What was the last TV show you watched?

[MisterCairo]

A couple of episodes of The Last Kingdom on Netflix.

I've just finished reading (in two days) Cornwell's latest book in the series. I've been reading them since 2007. I wondered if they'd ever do Uhtred on television, and thought the first series was brilliant.

 

[MisterCairo]

More Ripper Street, and now almost done series three!

 

[Touchofevil]

I've just finished reading (in two days) Cornwell's latest book in the series. I've been reading them since 2007. I wondered if they'd ever do Uhtred on television, and thought the first series was brilliant.

I had no idea that it was a series of books before a show. Not a bad show especially considering it was the first two episodes. I am not real stoked on Uhtred being such a pretty boy, but figure I can overlook it.

 

[Touchofevil]

Some NFL off-and-on throughout the day.

 

[AmateisGal]

Episode 2 of Season Four of Sherlock.

Wow. That was an episode I could *not* look away from. So, so many good things.

 

[Stearmen]

Fantomworks. They built a replica 1953 Timossi-Ferrari Hydroplane race boat! Wow, beautiful, 431 days to build, so the less then twenty minutes on screen time dose not do it justice!

 

[Fading Fast]

Some NFL off-and-on throughout the day.

As did I (most of the Pittsburg game / some of the Packard one) and something I've noticed all year is the use of ridiculous statistics since computing power is so deep and cheap.

I didn't write this stuff down, so I'm sure I'm not accurate, but the point is the same. Why are we being told things like, the last time X team scored two field goals in the first quarter of a playoff game was in '96 and they went on to win / lose by blah, blah, blah.

That was twenty years ago - so none of the players (or, probably) coaches are the same. The game, its rules, its strategies have all changed.

Even if none of that was true, so what - a team scored two field goals in one quarter, or ran for X five time in a row in some other game - it could not be more meaningless.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Episode 2 of Season Four of Sherlock.

Wow. That was an episode I could *not* look away from. So, so many good things.

Totally agree! This was the best episode of Sherlock in a couple of years.

 

[Fading Fast]

Season finale of "The Crown."

Wonderfully done series - glad it's been renewed.

The Duke of Windsor's extemporaneous telephone speech to Elizabeth about the intense moral push and pull of trying to be both spouse/sibling/parent and "The Queen" (or "The King") was incredibly well written and articulated. Far beyond anything the Duke of Windsor could ever have thought or said so eloquently in real life based on everything I've read about his intelligence level.

Episode 7, Season 2 "Man in the High Castle"

Having John Smith deliver the eulogy at the funeral of the doctor he killed could have been too much - a coincidence too far for believability - if it wasn't handled as well as it was by the writers so that it felt like it could have happened that way. Of course, Sewell delivered it with the exact right amount of understated passion and subtly visible emotional turmoil that it required.

Childan, the slightly sleazy, very pompous, on-the-edge-of-creepy antique dealer in the Japanese Zone is doing an outstanding job. Seeing him warm up to Ed and become a bit more human was refreshing in this episode.

 

[MisterCairo]

I had no idea that it was a series of books before a show. Not a bad show especially considering it was the first two episodes. I am not real stoked on Uhtred being such a pretty boy, but figure I can overlook it.

The character in the book is a ladies' man, and I thought the actor chosen was good for my "mind picture" of Uhtred. I was just kind of disappointed to find out the actor is German (I shouldn't be, as Uhtred is of course a Saxon!).

Check out the author's site on this series:

http://www.bernardcornwell.net/series/the-last-kingdom-series/

Cornwell is of course the author of the Sharpe series of books that made Sean Bean a star in the Sharpe's Rifles films (named after one of the books).

He did three books in a series called the Starbuck Chronicles, about a northerner who joins the Confederate Army during the Civil War. That is a series that demands further novels, and in any case would make a great series, particularly as the stories have not "ended" the character's adventures.

 

[MisterCairo]

I finished the last two episodes of series three of Ripper Street - man what an awesome show!

Looking forward to the next two series, which I gather, sadly, are the last. Not bad for a show originally cancelled after series two, then brought back after a protest and petition!

 

[Formeruser012523]

Episode 2 of Season Four of Sherlock.

Wow. That was an episode I could *not* look away from. So, so many good things.

Totally agree! This was the best episode of Sherlock in a couple of years.

