Yes, Minister

[King Crimson]

if you like Brit comedy and/or critique of bureaucracy and government, this is a classic BBC series. the first 3-4 epis are kind of struggling....but it's great if you like political language and somewhat Orwellian doublespeak....but dry humor style and not so much dystopian. "humour". it's available "instant" to watch on your netflix queue.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080306/

i recommend it. the late Nigel Hawthorne is great.

maybe you saw him in the Madness of King George. what? what?

[Dr_Phibes]

Funny show, but it's got sinister undertones. The creator, Sir Anthony Jay - was an advisor to the Thatcher government.

Adam Curtis made a really brilliant, really cynical three hour film tracking the history of Game Theory in politics and gave it mention. Jay was pushing 'Public Choice Economics', an offshoot of Game Theory, the crux of the arguement being that altruism is not a factor in human behaviour and therefore an impossibilty in hierchal forms of government.

Here's a funny clip that's on You-Tube, it's got a great bit of Jay saying that they used pretty much every episode to advance the ideas of the Thatcher clique :o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izjs0UV12fo

[Diogenes]

Speaking of BBC shows...

I've been watching Torchwood, a spinoff from the Doctor Who series (if you remember Captain Jack Harkness, he's the main character-they also bring Martha Jones in somewhere in season two I think).

Season one was pretty good, a little darker and bloodier than the good Doctor.

Season two comes out on Netflix in about a week.

[King Crimson]

i read some good stuff about Torchwood and was gearing up to watch it on that tvlinks site about year ago maybe...but, then the tvlinks guy got busted and the site came down. might check it out.

[Diogenes]

I put the thing in my Netflix queue. Appearantly there's also a series (probably a sequel) Yes, Prime Minister. Is this any good?

[King Crimson]

I put the thing in my Netflix queue. Appearantly there's also a series (probably a sequel) Yes, Prime Minister. Is this any good?

yeah, sequel. i've watched the first couple epis of Yes, Prime Minister and it's still pretty quality.

if you have the watch instantly option, you can watch both series on yer computer.

[PSUFAN]

Sounds interesting. I'll give it a shot.

I watched some of Mad Men last night. I might have to check out that show as well.

[King Crimson]

if you like Yes, Minister....Yes, Prime Minister is mos def worth it.

some of the dynamics and jokes are all too familiar but the writing is still top notch.

[King Crimson]

Funny show, but it's got sinister undertones. The creator, Sir Anthony Jay - was an advisor to the Thatcher government.

Adam Curtis made a really brilliant, really cynical three hour film tracking the history of Game Theory in politics and gave it mention. Jay was pushing 'Public Choice Economics', an offshoot of Game Theory, the crux of the arguement being that altruism is not a factor in human behaviour and therefore an impossibilty in hierchal forms of government.

Here's a funny clip that's on You-Tube, it's got a great bit of Jay saying that they used pretty much every episode to advance the ideas of the Thatcher clique :o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izjs0UV12fo

speaking of Adam Curtis, i show the 4 part Century of Self series in classes sometimes...what's the Game Theory one called?

i've been thinking about this post some, and i'm about a big a black=white, up=down guy as there is when it comes to political language....but i don't really REALLY see the Thatcherisms so much in the first series as the second. i could be wrong. but, i'm still getting the the series for my pops for Christmas and he's a Kennedy democrat type. it's a good time.

[Dr_Phibes]

Yeah, it's called 'The Trap'. It's on google video if you fancy watching it:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5387111085

Century of the Self was good, but this has a better flow to it, so I think you'd like it - his presentation always reminds me of the old show, 'Connections' by James Burke. I think that's what makes Curtis films so watchable.

I'm not so sure I'd look for any hidden messages or any sort of doublespeak in 'Yes Minister' - they were promoting something of a grand concept, making the entire premise of the show a platform for very general, very broad ridicule of 'old ideas'.

[King Crimson]

thanks Phibes, i'll check it out.