The Professionals
Believe it or not, I've never seen this before, and it's now being shown on one of the ITV digital channels.
It's rather good, isn't it?! Dated at times, but quite fun to watch the three stars trying to out-do each other being "well hard".
As for other "classics", I find Minder to be unwatchable, as well as The Sweeney and Dempsey and Makepeace.
It's rather good, isn't it?! Dated at times, but quite fun to watch the three stars trying to out-do each other being "well hard".
As for other "classics", I find Minder to be unwatchable, as well as The Sweeney and Dempsey and Makepeace.
Post edited by NickH on
Comments
Closes thing to it today is Ultimate Force
A bunch of Fudgepackers (boom boom - never seen the show though!)
you live in sun hill, jesus, poor you, stay off the jasmin allen estate btw.
what is the best british cop shows?? i'll tell you. life on mars, back up, crime watch and this other one i used to watch, it was good but it got cancled cos it was too violent.
And yes, Life on Mars was very good too, as was Ashes to Ashes (although the latter wasn't as good with the time-travel-or-coma plot, AtA's police parts were great).
One thing that did strike me about The Professionals now I watch it again, though, was that at school (as I was in the Professionals days) we all wanted to be Bodie, as we all thought that Doyle was just a poser, but watching it as an adult, I see that Doyle was the smarter one and also just as tough as Bodie.
And I bet that The Professionals really helped the Ford Capri to sell - during The Professional years, us school kids all wanted one :)
Must admit, haven't seen much of that Life On Mars, but it looks ok. Sounds a bit strange though... Isn't that the one where a present-day cop goes back to the 70's or 80's or something?!
They were showing The Prisoner recently too :)
Both The Bill and London's Burning started out as serious dramas aiming to show what it was really like to be a policeman or fireman.
Pity both were made by ITV, because then they were turned into disposable soap fodder.
That really pissed me off tbh.
Then, and I don't know what happened to it, they launched a series about firefighters "up north" and I feared that it would go the sameway.
I really, really don't understand why everything needs to be "realitied up" or "soaped up".
By realitied up, I mean, I hate so-called reality shows, but elements of it creeps in all over the place, like on Scrap Heap Challenge, they added a fucking diary room style part, where they all bitched about each other, that spolied it for me.
By soaped up, I mean, well Emmerdale Farm was once a watchable soap opera, almost the Archers of the television, and then they dropped a jumbo jet on it, and now everyone shags everyone else blah blah
and I am no guardian of morals, but I can't think of any soaps, where there are a married couple with kids, who get on with life, and stay married, and if they do, an affair or two will come along. Whilst divorce might me more common, plenty of people do actually stay married....
I liked the Bill, in the olden days, sometimes the criminals got away, sometimes the coppers fucked up, sometimes they did not. It was interesting, there was no need to change the format, to keep it fresh, if you compare the technological advances since it started, ontop of the change in the political climate, and new laws passed.
And finally. :)
I can remember when ITV pioneered late night tv. Channel 4 might have done it first, but the first broadcaster I remember watching through the night was ITV, locally it was called "Later Night, Late" and the presenters did old skool links between shows, read letters out, but there was cult telly on, and shitty films. I watched Cell Block H like countless others. :D
So, how come now, in the wee small hours, ITV does quiz call?
Yet, ITV 3 has on Cagney & Lacey & Upstairs Downstairs
I dunno, staying up all night, isn't as cool as it used to be. I went to bed at 4.30am after playing Oblivion, and got up in time to have lunch at the pub, so it's not all bad.
Because those premium rate phone numbers make a HELL of a lot of money for ITV.
I call them a tax on the stupid.
i hope crime watch doesn't turn into a soap.
Anyone else think Two Pints Of Lager used to be quite good (not brilliant) until they went and did the whole baby sub-plot? Went from being about studenty types you could sort of relate to who liked a drink and had boys in-jokes to a teen mum nightmare. It's been totally unwatchable since then and it's not like you can write the baby out again.
cot death!!!
Also, when WWF and WCW merged, it became far too much like a soap than your actual wrestling. WWF was best pre... Wrestlemania 9? When people like The Rock and Triple H turned up it went crap very quickly.
Who remembers when Hulk Hogan managed to bodyslam Andre The Giant(RIP)? And when Ultimate Warrior beat Hogan and went mental on the ropes shaking them up and down with fireworks going off behind him? And when Ultimate Warrior was poisoned? And Brutus got thrown through the Barber Shop window by Shawn Michaels? And when Jake The Snake got 'blinded' in the Barber Shop by DDT on his cane? And when Hogan got fire thrown in his face by Sergeant Slaughter? And when the Bushwhackers lasted about 3 seconds in a Royal Rumble, came in one side and got thrown straight out the other? And when Randy Macho Man Savage proposed to Miss Elizabeth? And when Ricky The Dragon Steamboat nearly suffocated when he got the bell slammed on his throat?
Have I gone off topic? :)
:smile:
Surely in 2008 they can just put any old repeat on of some show, better than just screens of rubbish before GMTV starts kinda thing. Very surprised
Oh god no , not wrestling ! Not wrestling, anything apart from that !!!!! Grown men enjoying wrestling, noooooooooooooooo !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGiCkf9VPTQ
Even then, aged about 7, I realised that if you did a move called a "guillotine" where you jumped on an opponent, and landed with your leg across their throat, that they would die.
I also read Jackie Palo's "You Grunt, I'll Groan" Palo was before my time, it was Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Kendo Nagasaki, Rollerball Rocco...
Shit, but watchable shit for little kids. We knew it was bollocks, but it was fun. I would eat fish finger sannies on a Sat afternoon and watch it.
Quite why it is such big business nowadays, and I am not at all detracting from the physique, athleticism, strenght, of these characters, who must co-operate or die basically, is beyond me.
Oh, locally they kept playing Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" man, that song reminds me of speed come downs, hash lift offs, and everything in betweens.
There was also locally, a film talent show, and there were these 6th form girls that did a song about being at one with the sea, and "my favourite haddock" it was quite bizzare.
Wrestling back in the early 80's on ITV was cool, specially of course Haystacks vs Big Daddy !
also check out the comic strips"bullshitters" where they take the piss out of the proffesionals
Was too you for the first run of the Sweeney but caught a few later repeats and it was okay.
For modern type things love Ultimate Force and Life on Mars.
Once Martin Shaw allowed repeats of The Professionals I actually did not like watching them again. I liked my original childhood memories better. Rose tinted glasses and all that.
Yup, the professionals was/is great. Used to watch it every week with my dad. Wednesday 9pm? or was that MASH? Wednesday 6pm was Monkey. Awesome!
Nah, that's the National Lottery you are thinking of.
Same for me, Saturday late afternoon at my Nan's fish fingers or a small tin of Heinz' beans & sausage.
Wrestling followed by the footy results on that pretendy ticker tape thing.
Kilmarnock 3 .... Montrose 2
Stirling Albion 5 .... Falkirk 0
Sunderland 0 .... Newcastle United 4
Yay!!!!!!
:)