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TV Lounge

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The TV Lounge is an Open Forum for you to add comments or ask questions on TV that you can’t see anywhere else on the site.

So if there’s something TV-related you’ve been meaning to get off your chest, or a TV question that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere else, here is where it goes! Please check Programming & Calendar before duplicating programming info.

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1,693 Responses

  1. Does anybody know why ABC, SBS and 7 HD channels are broadcast in 2.0 Dolby Digital on the free to air antenna feed? Only 9 and 10’s HD channels are broadcast in 5.1 Dolby Digital audio.

  3. So next Tues night its a prime time, FTA, battle of the Ramsay shows. 7 has Kitchen Nightmares at 8.30 and directly opposite it from 7.30 – 9.00, 9 have the new Food Stars..

  4. Hi David – any word on when Paramedics is launching again on Channel 9? I know they filmed a season in Adelaide last year, and they’ve begun filming a second season here, too – but seems a bit MIA from our screens.

  5. Was wondering why Binge was not showing The Reckoning tonight, but was available on BBC First? Any idea on when Binge will have the episode or episodes ?

  6. Watched all four episodes of the newly-released docuseries “Quiet on Set” last night. Took me through a roller-coaster ride of emotions. There were a few things I wish they’d touched on more, but given the subject matter I also can’t blame them too much for being cautious and allowing those involved the time and space to tell their stories in a way they were able to.

  7. Woodbridge now off on a well deserved holiday, UK, also visiting his son Beau… “between tennis and TP, the busiest 5 months of my life!” Rumoured TP S1 has wrapped with well over 100 episodes in the can, S2 a 100% chance of being renewed and has network WWOS commitments again with French Open > Wimbledon > Paris 2024 Olympics > then probably back to TP filming and shows like Postcards, Today appearances, etc. Can you imagine his contract!

  8. With what happened yesterday with the bloke jumping out of the hot air balloon, should ch 9 really be showing today’s ep of Skippy, Up and Beyond, noting it starts with 2 people jumping and parachuting out of a balloon and then having Sonny and Skip floating around in an uncontrolled one ??? Other shows have been pulled for less…

  9. SBS Movies showed ‘Dr Strangelove’ in a primetime 8.30 slot-first time in such a slot for that film since it was shown in the early 70s by 7 as a Sunday evening film! Oddly enough it received a mention in last Friday’s ‘Planet America Fireside Chat’ when they were discussing strange choices for Vice Presidents over the years, although they identified USAF General Curtiss Le May as the inspiration for the character of Strangelove in the movie, which is incorrect-Le May was General Buck Turgidson and Strangelove was Werner Von Braun with a dash of Henry Kissinger thrown in . Truly great film though…

      1. The film’s been on many times over the years on various channels in different slots (usually very late night or weekend afternoons) but this is the first time in over 50 years it’s been primetime FTA. Now that it’s part of the SBS World Movies library, it’ll be a regular through the year.

  11. Does anyone else think 7 regional should make a 30 minute bulletin for Victoria, obviously they have a presence in Vic since they provide 2 minute updates from the Canberra studio and they should have a rival to win news Victoria

    1. What was Prime is now owned by 7. They provide a full 30 mins of news (18 plus commercials) in Qld, parts of NSW (e.g. 7NEWS Riverina, 7NEWS Coast, 7NEWS Central West), and they should be compelled by legislation to provide a complete news bulletin to all areas, not just to some, with a 60-seconds rip-and-read “update” to others, especially where they once provided a complete half-hour local bulletin.

  12. Boy oh boy, Seven are not happy with Nine, RE: this morning’s Mumbrella article with the former giving a response to Nine’s release last week. Ah, the age old rivalry riff-raff never disappoints!

  13. So interesting titbit, the new Seven renovation show Dream Homes with Dr Chris is based off a NZ format, which Nine has already done an Australian version of back in 2000, and from that show they created The Block. Were sued by the creators of Dream Home for copyright but won. So Seven is taking on The Block with the show used in some part to inspire/create it.

  14. Just finished Masters Of The Air. I didn’t watch Band Of Brothers or The Pacific so my thoughts are isolated to just this show. I just felt it was a little lite on with its story and characters. We never really went any deeper than surface level of those two things. I was expecting a gritty, heavy show, and what I got was a series that looked great but didn’t have a whole lot to say. That’s not to say there wasn’t moments of brilliance cause there was (in fact the final episode was excellent). But even in that final episode, as much as I liked it, still just provided flashes of what I wanted more of. It just felt glossy. I have to say though, the music was the finest example of a TV show soundtrack I’ve ever heard… I got very misty several times (especially in the finale), and the music did a lot of the heavy lifting. The show was beautiful to look at, and the acting was good… but yeah it was mostly a middling display that consistently teased more of what should have been.

    1. Over 20 years ago I was surprised to see an ad for 10s disastrous soap ‘Above The Law’ at a Hoyts cinema. I assume it was a last ditch attempt to drum up an audience for it-it didn’t work. That was the 1st time I can think of such an ad for a TV program.

  18. From the Weekly Wrap “Still trying to work out why Survivor US in Fiji is full of Japanese architecture…. anyone?”
    We all know geography is Americans’ most challenging subject. Seems someone (their travel agent?) typed “Fuji” into Google when trying to find where “Fiji” is located!? Or…are they really in Fuji, Japan but believe they are really in Fiji?

