What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I've been watching series 5 of Red Dwarf on Dave. There's a brand new special on tomorrow night at 9!
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Series 3 of Ozark and Don't F**k With Cats (the asterisks are the proper fucking title, not me being a dick obviously).
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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I got bored with Ozark Season 3 and gave up.

Narcos Mexico

Just started Series 3 of Unforgotten.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Devs.
Intelligent Sci Fi from Alex Garland with an element of Kubrick's
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Third season of A Touch of Cloth, six years too late. Brilliant as ever. Stonkingly silly.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Loads of Blue Bloods on Sky Atlantic, really good show.😄😎👍🚓
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Devs....did I mention this already. 🙂
Good news it starts on BBC 2 on the 13th April.
Highly recommended
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:56 pm I've been watching series 5 of Red Dwarf on Dave. There's a brand new special on tomorrow night at 9!
I thought this was OKish but not particularly great. Anyone else watch it?
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Gavin Chipper wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:56 pm I've been watching series 5 of Red Dwarf on Dave. There's a brand new special on tomorrow night at 9!
I thought this was OKish but not particularly great. Anyone else watch it?
On my watchlist
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I watched the first episode of Quiz (the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire thing) on ITV this evening. A couple of things stood out as a bit weird. The guy built a working electronic fastest finger first machine to practise on. What an idiot. All you need to do is cut out a bit of cardboard from your cereal box and draw four buttons on. That way you can still "press" then and get used to the layout of the machine in contrast to how the answers come up on the screen. Also, if they were worried people were somehow "cheating" the system by getting to the fastest finger first stage multiple times, just change the system. And keep changing it regularly. It doesn't really even matter that much what you change it to. It will mess up their system.

(Though I don't know how much of it resembles real life.)
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:16 pm I watched the first episode of Quiz (the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire thing) on ITV this evening. A couple of things stood out as a bit weird. The guy built a working electronic fastest finger first machine to practise on. What an idiot. All you need to do is cut out a bit of cardboard from your cereal box and draw four buttons on. That way you can still "press" then and get used to the layout of the machine in contrast to how the answers come up on the screen.
I thought EXACTLY THIS - I know that in real life, someone (possibly Adrian Pollock as shown in the drama, or someone else from the below-mentioned Syndicate) built a home-made Fastest Finger First practice machine. Now, if this machine also timed it for you, stopping the clock automatically when you pressed the "OK" button, I could see why it would be useful, but in the drama we see him using his own external stopwatch. As you say, this would mean it's basically made redundant by four bits of cardboard.

Also we see him apparently soldering with a welding torch, but I imagine that's just artistic licence from someone who realised sparks look better on TV than wisps of smoke.
Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:16 pm Also, if they were worried people were somehow "cheating" the system by getting to the fastest finger first stage multiple times, just change the system. And keep changing it regularly. It doesn't really even matter that much what you change it to. It will mess up their system.

(Though I don't know how much of it resembles real life.)
The "Syndicate", which would help contestants through the audition in the manner shown in the programme, and also supposedly lend you a top quizzer as a phone-a-friend, was a real thing that was (re-)reported in the press last week (but apparently only by newspapers I don't feel like linking to).

Whether all of this was cheating is clearly answered by all of the following judgements, which are 100% correct:

Sharing/using knowledge of the questions asked in the audition, knowing they have a limited list of questions they ask in rotation: possibly cheating. On the one hand, you're just sharing information about your audition, but on the other hand, that's clearly how it's not meant to be played. I'd give the syndicate the benefit of the doubt here as it would have been so easy for the production company to plug this loophole simply by asking from a bigger pool of questions.

Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.

Building a Fastest Finger First simulator to practise on: obviously not cheating.

Paying a quiz expert, who you don't know personally, to pose as your phone-a-friend: not in the spirit of the game, but not cheating. However, if said quiz expert was using reference material on the call as some reports suggest, then that's obviously cheating.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
I tried to get on WWTBAM in the early days because I was fed up with all the thick people that got on it.
As I remember you paid for a premium rate phone call and answered a series of questions with a multiple choice question at the end that was timed and I failed as the answer was D and therefore couldn't answer before A to C was given.
After spending a tenner I decided it wasn't worth redoing it
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

I aired my thoughts before broadcast in the Millionaire thread on the other subforum, but I enjoyed Episode 1 and, as far as I was aware, was wholly accurate, other than getting Pollock’s address wrong.

The second episode on the other hand had much more “artistic license” (Paul Smith was not at the studio during the recording, some of the dialogue between Tarrant and Ingram was wrong, not all the coughs were in the right place) but if it was meant to be the case for the prosecution it left out three major pieces of evidence for the prosecution:

- Whittock saying “no” on the Hausmann question
- Whittock blowing his nose on Berlin
- The Anthony Eden question, the first case where Whittock had to ask around for the answer.

