Specific extra special television moments that will stay with you forever

It’s great. Even without my 80s bias I think it’s legit better than the first run. And it provides answers. 

Ive never actually seen Ashes to Ashes, maybe I should watch it

The real T.V. moment that really changed me happened when I was about 6 or 7.

I'd seen something the previous evening on the avengers and thought I'd learned something useful. I can't remember exactly what it was unfortunately, but that does not matter. What mattered to me profoundly at the time was that when I applied it at school the following day, it failed so spectacularly, that I learned instantly that T.V. information is not to be trusted, and the device is for mindless entertainment only and not fro learning about life, unless it's clearly presented as such.

Later I learned that even that information is not guaranteed to be reliable.

As I followed the media reporting on that particular day, I got an overwhelming feeling of being "sold" something. And something being "not quite right with this picture"... 

Some time later a site called "spot the boeing" appeared where they showed us the single fleeting glance that we got of the facade of the pentagon, before it got swiftly pulled down. Then I remembered what I'd half noticed at the time, and really started to look at the evidence, until a formal organisation appeared called "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth" and they did a MUCH better job that I ever could...

Those are huge moments, no wonder they’re indelibly etched. I was just recently pondering on how every famous person at some point signs a final autograph, but the owner of that autograph is unlikely to know that theirs was the very last. Whoever got that signature in the Mark Chapman photo must be the only exception. 

There are a couple of things that have remained lodged in my memory, which both relate to 'the news'. The first was a few days before my 6th birthday when I guess I must have been kept off school due to being unwell. My mother was in bed, and I'd gone downstairs and switched the TV on. There was a news reporter stating that John Lennon had been assassinated, which left me feeling shocked and scared. I remember running out of the living room and up the stairs to my mother's bedroom to tell her (she was a Beatles fan). 

My second recollection dates back to 2001. My TV was on, but with the sound muted because a friend had phoned me. As she was busy telling me that she thought she was losing the plot (she was pregnant and had become more forgetful than usual), I just happened to glance at the TV. Initially, I thought what was being broadcast on my TV was a film, and then realised it was the news and that something catastrophic had happened. When my friend then heard me letting out shocked gasps, she assumed it was in response to what she had been telling me. The date was 9th September 2001.

The only non-news thing that springs to mind is THAT scene from the film 'Basic Instinct'. 

That was great. I must admit I much preferred Ashes to Ashes - as an 80s guy at heart. That first ‘silence and the stars’ moment in that was really something- eerie stuff. 

Oh wow that’s a thing you don’t forget for sure!

I was allowed to stay up late as my dad often played the drums at night, he was a brilliant drummer and couldn’t read music, just played by ear. I was half asleep on the settee,  Reginald Bosanquet  did a “ News Flash” on ITV, reports are coming in that Elvis Presley has died.

TV moments = not so much.

Film moments - quite a few.....salsa hyek in Dusk till Dawn immediately springs to attention !

As it went flash, whumph, tinkle tinkle, I distinctly remember belatedly wondering about that myself, & hoping that there was no one down there...

I wasn't the sharpest or most caring of 22 year olds...

The moment at the end of Life on Mars where Sam Tyler looks down at his hand and realises he can't feel anything and he remembers Nelson's words "You're alive when you can feel" and he decides to go back to 1973 and Bowie is playing in the background. Wow. Also the moment at the beginning of Life on Mars where he wakes up in 1973 for the first time to the sound of the same song. 
I have always identified with that show, I think it's something about being lost in a strange world which I relate to. Nelson the barman has given me some of the quotes I have always lived by. As well as the one I just mentioned there is also

"you're where you are and you've got to make the best of it" I have carried that through life a bit 

I got a download of the program (from archive.org I think) and plan to watch it again along with a documentary they made about it - I'm sure it won't have aged well but it certainly made an impression on me at the time.

That scared me as well, I tuned in half way through. It was the bit where they worked out that the live feed was actually on a five minute dalay and when they cut to the real feed some horribvle stuff was going on. I was home alone, and massively freaked out. 1992 I think?

Mine goes back a long way - to the late 1980s with a program called Ghostwatch.

I just saw the title in the TV guide and with no idea what it was about I decided to give it a watch - it started out about a TV documentary with a live audience where they were investigating the haunting and possession of a family with young childred.

The first half was all about the typical intro and general level of what you would expect with some stuff being easily debunked, but then it got a bit more difficult to explain with the daughter in the family speaking in a deep, very loud voice that seemed convincing, and they then found more stuff from their researchers about a prevous occupant of the house.

Nothing was clear cut and you could laugh off most of the stuff as it was just the kids making it up, just about and they decided to go switch back to the studio as a lot of the on-site equipment was going faulty.

On going back to the studio they were sitting around chatting about how it could all just be made up when the lights started blowing in the overhead rigs and they started swaying about and the loud voice from the little girl was coming from overhead - then it suddenly cut off - it felt creepy as hell and sa it was all pre-internet there was no way to know what had happened.

It turned out it was all just a drama (like the original War of The Worlds radio program) and caught loads of viewers like me unawares as missed the intro saying it was a dramatisation.

It left me shaken at the time.

The Intro to Tales of The Unexpected. The scene with the mask lighting up haunts me to this day as does the theme music.

Wow. I hope you checked nobody was down there first!

Another one (these will be very random and sporadic):

Moondial: Given the news by her gran that her mother's been in an horrific road crash, Minty starts laughing hysterically. Chaotic forces spilling out when given the worst news. Watching as a child, it was startling and strange, but I understood. Shock first. Tears come later.

The day we threw my old valve set off the top of a multistorey car park in the dark.

Made a quite a decent flash on touchdown which I didn't expect...