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The Best BBC Drama Series ever

Boys from the Blackstuff was great

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as was the BBC's recent take on "Tess of the D'urbervilles".
 
Edge Of Darkness and Tinker, Tailor are always at the top of my list. I like Smiley's People, but it's nowhere near the calibre of TTSS.

I do like Our Friends In The North, but the later episodes really are not as strong as the earlier ones, which is a shame.

State Of Play - crappy twist notwithstanding - is a taut little thriller, very gripping, though owes a lot to the David Drury film Defence Of The Realm.

Of all the other (actual BBC) series mentioned so far, the only one I particularly like is The Day Of The Triffids.

Not mentioned so far:
  • House Of Cards (follow ups again not so much cop)
  • Tipping The Velvet I enjoyed much more than I thought I would
  • Band Of Brothers (well, the Beeb co-produced) I don't care if it's unfashionable, I thought it was a great series, with great performances
  • Gallowglass and A Fatal Inversion, a pair of cracking Barbara Vine adaptations, very bourgeois but thoroughly thrilling IMO
  • Gangsters - utterly mental, and blows the likes of Life On Mars (which shamelessly teefs from it) out of the water
  • Warriors okay, only a two-parter, but a good, lean, pessimistic drama
  • Law And Order GF Newman's superlative interlinked quadrilogy of stories from the justice system, from the perspective of a bank robber, a policeman, a lawyer and the bank robber again, only from inside prison
  • Bird Of Prey a tricky one to describe - the predatory fat uncle from Withnail & I as a quiet civil servant who becomes embroiled in espionage by mistake
  • The Monocled Mutineer sure the factual side was well mangled, but it was a strong drama, and it (along with the comic strip Charley's War) opened many people's eyes to the horrors the British top brass inflicted upon their own soldiers in the training camps of WW1
  • The Cops incompetent, lazy, mendacious, hateful, very human coppers being bastards up north
  • The Lakes not sure it really 'says' anything, but it says it well, and I like the collection of characters, though series two went a bit pants

Guilty pleasures:
  • This Life it's a soapy tit wank of a middle class aspirational drama, but it does get you to a climax
  • Attachments the above, but in the dotcom bubble, pre-Nathan Barley
  • Between The Lines (each series slightly less than the previous)
  • Hamish Macbeth my favourite Sunday teatime drama ever
 
This is what industry professionals reckoned for up to 2000:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_British_Television_Programmes

Which would make their choice of the drama series:


(1) Boys from the Blackstuff BBC2 1982
(2) Brideshead Revisited ITV 1981
(3) I, Claudius BBC2 1976 (if that was a series?????)
(4) Edge of Darkness BBC2 1985
(5) The Singing Detective BBC1 1986
(6) Pennies From Heaven BBC1 1978
(7)The Jewel in the Crown ITV 1984
(8) Our Friends in the North BBC2 1996

EDIT: oh yeah, just seen that the thread is specifically for BBC stuff.
 
DaveCinzano said:
[*]Gangsters - utterly mental, and blows the likes of Life On Mars (which shamelessly teefs from it) out of the water


[*]The Monocled Mutineer sure the factual side was well mangled, but it was a strong drama, and it (along with the comic strip Charley's War) opened many people's eyes to the horrors the British top brass inflicted upon their own soldiers in the training camps of WW1
Click to expand...

Gangsters #1 & 2, both series that need repeating as does the similar Out

MM -rewatchd recently, not so good, but the BBC refusal to show mutinies means its never going to be shown.
 
RenegadeDog said:
It was fucking amazing. I think the OP just specified BBC assuming that ITV only ever makes gash (which is untrue - Cracker was amazing) and that C4 only makes decent comedies. :hmm:
Click to expand...

No, I was saving them for thread (2) and thread (3), followed by thread (4), the US drama series. It makes it easier to a) focus and b) search.:)
 
The only ones I can really remember enjoying were This Life and Between the Lines. Attachments was quite fun, in a "This Life with computers" sort of way. OK, probably none were BBC.

I'm very tempted to buy Edge of Darkness on DVD -- never seen it.
 
Paul Russell said:
The only ones I can really remember enjoying were This Life and Between the Lines. Attachments was quite fun, in a "This Life with computers" sort of way. OK, probably none were BBC.

I'm very tempted to buy Edge of Darkness on DVD -- never seen it.
Click to expand...

I've found a torrent for Edge of Darkness before. I'd never heard of it. Downloading now :cool:

Torrent here: http://thebox.bz/details.php?id=37007

You need to register but it's open registrations so you don't need an invite. :)
 
Badger Kitten said:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, moving on.:)

BBC have a crap rep but they really have produced some corkers
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is it really true that the BBC have a crap rep?

I think one thing is that we look at all the great stuff that the USA produces, and think "Why can't we do that?", but the reality is that the USA has 900,000 channels of gunk and about 2 channels, HBO mostly and sometimes ABC, which produce the good stuff...
 
It's incredible and still stands up today. Obviously a few things are dated, like Labour MPs being anti-nuclear socialist types etc.

I envy anyone watching EoD for the first time.
 
RenegadeDog said:
is it really true that the BBC have a crap rep?

I think one thing is that we look at all the great stuff that the USA produces, and think "Why can't we do that?", but the reality is that the USA has 900,000 channels of gunk and about 2 channels, HBO mostly and sometimes ABC, which produce the good stuff...
Click to expand...

Oh, I think the BBC have produced some incredible stuff - yet there is this fashionable sneering about a) crap SFX b) worthy typical BBC actors - it's a meme and a bit of a shame - for an example of this in action, read the 'Survivors' thread.

I think the BBC drama dept does us proud. Especially when you compare it to the output of other national broadcasters. There have been some embarrassments, but then compare US cable
 
Badger Kitten said:
Oh, I think the BBC have produced some incredible stuff - yet there is this fashionable sneering about a) crap SFX b) worthy typical BBC actors - it's a meme and a bit of a shame - for an example of this in action, read the 'Survivors' thread.

I think the BBC drama dept does us proud. Especially when you compare it to the output of other national broadcasters. There have been some embarrassments, but then compare US cable
Click to expand...

One thing I will say about the BBC is that they sometimes let really great stuff just slide into obscurity. 15 storeys high was brilliant, one of my comedies of the decade, but hardly anyone's heard of it, and Outlaws is also excellent, again, obscure, just been watching that the past couple of nights (from 2004).

Yet you get some real cack at times when people are actually watching.
 
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