you didn't support their rabid political and warmongering cause. It was a terrible place to live.

 

We have a pretty peaceful and civilised society in Australia, minimal gun crime, and minimal personal violence, and I like it that way - and I don't need to watch it on TV incessantly.

I think the TV industry - which is largely led by America, has an unhealthy obsession with firearms, warmongering, personal rabid foamy-mouthed anger, violent death, wanton destruction, personal violence, and constantly aggressive personal interactions.

People screaming at each other, abusing each other, threatening each other - that's not what I currently have around me, I live a peaceful existence, and I would flee from any societal setting where all those events were just the "norm".

 

Edited by onetrack
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Like Onetrack I have never been threatened with violence but...

 

My ex-wife was held up in a bank with a shotgun. He then tried to shoot the teller but the gun misfired.

One daughter was held up at pistol point while working in a shop as a teenager.

Another daughter was a witness to an armed robbery in a service station.

All this happened within five years when we first moved to Melbourne in the 1980s.

 

The only crime I have ever seen is on TV.

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Although Australia is relatively peaceful, we still have plenty of hazardous people. I have had my life threatened once. In my own home, by my then wife, who was in a psychotic rage, and armed with a knife. On another occasion I have been kicked unconscious by a pair of dark skinned individuals who robbed me. 

Fortunately for most of us, violence is something that we only see on a screen.

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7 hours ago, onetrack said:

I cannot stand TV, it's a total waste of time with incessant useless repetitive babble, annoying ads by the thousand intruding upon your personal peace…

I hate that too, so I tend to watch those channels with least ads: ABC, SBS and NITV.

The mute button also gets plenty of use.

7 hours ago, onetrack said:

I think I've watched about 20 hrs TV in total, in the last 20 years….

If you’ve seen so little TV, maybe you’ve been missing the decent shows- there are a few of them.

7 hours ago, onetrack said:

TV is full of extreme violence, it's rare to see 5 mins of TV where someone is not being threatened with death, being murdered, people trying to solve violent murders, cars and buildings being blown up or set on fire - and people using firearms as a constant hourly event...

I’ve told a friend in Britain that I won’t be coming to visit; I know a lot about the place from their TV shows and every village seems to have a serial killer!

7 hours ago, onetrack said:

I think the TV industry - which is largely led by America, has an unhealthy obsession with firearms, warmongering, personal rabid foamy-mouthed anger, violent death, wanton destruction, personal violence, and constantly aggressive personal interactions…

I tend to agree. This week Thru the Wormhole  (an interesting American show) focused on their epidemic of gun violence and revealed that Congress had recently banned America’s health research body from funding any research into gun crime.


The firearms lobby calls the shots, literally.

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49 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

 

I’ve told a friend in Britain that I won’t be coming to visit; I know a lot about the place from their TV shows and every village seems to have a serial killer!

 

As long as you stay away from the Midsomer area you should be right.  With 22 seasons (128 episodes), and probably an average of 4 murders per episode - it's a dangerous little hamlet!

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I don't watch police shows and shows like NCIS, etc. and those pathetic reality game shows, like The Block, The Batchelor, Farmer Wants a Wife, Married at First Sight, Big Brother, etc. I much prefer human interest stories, like the ones I listed above. Anh's Brush, on ABC, has well known Aussies relate their personal life story in an interview with Anh, while he paints their portrait. I enjoy watching their reaction when he reveals the finished product. There are no commercials. I enjoy watching well known people discovery their family history, often going back five or six centuries, to see if their ancestors were royalty or criminals, or both. Who Do You Think You Are on SBS has four commercial braks in the 1 hour program. Long Lost Family also has four commercial breaks. It is interesting to see people who were adopted out as babies, or became separated from their family through parents divorce, etc., search and locate their missing relatives, and it is heartwarming to see the reunions. People meeting brothers, sisters they didn't know existed, finding their natural mother who may have got pregnant as a teenager and was unable to keep the baby, mothers who had to give up their baby who have regretted it all their life and wondered what sort of life the child had. There have been 9 seasons of the British version. In last week's episode they located a father who now lives at Balnarring in Victoria. There have also been a number of seasons of an American version and a couple of years ago, a season of Australian episodes.

 

I also like comedies and sitcoms.  I also watch America's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent, and an Australian version, if it ever comes on.

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8 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

My ex-wife was held up in a bank with a shotgun.

My wife, too, was a teller in a bank in the heart of Little Collins St in Melbourne and found herself looking down the barrel of a gun. Staff were made to get on the floor, and she was so traumatised by it, kneeling in church made her most uncomfortable.

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I know full well what your spouse has gone through.

My school days were so bad l still get the shakes when meeting authority.

Hence l failed my ' basic air test ' ( what causes freezing ). 

Just can,t study for the life of me, AND next year l have to do a ' Driving test '. never past one in my life.

spacesailor

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