What was the last TV show you watched?

[DNO]

Took some old DVDs to a not-so-local used DVD store and came out with Season 2 of Ripper Street (I've seen seasons 1 and 3), Season 1 of Peaky Blinders (haven't seen this one at all but everyone raves about it), Season 1 of The Last Kingdom (same comment) and Season 5 of Homeland. Don't know which to start with...a pleasant conundrum I will admit (maybe Ripper Street). Think I'll take it slow and savour them.

 

[Worf]

"Bruno Mars - Live at the Apollo" - Good show... but he should be cutting checks to the estates of Prince and Rick James.

Worf

 

[AmateisGal]

Supernatural. Gosh darn it. You can really tell that different writers do different episodes. The first five or so episodes were really strong. The last two have been really "meh."

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel -" a new series from Amazon Prime

• Set in early '60s NYC, it's the story (so far) of a young, upper-class, Jewish stay-at-home mom whose "perfect" marriage stumbles just as she discovers a talent for stand-up comedy (it works better than it sounds - although, the pilot episode is the weakest of the four we've seen so far)

• This variation on the fish-out-of-water tale has the title character - a refined, Upper West side, college-educated mother - swimming in the counter-cultural world of stand-up comedy / underground clubs / jazz musicians and courthouses trying obscenity cases
  • While she's out of water, her confidence and firmly set moral compass have her hilariously powering through smoked-filled clubs and demimonde record stores - everyone (Mrs. Maisel and all those she encounter) are pushed out of their comfort zone by her energetic vibe and babe-in-the-woods innocence that creates wonderful scenes of misunderstanding and confusion (it's why you take a fish out of water)

• The other part of this fish-out-of-water tale has Mrs. Maisel (who's young, cute, running at full speed and acting up a storm in the best way possible) trying to manage and maintain her place in the Upper West side world of money and Jewish cultural conformity
  • Here, the why-would-you-leave-our-perfect-and-safe-world-for-that-dangerous-world attitude creates the tension and humor

• The story, oddly (as it's not really new), feels fresh owing to outstanding dialogue - delivered in '60s NYC rapid-fire argot - and an over-stylized '60s NYC visual done in a "'Mad Men' already did detail perfect, so we'll do it in a more aesthetically idealized" way

• And that visual is great Fedora Lounge fun, but this one, so far, really shines on its smart, machine-gun bursts of dialogue and wonderfully flawed characters

 

[Touchofevil]

"Bruno Mars - Live at the Apollo" - Good show... but he should be cutting checks to the estates of Prince and Rick James.

Worf

Saw this as well.
Lady ToE and I saw him perform this summer and wow can he do it live. The seats were expensive, but well worth it as they were middle near enough to the front. Obviously influenced by some talented artists from yesteryear, he is a talent himself.

 

[Touchofevil]

The rest of Narcos.
I eagerly look forward to season four.

An episode of Damnation.
Beginning to lose interest.

The two hour season premiere of Viking.
It felt like it was mostly commercials.
We are spoiled by Netflix, HBO, and Amazon.
I am caring less about the characters that are still hanging around.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

The two hour season premiere of Viking.
It felt like it was mostly commercials.
We are spoiled by Netflix, HBO, and Amazon.
I am caring less about the characters that are still hanging around.

First, thanks for the reminder. I guess we can tell which demographics are pushing this series. With the younger crowds, it doesn't matter that it is the holidays. They aren't likely to be in front of a TV to watch it anyway.

Some of these channels are terrible about the commercial thing. The production costs on Vikings doesn't help matters. FX/FXX is consistently the worst for commercials. The commercial breaks are longer than the content segments, and they're more frequent, too. 75-minute listings with the final 15 minutes having 5 minutes of content. Causes me to want to donate more to PBS.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Another first-season episode of The Fugitive, with Leslie Nielsen (back in his dramatic actor days) as Martin Rowland, president of a Sioux City department store, who married the owner's daughter. Kimble witnesses Rowland's accidental killing of a friend, and (being a fugitive) declines to do more than anonymously call an ambulance . . . until a skid-row bum is arrested for the murder. Good performances all around, especially from Wally Binns as a former cop, now the store detective, loyal to the business and the owner's daughter.

