With a nod to Andy Hughes

[jills]

cos his question gave me the idea. What TV/Films do people love but somehow, they just didn't seem to be a huge hit with the world at large?? As I said in answer to Andy's question...I'd put the cartoon Family Guy on my list ('damn you vile woman! You've thwarted my efforts since the moment I escaped from your trecherous womb!!!'). I loved it, but the US network who made it stopped after only 2 series...WHY??

[LeMarchand]

Another long list, but the first that spring to mind are: TV - Firefly, Nowhere Man, Beauty and the Beast, Due South, The 10th Kingdom (I want more adventures!), Lexx, White Dwarf (deserved to make a series), The Sight (ditto); Film - The Stupids, Joe's Apartment, Mom and Dad Save the World, Ladyhawke, The Last Unicorn, Dark City, Harley Davison and the Marlboro Man ("Better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool"), The Joy Luck Club (the only movie I've seen move my dad to tears). I'm sure there's more... BTW, there is some talk of more "Family Guy", as the DVD sales have been far stronger than was expected. (P.S. There were 3 seasons made).

[spiff]

I really liked "Dark Skies" in the 90's. There was meant to be 1 series per storyline decade,culminating with a conclusion on 31/12/99. but it was cancelled after the first series. And there should have been more "Futurama" in my opinion.

[jills]

Cheers LaMarchand....both for your extensive list AND your info (and correction!!) on Family Guy!!

[andy hughes]

The TV series I love above all others is 'NYPD Blue' - why the graveyard slot? I pine until its return. My favourite film, which to my knowledge has never been on TV is Roman Polanski's 'The Tenent'. If you want a cinematic definition of the word 'paranoia', it's right there, but don't watch it late at night.

[bernardo]

My favourite horror film is "Theatre of Blood" in which an embittered old-style ham Shakespearean actor (Vincent Price) gets revenge against a group of theatre critics after a series of bad reviews by murdering them, one at a time, by copying the methods of various murders from Shakespeare's plays. My favourite bit was when Joan Hickson woke up in bed to find the severed head of her husband (Arthur Lowe) lying next to her.

[littleoldme]

There was a sitcom in the early 90s called Joking Apart which I believe only ran for one series (maybe two). It starred Robert Bathurst (the posh one from Cold Feet) as a washed-up stand-up comic who had been left by his wife, played by the lovely Fiona Gillies (recently reduced to doing car insurance commercials). Each episode started with Bathurst's character doing a (deliberately) woeful stand-up routine - a risky start which may have caused viewers to change channels (I know I did at first). If you managed to get through that though, and let it get into the 'sit' part of the 'com', it was very funny - the farce building up over the course of each episode in the same vein as Fawlty Towers. So naturally enough, it was gone almost as soon as it arrived. I guess the Beeb needed room in the schedule for Last of the Summer Wine Series No. 163. :O( Oh, and LeMarchand - good call on Due South!

[johngammon]

There's one London Weekend Television sitcom that was shamefully treated, a David Jason vehicle from 1976 called Lucky Feller, written by Terence "There's a Girl in My Soup" Frisby. It was a sort of dry run for Only Fools and Horses, only Jason played the Rodney character. It was very inventive and funny and in places sexy, but the poor telly critics we have in this country seemed to round on it. Maybe they had a bad cocktail at the launch party. Years later I read that ITV had wanted to show it again, but Jason had vetoed it, attacking them for not having the guts to get behind it earlier.