Hacker Cinema
Detectorists
2014 · TV series · 30 min episodes · 3 seasons
Created by Mackenzie Crook
The lives of two eccentric metal detectorists, who spend their days plodding along ploughed tracks and open fields, hoping to disturb the tedium by unearthing the fortune of a lifetime.
13 positive2 neutralfrom 15 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
17 comments on Hacker News
> It’s just that it’s a super-hard problem
I spent 2024 building an awesome TV series recommendation platform. It worked by matching you to professional critics who shared your tastes, by basically crawling Rotten Tomatoes and getting an LLM to grade the reviews out of ten. The recommendations were awesome, and having a personalized Rotten Tomatoes where you could read about and research the show using reviews by people who felt the same way as you did about stuff was freakin' cool.
However, getting people to actually sign up and use the app without a massive marketing budget was very, very difficult. The stickiness to get people to go back to it is difficult. Asking people to input their preferences in the first place is hard. People also simply didn't believe the recommendations, and wouldn't take chances on shows; the computer can recommend The Detectorists to as many people as it wants, but there's a high number of people who would love the show but will dismiss it looking at the cover image and having a quick read of the synopsis.
The recommendation part isn't super hard, the getting people to use a B2C app is super hard.
This is a minor plot line in the British TV show Detectorists.
Obligatory mention: TV series Detectorists [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
If this story interests you, you may enjoy watching the TV show The Detectorists
The sitcom The Detectorists goes into this hobby in the UK in a lot of detail and has several plots about reporting responsibilities.
There is a brilliant documentary series about metal detecting in the UK called The Detectorists. It's very insightful and highly recommended.
For anyone missing context, joke refers to the fabulous TV show `Detectorists`. Well worth your time to watch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
It's such a superb show.
Something I realized watching Detectorists is that there aren't many realistic adult drama shows (or American movies) these days that aren't about crime or similarly extreme subjects, or that aren't historical dramas.
Detectorists is technically a "dramedy", of course, but it's basically a realistic, truthful depiction of everyday life, with some observational humour thrown in here and there.
For some reason Hollywood has indoctrinated the world into thinking that fiction can't be true to life, because life is somehow boring.
A similar American drama that comes to mind is Lodge 49, which is absolutely fantastic. On Becoming a God in Central Florida has a similar vibe, and is also excellent.
Off the top of my head, I'm struggling to think of many other shows. Better Things, Transparent, Togetherness, Succession, Mozart in the Jungle… any other good ones?
The Detectorists is one of the best TV shows made in the past decade. I loved it. It was a tonic to the everything-must-be-about-crime-and-death shows that fill Netflix and Prime.
Until a few weeks ago I would not have cared to click this link, let alone read all of the article. But that has changed: I recently watched the BBC television series "Detectorists"; not everybody's cup of cake, as it is pretty slow going, but "It’s good-natured and charming, and there’s really something admirable about a series so singularly dedicated to making you feel good"
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jan/28/detectorists-a-sitcom-about-amateur-archaeologists-thats-a-bonafide-heartwarming-joy
Who was it who said “any man who, past the age of thirty, finds himself without a shed, can consider himself a failure”? -Andy, Detectorists Season 3 Episode 1 https://youtu.be/QWJMxigdruM?t=552
For a light-hearted insight into the English metal-detecting scene,. I'd recommend the TV series "Detectorists" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
There's a fun little TV series about this. At first it seems silly but it gets quite good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
The content from BBC4 in general.
Mainly the wide array of in-depth documentaries presented by experts.
Yes, there've been loads of TOTP reruns since their budget was slashed and there may be some overlap with Sky Arts in some areas, but no channel comes close.
Notable excellent non-docs include Screenwipe, Only Connect, Detectorists (my favourite sitcom from the last ten years), The Thick of It.
I'd pay my licence fee just for BBC4, Radio 4 and BBC News.
For a British flavour, try:
People Just Do Nothing, two pirate radio DJs and crew trying to hack it https://imdb.com/title/tt3762198/
Detectorists, two small town “smartest guys in the room” try to rediscover their friendship through their shared love of metal detector operation https://imdb.com/title/tt4082744/
And for a Japanese kick:
FLCL, a coming of age story about nothing, but writ LARGE https://imdb.com/title/tt0279077/
Steins;Gate, hard to generalize and hard not to spoil anything but it feels like if Back to the Future were made as a modern anime https://imdb.com/title/tt1910272/
Now that you're familiar with the term...check out one of the better British television series in the last decade or so (my opinion = worth the paper this is not written on) which is based on a group of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detectorists
Detectorists.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4082744/