What was the last TV show you watched?

[Touchofevil]

The Walking Dead, episode three.
The Exorcist, episode seven.

 

[MisterCairo]

The last two episodes of Penny Dreadful.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Hunting Hitler

 

[Stearmen]

Hunting Hitler

Did they find him?

 

[Touchofevil]

The last two episodes of Penny Dreadful.

I am sorry. We at the House of ToE understand your pain. It will be difficult to watch anything for a while, but at some point I hear, it will get better.

 

[Touchofevil]

UFC 205 prelims
Khabib is a monster.

 

[Fading Fast]

The first three episodes of "The Durrells in Corfu." Set in 1935, the story follows the lives of a middle-class English family of four siblings headed by a widow who is struggling financially so they up and move to Corfu to both save money and re-energize their lives.

Style-wise this is another home run for Masterpiece as the clothes, cars, houses, scenery, etc. are all wonderful and, undoubtably, prettier than they probably ever were - but who cares, no one is watching this to advance his or her detailed understanding of history, he or she is watching it to be entertained.

On that front, the story is a okay, maybe better than okay, as this slightly off British family - who communicates by bursts of yelling and anger interrupted by periods of silence and occasional calm reflection and apologies and even kindness to each other - is engaging enough as they try to adapt to the slightly off island of Corfu. With kids of various ages and gender and a mother only somewhat in control, each kid finds a way to get into trouble while the mother herself tries to keep it all together as she also takes modest steps to establish a social and romantic life for herself on the island.

Right now, three episodes in, watching these off-beat Brits try to survive on this quirky island is enjoyable. To keep the viewer engaged - and not become a wash-rinse-repeat series - will require more character development and stories with multi-episode arcs. So far, the sets are pretty enough and the characters show enough promise that I'm staying with it, but would not be surprised if it fails to grow from here.

 

[Worf]

Puddin's watching "The Crown" all about the life and times of the reigning Queen of England.

I'm still watching "The Outer Limits" and little else.

Worf

 

[Touchofevil]

Some NFL off-and-on throughout the day.

 

[Fading Fast]

Some NFL off-and-on throughout the day.

Just about to post about how tortuous it is to watch Jet football, but they just mounted a 99 yard TD drive. That said, this being the Jets, they did miss the extra point just to make it unsatisfying.

 

[Touchofevil]

Just about to post about how tortuous it is to watch Jet football, but they just mounted a 99 yard TD drive. That said, this being the Jets, they did miss the extra point just to make unsatisfying.

It is always tortuous no matter what team/athlete or sport I am watching. It does not matter how great the lead or how dominant the fighter may be. Yet, still I watch.

 

[MisterCairo]

Tonight's The Walking Dead.

Does anybody else want Rick to die?

 

[Fading Fast]

It is always tortuous no matter what team/athlete or sport I am watching. It does not matter how great the lead or how dominant the fighter may be. Yet, still I watch.

There's a lot to what you say and maybe explains my diminished enjoyment of and time spent watching sports as I've gotten older. Many years ago, I made a commitment to myself to get out and keep out toxic, angry, negative-energy people in my life. Possibly the best decision I ever made as my life is truly better and happier for it.

As to sports, my passions waned as free agency, venal owners and teams moving towns all turned me off and made me feel foolish for being devoted to these teams that clearly did not care about the fans. While I didn't ban them like toxic people, now I watch with much less emotion and I watch less often as it all just means less to me. That said, on any given day, I can still get sucked in and let the entire experience become exasperating - which is a silly thing to let happen.

A little while after the Jets missed the extra point attempt yesterday, my girlfriend asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her. I thought about it for a few seconds and said yes as I knew the game was aggravating me, but once I stopped watching, I'd forget about it. We ended up enjoying our afternoon and, in the evening, when I looked at the scores, I saw that the Jets had lost 9 to 6, meaning they never scored again and lost in another pathetic effort - glad I missed that.

 

[Doctor Strange]

The season - and possibly series - finale of Masters of Sex. Frankly, I hope it gets canceled.

This show started off strong, but has lost its way more each season. The actors and production aspects are always excellent, but the writing really lets them down. It's become less and less about Masters and Johnson's groundbreaking work, and far too much just another fifties/sixties-set soap opera... and not a good one. For example, the handling of Bill's ex-wife Libby (the extremely watchable Caitlin FitzGerald) this season became a parade of sixties Forrest Gump-ery: Finally freed from her homemaker prison, she has affairs, gets her consciousness raised in a women's group, accidentally attends Woodstock, and in the finale packs the kids into her psychedelic VW bus and sets sail for California. Ugh! (One of the recaps I just read pointed out that she "went from being an interesting character to a coffee table book about the sixties".)

When the show balanced Masters and Johnson's research, discoveries, and development of successful treatments of sexual dysfunctions with the soap suds, it was far more interesting. Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan are tremendous leads, always fascinating to watch, and somehow still sympathetic even when they do terrible things. And there has been some tremendous work by guest stars in moving roles (especially Beau Bridges and Allison Janney as a long-married couple who unravel because he's closeted and she's never had an orgasm; also Julianne Nicholson as a woman doctor fighting to have her work recognized while she's dying of cancer)... but the show has made a terrible mess of all the stories relating to M&J's children. Every kid in both families has been badly served, despite their growing up in the decidedly odd manner of having their parents as sex doctors in those years, which should provide loads of both drama and comedy.