It’s based, apparently, on the Plaskett book-cum-essay which is a load of bollocks, not least because it flat-out ignores half the evidence such as the three cases above and the testimony of Larry Whitehurst. So it will make a strong argument for the defence tomorrow, but to anyone who’s read the trial reports and seen the tapes - coughs amplified or not (another Plaskett claim is this makes the recording unrepresentative, but this is fully justified to establish Whittock’s coughs since it’s him on trial and not the rest of the audience. In the Ayrton Senna trial, the tape shown in the courtroom highlighted the steering wheel as it was the case of the prosecution’s argument) - I don’t think will have their mind changed.

In the denouement of Ep2, the defence barrister said “the three had never met” (so why did Diana constantly stare at Whittock?) and “the coughs may not have been him”, but in real life Whittock never denied the coughs came from his throat. I suspect I’m going to be thoroughly disappointed tomorrow.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
In this case, it was having someone there with you to listen in on the question and feed you the answer.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:34 pm In the denouement of Ep2, the defence barrister said “the three had never met” (so why did Diana constantly stare at Whittock?)
Also, the Ingrams didn't need to have met Tecwen Whittock to plan anything - in fact, we know that Diana Ingram and Tecwen Whittock spoke on the phone before the second day's recording.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:51 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
In this case, it was having someone there with you to listen in on the question and feed you the answer.
Ah, good. My conscience is clear then. My friend's, I mean.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Marc Meakin wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:02 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
I tried to get on WWTBAM in the early days because I was fed up with all the thick people that got on it.
As I remember you paid for a premium rate phone call and answered a series of questions with a multiple choice question at the end that was timed and I failed as the answer was D and therefore couldn't answer before A to C was given.
After spending a tenner I decided it wasn't worth redoing it
Your reply appears to be orthogonal to my question.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:53 pm
Marc Meakin wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:02 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm

What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
I tried to get on WWTBAM in the early days because I was fed up with all the thick people that got on it.
As I remember you paid for a premium rate phone call and answered a series of questions with a multiple choice question at the end that was timed and I failed as the answer was D and therefore couldn't answer before A to C was given.
After spending a tenner I decided it wasn't worth redoing it
Your reply appears to be orthogonal to my question.
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But I had to change it by deed poll
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:51 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm
Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
In this case, it was having someone there with you to listen in on the question and feed you the answer.
I never found the questions particularly hard (admittedly I've a good knowledge of trivia) it was the last question being against the clock and if you guessed A and the answer was A before the other choices were named then you had a better chance than someone who likes to know all choices.....on the phone is appreciably harder than on the TV.

It is likely after season 1 they may have changed things
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Obviously they cheated, but the video with the coughing raised to the same level as Tarrant and Ingram's voices is a misleading piece of evidence. It feels like such a "gotcha" moment - I remember that feeling when I first watched the Major Fraud documentary. But that's obviously not what Ingram/Tarrant would've heard. Tarrant heard nothing so it would've been a lot fainter. And it would've been so simple for them to cherry pick here (not saying that they did, but it would've been).

The evidence should've been presented as such: there were 192 coughs picked up by microphones around the audience during the 60 minutes of filming. Of those, 39 (?) were from the microphone near Whittock. In total, there were 8 minutes between the final option being revealed by Tarrant and Final Answer being declared by Ingram. Of the 39 coughs, 37 were within those 8 minutes. Of those 8 minutes, 2 minutes could be considered the time between Ingram pausing on a correct answer before moving onto an incorrect answer. Of the 37 coughs, 35 were within those 2 minutes. Diana Ingram coughed once the whole night, and it was in the only period where Whittock did not cough on a question. Whittock only whispered "no" once, and it was in the only period where Ingram was about to choose a wrong answer for himself.

I don't know what those numbers look like but they're probably pretty damning and, along with the clear flip-flopping and acting from Ingram, should be a bulletproof argument that the coughing was around the right answers, and that Ingram was listening for them.

On the audition cheating - I think there was an interesting debate on here one time about quiz machines, and whether it's cheating to refer to a list of all the questions that the machine can ask while playing, or to use Google on your phone. I think there was a consensus that it's not really cheating as you're just using the tools at your disposal. It's definitely not in the spirit of the rules, but is it cheating? I guess it could be compared to a Countdown audition where similar rounds have been used in the past. That definitely feels like cheating. Or using a solver in a phone audition. That definitely feels like cheating. But it's not quite the same as using a solver in a match against someone else.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Have there not been similar debates about Countdown auditions in the past? Didn't they have to change some of the letters selections because someone posted the ones they used in his audition? I scrambled through an audition with mainly sevens, but would have done a whole lot better if I'd realised you should treat then like a conundrum, because there was a nine letter word in there virtually every time. Is it right to tell people that? I'd have said not, but they didn't ask you not to, and they allowed people to have a second try.

