The Mausoleum Club Forum

The fact that Threads made such an impression on people is in itself evidence that the world hadn’t “moved on” by 1984. Nuclear anxiety was very much a theme of the early Eighties, literally from the beginning of the decade when Russia invaded Afghanistan.* Other nuclear war films of the time were T...

Someone made an interesting point on something I read. The reason the current show is in such a mess is because the same people have effectively been running it since it returned... I think there's a good deal of truth in this. Especially after Davies*, so much of it has had the feeling of playing ...

If Joe Orton was still alive he’d be Sir John Orton and would have been officially pardoned for defacing the library books.

"The Uninvited" was remade in the 80s, as an episode of Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense.

By 1956 the Code was on the way to breaking down. More likely the alternative ending for 1984 was political, in case they got into trouble for making a movie where the Communists won.

Russell Harty was on LWT before he was networked, I think. Certainly I remember reading in the NME about musicians (maybe the Who?) being on his show and having no idea who he was. And let’s not forget that Bill Grundy’s interview with the Sex Pistols was only broadcast in the London area. If it had...

Crossroads was on for years before it was shown all across ITV.

I watched again, and thought how unnecessary the whole "timeless child" business is, a pointless complication of a simple setup. If the Doctor's dying, he can survive by changing into a new body: that's all you need, and it's an idea that has served the show well. (If they'd just replaced William Ha...

Moffat clearly couldn't resist a regeneration scene (despite making a hash of every one he wrote) and it seems that Chibnall has a similar thing for alternate Doctors.

I thought it contained long passages of tedium. I think Gallifrey is a dull setting - the Doctor left there a long time ago, and that's all the "origin" he, or indeed she, needs. "Everything you know is a lie" is a boring, irritating premise, and it wasn't improved by the Master either intoning it p...

I notice that weeks pass and episodes get almost no discussion, here and at a couple of other places. I'm not surprised, because most of them feel very uninspired - and even stunts like the mystery is-she-isn't-she Doctor are uninspired. Chibnall simply doesn't have original ideas.

I've been watching Special Branch on Talking Pictures, and looking at this thread again has been illuminating. I was puzzled by the revamp at the tail-end of series one, and in series two it's definitely lost its way. It started out with an air of Callan about it, but some of the episodes in series ...

I thought Skyfall was Chibnall doing an RTD-style story, and last night’s episode felt like him doing Moffat - not a good thing at all.

I watched last night’s and thought it wasn’t bad to begin with, but after they left the dome it became convoluted and repetitive - the silly bit about those two characters being mother and daughter (it would have helped if they’d borne the slightest similarity to each other), one character after ano...

Brock wrote: And why did the BBC continue to broadcast the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony on radio until 1994?

I suppose it was always possible that someone else might try to shoot the Queen.

I don't know if they still do it any more, but it was a sure sign that a programme had run out of ideas when the new series came from a different part of the country every week.

Just turned on TPTV and they’re showing The Day After again. Good timing!?

A leading lady in Fifties British movies, she had a later career on TV - including the unforgettable Beasts episode “During Barty’s Party”. RIP.

Destined to be remembered for Bouquet Of Barbed Wire. RIP

Longtime presenter of Ireland's The Late Late Show. RIP

John Cleese has said that at first he didn’t intend to play Basil Fawlty, and one person he had in mind for the part was Denholm Elliott.

By the way, they might have been talking about Susan George in Straw Dogs. Even a few years ago that was still a controversial film to get an 18 certificate uncut.

Pretty sure that was a documentary about the BBFC shown at the time of the Banned season. As well as Death Wish 2 there was a section about Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, showing how a home invasion scene that was un-passable in its original form had been re-edited to compromise as best they co...

Sad news for Blake's 7 fans. RIP

Brock wrote:
Although Mike Read presented TOTP on many occasions, I don't think Mike Reid ever appeared - were you thinking of Runaround?

Mike Reid had a hit with "The Ugly Duckling" in 1975, so he probably did appear as a performer. Pretty sure he never presented it, though.

What The Papers Say went from ITV to C4 to BBC2 to Radio 4. The most-travelled show?

Sue Osman from the early years of Eastenders, but she deserves to be remembered for other things too - in particular as the schizophrenic girl in Family Life. RIP

A regular in Edgar Wallace Mysteries as a high-maintenence wife/mistress. RIP

It's surprising that it ran so long after Barry Norman left.

I think sometime in the 80s American shows developed "producer bloat", with people who in the old days would have been called something else and possibly not named onscreen demanding producer titles and separate credits. Getting on topic, I quite like Jodie Whittaker in herself, but I still think yo...