If you could tie everyone at LingQ down onto their sofas, what TV would you make them watch and why?
I would like to get everyone to watch Doctor Who, a British science-fiction series which has been running since the 1960’s. It embodies British humour, and has monsters which every child in the UK has played at defeating in school playgrounds across the country.
I still have nightmares about the Cybermen! Fortunately the Doctor is always on hand to help me defeat them 
“[W]hat TV would you make them watch and why?”
Just to remind you, Helen:
On December 10, 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 5 states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
There’s a BBC children’s programme called “Something Special”, aimed at parents and children, using Makaton sign language as support language. I like watching it with my granddaughter who falls into the “special” group. It is encouraging to see how children communicate despite, in some cases, a severe handicap.
Anything where my son is credited as a writer, as I am a fiercely partisan mother.
A re-run of Das Boot - if possible in German not watered down by subtitles - to appreciate the brilliance of the script.
Oh, and Dr Who! @ Astamoore: but Helen and I know what’s good for people!
I find it hard to believe, Sanne. If you truly had good intentions, you would’ve suggested A Bit of Fry and Laurie or even Not the Nine O’Clock News.
I threw away my TV some five years ago. My only regret is that I hadn’t done it earlier.
If you could tie everyone at LingQ down onto their sofas,
what TV would you make them watch and why?
This thread made me watch every TV program mentioned here,
although I was not tied down onto my sofa by Helen.
They were so interesting that I even went to Wikipedia to check
the biography of Fry and Laurie !
I warn you that a Bit of Fry and Laurie contains some strong language, and a lot of Steven Fry hitting Hugh Laurie. Steven Fry is a big fan of both swearing a lot and (acting) hitting Hugh Laurie. He has said that Hugh Laurie is brilliant at taking a punch and, indeed, often gets punched in “House” (American TV series, worth watching if you are a Laurie fan).
@astamoore: As you rightly point out, it is actually an offense under UK law to tie someone to a sofa to make them watch Doctor Who. They need to be able to hide behind the sofa for the scary bits
I think the biggest scary bit of Dr Who is this new goober they are going to have playing The Doctor. “Geronimo”?!? Sorry, still bitter that we only got three glorious seasons and a smattering of “1 hour specials” with David Tennant. There is of course that CGI cartoon on the official Dr Who website but alas us poor Americans aren’t allowed to watch it because we don’t have a UK IP address.
That aside, I think cartoons of any sort are great to watch as they hold your interest and are good for picking up vocabulary.
As far as American TV series go the X Files and Star Trek would be excellent options. They have both been translated into many languages as well, I once had the pleasure of watching Agent Mulder handle a hostage situation in Italian, right before Scully was abducted.
FUTURAMA -----------THE BEST ONE-------------------
Watch here: http://www.futurama-stream.com/
(I watched the Beast with the Billion Backs just last night, but I have watched all the episodes and they are all ace!)
The Pinky and the Brain!!!
X-Files used to be until before the latest movie…complete failure, still trying to delete it from my memory, but in the old good times yes…
I dream of Jeannie (it was on the Greek tv for few years when I was small, I never saw it again ever since 
The little house on the prairie (This was our family obsession, we were watching it all together with my parents, brothers, sisters when we were kids. Maybe because we were a big family too. My dad was very strict with the tv, if he would notice that we spend more time than we should, he was locking it in a box. He would unlock it only when the next episode was on !!!
Oh, yeah, Futurama is great. Always preferred it over The Simpsons.
Being a native English speaker I only ever watched Futurama for the entertainment purposes, how good is it for learning English?
When I do watch TV, I watch 24, Sopranos, and a lot of the stuff that is shown on the premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime. Weeds, Dead Like Me, I’ll eventually watch Big Love ect. I also watch some sci fi, I plan to start Dr Who, but I also like Star Trek and Battlestar and Farscape ect…
I don’t own a tv either though, I mostly watch from my laptop before I go to bed…
Alas, I nearly unaware of all this famous American and British TV episodes, except may be Simpsons. I’ve shortly checked out the links to Futurama. With my taste of an adult immigrant, if you didn’t stick to them as a kid or teen (just because they were lacking in your country), you would hardly stick to them for the purpose of language learning. (And if you did stick, you are probably a native or nearly native in the language).
But generally I disagree with Steve’s opinion, that using movie for language learning is not that effective. (He stated it differently, that movie is not that intensive listening environment (that depends on the movie, IMO) and they not [Yet] mobile (agree).
What is true, IMO, is that it is hard to learn languages from movies, even with the subtitles.The speech may be fast and not that simple.
I wrote in my profile on my endeavor to run movies with a special player, oriented to language learners. To allow us play movies phrase-by-phrase, if we wish, or expand the time the movie spends between the phrases, to get us more time to digest the speech or to interact with the player. An example of the interaction is a click that replays exactly the last phrase. Each “phrase” is usually one subtitle, but you can have a number of the recent subtitles (phrases) on the screen. There are many controls in these subtitles, By clicking them, you can replay phrases , translate the words, create the links, review (replay) the links, and insert them into Link, if you wish. Later I’d like to ask more what users could wish from such players (if only Steve won’t show me out -
The player cannot control TV, but it will control DVD running on your computer. The DVD must be possessed by or delivered to the users. I was thinking, what DVD in your non-native language you, most probably, already possess, which you wouldn’t mind watching again. I had an idea that, statistically, it could be Godfather, disk 1. But I don’t know how many English Godfathers are dubbed into Spanish, French, German, Chinese and Japanese. -
insert them into Link = import them into LingQ
@Ilya_L
I love your name because I was a crazy fan of “Ilya” in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
He was really cool!
@ Ilya:
Every time we talk I have to try really hard not to think about Ilya Kuryakin, the cool Russian spy who was played by David MacCallum (a Scot).
I saw David MacCallum recently on some American crime drama. I wondered where he’d got to. I suppose he went to live in America, thus disappearing off UK radar.
God bless you my friends!
@ Cherry and Helen! - I love your names more! First of all, I am a fan of cherry. Second of all, Elena, the equivalent of Helen, is such a popular female name in Russia. Though, remember our last talk, The War and Peace? (What else can we talk with Helen about,).That personage’s name was - just Helen (Элен).
Still my name is proud, though it should not be. As the Godfather has modestly said: “It s my family [Kay]. It’s not me”.