It might be interesting to poll non-apterite Countdown contestants as to whether they think playing thousands of games on apterous is cheating, against the spirit of the game, or perfectly reasonable.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Jon O'Neill wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:32 amDiana Ingram coughed once the whole night, and it was in the only period where Whittock did not cough on a question. Whittock only whispered "no" once, and it was in the only period where Ingram was about to choose a wrong answer for himself.
She coughed twice on that question, but not once on any other question.

Whittock actually failed to know 4 of the answers himself - Emmenthal (Ingram knew this anyway); Craig David; hat (Eden); googol. On the latter two he had to ask another contestant for the answer.

A lot of the Twitterverse is saying “why didn’t Whittock go on?” Well, he did, but got very unlucky; the two topics he didn’t know on the Ingram run unstuck him on his run. https://youtu.be/0UlSCtz6oc4 - 35 mins in. Notice how his cough magically disappears!!
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Marc Meakin wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 5:58 am
Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 9:51 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:23 pm
What do you define as "getting help"? Erm, asking for a friend.
In this case, it was having someone there with you to listen in on the question and feed you the answer.
I never found the questions particularly hard (admittedly I've a good knowledge of trivia) it was the last question being against the clock and if you guessed A and the answer was A before the other choices were named then you had a better chance than someone who likes to know all choices.....on the phone is appreciably harder than on the TV.
I think you're talking about the initial qualifying question, not the audition question which is what Graham and I were discussing.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Phil Reynolds »

I'm really enjoying it so far. Regardless of the Ingrams' guilt or innocence, the suggestion that the production team's awareness of previous attempts to hack the show made them paranoid is an intriguing and plausible one. But anyway this isn't a documentary, it's a dramatic entertainment, and on that level it undeniably works.

I was on the show in 2002 (didn't get through FFF :cry: but had a great time) and most of the on-set and backstage production mechanics ring very true. The recreation of the original set is pretty much spot-on apart from the floor which just looks shiny translucent black instead of the original perspex.

And I particularly liked the seamless way they cut together shots of Michael Sheen as Tarrant with archive footage of real contestants.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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I understand that the stage production had a vote button so the audience could vote if he was guilty or not
In the final episode on tonight a lot of the audience changed their mind
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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I don't know if this is The Mandela effect but did the cheating episode of WWTBAM get shown or did I imagine it ?
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Marc Meakin wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:07 pm I don't know if this is The Mandela effect but did the cheating episode of WWTBAM get shown or did I imagine it ?
Not at the time. Charles Ingram's episodes were edited to remove his run. However, the footage was later shown as part of the Major Fraud documentary in 2003. Also, in the last few days the show's official YouTube channel has put clips of his questions online.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Devs starts tonight.....I may have mentioned it
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Quiz has now finished, and if I thought Ep2 was a little loose with the truth, Ep3 was flat out lying at points.

- The suggestion that Celador added the coughs to the tapes is unfounded and ridiculous. The coughs were turned up for the trial, not as the original cut.
- As far as I'm aware, the Keppel tape was not submitted as evidence.
- The claim there were no significant coughs between Craig David and Baron Haussmann is not only a lie, but one of these questions they've glossed over was a key part of the prosecution case. The Anthony Eden question for £250k has Tom Lucy and Tecwen Whittock discussing the answer in sotto voce.
- What happened to Tecwen Whittock's cough when he went into the hot seat, because it magically disappeared?
- It is also claimed by Steve Carroll (another FFF contestant) that he did not cough before recording either.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Graeme Cole wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:00 am
Whether all of this was cheating is clearly answered by all of the following judgements, which are 100% correct:

