Dr Hilary Jones will be talking to me this afternoon about the world's first GLP-1 weight loss tablet, available from early next week. Listen in to Gateway DriveTime with @rozzyc.bsky.social #Basildon, on DAB, 97.8 FM & online at www.gateway978.com

I'd never seen Thriller and it was Ian Kerr's articles around 1993-4 that got me curious about the show. The one I saw first was in Time Screen & I read it many times, especially its tantalising episode guide. I think Ian deserves huge appreciation for raising the show's profile in the 1990s.

He was certainly very good in "If It's a Man...", most notably at the climax. He had a very long and productive career making a fine contribution to many productions. RIP Michael.

We've lost another #BrianClemensThriller actor, RIP Michael Byrne, you certainly proved memorable in the latter stages of 'If It's a Man Hang Up' www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/j...

That ability to rewatch is certainly important, for many years it seemed that would be the end of Thriller on TV. I'm not sure when recordings started "doing the rounds". I suspect very few people saw every TVM back in the 80s so recordings from elsewhere later helped fill the gaps.

OTD (30th June) in 1984 LWT repeated the Thriller episode "The Savage Curse" (i.e. Kiss Me and Die). This marked the end of the 1980s repeats across the ITV regions. These repeats were hugely important not just for those who saw them at the time but the recordings which were later seen by many more.

After a one week break, I'm resuming my #VanDerValk viewing shortly with the second series opener from Wed 29/08/73. I also not no fewer than three ITC film series on Anglia the same evening.

You could certainly see that kind of ending in a film or different anthology, e.g. Hammer House of Horror. Thriller was notable for its "moral" endings in which villains were defeated. There were a couple where someone appears to get away with a crime but that's to get rid of a worse offender.

The picture we get is that only one villager is unhappy at what is going on. I agree you'd expect more of a police reaction but maybe with a closed community refusing to cooperate they couldn't get very far. Of course if the police were really on the ball there wouldn't have been much of a story!

Maybe they should just have named him 'King' to save all the bother! Doesn't quite have the same resonance though, like anglicising Giuseppe Verdi to Joe Green.

There's a nice bit of humour early on when Jill says - in a friendly but slightly flirtatious way - she hopes to see more of Bruce and after she's gone Tessa puts her hands on her hips and says "Not if I can help it!" Jill's role certainly proves to be a rather poignant one.

I've always been a big fan of this episode. I agree that Juan Moreno gives an excellent performance and his mute character can go from childish innocence to deeply disturbing in a moment as shown by his reaction to Tessa asking about Dr Sharpe. Gestures can so often say much more than words.

I thought of you @martinmauthor1.bsky.social immediately I saw this. Another interesting pronunciation of 'Koenig' two years on from Yorkshire. This is from the HTV edition of TVT, Sat 10.04.82. 🤣🤣🤣

A new bottle of Tizer, packet of Hula Hoops, & DVD at the ready for my TV feast later tonight. #BrianClemensThriller from 26/05/73 is 'A Place to Die' starring Bryan Marshall & Alexandra Hay. Here's the page from the ATV Midlands edition of TV Times.

On #DriveTime with @rozzyc.bsky.social at Gateway: Former Olympic Gold Medalist Rebecca Adlington talks about how antibiotics saved her from Sepsis, & why she's backing a new campaign. Also our first 'Political Panel' takes to the air after 4pm. 97.8 FM, DAB, & online www.gateway978.com

What was the first Anderson show you physically owned? Was it one of the affordable Channel 5 releases with art by the brilliant Steve Kyte? #gerryanderson #sylviaanderson #fanderson

Kate Hardcastle MBE is a guest on my show today talking about scams, dishonest online marketplace sellers, & the pros & cons of buying unseen. Have you ever had a bad experience buying or selling something online? 97.8FM, DAB, & www.gateway978.com

I’ve just read online that David Daker has passed. Kill Two Birds will always be one of my favourite #BrianClemensThriller episodes @rozzyc.bsky.social @martinmauthor1.bsky.social

That's right - 31st August 1996. I think that has always given it extra significance for me as for a long time it seemed like the last "new" episode of Thriller I would see in an era when DVD didn't even exist and VHS releases seemed to have stalled with many episodes seemingly doomed to be unseen.

“Bartok.. it has to be Bartok “

Btw I love this episode. I think Xena Walker is brilliant as the troubled wife with amnesia and Donald Gee as the heroic bobby who is like a dog with a bone, even when his endeavours get him demoted. Btw part II.. it was Hoola Hoops in our household too whilst watching Thriller.

I have them, I’ve just not got myself a VHS player yet. It’s in my “to do” list 😄

"Send for Tom Patterson!" I think Saturdays were made for #BrianClemensThriller , so I'm treating myself to another classic mystery later on. Armed with my Tizer & Hula Hoops it's back to 19.05.73 on ITV, for an episode that doesn't appear to have aired at all in its original form in the US.

Catching up with my #VanDerValk postings from the last two weeks, 4th, 11th, October 1972, plus tonight's DVD viewing from 18th Oct which I do believe brings me to the end of a successful first series.

This grid offers an at a glance guide to the first broadcasts of Gerry Anderson's UFO across the various ITV regions in the early 1970s. Some remarkable variations in when different regions first aired certain episodes including STV not showing "The Cat With Ten Lives" until 5 years after ATV!

Just the second Westerling house (you'd have suspected near that of the first house?), and the exact spot of the wasteland at the start of the episode #BrianClemensThriller cultfilmlocations.blogspot.com/2018/01/thri...