While there's still story material - it's only 1969, M&J have plenty of history ahead of them - I am finding it awfully hard to care anymore...

 

[Fading Fast]

"Good Behavior" the new TV series staring Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary from "Downton Abbey -" you know, Worf's favorite character ).
Watched the pilot yesterday (spoiler alert) - hmm, a bit of a mess. She's an ex-con-on-parole, trying-to-recover junkie and alcoholic and she looks a heck of a lot better than pretty much anyone in the world whose resume reads that way.

But, it's TV, so you go with the stunning porcelain-skinned, luscious-haired, body-you-can-bounce-a-quarter-off-of junkie / convict / alcoholic ('cause none of those things are detrimental to one's looks) and see if the story works. Even then, the producers / writers can't seem to figure out what they want to do as Michelle's character supposedly really wants to go straight, but right away, she's working a scam ripping-off hotel rooms.

However, when she stumbles into a murder-for-hire situation, she tries to prevent it - so, I guess, stealing is kinda okay but you should draw the line at murder. In that muddled attempt at decency - the victim is killed in the end - she entangles herself with the hit man, steals his fee and uses some of it to buy drugs (and teaches the rest of us how to turn an Edison bulb into a crack pipe - who says TV isn't educational?).

The not-happy-with-her hit man tracks her down, doesn't kill her, but instead makes her work for him because he now "owns her." I know diddly about the real criminal world, but I'm betting she's dead in real life and not turning her stupid pilfering from a professional killer into a career opportunity.

As if this story isn't enough of a mess, throw in a ten-year-old son that she lost custody of owing to her drug habit / criminal record, but loves passionately (of course, the symbolism of innocence and the one-clean-thing-in-her-life cliche' wasn't missed by the writers), that her embittered mother won't let her near and you have almost the entire picture.

An interesting, if brief, introduction of her parole officer, "Christian" (that's no day-at-the-beach job) could either become the backbone of the story or another cliche' of a good-hearted but flawed (lecherous) man. Things either get better fast, or Ms. Dockery will be hoping they plan on doing a "Return to Downton Abbey" series soon.

 

[belfastboy]

Just started to watch "River" a Brit detective series featuring Stelan Skarsgard (sp?). It is just a 1 season 6 episode series which is a shame as based on the first two episodes it is brilliant TV...well written and Skarsgard is great.

 

[Touchofevil]

There's a lot to what you say and maybe explains my diminished enjoyment of and time spent watching sports as I've gotten older. Many years ago, I made a commitment to myself to get out and keep out toxic, angry, negative-energy people in my life. Possibly the best decision I ever made as my life is truly better and happier for it.

As to sports, my passions waned as free agency, venal owners and teams moving towns all turned me off and made me feel foolish for being devoted to these teams that clearly did not care about the fans. While I didn't ban them like toxic people, now I watch with much less emotion and I watch less often as it all just means less to me. That said, on any given day, I can still get sucked in and let the entire experience become exasperating - which is a silly thing to let happen.

A little while after the Jets missed the extra point attempt yesterday, my girlfriend asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her. I thought about it for a few seconds and said yes as I knew the game was aggravating me, but once I stopped watching, I'd forget about it. We ended up enjoying our afternoon and, in the evening, when I looked at the scores, I saw that the Jets had lost 9 to 6, meaning they never scored again and lost in another pathetic effort - glad I missed that.

That is how I watch sports nowadays; if it gets to where the enjoyment isn't there, then I stop watching. Although I do find myself periodically checking in whether it be online or the television. The losses don't bother me like they used to as I now seem to lock that pain away.

 

[Stearmen]

Can't believe it, but I'm hooked on a Disney show! Periodically, I do a little channel surfing, to see if there are any new channels I might like. I suddenly see this mechanoid, battling some monster, the show is called Mech-X4, not bad. Will have to give it a couple of more watches to fully judge it!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Thanks for the review of "Good Behavior", Fading Fast. I have been considering watching the broadcast premiere tonight, but this sounds all too similar to why I gave up on "Conviction" after two episodes despite Hayley Atwell's performance (*). I'd love to see Michelle Dockery do something else as interesting as Mary Crawley... but this sounds like a misfire. (And like Conviction, it will quickly disappear after one season.)

(* Also playing a trainwreck!)

 

[Fading Fast]

Can't believe it, but I'm hooked on a Disney show! Periodically, I do a little channel surfing, to see if there are any new channels I might like. I suddenly see this mechanoid, battling some monster, the show is called Mech-X4, not bad. Will have to give it a couple of more watches to fully judge it!

If we're fessing up to embarrassing shows we watch on TV, then I'll have to come clean and admit to being a fan of "Red Oakes," a not-good Amazon Prime show that's set in the 1980s in a country club in NJ and follows the lives of some of the kids, employees and parents. They do a good job of capturing the cheese of the '80s and the general awkwardness that that generation's teenagers had to face.

And darn it, I'm engaged with these silly characters: the lead character, an 18 year old boy struggling to get into NYU (and live in NYC), the somewhat spoiled, but not fully, Club President's daughter, the stoner parking attendant and his genuinely nice and cute not girlfriend / girlfriend. Darn it, I even like the little fat tennis pro and his crazy get-rich-quick schemes.

There, happy, I admit it - I like this stupid show.