Sharing/using knowledge of the questions asked in the audition, knowing they have a limited list of questions they ask in rotation: possibly cheating. On the one hand, you're just sharing information about your audition, but on the other hand, that's clearly how it's not meant to be played. I'd give the syndicate the benefit of the doubt here as it would have been so easy for the production company to plug this loophole simply by asking from a bigger pool of questions.
I think this is fine. It might not be in the "spirit" of how it's meant to be done, but what does that really mean in a case like this? If you're playing a board game with friends and someone's cunting about not playing in the spirit of the game, then you can decide not to play with them. But presumably here where people are just trying to win money for its own sake, regardless of how much or little fun they have in the process and how many people they piss off, we're really interested in cheating in a way that the show could legitimately withhold prize money if they found out about it. Anything else is irrelevant. In this case, it's clearly fine. It's not even close.
Getting help with the audition question while you're actually doing the audition: obviously cheating.
I think you're biasing this somewhat by referring to a pub quiz tie-breaker as an audition. As I understood it from the programme, they were asked a single question that no-one would know the answer to, and it's just whoever gets closest gets on. But regardless, could they disqualify someone for this? I think if they found out before they went on the show what they'd done, then sure, they can do what they want. But afterwards, no. It would be a joke. Certainly if they haven't specified that it must be played alone. They're asking for this to happen anyway by allowing a phone "audition". In any case, regardless of the syndicate, I'm sure loads of people would have got help from family members for this. Even if it isn't as organised, it's still the same basic thing.
Paying a quiz expert, who you don't know personally, to pose as your phone-a-friend: not in the spirit of the game, but not cheating. However, if said quiz expert was using reference material on the call as some reports suggest, then that's obviously cheating.
They're allowing people to be phone-a-friends in their own home without any sort of invigilator watching over them. I say they can use whatever they can get their hands on in the 30 seconds. They probably assumed that they would anyway, and that's probably partly why they had a strict time limit (that and it would make for boring television if someone the question has been sub-letted to agonised over it for several minutes). If people then found out a way of gaming that, then I don't see it as their problem. (Again, unless there are explicit rules.) So this is the same as the "audition" really.

But what about someone in the audience coughing on the right answers? Is that cheating? What if, hypothetically, the contestant wasn't in on it at all, but someone just happened to "help" them anyway - what should happen in this case?
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:53 pm Ah, good. My conscience is clear then. My friend's, I mean.
What did you do? Sorry, I mean your friend.
Jon O'Neill wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:32 am On the audition cheating - I think there was an interesting debate on here one time about quiz machines, and whether it's cheating to refer to a list of all the questions that the machine can ask while playing, or to use Google on your phone. I think there was a consensus that it's not really cheating as you're just using the tools at your disposal. It's definitely not in the spirit of the rules, but is it cheating? I guess it could be compared to a Countdown audition where similar rounds have been used in the past. That definitely feels like cheating. Or using a solver in a phone audition. That definitely feels like cheating. But it's not quite the same as using a solver in a match against someone else.
I would say the pub quiz machine thing is completely fine and I wouldn't even say it's against the spirit of the rules. These machines are designed to take your money, and they wouldn't be so naive as to think people wouldn't try to win money out of them using Google, so the difficulty will be set accordingly. In fact, one could argue that if you're not looking up the answers, you're a mug. Using a solver in a Countdown phone audition is obviously cheating though, as it's supposed to be a completely merit-based way of getting the best contestants on the show. But it's not as if loads of money is at stake, so it's pretty irrelevant in the general scheme of things, and if you pass without being good enough, you just risk looking a fool on national TV. I'm happier to call this cheating than in the WWTBAM case, because here spirit counts more as it's not for big prizes. Using a pub quiz tie-breaker in lieu of an audition is not a merit-based way of getting contestants anyway, but little more than a lottery. It deserves to be exploited.
David Williams wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:39 am Have there not been similar debates about Countdown auditions in the past? Didn't they have to change some of the letters selections because someone posted the ones they used in his audition? I scrambled through an audition with mainly sevens, but would have done a whole lot better if I'd realised you should treat then like a conundrum, because there was a nine letter word in there virtually every time. Is it right to tell people that? I'd have said not, but they didn't ask you not to, and they allowed people to have a second try.

It might be interesting to poll non-apterite Countdown contestants as to whether they think playing thousands of games on apterous is cheating, against the spirit of the game, or perfectly reasonable.
Well this is quite interesting. Certainly with planted words, they are something they've done for years and aren't specific to a particular audition, so merely mentioning this is fine. You've just mentioned it now in fact. All your results have now been wiped from history.

As for the Apterous thing, there have indeed been previous discussions in various threads, such as here, here and here.
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:03 pm - The claim there were no significant coughs between Craig David and Baron Haussmann is not only a lie, but one of these questions they've glossed over was a key part of the prosecution case.
This was strange anyway. The way it was presented in the programme by the defence lawyer was as an 18-minute gap between the two. But that's pretty irrelevant. How many questions were between the two? It's the only thing that would matter here surely. How long they take is irrelevant. (But as you say, real life was probably completely different.)

As for whether they were guilty - I always thought they were, but wondered whether the level of proof presented was actually enough. I didn't followed the case closely at the time, and obviously you can't learn too much from a dramatisation so I'm still none the wiser really. But as for how the show paints the Ingrams and Whittock, I don't see why anyone watching it would change their mind to innocent, even if they took it all at face value. Why was Diana Ingram playing with her microphone and then coughing? What was Adrian up to on the first night? Why was Tecwen Whittock asking if people knew the answers to the questions? They might change their mind from "guilty and proven to be so" to "guilty but unproven", but not any more than that. So I'm surprised that the Ingrams apparently gave it their blessing, as I think someone posted on here.

