Hey everyone, it’s the first week of January 2025 and I’m back doing another vlog already.

Who’d have thought it?

Before I start, it is very very windy outside, hopefully you can’t hear it but we’ll do the best we can.

It even snowed last night as well, which I was not expecting.

It had been forecast for a while that the UK was going to get a good covering of snow and where I live down south, we don’t normally get very much to be fair.

So I was fairly confident it wasn’t going to happen but then it arrived about 9pm last night, probably snowed for about two hours and then just started to rain so it’s all just disappeared.

Now it’s just wet, windy and horrible, which is standard weather in the UK, certainly at this time of year, if not the majority of the year.

I’m joking, it is sunny sometimes.

Anyway let’s get stuck in with the reason I’m here.

In my last vlog a few days ago, I listed out all the stuff I’d watched on StevieTV in 2024.

I didn’t pick out any highlights like I did for 2023, so I thought I’d do the same again for 2024 and pick up my favourite shows.

I think for 2023 I did my top 3, I can’t quite do top 3 for 2024, so I thought I’d do my top 4.

And to be fair, one of them you’ve just got to bear with me and just go with it because it’s not my normal thing I’d watch, but I was convinced to watch it so I thought I’d put it in.

Let’s start with something that was absolutely up my street.

For quite a while now, there’s been a number of video games that have been turned into TV series.

Things like Resident Evil, The Last of Us, and now for 2024 we had Fallout.

Fallout has been a video game for a long long time.

There’s been many many versions, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Fallout New Vegas, to name but a few.

It’s a really popular game, it’s not my favourite game to be fair because it’s very open world.

There’s lots of stuff to do, you can do it in any order, you can go wherever you want, do whatever quest you want to.

And me personally, I find open world games a little bit overwhelming, like where do I go and what do I do next?

I don’t often play them, but when I do, I don’t play them for too long.

But hey, that’s just me.

That being said, the Fallout series that was on in 2024 was incredible.

It was really close to the game, to see all the references, the costumes, and you knew what the storyline was going to be.

It followed very very closely to the overall theme of the game.

Fallout is a must watch if you like that sort of thing.

If you don’t like video games that have been turned into TV shows, then not for you at all.

But if you did like The Last of Us, which was incredible, then absolutely, I think you’d enjoy Fallout as well.

We’re going to step away from video games for the next one, but this one has a lot of history as well.

It was originally a book, there was a film back in I believe 1973, and it’s now been remade as a brand new TV show.

I’m talking about The Day of the Jackal, which is about a trained assassin.

In the original film, he has one single target which consumes the length of the film, but for a series that was over 10 episodes, it didn’t make sense for him to have one target.

The premise is, he’s an assassin that’s available for hire, and he has various different targets as part of his story.

I haven’t read the book, and I’ve seen bits of the film, but I really really enjoyed it.

It was a bit James Bond-y, it had a good backstory as well.

They released it 5 episodes to start with, which I binged very quickly, and then they did it week by week.

I found myself wanting the next episode to be here, which doesn’t normally happen to be fair.

Normally I can give or take TV stuff, and wait and watch it in one go, but for this I was really gripped and really wanted to see what the next episode was going to bring.

There is going to be a season 2 as well, although currently there’s no release date, so I’m not sure when that’s going to be.

My third show, which was going to be my last show, because this I think is my favourite show of this year, or my favourite episode of this show for 2024, I was going to leave it till last, but as I said at the start, there’s a curveball for my last one, which means this one has to be my penultimate one.

This show’s been around for about 17 years, and it’s become a staple of British television.

People love it, and it really really relates well to British life.

Of course, I’m talking about Gavin and Stacey.

If you haven’t heard of Gavin and Stacey, I suggest you go and Google it right now, and catch up on the last 17 years.

But don’t worry, it hasn’t been running for 17 years, there’s been a few series, some Christmas specials, there’s just been big gaps in between.

The last time we saw Gavin and Stacey was Christmas Day 2019, it’s been 5 years since we last saw them, and it was left on a cliffhanger.

