Binky
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Post by Binky on Oct 19, 2023 7:09:50 GMT
Managed to get through it all.
It's as grim as you'd imagine.
The cast were great, but I can't tell if I really needed to watch something like this. Perhaps I did as I hadn't realise just how monstrous he was, as I couldn't stomach reading everything about him when the news finally broke. I just hope this helps to keep a spot light on the whole situation.
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Post by simple on Oct 19, 2023 19:53:51 GMT
Its a bit disconcerting when he slips into Partridge-ism during some of the flashbacks
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X201
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Post by X201 on Oct 19, 2023 21:56:12 GMT
Disconcerting is having the Jim’ll Fix It theme tune stuck in your head for days afterwards.
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Post by motti82 on Oct 20, 2023 9:10:44 GMT
Disconcerting is having the Jim’ll Fix It theme tune stuck in your head for days afterwards. This, in one. Was talking to a work colleague and we said that at the same time. It's a uncomfortable watch, but it's the season for it, with The Long Shadow on ITV currently as well. |
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Post by Lurker on Oct 20, 2023 9:58:46 GMT
I caved and watched this as everyone has been talking about it. Coogan played the part well, too well really.
It's interesting to see how many on here never liked him even before they knew what he did. None of my mates ever liked him and my dad would always turn off if he popped up. I think we only endured him occassionally on Top of the Pops a few times.
I do wonder who actually liked him back in the day.
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EMarkM
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Post by EMarkM on Oct 20, 2023 10:04:46 GMT
I was innocent/ignorant enough to get some enjoyment out of his JFI show back in the day.
I remember being particularly impressed when someone got to appear onstage with Iron Maiden – maybe the "play the guitar with someone" moment that one of you mentioned, above.
But I honestly never liked HIM as such.
I won't be watching the drama thingy. I have almost no time for TV anyway these days, plus I tend to steer clear of anything that risks making me feel gloomy or negative.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Oct 20, 2023 10:11:32 GMT
Perhaps I did as I hadn't realise just how monstrous he was I knew he was a fucked up monster but I didnt quite appreciate how every facet of his life revolved around being a sex pervert. Everything he said, everything he did, everything he bought and every friend he made was purely to facilitate his noncing. And it captured something I always thought whenever he did let cameras in; that he was a millionaire but always seemed to live in a shithole. |
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Post by simple on Oct 20, 2023 11:50:14 GMT
We’re only part way through the series so it might turn it around but I think its biggest failing for me is maybe that it hasn’t really got across just how popular and omnipresent he was. Lots of people who are looking uncertain and concerned about him which feels a bit hindsight-y, but this is a guy who was everywhere and generally championed by British society.
Obviously you wouldn’t want to feed his legend but I don’t think you can fully express the scale of the crime without also factoring in how huge he was.
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geefe
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Post by geefe on Oct 20, 2023 13:39:49 GMT
Do they cover his death? If I remember right there was an absolute outpouring for him. Statue went up. Huge crowds. To say he wasn't liked and everyone saw through it is bollocks.
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Lukus
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Post by Lukus on Oct 20, 2023 13:46:18 GMT
I think it was a case of there were rumours going around for years and lots of comedians would reference the morgue stuff in a jokey way. Then it all came out and everyone went "well of course he was a paedo". But, I'd say most people didn't KNOW know. But it kind of feels that way when you finally do.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Oct 20, 2023 14:30:37 GMT
The IRL morgue porter must have been Di Caprio pointing at the tv in an absolute fury during the last episode.
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Post by simple on Oct 20, 2023 14:47:06 GMT
Richard Herring definitely used to do some anti-Savile material on Richard Not Judy. He used to do a bunch of Prince Andrew stuff on RHLSTP too. Maybe the Police need to pay more attention to what he says.
HIGNFY would drop Savile is a paedo material in as well from what I remember.
But he was still getting onto tv and loads of attention pretty much right to the end, even after that Louis Theroux episode.
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Post by clemfandango on Oct 20, 2023 14:59:41 GMT
I caved and watched this as everyone has been talking about it. Coogan played the part well, too well really. It's interesting to see how many on here never liked him even before they knew what he did. None of my mates ever liked him and my dad would always turn off if he popped up. I think we only endured him occassionally on Top of the Pops a few times. I do wonder who actually liked him back in the day. Royalty and the Tories |
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Post by clemfandango on Oct 20, 2023 15:00:36 GMT
Oh and West Yorkshire, he was a god in West Yorkshire
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Post by simple on Oct 20, 2023 15:31:09 GMT
1970s Yorkshire is pretty much the most bleak, grimy and grim place you can set a tv drama. Everything about it seems drab and miserable and has an undercurrent of filth.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 20, 2023 15:59:04 GMT
1970s Yorkshire is pretty much the most bleak, grimy and grim place you can set a tv drama. Everything about it seems drab and miserable and has an undercurrent of filth. Immediately made me think of Rita, Sue and Bob too. Proper grim
I do wonder how victims and their families react to something like this. I don't know if I'd like seeing people discussing how good a production it is or lauding Coogan's performance of my abuser
I can't not see this as entertainment (not seen it. Doubt I will)
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Post by mothercruncher on Oct 20, 2023 17:09:47 GMT
We’re only part way through the series so it might turn it around… I very much admire your glass half full take on human nature Mr simple, but I think Jimmy is a shade beyond redemption 😉 |
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Post by simple on Oct 20, 2023 17:17:34 GMT
I can't not see this as entertainment (not seen it. Doubt I will Honestly, if this was a Hulu drama about Cosby and it was as exactly the same in terms of how much of the abuse it was showing I think there would be a lot more being said about how exploitative it is. Its 100% feels like an entertainment, whatever the catharsis might be for the victims who bookend each episode as talking heads. And yet here I am three episodes deep thanks to how magnetic Coogan’s performance is. Unless that’s part of a meta-game; we can’t stop watching Coogan but he *is* Jimmy in this, absolutely spot-on, so is it saying that even knowing about the abuse Savile is still magnetic? |
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Post by elstoof on Oct 20, 2023 17:54:15 GMT
Is it any different to something like the Fred West dramatisation a few years back?