I always find it amusing that in trials, the prosecution and the defence set out their intricate cases, but then it all goes into the "black box" that is the jury's deliberations, and they just churn out a guilty or not guilty verdict without having to justify it (as far as I'm aware). I know this is completely off topic, but why should we trust a jury's verdict and treat it as objective truth? People have this over-romanticised idea of juries - 12 or your peers sitting neutrally to objective judge the case. I mean, shut up. Everyone comes in with their own biases, and a lot of these people will be basically clueless, and many will also be easily led by the stronger characters on a jury. But for some reason hardly anyone ever questions the idea of juries. If anyone does, it's normally met with the response "So you'd just have a judge deciding would you?" Thanks, that's really gone a long way to removing my doubts about the jury system.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

I don't have a problem with juries 😀
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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As you ( Hopefully ) have just watched episode 1 of Devs , I've just finished the dénouement episode (8).
Well worth watching , in fact , dare I say it it , a masterpiece.
I have forgiven Alex Garland for the third act of Annihilation 🙂
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2020 6:34 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:53 pm Ah, good. My conscience is clear then. My friend's, I mean.
What did you do? Sorry, I mean your friend.
I looked the answer up in a book.

Slightly longer version:

When I got the callback, the researcher spent quite some time confirming my personal details, checking I'd be available for the recording date etc. She also explained that I'd shortly be asked a general knowledge question which I would have ten seconds to answer; if there was anyone with me they should remain quiet at this point. During all this I was walking around the house in a fever of excitement, and at one point saw my copy of Collins 21st Century Dictionary (which has lots of facts and figures as well as word definitions) lying on my desk. "That might be useful, you never know," I thought, picked it up and sat on the sofa with the book on my lap.

When it came to the question, the researcher said, "I'm going to read the question twice, and once I've finished you will have ten seconds." She then read the question which was - and I swear I'm not making this up - "According to Collins 21st Century Dictionary, what is the area of Barbados in square miles?" By the time she'd finished repeating it and started the clock, I'd got the answer in front of me. Two days later I was in the studio.

I used to feel slightly guilty about this, but am much more sanguine since I realised that it pales into insignificance alongside what some other people were doing to get on the show.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

Phil Reynolds wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 10:07 am
Gavin Chipper wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2020 6:34 pm
Phil Reynolds wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:53 pm Ah, good. My conscience is clear then. My friend's, I mean.
What did you do? Sorry, I mean your friend.
I looked the answer up in a book.

Slightly longer version:

When I got the callback, the researcher spent quite some time confirming my personal details, checking I'd be available for the recording date etc. She also explained that I'd shortly be asked a general knowledge question which I would have ten seconds to answer; if there was anyone with me they should remain quiet at this point. During all this I was walking around the house in a fever of excitement, and at one point saw my copy of Collins 21st Century Dictionary (which has lots of facts and figures as well as word definitions) lying on my desk. "That might be useful, you never know," I thought, picked it up and sat on the sofa with the book on my lap.

When it came to the question, the researcher said, "I'm going to read the question twice, and once I've finished you will have ten seconds." She then read the question which was - and I swear I'm not making this up - "According to Collins 21st Century Dictionary, what is the area of Barbados in square miles?" By the time she'd finished repeating it and started the clock, I'd got the answer in front of me. Two days later I was in the studio.

I used to feel slightly guilty about this, but am much more sanguine since I realised that it pales into insignificance alongside what some other people were doing to get on the show.
I've just tested what you did with my (dusty) copy of Collins 21st Century Dictionary and it took me 15 seconds to find Barbados and scan the correct information , but I'm no proof reader.
It was lucky she repeated the question.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:03 pm Quiz has now finished, and if I thought Ep2 was a little loose with the truth, Ep3 was flat out lying at points.

- The suggestion that Celador added the coughs to the tapes is unfounded and ridiculous. The coughs were turned up for the trial, not as the original cut.
Isn't the tape used at the trial the only one of real importance? And why did they need to be turned up given that the jury would be listening out for the coughs in any case. They should at least have compared the amplified and unamplified tapes.
- What happened to Tecwen Whittock's cough when he went into the hot seat, because it magically disappeared?
- It is also claimed by Steve Carroll (another FFF contestant) that he did not cough before recording either.
I don't think Tecwen Whittock having a cough only during Ingram's run is particularly damning. Coughing fits do come and go, and the 'before', 'during' and 'after' are three separate situations. Maybe there was a break in filming and he got a glass of water? From Jono's numbers, the more damning part is this "37 were within those 8 minutes. Of those 8 minutes, 2 minutes could be considered the time between Ingram pausing on a correct answer before moving onto an incorrect answer. Of the 37 coughs, 35 were within those 2 minutes." If you assume the coughs are random the chance of this happening is less than 0.000001.