'The Colour of Blood' (Anglia TVT 12th May 1973) was a great watch last night. Are there any filming locations still to find from this one? #BrianClemensThriller

Even if I have no way now to play this tape I'll hang on to it for nostalgia reasons!

I do still have some VHS tapes on which my Thriller recordings were made like this one but I'm pretty sure the episodes themselves were recorded over when the DVDs were released. It's difficult for me to tell as I no longer have the means to play tapes - superseded technolgy another factor.

Yes, BRT Belgium, who screened in English with subs (and probably others) ... I think I had a copy of 'Sister Mary' from Dave too. #BrianClemensThriller

Analogue satellite broadcasts certainly brought their own climatic 'issues' and the Bravo broadcasts were encrypted too, so degradation cf a DVD copy is likely. 'The Meeting' episode of 'Kids From 47A' was long listed as a colour t/r, although the DVD copy may have turned up the original tape?

The General Hospital episode is - I think - the only colour telerecording I've ever seen and while it looked a little odd I thought it wasn't that bad. The few minutes I saw of "Good Salary" seemed much worse so it's possible there was some other distortion involved on my recording.

The quality of the colour t/rs of Bravo's 'Night is the Time ...' and 'Good Salary ...' is on a par with that episode of 'General Hospital' in the same format on the DVD release - somewhat 'washed out' is a fair summary.

Maybe there could a new release "Thriller: the Bravo edition"! It could include their broadcast versions with break bumpers, ads, continuity, etc. It could almost be a "Best of Thriller" or "Thriller" sampler as opposed to the full box set. It would never happen but would be a fascinating curio.

It's great that you retained those tapes and I'm not surprised they are very special to you. There's a lot of fascinating stuff on old recordings, sometimes more interesting than the programmes themselves! In many cases those tapes are the only way things like continuity have survived.

I think for many of us the off-airs were more valued when we no longer had them and realised we'd lost the contunuity, ads, any edits, etc. The TV companies were not the only ones wiping or "junking" tapes! However just like them we had good reasons such as cost of tapes and lack of space...

I've done all the regions in terms of first 1970s UFO broadcasts and posted them here at various times. I've got a few details of repeats but it's hard to track all of those down although maybe eventually I'll try to do it.

"The Double Kill" was another I missed for some reason. Just for curiosity's sake I would have liked to have seen a full Thriller telercording. Off-airs are a way some of these obsolete formats and departed channels can be revisited.

Due to a recording mix-up I only ended up with a few minutes of "Good Salary" which apparently was also a telerecording. The little I saw was very poor quality but we may have had reception problems at the time so I'm not sure if it was down to the telerecording. I never had a recording of "Night".

I certainly do, though I'm now trying to remember whether that was the first time I'd seen that particular cut version of A.B.and C. and I'm not sure that it was. But yes, it was most annoying, losing the end of the 'B' segment. I also bought the Channel 5 video of that episode, for the same reason.

From memory, some were on BetaSP (analogue predecessor of DigiBeta) rather than 1"? The tape copies were from all sorts of sources including TVMs and the three colour t/r episodes. By the 90s, on PAL there were a full set of TVMs but gaps in the dubs of the 'original fish-eyes' #BrianClemensThriller

There were a few Star Trek episodes (which I was into at the time), some of 'The Five Faces of Dr Who' from 1981, a Tommy Cooper show from 1980 ... its just about all stuff that's commercially available now ... some of the surviving ads are now the most fascinating bits (as I tended to edit em out)

This thread has made me want to find a VHS recorder to play my old Bravo broadcasts. I’m not even sure my tv has a scart facility at the back. I’d need a HDMI adapter of some sort. Definitely worth it though

The guy who did my Philips N1700 to DVD-R transfers sent me a photo as he prepared to 'bake' the tapes prior to copying! I remember Dave Young being impressed when I emailed him a copy of the pic 😄 There's definitely a fascinating story to be told re bicycling of film copies and subsequent decisions

I remembered the Space 1999 ad break bumpers and music sting from Year 1 very well from the original Yorkshire TV Thu evening broadcasts Sep-Dec 1975. I missed them when they were absent from later broadcasts and home releases.

The paperwork re the sales copies in those days were all over the place, perhaps not surprisingly given the number of formats of #BrianClemensThriller and changes in ITC ownership. Ian Kerr pressed for the originals with UA/Bravo as a consultant - my book covers some of said efforts/frustrations!

As mentioned before, I taped the Bravo broadcast of 'The Next Voice You See' when I was away at a Kaleidoscope event in Stourbridge that Saturday afternoon. I think consequently it's the only one with all the 1996 ads in place (4 breaks?) as I edited 'em out of the other episodes I watched 'live'.

The YTV summer 1980 airing of 'The Beta Cloud' - with the curious Koenig pronunciation in continuity - originated from my Philips N1700. I had the content of my surviving tapes transferred to DVD-R in 2007. Very pleased your Space 1999 Clapperboard copies survived - and we got to see them. 😀

The two colour t/r episodes on Bravo were indeed 'Night is the TIme for Killing' and 'Good Salary - Prospects - Free Coffin'. They made a trailer featuring 'Death to Sister Mary' in the format but never aired the story. Can't say I was a fan of the Bravo continuity announcer! #BrianClemensThriller

It was around 1985/86 I think when budget VHS/Beta releases of films/TV at £9.99 first began to be released in Britain - before that consumer tapes were really intended for the rental market - and consequently priced to buy at 3 or 4 times that cost.