What was the last TV show you watched?

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Downton Abbey. I think this has been a really good season, and this episode was the best yet. I find Tom and Mary's relationship to be endearing and great, but I definitely don't see anything romantic growing out of it. Mary's stiff, but she also wants it all, including romance and love. The writing was really, really good. The Dowager Countess is such a fantastic, funny character and so well acted.

 

[MisterCairo]

Last night I finished off the last two remaining episodes of Gotham.

As good as we found last season, this one so far has been nothing short of amazing!

 

[MisterCairo]

Taking a break from household chores (six months of backlog!), I watched an episode of The Brink. After a mis-fire storyline of sorts (the English eccentric antique folks if you watch the show) it has returned to its origins as the season nears an end!

 

[DNO]

Murdoch Mysteries lost my interest last night so I ended up watching the new episode of X-Files. It was a throwback to one of their old monster stand-alone episodes and it was a pretty humorous take on the theme. I enjoyed it. Regardless, I doubt it will make me a regular viewer of the new X-Files.

 

[Stearmen]

American Experience: The Mine Wars. Hard to believe how bad West Virgina miners were treated. You really did owe your soul to the company store! The mine owners thugs could come in and search your home any time, and evict you for no reason. If that wasn't bad enough, if you were even suspected of being a union man, they would come into your house and murder you in front of your family. Non were ever convicted, since the owners controlled all of the states legislatures and the Governors!

 

[Fading Fast]

Oh, I'll agree about Mary (except "evil" and "villainous" might be a little over the top!). But I have a sneaking suspicion that Fellowes may bend things that way, whether or not it makes sense for the characters as previously portrayed.

Yes, they did foreshadow the "surprise." But the actual event was indeed shockingly graphic.

The arc of Mary's character has been a slow, long, nuanced one from spoiled, selfish, cold, arrogant, entitled, rich girl looking to manipulate the world to her will and damn anyone that got in her way to someone who has become aware of others, their feelings, objective measures of right and wrong and decency to others. She is aware, but not fully committed to these new-to-her values, but they trouble her as she feels, at some level, that these are superior values to her old ones.

She learned these from Sybil's relationship with Tom, from her changed attitude toward Matthew, from the War, from her Grandmother's overbearingness, and from others. In a way, "Downtown Abbey" has been the story of Mary maturing, but she's got plenty of ground to still cover. Mary gave Mr Mason the farm tenancy not because it was in her or Downton's best interest, but because it was the right thing to do.

 

[Benzadmiral]

If any of you have MeTV ("Memorable Entertainment" Television), this week at 11:30 pm Central they are running episodes of the old Banacek series from the '70s -- one of the NBC Mystery Movie group that also featured McCloud and Columbo. George Peppard's Banacek is a Boston insurance investigator, and in each 90-minute story he runs across an impossible theft or disappearance. A football player on national TV vanishes from the middle of a pileup on the field; an experimental and valuable car vanishes from the middle of a train that never stopped; and more.

This was the John Dickson Carr "locked room" technique brought to TV, never an easy thing to write, but done superbly, as I recall.

 

[AmateisGal]

Agent Carter. I enjoyed seeing some of Peggy's past.

 

[AmateisGal]

The arc of Mary's character has been a slow, long, nuanced one from spoiled, selfish, cold, arrogant, entitled, rich girl looking to manipulate the world to her will and damn anyone that got in her way to someone who has become aware of others, their feelings, objective measures of right and wrong and decency to others. She is aware, but not fully committed to these new-to-her values, but they trouble her as she feels, at some level, that these are superior values to her old ones.

She learned these from Sybil's relationship with Tom, from her changed attitude toward Matthew, from the War, from her Grandmother's overbearingness, and from others. In a way, "Downtown Abbey" has been the story of Mary maturing, but she's got plenty of ground to still cover. Mary gave Mr Mason the farm tenancy not because it was in her or Downton's best interest, but because it was the right thing to do.

Excellent summation of Mary's character.

 

[rkwilker]

American Horror Story...I am hooked

 

[Worf]

American Horror Story...I am hooked

The first 3 seasons were amazing!

Worf

 

[Worf]

Oh, I'll agree about Mary (except "evil" and "villainous" might be a little over the top!). But I have a sneaking suspicion that Fellowes may bend things that way, whether or not it makes sense for the characters as previously portrayed.

Yes, they did foreshadow the "surprise." But the actual event was indeed shockingly graphic.

Mary spent 2 plus seasons torturing her little sister. It was like watching some punk kids pulling wings off flies or tormenting small animals. She took every opportunity to belittle Edith and reveled in every petty victory! Mary was "evil" in the truest sense of the word. At every setback or disaster in Edith's poor miserable life there was Mary, the pretty one, desired one, the fashionable one, to drive the knife in to the hilt.... then laugh as she twisted it! She could renounce her ways, join the little sisters of the poor and I'd STILL not believe her. Now she knows about Marigold. She can't stop herself, you KNOW what she's going to do. I hope Edith slaps the dog piss outn' her when she does what she was born and raised to do.... which is evil!

