The Best BBC Drama Series ever

[albionism]

Holding On

 

[1927]

This Life for me, closely followed by Our Friends in the North.

Amazingly they used to follow each other on a monday night, surely the best night's tv the BBC ever put together.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

A friend of mine was in This Life.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

1990 was a rather interesting series about a bureaucratic and authoritarian near-future Britain, with Edward Woodward as a journalist and member of the underground opposition movement.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075469/

I remember the chess episode.

 

[colbhoy]

A friend of mine was in This Life.

Oh, who was that?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

By a fair distance:

Edge of Darkness also gets my vote ...

Edited to add: lots of spoilers in that link.

Also, I Claudius and the Le Carre adaptations in 2nd and 3rd place for me.

 

[colbhoy]

Amazingly they used to follow each other on a monday night, surely the best night's tv the BBC ever put together.

That's right, a great way to spend an otherwise boring Monday evening.

 

[Paul Russell]

Edge of Darkness also gets my vote ...

I honestly thought for a fraction of a second that he was holding a lobster in that picture before I realised it was a teddy. That would be surreal.

 

[Flashman]

Spoilers abound on that EoD wiki page by the way, so don't go there if you ain't seen it.

 

[PacificOcean]

Cranford. Best TV series ever. Fact.

I really enjoyed the House of Cards trilogy too.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I honestly thought for a fraction of a second that he was holding a lobster in that picture before I realised it was a teddy. That would be surreal.

Could have been worse, could have been the other object that belonged to his daughter.

 

[DaveCinzano]

*sniffs*

 

[butchersapron]

Could have been worse, could have been the other object that belonged to his daughter.

The dildo, which he kissed after finding it in her things. Odd scene.

 

[London_Calling]

Fwiw, I just bought the whole Edge of Darkness and State of Play for under a tenner on Amazon - plus £2.5 postage.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The dildo, which he kissed after finding it in her things. Odd scene.

Very.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Fwiw, I just bought the whole Edge of Darkness and State of Play for under a tenner on Amazon - plus £2.5 postage.

I Might have to buy that...

I just need to be surreptitious about it.

(Missus can't believe how much we pay for DVDs etc)

 

[rollinder]

^ *wanders off in the direction of amazon for State Of Play*
*comes back* - fuck that's cheap

 

[London_Calling]

Given how long it is it's cheaper to buy that rent.

 

[London_Calling]

State of Play properly cracks along, doesn't it? Watched the first two yesderday and it was all I could to not watch all six.

I noticed The Lakes while on Amazon - by Jimmy McGovern from back in the day - that looks to be next.

 

[Pie 1]

Got State of Play for £4 a few weeks ago as well - fantastic bargin.

But why is Our Friends in the North such a silly price?

£99

 

[London_Calling]

I just noticed The Thick of It S1 for less than £8 on Amazon . . .

 

[Kaka Tim]

I remember being gripped by Colditz and I Clavidivs as a kid.

Boys from the Blackstuff

Edge of Darkness.

The Chinese Detective - about police corruption - was v.good but seems to have been forgotten.

 

[Paul Russell]

I noticed Edge of Darkness was on special offer in the Guardian printed edition, so I looked online on the Guardian's website and it says £10, and this offer is brought to you via MovieMail.

But when you go to MovieMail's website, they are only charging £6 including postage, so I bought it from there. Great "offer" from the Guardian

Looking forward to getting it -- never seen this...

 

[bluestreak]

I haven't seen any of these except House Of Cards. Which was bloody good.

I know that makes me a philistine, it's just that I have no patience for series, cos i always end up missing one and blah blah blah...

Some of these I've already downloaded and havent gotten around to watching, and some of the others are going to be downloaded as soon as i've watched my backlog and cleared the disk space.

Thank you people!

 

[boohoo]

...discuss.

Me, probably State of Play.

your turn

i don't watch much tv and aren't too sucked into dramas but state of play was excellent!! Great plot, great cast... highly recommended!

 

[boohoo]

Anyone remember the riff raff element? That was good. And the BBC The history of Tom Jones a foundling, was very good. Brian Blessed going mental was funny to watch.

 

[London_Calling]

Fwiw, I'm currently eyeing 6 1/4 hours of Middlemarch, BBC 1993.

Slightly put off by that old slapper Robert Hardy.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Anyone remember the riff raff element? That was good.

I fair had a crush on that Jayne Ashbourne! (And Celia Imrie for that matter)

 

[boohoo]

I fair had a crush on that Jayne Ashbourne! (And Celia Imrie for that matter)

I saw Celia Imrie on the tube once and although she is in a fair amount of tv programmes, I could only think of her in the riff raff element.

 

[DJ Squelch]

Does 'Play For Today' count as a drama series? Wednesday nights (iirc) were never better. I think they were originally called 'The Wednesday Play' but I might have imagined that.

Abigail's Party was one of the Play For Today episodes and thats one of the best bits of TV evah.

Day Of The Triffids scared the crap out of me when I little, plus it's the only BBC drama series Ive purchase on DVD.

I also liked 80s series Rockliffe's Babies about a police unit based around Ladroke Grove, I think I mostly liked it coz there was loads of shots of graffiti under the westway on it.

late 80s - South Of The Border about 2 women in Deptford who become private detectives, I only liked this as I was paid to paint the main sign for the record shop in it.

I think ITV was better back then, Minder & The Prisoner piss over anything the beeb have done.