There's an article written by Jon Ronson (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ntstobeami) where he puts forward an argument about involuntary coughing. I think there's some truth to it but not enough to overturn the numbers above.

I certainly felt less convinced of their guilt after watching the series than before. And this is just me misremembering, but I always thought there was solid evidence of collusion between Whittock and the Ingrams. It seems improbable that Whittock would cheat for two strangers after a phone call lasting only a few minutes. I think this could sway people's opinions just enough for there to be a reasonable doubt and hence an acquittal.

It seems naive (in 2020 at least) how shocked Celador were that contestants were trying to game the system. With the amount of money that's at stake I'd expect contestants to do whatever they could to maximize their likelihood of appearing on the show. Now they have a production team member invigilating at each phone-a-friend's house (which seems like a big expense. And does this restrict phone-a-friends to being in the British Isles) but I'd expected that was always the case -- seeing it wasn't seems very naive and of course some people would have 'cheated'. Maybe they were making enough money that they didn't really care if some people got extra help for just 1 question.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Conor wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 10:59 am It seems improbable that Whittock would cheat for two strangers after a phone call lasting only a few minutes.
Was it just one phone call? I was sure someone said something about several phone calls at one point, but I might have got the wrong end of the stick.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Conor wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 10:59 am
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:03 pm Quiz has now finished, and if I thought Ep2 was a little loose with the truth, Ep3 was flat out lying at points.

- The suggestion that Celador added the coughs to the tapes is unfounded and ridiculous. The coughs were turned up for the trial, not as the original cut.
Isn't the tape used at the trial the only one of real importance? And why did they need to be turned up given that the jury would be listening out for the coughs in any case. They should at least have compared the amplified and unamplified tapes.
I think you're asking for something impossible here. If they played every microphone at the original volume of the recording it'd be a loud mess. There is always some editorial decision-making going on as to what gets heard. A bit like when you hear football matches and the crowd noise suddenly dips when they start chanting something offensive. I suppose what we really want to know is what Ingram could hear... but the microphones nearest to him may not be designed to pick up noises from 10 yards away that a human could easily detect.
Conor wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 10:59 am
- What happened to Tecwen Whittock's cough when he went into the hot seat, because it magically disappeared?
- It is also claimed by Steve Carroll (another FFF contestant) that he did not cough before recording either.
I don't think Tecwen Whittock having a cough only during Ingram's run is particularly damning. Coughing fits do come and go, and the 'before', 'during' and 'after' are three separate situations. Maybe there was a break in filming and he got a glass of water? From Jono's numbers, the more damning part is this "37 were within those 8 minutes. Of those 8 minutes, 2 minutes could be considered the time between Ingram pausing on a correct answer before moving onto an incorrect answer. Of the 37 coughs, 35 were within those 2 minutes." If you assume the coughs are random the chance of this happening is less than 0.000001.
I just made these numbers up, by the way. But they could be substituted for the actual numbers, and I'm pretty sure you'd arrive at a fairly slim probability.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

There must have been some doubt as to how clearly Ingram heard Whittock or else he wouldn't have gone round the houses so many times.
For me it's the cough accompanied by a 'No' was the clincher for me to be certain of this/their guilt
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 11:21 am Was it just one phone call? I was sure someone said something about several phone calls at one point, but I might have got the wrong end of the stick.
The article above hints at it being just one phone call, but I do recall something about several phone calls. Was that to Adrian Pollock's pagers maybe? I'm not really sure what was going on with his behavior. The drama portrayed him as a bit of an oddball - cheat or no cheat. Surely his plan on the first night to phone someone else and send it via pager had a very low chance of working given how conspicuous he'd look, and if they were caught it'd be completely red-handed.
Jon O'Neill wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 11:23 am I think you're asking for something impossible here. If they played every microphone at the original volume of the recording it'd be a loud mess. There is always some editorial decision-making going on as to what gets heard. A bit like when you hear football matches and the crowd noise suddenly dips when they start chanting something offensive. I suppose what we really want to know is what Ingram could hear... but the microphones nearest to him may not be designed to pick up noises from 10 yards away that a human could easily detect.
Yes, I did mean something more like what Ingram (or any human in the studio) would hear. The important part is that you start with some initial configuration of microphone volumes and stick with it without raising it or lowering it at arbitrary moments.
Jon O'Neill wrote: I just made these numbers up, by the way. But they could be substituted for the actual numbers, and I'm pretty sure you'd arrive at a fairly slim probability.
I thought they were the actual numbers. I think did mention how many coughs there were and how many were from Whittock, but didn't give a subdivision of when they occurred. It'd be interesting to know. If Whittock was clever(er) he'd leave in enough false positives to create some doubt.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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The claim for the defence is Ingram did not hear, or rather, listen for Tecwen Whittock's coughs. But, for sure, you can hear coughing 10 feet away from you, even coming from behind you. They turned up the coughs in order to highlight which were Tecwen Whittock's, since he was the one on trial after all.

