What's on the TV today?

My Grandparents’ War:…

New series starts tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm. Kicks off with Kit Harington.

My Grandparents' War season 2: air date, celebrities and all about the wartime ancestry series

On TV tonight, Kit Harington follows his grandfather's footsteps in My Grandparents' War

 

Modesty forbids him, but “our” Frank made an appearance and important and moving contribution in the part about Kit’s grandfather at Cassino.

Well done sir!

 

The Goodies, “War Babies”.

Showing tonight at 9.35pm, repeated at 12.55am on the that’s TV channel (Freeview 65, Sky 183, Freesat 178).

The plot:

“Tim, Graeme and Bill are 2 year old boys during WWII. After leaving their parents to go to a school for intelligent boys, they are sent on an important mission to Germany.”

I recall the scene with the two German sentries, parodying war movies, is most amusing and uncannily accurate.

 

World Cup! Today and until the final match

 

'Went the day well' is available on Channel 4 catch up. It is the restored version and is crisp and clear. It's been a delight to watch.

 

“Manhunt” starts its run tonight on Talking Pictures TV, 9pm.

 

Not on tv today, unless you’re reading this on the day the series starts, but this Sunday, 17th March, on BBC2 at 5pm, Saving Lives At Sea in WWII.

Stories about the RNLI during the war, something different eh.

 

9pm tonight, More4, Warplane Workshop, “Flight of the Tempest”. Restoring a Hawker Tempest, as you’ve doubtless assumed.

Short notice, sorry, but repeats tonight at 5 minutes past midnight.

 

Thought I’d just bump this for anyone interested today .

 

On right now on Channel 5, “Secret Spitfires: How Britain Won The War”, the story of how they moved production of Spitfires around after a raid on the main manufacturing factory.

On Channel 5+1 at 9pm, of course.

 

Just found that BBC4 is showing War Walks, with Richard Holmes. They’re already onto series 2 but there are a few episodes left, starting tonight at 7.30pm, the Battle of the Boyne.

On Monday it’s Dunkirk, Tuesday the Blitz. There are a few more episodes currently available on BBC iPlayer. I remember this being a terrific series, loved his style and how he brought it to life in the telling.

 

BBC4 has a few D-Day related programmes over the next week, probably reruns, but doubtless well worth watching again, including Bloody Omaha: Timewatch, tonight at 9pm.

On Monday, 3 June, also at 9pm, D-Day: The Untold Story - Journeys to the Bottom of the Sea, another Omaha documentary. Plenty of other programmes being broadcast on this and other channels too as you are doubtless all aware.

 

Watched the "Goodwood" episode for the first time in years when it was broadcast last week. A supreme programme. Richard Holmes did not baulk at describing the slaughter.

BBC Two - War Walks, Series 1, Goodwood

Always remember, never forget,

Jim.

 

Supreme - that’s the exact right word.

Goodwood is one of the episodes available on iPlayer as it happens, Jim, and from what I could see earlier they’re not all on there. Cheers.

 

PBS America, today at 3.25pm, 7.50pm and 10.55pm:

Forgotten Allies: the Search for Burma’s Lost Heroes

 

Thanks for the updated reminder Martin.

 

Mick Jackson Remembers... Threads - BBC iPlayer

The story always seemed to be about the affects on "us" - of a nuclear war.

I always wondered what the effects would have been on those on the other side.

The scary thing for me was that those that wanted unilateral disarmament by the West

Unilateral disarmament - Wikipedia

...had such strong convictions that this was the solution and the only way to avoid the potential consequences of the "nuclear threat".

By showing to us how bad it could be - for "us" - the film makers seemed to have the opinion that it wasn't worth it.

Threads (1984 film) - Wikipedia

Looking at it from the "other side" - I could imagine so many potential nuclear weapon wielding states thinking after watching it that they literally must have nuclear weapons if this was the potential power and fear that they thereby might be able to wield and how - if they wanted they could use the potential use of them - on us - to strike fear into the west... and obtain whatever they want.

Far from being a lesson in the need to avoid nuclear war, far from being a lesson in the need to avoid the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and far from being a lesson in the need to show how terrible - for the West - a potential nuclear war might be...

Threads (1984 film) - Wikipedia

"Sheffield was chosen as the main location partly because of its "nuclear-free zone" policy that made the council sympathetic to the local filming[6] and partly because it seemed likely that the USSR would strike an industrial city in the centre of the country."

Threads: How the nuclear bomb drama horrified Sheffield extras - BBC

Hines said his main reason for making Threads was to get people thinking about nuclear weapons, as “a lot of people don’t know anything about it”.
Jackson said many people had the “misconception” that a nuclear bomb meant “a flash and a bang and it's all over”.
He added: “I think Threads might have shown those people that in fact, in even the severest worst scenario for a nuclear war that you can imagine, more people are going to survive than perish immediately, and that sort of long, drawn-out suffering is something that most people would have to go through if it happens.”

I suspect that any enemy that ever attempted to use nuclear weapons against the West would have suffered to a far, far greater extent, and the actual truth would have been that the West would have spent the next 100 or so years, and vast treasure and expense in helping them to rebuild their shattered nuclear blasted society and recover from our disproportionately vast attack or counterattack on them.

Showing the consequence to have been what was shown in "Threads" was never quite believable to me. It just never added up, given how powerful the West is and was - and how - if you don't show how it would have affected those that might have contemplated such an attack - that it would have been pointless and counter productive for them to a far greater extent - you aren't actually telling "a truth" - you are merely showing them the need to get nuclear weapons and thereby have a "big stick" with which to threaten the West.

Given

List of states with nuclear weapons - Wikipedia

The film "Threads" -

As the nuclear exchange between NATO and the Warsaw Pact begins, the film depicts the medical, economic, social and environmental consequences of nuclear war.

Really needed to show - or at least - track - how much worse it would have been for those using (or contemplating using) such weapons against the West.


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Edit - (42) Know Your Ally: Britain - Reaction Part 1 - YouTube



Britain had (and has) a lot of allies.

"Threads" - to me - seemed to forget to be upbeat about how resilient we are, or can be ;-)

 

BBC Two
Starts Thursday 17 October.
A House Through Time, Two Cities at War, 4 episodes.
David Olusoga traces the lives of residents of two apartment blocks -one in London and one in Berlin -during the Second World War.
BBC Two - A House Through Time, Series 5: Two Cities at War, Episode 1

I've watched all the previous series of A House Through Time and found them really interesting, so this series about World War Two should be a good watch.

Lesley