Coronation Street 2015 - Disc 4

Home Fires + Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Home Fires is a new WWII period drama based on the book Jambusters. It will be returning for a second series. This disc contains files with higher quality bitrates of just over 2000 kbps.
Home Fires
will return

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Higher quality bitrate of about 1430 kbps.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

or both on the same disc with lower quality files with a bitrate of about 690 kbps.

Holby City

Holby City

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Australian network ABC finally came up with the cash to produce a third series of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, but they had to cut it back to 8 episodes (the first two series each had 13). Times are tough....even for whimsical costume crime dramas like this. 

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Waterloo Road

Oh.....the drama! Waterloo Road was a school drama that enjoyed a nine year run before concluding with its 200th episode a few months ago. A lot of people came and went in this. Some very recognizable faces, some not so. 
Waterloo Road

Emmerdale 2015 - Disc 5

Wentworth - Disc 3

Australian female prison drama Wentworth has returned for a third series.
Wentworth

Love Child

Australian drama Love Child returned for a second series and will be back next year for a third.
Love Child

Orphan Black - Disc 3

Canadian science fiction thriller Orphan Black has returned for a third series, still starring the same people...including Maria Doyle Kennedy who has been one of my preferred contemporary singers ever since I saw the film The Commitments 20+ years ago. (That also may be because I turned the radio off about 20 years ago too.)
Orphan Black

VEEP

US comedy VEEP returned for a fourth series.

Veep

Game Of Thrones - Disc 6

Game of Thrones

Fair City 2015 - Disc 3

Irish evening drama serial.

Motive - Season 3

Season 3 of Canadian police procedural drama Motive.

Motive

disc players

Victor in Texas tells us that he picked up a cheap ($28) LG disc player at WM and that it seems to play all the many discs he has just fine.  

online ordering page

The Good Companions

Musical comedy-drama from 1980 based on the 1929 J.B. Priestly book and adapted for TV by Alan Plater. This followed a popular stage presentation in the mid-70's (with Judi Dench as Miss Trant).
Starring Judy Cornwell (as Miss Trant), Jan Francis, Vivienne Martin, John Stratton, Jeremy Nicholas, Bryan Pringle, Frank Mills, John Blythe, Jo Kendell, Simon Green, with Margaret Courtenay, Barbara Young, Denis Lawson........crikey, this is taking way too long......Nigel Hawthorne (Yes Minister, Mapp & Lucia, Barchester Chronicles, Edward & Mrs. Simpson), Robin Parkinson ('Allo 'Allo!,  Many Wives of Patrick),  Barbara New (Oh Dr Beeching!, You Rang M'Lord?, Split Ends), Keith Clifford (Last of the Summer Wine), Nigel Stock (Sherlock Holmes), Tim Wylton (The Dustbinmen, The Bretts, A Bit Of A Do, As Time Goes By, Wycliffe, My Hero), Paul Luty (Love Thy Neighbour, Rosie, In Loving Memory), Patricia Brake (Going Straight, The Glums, Eldorado, Mann's Best Friends), Fanny Rowe (Life Begins At Forty, Fresh Fields, After Henry), John Barrett (The Dustbinmen, Clochemerle, Not On Your Nellie), Bill Dean (Selwyn Froggitt, The Liver Birds, The Whackers, Brookside), John Comer (I Didn't Know You Cared, Last of the Summer Wine, Murder Most English), Robin Bailey (Potter, Rumpole of the Bailey, Charters & Caldicott, Jane, Sorry I'm A Stranger Here Myself, I Didn't Know You Cared, The Pallisers), Roy Kinnear.......everyone knows him. And so on..............
The Good Companions

River City 2015 - Disc 2

The latest from Scottish drama River City.

1864

1864 is a Danish drama (with hard-coded English subtitles) that takes place in.........can you guess? From wiki: "The series takes place over around a decade in the 1850's and 1860's. The focus is on two brothers, Peter and Laust Jensen. Both in love with the same woman (Inge Juel), they join the army in the nationalistic fervour of 1863. The events are framed by those in the present, involving the infirm great-grandson of one of the historical protagonists. The series is also about the Second Schleswig War between Denmark and Prussia and Austria which ended in 1864 with Denmark conceding around 25% of its territory to the Prussian and Austrian armies. This outcome had a profound effect on Denmark, setting the country's course for its modern development. It is the most expensive Danish TV series to be made."

I haven't seen all of this yet, but can say that the cinematography and editing is quite impressive.

Red Rock - Series 1

Red Rock is a new crime drama serial from Ireland about the goings-on in a rough suburban neighborhood of Dublin. Crooked cops, crooked families....EastEnders meets The Bill. Has a couple threads running in each episode and a common thread tying the stories together. This has been very well received and will be returning for another series in four months or so. Rather than airing a single 45-minute weekly episode, it is split over two consecutive nights on commercial TV. I had to do some tweaking to get the entire first series onto a single disc but I think it came out pretty good. I did that rather than have one disc with 38 episodes and a second disc with six. Now that I know it will be running in 22 week cycles I'll probably do 22 episodes per disc. I still have all the .mp4 and .mkv files and may redo this first series that way at some point, but right now I simply don't have the time for it. The contents of the disc is about 16½ hours of video. Don't be put off by the term "soap" in the following link. It doesn't mean the same thing there as it does in the US. There Mad Men is a soap. This has a prevailing police theme to it although the following article doesn't really leave the reader with that impression.     
Red Rock review

The Game + Safe House

Two new drama series. 

The Game is a British cold war espionage thriller that previously aired in the US late last year (and later in Australia), but those episodes were each shortened about 10 minutes to make room for commercials. These are the full-length episodes. 
The Game

Safe House is a psychological thriller starring Christopher Eccleston that may return in the future. 
Not much out there on this but the link below does contain spoilers so don't read too much of it.
Safe House review

8MMM Aboriginal Radio + Bogan Hunters + Jonah From Tonga

There hasn't been any new comedy to speak of coming out of Australia in the past year. Upper Middle Bogan, It's A Date and Please Like Me all returned for second series, but I can't think of anything else. 

8MMM Aboriginal Radio is a new comedy that takes place in Northern Territory. Geoff Morrell is in this. He's been in a lot of shows....Bordertown. Murder Call, Blue Heelers, Rake, Small Time Gangster, Cloudstreet, and several appearances in shows like Packed to the Rafters, Winners & Losers, Bed of Roses, etc. He also starred in Grass Roots, which is one of the best comedy-drama's I've seen in this century. I might even rate that one higher than Doc Martin (after the last two series of Doc which were very low budget and the writing sadly contrived).  
It also stars Shari Sebbens of Redfern Now, The Gods of Wheat Street and the fun film The Sapphires. 
8MMM Aboriginal Radio 

Bogan Hunters and Jonah From Tonga are both shows I've been sitting on for about a year, but now need something to fill out the disc. Bogan Hunters is a spinoff of Housos and Jonah From Tonga is a spinoff of Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High. Both are comedy mockumentaries....just what TV needs....more mockumentaries about anti-social lowlifes. No real writing or acting required and no thinking required to view. 
Bogan Hunters
Jonah from Tonga