Diana Ingram and Tecwen Whittock had regularly been in contact for several months after Adrian Pollock "disappeared" - a fact Quiz does not dispute, and Pollock's "disappearance" is based on a court claim by Diana Ingram, but nothing actually came of it (Pollock was arrested in 2002 in connection with this case, but was later released without charge). There were, however, three separate calls between the two recordings: one at 23:02 on 9 Sep 01 (D Ingram -> Whittock), 09:25 on 10 Sep 01 (Whittock -> Ingrams landline), and "about 3 hours later" (D Ingram -> Whittock), not one as portrayed in the show. Whether Charles Ingram ever spoke to Tecwen Whittock is another matter, but there's no doubt in my mind Diana Ingram was the architect of the plan. No doubt Whittock had an allergy, but Diana Ingram wouldn't have known that, and what's more there's no medical condition which results on you coughing on the right answers.

The thing about the pagers is possibly the part of the case I'm not sure is fully understood yet. It's mainly used as evidence that they were planning to cheat, but didn't use this scheme for some reason, despite it being rather more foolproof than the cough scheme. When pressed in court, Diana Ingram claimed she needed the pagers to contact her brothers, but the prosecution pointed out that Marcus Powell was in the studio on 9 September so would not have needed to be contacted that way. (Incidentally, Quiz merged Adrian Pollock and Marcus Powell into one person, which is an acceptable use, in my view, of artistic license.)

192 coughs were recorded in the studio, but a significant number (I haven't bothered to count, but just listened) were not during gameplay, but rather during the chummy banter bits between questions. 19 of these were "the" coughs from Tecwen Whittock. Add on the two for Diana Ingram, and suddenly things start to look rather dodgy. Because you can argue away 2 coughs or 3 coughs, especially in a stack of 15, but you can't argue away coughs on 7 out of 8 questions, including Diana Ingram's. The question is "when is pattern repeated so often it is no longer coincidental?".
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Jon O'Neill »

Where is this information coming from Rhys? Particularly the phone call and details about coughing in the recording that you were counting.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

If you watch the documentary ( see Graeme's link )
you will be aware that there was someone making phone calls outside the studio and he was caught by the floor staff , so the pager idea would have been aborted after the first day
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

I have been mostly watching Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee , it's on Netflix , look it it as a Carpool Karaoke without the singing or Jane Cordon
Mostly comedians or comedy writers or performers with the occasional ex-president.
There are dozens to choose from.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Jon O'Neill wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:28 pm Where is this information coming from Rhys? Particularly the phone call and details about coughing in the recording that you were counting.
Most of this comes from reports of the trial.

ITV / Stellify have put up a slightly truncated version of the Ingram run and they do point out the defence claim of 192 coughs, with the subtext "can you catch them all?".
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Phil Reynolds »

I realise I'm one of the last to the party with this, but no one seems to have mentioned it here, so: Tiger King. Fascinating, skin-crawling, car-crash can't-look-away-from-the-TV TV.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Is that a real thing then? Not just someone making a joke about The Lion King?
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Phil Reynolds wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2020 12:30 pm I realise I'm one of the last to the party with this, but no one seems to have mentioned it here, so: Tiger King. Fascinating, skin-crawling, car-crash can't-look-away-from-the-TV TV.
It's on my list after I've finished Don't F***k with Cats
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I watched the last of the series of Friday Night Dinner last night. It's a really good comedy. Mark Heap's character is a bit of a caricature of every role he's ever played but I don't think it's a massive problem really.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