Worf

 

[MisterCairo]

The final two episodes of The Brink. For me the show came back from the brink it was heading towards with the wack-a-doodle English couple, and really hit it out of the park at the end!

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

American Experience: The Mine Wars. Hard to believe how bad West Virgina miners were treated. You really did owe your soul to the company store! The mine owners thugs could come in and search your home any time, and evict you for no reason. If that wasn't bad enough, if you were even suspected of being a union man, they would come into your house and murder you in front of your family. Non were ever convicted, since the owners controlled all of the states legislatures and the Governors!

It was sickening. As extreme as it was, throughout the program, I kept thinking that if we had no regulation today, and if our culture continues down this path, we'll end up at a place not all that dissimilar to that. There might not be shootouts and script, but the same level of control and power. Too many people believe unions have no place in the modern landscape, and I'll bet everything I own and will ever own that if you gave corporations no rules, they'd play every bit as dirty as those mine owners.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Mary isn't the same Mary of those first two seasons. Yes, she has flashbacks to that person and can be cold and calculated, but when given the space and time, it's a new filter in which she processes the world. Some would say it is her nature, and she cannot change. I think Fellowes has written her as she has indeed changed. It doesn't mean she's always kind or always good. Who is? She might be the most human and believable character on the show. When she loses focus, she falls back into old ways. Again, who doesn't? We can go back to Tom as an example. They're best friends now. When she calls him her brother, I believe she genuinely means it. Not only that, on a selfish level, she's proud of herself for that new perspective. She never disparages how Matthew changed her. She's thankful for it. In that thankfulness, she's more self-aware, so she is able to right herself when she recognizes she's falling back into her old ways. Or if Tom reminds her, she accepts the criticize and rights herself. She's a changed person, but that is not a perfect person. And c'mon, they aren't spoiled teenagers and twenty-somethings anymore. They have some life under their belts. Wiser and more humble, because life'll do that to ya.

 

[Stearmen]

The Curse Of Oak Island, season finale. Spoiler alert, nothing!

 

[Fading Fast]

Mary spent 2 plus seasons torturing her little sister. It was like watching some punk kids pulling wings off flies or tormenting small animals. She took every opportunity to belittle Edith and reveled in every petty victory! Mary was "evil" in the truest sense of the word. At every setback or disaster in Edith's poor miserable life there was Mary, the pretty one, desired one, the fashionable one, to drive the knife in to the hilt.... then laugh as she twisted it! She could renounce her ways, join the little sisters of the poor and I'd STILL not believe her. Now she knows about Marigold. She can't stop herself, you KNOW what she's going to do. I hope Edith slaps the dog piss outn' her when she does what she was born and raised to do.... which is evil!

Worf

Let's not forget, Edith fired off one massive howitzer blast when she notified the Turkish Embassy of Mary's involvement with Mr. Pamuk which had the potential to destroy Mary's reputation and future - that was a big deal in those days and in that society. Maybe that was deserved for the constant beatdown she took from Mary, but that was a major escalation in the scope of battle. My point, Edith took part in the war, she wasn't just a civilian huddling in a bomb shelter.

 

[AmateisGal]

Mary isn't the same Mary of those first two seasons. Yes, she has flashbacks to that person and can be cold and calculated, but when given the space and time, it's a new filter in which she processes the world. Some would say it is her nature, and she cannot change. I think Fellowes has written her as she has indeed changed. It doesn't mean she's always kind or always good. Who is? She might be the most human and believable character on the show. When she loses focus, she falls back into old ways. Again, who doesn't? We can go back to Tom as an example. They're best friends now. When she calls him her brother, I believe she genuinely means it. Not only that, on a selfish level, she's proud of herself for that new perspective. She never disparages how Matthew changed her. She's thankful for it. In that thankfulness, she's more self-aware, so she is able to right herself when she recognizes she's falling back into her old ways. Or if Tom reminds her, she accepts the criticize and rights herself. She's a changed person, but that is not a perfect person. And c'mon, they aren't spoiled teenagers and twenty-somethings anymore. They have some life under their belts. Wiser and more humble, because life'll do that to ya.

^^^^THIS.

Also, I would definitely dispute the definition of "evil" being bandied about here. We all know what true evil looks like - Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Himmler - and using "evil" to describe Mary is just flat wrong, IMO.

 

[AmateisGal]

Supernatural. A truly meh episode. It was disappointing on a lot of levels.

 

[belfastboy]

I will finish season two of Deadwood. ..a bit late to the dance but after an ambivalent start got hooked on the characters. ..even Swerengen. ..and will be very sad when it is over.