Worth Watching: "Woodstock '99," "The Sandman," and "Tom Daley: Illegal to Be Me"
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Hello,
Welcome to your Worth Watching email. Hope you’re doing well.
After the driest month in weather (and also in new and good television), here’s some fantastic television to start off August. And thank goodness, as I was getting worried.
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A DECENT NETFLIX WATCH
Woodstock 99 (Netflix - all three episodes) - If you think Fyre Festival was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. This staggering three part Netflix documentary looks into Woodstock 1999, which tried to replicate the success of the iconic 1969 counterculture music festival thirty years later.
Yet, everything went wrong. The festival was run to maximise profit, which meant that necessary investment into the basics such as water provision and sanitation were lacking. Despite the festival taking place on the hottest days of the year, festival attendees not only had their water confiscated on arrival, they had to fork out $4 for a bottle once they got inside. And on top of all of that the festival had acts such as Limp Bizkit and Korn, who encouraged the crowd to smash and break things.
And smash and break things they did. The festival ended with a riot, where an angry mob burnt the festival to the ground. The National Guard ended up getting involved.
The strength of the documentary is how it explores all the forces that at work that resulted in this riot and what the festival’s failure said about America at the time.
(Note: There is a HBO documentary on this festival too but it doesn’t appear to be on NOW. If it pops up somewhere after the success of this one on Netflix, I’ll let you know).
ANOTHER DECENT NETFLIX WATCH (!!!)
The Sandman (Netflix - all episodes of season one) - Netflix has been craving a returnable and successful fantasy franchise for the ages. It may have found one in their adaptation of the hugely successful Neil Gaiman comic books.
Many fantasy series launched on streaming services in recent years either lean in too hard into the mythology that it forgets about the plot, or introduces too many characters that you end up having no idea what is going on. The Sandman avoids both traps by sticking to a good easy to follow story and introducing characters a couple at a time, so you don’t feel overwhelmed. The CGI doesn’t distract you from the plot too.
A HEARTBREAKING WATCH
Tom Daley: Illegal to Be Me (BBC One on Tuesday, 9pm and BBC iPlayer) - It is illegal to be gay in more than half of the countries participating in the Commonwealth Games. Being openly gay in these countries can result in life imprisonment (such as if you are in the Barbados, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Bangladesh, Tanzania or Guyana). In three countries (Nigeria, Pakistan and Brunei) you can be sentenced to death.
In this accessible and thought provoking documentary, Olympian Tom Daley explores where the roots of all this hatred came from (spoiler alert: a lot of it is down to the British Empire) and the complexities in trying to stop this discrimination from happening. Tom wants to ban countries with poor LGBTQ+ rights from hosting the Games in the future, but such a ban could galvanise these countries to worsen the situation for any LGBTQ+ people living there. Why? Because the country would blame them for not allowing them to have the Games in the first place.
Good on Tom Daley using his platform to shine a light on this important issue.
AND FINALLY, A BIT OF NONSENSE
The Resort (Peacock, which is a channel on NOW and Sky) - My final recommendation this week is a pretty offbeat thriller, about a couple who try to solve a murder mystery whilst on holiday (heck, we all do find it hard to switch off when we are on holiday). The plot kicks off with Emma (Christian Milioti) stumbles across a mobile phone, belonging to an unsolved mystery on two missing people from 15 years earlier.
Both she and Noah (William Jackson Harper) investigate instead of handing the evidence to the police because it makes them reconnect. The series has an element of unpredictability that I just really admire. I don’t know where it is going to go next.
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YEP, IT IS STRICTLY SEASON AGAIN.
Here who has been announced on Strictly so far: Will Mellor (Two Pints of Lager), Kym Marsh (mostly known for Corrie), Richie Anderson (travel on Zoe Ball’s breakfast show), Kaye Adams (broadcaster on Radio Scotland), Jayde Adams (the comedian) and Ellie Simmonds OBE (Paralympian). Oh and Matt Goss (from Bros and that documentary). Yes. Matt!
WHERE TO FIND ME THIS WEEK:
My latest column for Variety looks the challenges Big Brother faces as it returns to television and why it feels out of step of many reality shows today: “Big Brother thrived on providing a claustrophobic environment to stir up arguments, from limiting food supplies while cutting housemates off from the public until eviction night or after they leave.”
I’ve also written for Broadcast about why broadcasters need to highlight more of the amazing shows on their streaming service and their platform, as viewers get more used to watching shows that may have been released weeks earlier rather than new programmes in the TV listings.
And on the latest episode of Must Watch we reviewed The Resort, Tom Daley: Illegal to Be Me and The Sandman.
And if you need a little pick me up for Tuesday, let this be it.
Thanks so much for reading,
Scotty / @scottygb