No one knew at the time whether or not there was going to be any further episodes.

As far as I’m aware, there wasn’t any planned after the episode in 2019, I think it became very obvious very quickly that they couldn’t leave it where they left it, and there was outcry and there was demand for another episode.

So 5 years later, again Christmas Day, we got treated to another Christmas special of Gavin and Stacey, and it was absolutely perfect.

I’ve loved Gavin and Stacey all along, it’s been a brilliant TV show, very very funny and very very relatable.

Getting another episode was amazing, and this episode does a great job of tying up all the loose ends and giving us the finish that we all wanted.

But of course, even though all of that happened, we can’t let it go.

From what I’ve read it received the most watches for a British TV show in over a decade.

I think it’s now standing at 19 million views of this episode, which is incredible.

And obviously people want more.

Is it going to happen?

I don’t know.

Do I want it to happen?

I don’t know either.

I’ve thought about this, and there is part of me that does want more.

But then the more you get, there’s more of a chance that it’s going to not be the same, or it’s not going to be as good, or you’re going to be disappointed.

Do I think we should leave it on a high?

Absolutely.

Is there still part of me that does want more?

Absolutely.

Let’s see where it goes.

It could be another 5, 6, 10 years before we get any more.

Or we might not.

So those are my ultimate top 3.

Fallout, The Day of the Jackal, and the Christmas episode of Gavin and Stacey.

Absolutely recommend watching all of those if you can.

Now the one that you need to bear with me on.

I work in an office, and there’s always talk going on about what people are watching on TV, what are they watching on Netflix, are they watching Married at First Sight, are they watching Love Island, etc.

Some of it I’ll watch, as you know, but some of it I won’t.

Occasionally I hear something that would never ever be out my street, but everyone’s talking about it, so I get interested.

And I’m like, hmm, should I watch that, I want to be part of the conversation to be able to give my point of view, my opinion.

That happened for me with Love Island, I’ve watched Love Island once, never again, but I did it for the experience.

I’ve watched Married at First Sight two or three times now, and I’m actually still hooked on that, so I apologise.

For 2024, there was another show that many, many people were talking about, and I hadn’t seen it.

That show was about the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, who are basically part of the Dallas Cowboys NFL team.

They attend the matches to help promote the team and entertain the crowd.

But who knew that it was such a process to become a member of the Dallas Cowboys.

And actually, it was quite interesting, the amount of work they put in, how dedicated they are, and the fact they get paid nothing or very little money to actually do it.

So to be that dedicated to it is quite incredible, to be fair.

I’ll admit that I did get hooked into that, but then I could be part of the conversation in the office.

Sometimes you have to do these things right.

I appreciate it’s a total curveball from the kind of TV that I would normally watch.

I honestly think if you’ve got a few hours spare and you’ve got Netflix, give it a watch.

I think you’ll be a little bit surprised.

What I didn’t realise though until recently, when I was looking through the channels, there was a Dallas Cowboys show on MTV, and to my shock, it was I think series 10, which means the Netflix show wasn’t a one-off.

It was just an opportunity for them to jump on the bandwagon and produce their own show about the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

I had no idea it had been a thing for such a long time, and to be fair, I’m not a fan of NFL football either, so I never really realised that it was a thing anyway.

That’s my curveball.

That’s my fourth recommendation of what to watch if you’ve got some spare time.

But as you saw from the full list I published in the last blog, there’s lots and lots of great stuff out there to watch, and just give stuff a try.

If you’re not sure, move on, but you never know.

There are some amazing shows out there that may grab your attention, and you’ll really, really enjoy them.

So that’s my Stevie TV review of 2024.

It was my lowest viewing that I’ve done by probably about 20, 30 hours compared to previous years.

I genuinely don’t know how this year’s going to pan out.

I would imagine it’s going to be similar.

I just don’t have as much time these days to watch TV.

If anyone’s got any recommendations of good TV shows that you’ve watched that you recommend, please reach out to me and let me know, and I will add them to my list.

I think that’s all for now.

I will be back soon.