Never Have I Ever.
A coming of age comedy about an Indian Sophomore student dealing with life.
Very funny but the strangest part is that it's narrated by John McEnroe and yet it works
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Dispatches From Elsewhere. Possibly the weirdest thing on TV since Twin Peaks and yet based quite closely on a true story. I'm enjoying it.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 7:34 am I watched the last of the series of Friday Night Dinner last night. It's a really good comedy. Mark Heap's character is a bit of a caricature of every role he's ever played but I don't think it's a massive problem really.
Also it has one of the coolest theme tunes of any programme on TV - Animal (Punks Jump Up Remix) by Miike Snow (you're welcome). Between series 5 and 6 we augmented our TV's sound system with a sub woofer and now that fibrous, sliding bass line really rattles my fillings.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Phil Reynolds wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 11:56 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 7:34 am I watched the last of the series of Friday Night Dinner last night. It's a really good comedy. Mark Heap's character is a bit of a caricature of every role he's ever played but I don't think it's a massive problem really.
Also it has one of the coolest theme tunes of any programme on TV - Animal (Punks Jump Up Remix) by Miike Snow (you're welcome). Between series 5 and 6 we augmented our TV's sound system with a sub woofer and now that fibrous, sliding bass line really rattles my fillings.
I downloaded Animal onto my phone years ago. I completely agree!
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Phil Reynolds »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 7:42 am
Phil Reynolds wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 11:56 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 7:34 am Friday Night Dinner
has one of the coolest theme tunes of any programme on TV - Animal (Punks Jump Up Remix) by Miike Snow
I downloaded Animal onto my phone years ago. I completely agree!
I can't tell you what a lovely feeling it gives me to have found something we agree on. Let's never converse on any topic ever again. :D
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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We'll see how it goes.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Marc Meakin wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 9:10 am As you ( Hopefully ) have just watched episode 1 of Devs , I've just finished the dénouement episode (8).
Well worth watching , in fact , dare I say it it , a masterpiece.
I have forgiven Alex Garland for the third act of Annihilation 🙂
OK, I've watched all of this now. I agree that it was worth watching, but I wouldn't really go any further than that. It kept me interested and I wanted to know what would happen next but I think the whole thing was a bit flawed. First of all - SPOILERS etc. - what DEVS does is just impossible, and obviously so, and way too overpowered, and you just keep thinking "Why don't they just do something else when it tells them what they're going to do?" So there's that. Then also they keep going on about how the Everett many worlds hypothesis is correct, and yet they still seem to have this linear view of the future so they can predict exactly what everyone going to do. Just a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it.

When Katie had that conversation with Lily and she asked her if there were any truly random events, she would obviously have given some answer involving quantum mechanics, not a fucking coin toss. She's an intelligent educated person working in geekery, and it would have been a stock answer to such a question.

Lyndon was a weird one. Why would you get a woman to play a 19-year-old guy? At first I wasn't sure if he was meant to be a woman or a 13-year-old boy, and the subtitles even said "she" at some point, but then it became clear later that he was a he, and 19. Most people's voices have actually broken by the time they're 19 you know! Getting a woman to play him was just weird. Whatever next - blacking up white actors? Also, they wasted him far too cheaply with that ridiculous bridge stunt. An intelligent person wouldn't have just fallen for psychopath Katie's cheap trick. And the way her and Forest were saying that Lyndon was in Katie's car and it was just something they had to play through, but knowing full well the outcome. What were we supposed to think of these two characters? Were we supposed to have any sympathy for these psychopaths?

And why did Jamie entertain this conversation and play frisbee with Forest the psychopath who he knew had had Sergei murdered? And by the way it's weird that this murder was never really addressed. The was never a moment where he ever tried to justify the killing of Sergei - other than that he was a Russian spy - but there was never any "I didn't really want to kill him but I had to". There was never any point where his character became one that one would want to sympathise with. The fact that his daughter had died (largely as a result of him keeping his wife on the phone while she was driving by the way) doesn't really change this.

The fight between Anton and Kenton was just weird. At the end it seemed that Kenton broke Anton's neck through telekinesis. And Kenton was just acting normally the next day with no bruises or battle scars even though he was nearly killed the day before. His face would have been quite messed up given the hold Anton had on it for a while.

The mood/atmosphere stuff was annoying and came across as pretentious and wasted far too much time.

It was interesting that the tramp turned out to be a Russian spy. I thought he might have been Forest's twin. When we first met Forest, I wondered why the tramp who lived outside the flat was now running the show.

I'm not sure the ending was particularly good either.

That was a bit of a stream of consciousness but I can't be bothered to tie it up into a neat review.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

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Glad you stuck with it.
Yes there are flaws....see Annihilation and Sunshine to name 2 other films associated with Alex Garland.
Yes it looks pretentious ,and was annoying that Katie or Forrest didn't realise that it was Stewart all along that sabotaged Devs.
I loved it because it looked cool and the acting was spot on and it was almost a companion piece to Ex Machina , Garlands best film especially with the reveal about the name at the end.
I fully understand why Lyndon climbed over that bridge as he was convinced one of the outcomes would be positive.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Marc Meakin »

I didn't even know that Lyndon was played by a woman.
Strange but I didn't have a problem with it.
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Mark James »

I don't watch it myself but apparently parts of the finale for Blacklist had to be done with computer graphics due to the lockdown. It looks pretty bad, like a PS2 era video game, but also still kinda makes me want to watch it now. Judge for yourself https://youtu.be/O0nF4njky94
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Re: What TV programmes have you been watching lately?

Post by Phil Reynolds »

Has anyone else here been watching Dispatches From Elsewhere? It has a sort of oddball charm, although I've given up attempting to understand what's going on.
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