  19. Is it possible that in Vic regional markets WIN will ever return to 10 or is WIN stuck with 9 permanently. Channel 9 regional is better with SCA and when they had 9 local news

    2. WIN has been a 9 affiliate since the early 60s, when Rupert Murdoch owned WIN. They had a fallout over streaming which ended up in court and TEN seduced WIN. WIN would much rather be with 9 than with a network, 10, that is sometimes #5, and #4 at best. WIN provides a regional news half-hour, produced by WIN. Cannot imagine WIN going back to SCA, but if that ever happened WIN would dump Deal Or No Deal for WIN Local News at 6.

    1. Two weeks across Easter are non-survey but we have seen in recent years improvement on first run content, especially from Easter Monday onwards when a lot of people have returned home from holidays. My instinct is networks are hoping to bed in new shows when there is less competition around. We’ll see quite a bit this Easter period.

      1. That would require the networks to have new and interesting content, and an audience that appreciated and watches it. What we will get is the nth season of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. Having finished The West Wing, my viewing for Winter is going to be Screw, The Chelsea Detective, Babylon Berlin, Classe Secret and Northern Exposure. Back when I last watched NE it may have been VHS quality, but there was plenty of interesting stuff on from 7:30 -11:30 or later every night.

          1. FTA is shunning me, and anyone else who appreciates well written and made TV, I just go where the good shows are. 30 years ago Heimat was on SBS’s main channel and heavily promoted, these days BB is only online because it’s subtitled. ABC I mostly watch for free BBC content: Ghosts, Earth, This Is Going To Hurt, Life After Life. Commerical TV not worth bothering with: Irrational already dumped, Mr Bates double eps finishing after 11pm thanks to Seven’s endless battle to beat Nine, the OC bumped to near 11:30pm Thursday so Nine can catch some NRL viewers too drunk to change channel or go to bed. And I probably missed it anyway if the NRL, post-game or news were extended as they are want to do (and Seven does even worse). Ten only FBII S2.

          2. Ha, I don’t disagree with many of those points, and no issue if your personal focus is scripted. But the topic was first run content through Easter period so it spans several genres… networks have been lifting in recent years, including 2024 as far as I can see.

  22. A shout out… Congratulations to Nine, Tipping Point and Woodbridge on winning last week’s 5pm timeslot/game show battle (not just metro but nationally too and every day I believe), promos have been saying “No. 1 new show” and I hear now pushed back in Western Australia markets to 5pm (9News Local bumped) bringing them in-line with the other metro markets (bar regional due to eg. WIN News at 5:30pm). The reason this is all big news, is because Nine took a gamble with so much with this and a lot of risks and it’s paid off in droves and strategically, in no small part thanks to the tennis and great tie-ins. This is the biggest TV success story I can recall of recent times and North Sydney executive would be buzzing.

    1. Nothing quite as old as last week’s ratings. Then this week it’s all turned around again. “the biggest TV success story” should perhaps go to MAFS. In WA it seems to have been pushed back to 4pm with an hour of news at 5, before more news at 6.

  23. A dark day for anime fans with the death of the creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama aged 68. I remember watching Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT on Cheez TV as a kid, so Dragon Ball has been part of my childhood. Dragon Ball was inspired by a Chinese novel called “Journey to the West” (prepare for a challenge reading it as it is over 2000 pages), with an example is that Sun Wukong (pronounced Son GokÅ« in Japanese) becomes “Son Goku”, who wields an elongating staff weapon, can fly using a magic cloud and has the ability to change into a giant ape (in the anime, Goku and Vegeta can transform into Super Sayans when their level is high enough). Dragon Ball also the inspiration for Naruto and One Piece among others, so Dragon Ball was pretty inspirational with what it influenced.

    And I have been meaning to watch Dragon Ball Super on ABC ME (I watched the first episode in Japanese on AnimeLab On Air on C31 here in Melbourne), so I might get around to watch it.

    1. There are abridged translations of Journey To The West, it is mostly known here from the Japanese TV show Monkey, which was on TV earlier in the 1980s. It’s basically Chinese Taoist and Buddhist folklore about heroes, monsters and demons grafted on the story of Xuanzang (Tan San Zang), a monk who travelled West along the silk road and into India to bring back Buddhist scrolls to reestablish the religion in Western China and from there across SE Asia. Dragon Ball was popular when I was at university. I never persevered with Dragon Ball Z, it went on for ever and I was busy working.

  24. Akira Toriyama, manga writer and artist, character designer whose work spawned millions of fans over the manga, anime and gaming fields, passed away on 1 March. His creation of the Dragonball series in 1984 found fame right across the world, from all of Asia, Europe and South America, generating various comics, TV series and games. He died at 68 from acute subdural haematoma.

  25. I enjoy Gogglebox but the lack of variation in content for the people to review is getting tedious. Three episodes in;

    Episode 1 – Married at First Sight, Australian Idol, Survivor.

    Episode 2 – Married at First Sight.

    Episode 3 – Married at First Sight, Australian Idol, Survivor.

    A little variety would help I feel. Surely even Nine do not want to create the impression week on week that they have only one program. Reviews of some scripted content occasionally would be nice as well.

    1. Agreed. We didn’t even get Mardi Gras Parade this year. Gogglebox always prefers reality to scripted. Easier for their families, and audience to drop in / drop out of Reality. Scripted you are pretty much confined to episode 1s because of their set-up nature. They did do NCIS Sydney (which actually premiered in November not this past week).

          1. Well if Meta want News people to pay for content, this seems like an opportunity missed possibly??

    2. Agree. I fast forward when they show MAFS, and now Survivor too. The UK Gogglebox often show drama, especially the big names ones or something that has premiered to big numbers. The problem here is the lack of drama on FTA. We also tend to get more drama during winter months when Gogglebox is not airing. Gogglebox missed out on the Neighbours finale and reboot premiere due to that all occurring during the breaks between seasons.

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