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cubby
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Post by cubby on Oct 20, 2023 18:10:10 GMT
Is it any different to something like the Fred West dramatisation a few years back? That was a drama focusing mostly on Emily Watson's character, and how she dealt with having to interact with a serial killer on such an intimate level. There was little in the way of wallowing in his sadism or giving any prurient satisfaction that you could level at this show. |
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Post by simple on Oct 22, 2023 20:04:59 GMT
That confession scene in the third episode feels a bit ill judged. Why add some moral ambiguity when everything else is just illustrating the facts that everything he did was to facilitate noncing? I don’t think we need to give him any benefit of the doubt, even in the service of tv drama tropes.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2023 23:24:36 GMT
I can't not see this as entertainment (not seen it. Doubt I will Honestly, if this was a Hulu drama about Cosby and it was as exactly the same in terms of how much of the abuse it was showing I think there would be a lot more being said about how exploitative it is. Its 100% feels like an entertainment, whatever the catharsis might be for the victims who bookend each episode as talking heads. And yet here I am three episodes deep thanks to how magnetic Coogan’s performance is. Unless that’s part of a meta-game; we can’t stop watching Coogan but he *is* Jimmy in this, absolutely spot-on, so is it saying that even knowing about the abuse Savile is still magnetic? I saw most of this and I think you have the heart of it in your closing comment there. People did love the whole ‘great British eccentric’ thing and there is no doubt that coupled with this he had a manner of speech that did have that kind of effect. I don’t know if somebody that *looked* like that could reach that sort of status nowadays. I don’t like to poke at people’s appearance but he was a truly repellant looking man really. EDIT - deleted a part about another modern celeb in case I get in trouble. But yeah Coogan nailed it. I couldn’t remember the ToTP finale but couldn’t believe how bizarre Coogan played it. I went and watched that last Top of the Pops intro and outro on YouTube and it’s an expert mimic. |
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Post by simple on Oct 22, 2023 23:43:24 GMT
I think we’re fine saying he looked like a massive freak and almost no one looking like that would get near the telly these days. I know I’ve talked about in the past but Jon Stewart’s reaction was just to point at a photo of him and “This guy? They let this guy near children?”  |
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Post by Aunt Alison on Oct 23, 2023 0:59:17 GMT
It's what's inside that counts and I think he looked like that inside as well
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deebs
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Post by deebs on Oct 23, 2023 1:43:56 GMT
I haven't finished watching, it's all very grim with the veiled threat and unambiguously horrifying situations with kids, but I'm not really getting anything from it that wasn't already immediately obvious from what we already knew. It's just sort of skits of manipulating people into allowing him into places he shouldn't be with people he shouldn't be near.
I really was hoping for a little more about his childhood, the origin story so to speak. The only nod I have seen of that thus far is the interviewer asking him off the bat to tell him about his childhood, to which he replied, "I didn't have a childhood, next question." Which seems to have conveniently nipped the idea of anything deeper or actually meaningful to come from it about the kind of man he was.
Coogan pointedly said he didn't want to play a pantomime villain, and he did a fabulous job of portraying Savile's sociopathy, but his character can't be anything more than a villain if there is nothing more than a superficial portrait of a villain to build from.
Anyway, I don't know if I'll finish watching, I just find it quite crass and exploitative, but I do hope his victims gained some level of catharsis from it.
Ed: Not that I want to empathise with Savile, but some idea of how a monster is created adds dimension that this needs.
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Post by simple on Oct 23, 2023 23:25:49 GMT
Finished it earlier this evening.
Its feels strange that its structured quite like a crime drama but the pay-off at the end is that he basically got away with it. Being a million years old and not on the telly as much as he used to doesn’t feel like a comeuppance, nor does being too old and feeble overpower his victims. I suppose they’re saying that he was reduced to molesting corpses rather than the young and living is meant to show him as a pitiful wreck of a man, shuffling disgustingly to the grave but I’m bot sure they pulled it off.
I wonder if as well as writer character if we’d seen more of the contemporary investigations like the Newsnight one that got pulled it might have felt more like the net was closing in. But really he was celebrated massively when he died so its hard to give any kind of ‘he got what was coming’ type closure to the show when we know it didn’t really happen in his lifetime.
Its also quite strange looking back at him from the current day, when he’s largely been erased from pop culture, and thinking about how someone that weird was genuinely one of the most famous people in the country and held up as iconic by millions. Even without being a massive paedophile and rapist he was a deeply freakish guy.
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