Also, an atmospheric Have Gun -- Will Travel directed by Ida Lupino and written by Dirty Harry creator Harry Julian Fink. Paladin is paid to bring in Ben Coe (Mort Mills), who apparently murdered a member of the client's family. But the family, in the person of Jack Elam, has no intention of letting Coe go to trial; they want to shoot or hang him on the spot. On top of that, Coe insists he's innocent. Paladin seems rather Dirty Harry-like in this outing; he is determined to bring his man in for a trial and not to let the family kill him. Late in the story, Paladin is beginning to wonder if Coe really is innocent . . . until, in a dramatic scene, the sister, who saw the murderer flee, confronts Coe, and Coe smiles chillingly and says, "Hey, Beauty." And Paladin clobbers him savagely -- and yet refuses to let Elam and his brother hang or shoot him.

 

[Touchofevil]

Last night, we watched an episode of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Set in England during the early 1800s, it was visually entertaining.
We enjoyed it enough until the last 10 or so minutes where they might have lost us.

 

[Worf]

DC Universe Crossover "Crises on Earth X" - Think Superhero's vs. Planet of the Nazis or Ubermenchen vs. The Man in the High Castle. I won't bore you with the plot but I found the entire thing silly but fun. It was actually quite riveting until the final battle where Nazi Storm Troopers invade Central City. Of course they can't shoot for beans and when the heroes show up instead of shooting them full of holes from a distance... they march right up till they're in punching range.... sigh.... But I've paid more and watched worse.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" episode 5.

I wrote a bunch about it in an above post, so I have just two quick bullets:

• It's still killing it with smartly written, rat-ta-ta-deliverd dialogue and a wonderfully over-stylized view of early '60s NYC

• Is anyone else watching this one?

N.B. Lizzie, I think you'd like this one - it's smart, touches on '60 TV broadcasting and standup comedy and, also, there's some early '60s pro-lefty stuff thrown in

 

[Benzadmiral]

Last week's Riverdale, with a Rashomon-like handling of various scenes. Suffice it to say, the serial killer known as the Black Hood is still terrorizing Archie's town. Standout: A terrifically creepy performance by Tony (Candyman) Todd as a whispering farmer who gives Jughead a lift on a dark night.

 

[Benzadmiral]

The pilot episode of Get Smart from 1965. Written by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, it introduced Maxwell Smart, Fang, and the Chief, shows us Max's first meeting with the lovely Agent 99 (who chauffeurs Max in a '65 Lincoln Continental limo!), and sets up GS's own loony little world. Henry and Brooks knew how to set up a joke and make it pay off, sometimes more than once.

"Seven Coast Guard cutters are converging on this very spot. Would you believe it? Seven."

"I find that hard to believe, Mr. Smart."

"Would you believe six?"

"No."

"How about two cops in a rowboat?"

 

[Zombie_61]

The pilot episode of Get Smart from 1965. Written by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, it introduced Maxwell Smart, Fang, and the Chief, shows us Max's first meeting with the lovely Agent 99 (who chauffeurs Max in a '65 Lincoln Continental limo!), and sets up GS's own loony little world. Henry and Brooks knew how to set up a joke and make it pay off, sometimes more than once...

I don't disagree, but they also needed actors who understood their "style" of humor and could pull it off. And they somehow managed to cast actors in every role from primary to tertiary supporting characters that were just about as good as they could possibly be. Sure they had gags that fell flat once in a while, but overall their hit-to-miss ratio was far above average.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I loved that show when it was on, but it only could have existed in that exact place and time. The spy craze of the sixties, coupled with the excesses of the real-life Cold War, desperately needed to be deflated, and this was the show that did it. But it bombed when they tried to revive it in later years because it was so far removed from its original context.

 

[AmateisGal]

Midseason finale of Supernatural. Whoa. This season is really expanding the show's boundaries in a lot of ways. And I like it!

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Vikings. first 3 episodes of the new season, so all caught up. The costume designers save this show. It's interesting and very cool. Whether they're accurate or not, I wouldn't take a bet. The rest of it is pretty much awful. I said it last season (and the seasons before it) that the story is dim, and the dialogue is even worse. I'd like to see the scripts. Each show probably fits on two pages, double-spaced.

 

[Touchofevil]

A couple of episodes of Godless.
Entertaining

 

[3fingers]

First episode of season 2 of "The Crown". I skipped the recap of season 1 at the beginning. I may have to backtrack.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

A couple of episodes of Parking Wars from the dvr. Yeah, I know it's wrong, but I can't help myself.