Not sure we're watching the same show. LOL! All I felt while watching AND afterward was UGH, if that's an emotion.

 

[DNO]

Not sure we're watching the same show. LOL! All I felt while watching AND afterward was UGH, if that's an emotion.

Have to admit I basically had the same reaction. Almost turned it off half-way through. They introduced an interesting new element at the end (being obscure for the sake of those who have not seen it) but frankly I was more intrigued with the idea of the reappearance of Irene Adler... 'the woman'. This, unfortunately, is not likely. I felt that the writers really mishandled the villain in this episode...I never really developed an idea of what he was up to and I never really developed a particular distaste for him. He was repellant, yes, but didn't come across as particularly evil. He was a cartoon character. Also getting pretty fatigued with the cinematography as well.

Here's hoping for better things from the third episode!

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Isn't that what on-demand does, really? I don't brlieve traditional television will be relevant or last much beyond 2030.

In my dream channel situation, it's a little less active. Meaning, running into programs in progress. Not choosing which episodes are airing at any given moment. Like putting your music library on shuffle. On Demand is great, but then I have to scan libraries with their cumbersome system, making decisions etc. My scenario is somewhere in-between old TV and On Demand and sculpting your own feed.

 

[Stearmen]

The Librarians And the Eternal Question. It seems like they are running a few different possibilities of what the future shows should be. Noah as the lead and dominant caricature, or two different plots running concurrently, with Noah in one and the others in there own.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm most of the way through Luke Cage. It's in the same league as Jessica Jones and Daredevil - with a quite different look and feel - but it shares the familiar Netflix show problem of feeling dragged out. As with the others, I feel like this story would work better if it had been tightened into ten episodes instead of thirteen. But I'm definitely enjoying it.

 

[MisterCairo]

Now half way through last year's season of Bates Motel. Norman is truly becoming Norma at this point, and it is weeeeeeeeeird....

 

[Edward]

Watched the end of Sesason 2 of I Zombie. We love the show; looking forward to Netflix UK getting series 3. Also watched the latest episode of Sherlock. Consdierably better than the disaster of a third series and the execreble Abominable Bride Christmas special of 2015, but still nothing on the past glories of thed first two series. It's starting to feel like a really good thing that the two leads will probably be too busy / expensive to make a fifth season. The more Moffat in particular write, the more convinced I am he only ever did anything good by accident. The best thing they could do now is probably put Sherlock down and let Gatiss use his talent to bring Lucifer Box to the screen.

In my dream channel situation, it's a little less active. Meaning, running into programs in progress. Not choosing which episodes are airing at any given moment. Like putting your music library on shuffle. On Demand is great, but then I have to scan libraries with their cumbersome system, making decisions etc. My scenario is somewhere in-between old TV and On Demand and sculpting your own feed.

Ah, you mean more like the sort of comfort TV you switch on to sort of run in theackground when you're not really actively watching? Here in the UK over Christmas one of the channels (4, I think) broadcast several hours of what the Scandinavians call, I believe, "slow TV". Just a sleighride through a traditional route way up in the artic circle, with the only sound for two hours being the noise of reindeer pulling the sleigh. Very plesant to gaze at half awake on Christmas afternoon!

I'm most of the way through Luke Cage. It's in the same league as Jessica Jones and Daredevil - with a quite different look and feel - but it shares the familiar Netflix show problem of feeling dragged out. As with the others, I feel like this story would work better if it had been tightened into ten episodes instead of thirteen. But I'm definitely enjoying it.

13 seems to have emerged as the current 'in' number of episodes for a series. It can't be a scheduling thing in the traditional way on Netflix, so I begin to wonder is it a bandwidth thing - i.e. does thirteen hours of video content equate to a specific number of gigabytes in storage on the database or something? It'll be interesting, over time, to see how many television conventions carry on into non-linear contentg delivery and how many don't. I read an interesting interview with Charlie Brooker when the third series of his Black Mirror anthology moved to Netflix instead of regular TV, in which he commented about the additional freedoms they had with being online, such as episodes not having to conform to a set length, or be designed to have ad breaks and such.

 

[Zombie_61]

Green Acres. What an odd show that was, often managing to be dumb and brilliant at the same time.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Green Acres. What an odd show that was, often managing to be dumb and brilliant at the same time.

one of the best shows ever. great chemistry. hilarious.