What was the last TV show you watched?

[Julian Shellhammer]

Last night, Victoria on the PBS streaming thing. It has dipped dangerously into soap opera territory, but we still enjoy it a lot.

 

[Edward]

To be clear: I'm defending CK's skill as a writer and his understanding of the human condition, not his behavior. Mainly, I'm defending the utterly bogus message that somehow he wasn't a primary influence in getting this great series on the air and personally crafting its characters and stories. It may be comforting to people to believe that it was always really Pamela's show, and CK was merely a hands-off executive producer who was holding back her creativity, but it's not true.

It's certainly tempting for humans to turn away from something if the creator turns out to be unpleasant, criminal or otherwise. Often, though, I wonder how much of the great at of the last few centuries we'd be missing out on if we were to castigate everything produced by those who were flawed on a human level. Which is, as you say, not to condone, but often simply to recognise that life is rarely as binary as many would prefer to think. Recently in the UK, a public figure was interviewed on radio, and when asked 'Winston Churchill: hero or villain?' responded 'Tonypandy. Villain.' Since then, he's had dog's abuse for it. Which one might expect from the likes of Nichloas Soames (Churchill's grandson, who never tires of presenting himself as Churchill's grandson), but the blanket refusal to accept that Churchill was anything other than The Great Hero, next only to Jesus himself, by so many joining the chorus baying for the metaphorical blood of any who dare critique him rather speaks ill of a capacity to comprehend the truth of basic human nature....

 

[Touchofevil]

Right now, The Big Band Years (My Music) on PBS.

 

[Touchofevil]

Currently, UFC 235: Jones vs. Smith
Wow! What a way to kick off the preliminary card. Not a fan of either fighter, but old man Diego Sanchez put on a ground and pund clinic on the youngster. Nice!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Edward, I think it's the familiar case that people who are brilliantly creative in one area are often terribly deficient in others. How many genius artists, musicians, writers, etc. have left behind a series of abused/abandoned/ignored partners and spouses, or have otherwise left a trail of destruction through their personal lives? And don't get me started on this syndrome with athletic stars and actors.

People are a complicated mix of talents, emotions, desire, ambition, and many other things. Nobody is one-hundred percent perfect... or one-hundred percent anything. In particular, sexual behavior is a minefield of jungle passions that nobody entirely understands or can fully control. We may want our creative heroes to be exceptional people in all ways... but that's not how human beings work. Alas, all the things in society that try to constrain and direct people to do the "right" things - morality, religion, law, public opinion - are often doomed to fail, because we're way more complicated than that.

Preacher Casey in The Grapes of Wrath: "And I got to thinking that maybe there ain't no sin, and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do."

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Better Things. FX. season 3 opener. With first viewing, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. Maybe I was too jazzed to start? I don't think it was expectation, which is often the culprit, because one thing this show has taught me is to just sit and enjoy the seemingly mundane. I looked forward to being back in that world and with those characters, so that underwhelmed vibe nagged at me. I knew it was me. I needed to hit it again at another time. I did, and it was worth it. It isn't the best episode of the series, but I'm grateful for it.

Between viewings, I read a couple reviews. It amazed, and then aggravated, me to see how much time was spent continuing to drill Louis CK. As if that is some kind of great currency of character. For these reviewers, to make sure everyone knows how strongly they despise the man. For these lousy writers, it isn't enough that CK is out of the picture. They have to continue to beat that horse. It does the show, their causes, nor themselves any service. Shut up already.

 

[3fingers]

Don't know anything about the show and darned little about Louis CK. I've read something of his behavior, and yes it is despicable. Over the top public outrage is an almost irresistible vehicle for people to boast of their own virtue and the scurrilous nature of the offender months or years after the incident.
As long as the cow still gives milk they will keep milking or maybe deflecting.
To paraphrase "thou doth protesteth too much, methinks."

 

[MisterCairo]

when asked 'Winston Churchill: hero or villain?' responded 'Tonypandy. Villain.'

The correct response is "both". If it is wrong to point out only the good, it is equally wrong to point out only the bad, whomever the subject. Something a few around here are quite good at...

 

[Edward]

Edward, I think it's the familiar case that people who are brilliantly creative in one area are often terribly deficient in others. How many genius artists, musicians, writers, etc. have left behind a series of abused/abandoned/ignored partners and spouses, or have otherwise left a trail of destruction through their personal lives? And don't get me started on this syndrome with athletic stars and actors.

Very much so. Maybe, beyond a certain point, excelling in some ways means an inevitable lack in others - and yet at the same time there are those who would confound this (I've always been impressed by the quiet way in which Paul Macartney looked out for Julian Lennon when the latter's own father didn't.)

The correct response is "both".

That would certainly be a good starting point for just such a debate.

If it is wrong to point out only the good, it is equally wrong to point out only the bad, whomever the subject. Something a few around here are quite good at...

Quite so. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a long time before England can tolerate just such an honest debate on Churchill.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Ernest, I also watched the first episode of Better Things... and was also underwhelmed. Much of the episode was under-explained and scattered, and it seemed like it was just several disparate sequences that were thrown together and didn't add up.

Now the show has always been about how messy and overwhelmed Sam's life is... but it's generally hung together better, often with a clear point to a given episode. Is it because Pamela (and her newly hired staff writers) both wrote and directed? Is it just a weak episode? We'll see.

And yeah, the gleeful vitriol with which so many (mostly younger, I'm guessing) reviewers continue to trash CK and declare that the series will be "better", "truer", "less compromised", etc., without his input is disgraceful. To anybody who had watched Louie, there's a clear through-line from that show to this show: Sure, Better Things is a lot less surreal and wacky, but it's really the same essential story, of a single parent show-biz professional trying to negotiate the absurdities of life.

And again, I'm not knocking Pamela: I've been a fan since she played a teenage alien on Star Trek: TNG!

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Oji

 

[MisterCairo]

Started season six of Supernatural, as we play catch up with our girls! We haven't seen these in yonks, so it's like watching anew to a point. My wife in particular does not recall several of the story lines/events.

 

[MisterCairo]

Now half way through season three of True Detective.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Very much so. Maybe, beyond a certain point, excelling in some ways means an inevitable lack in others - and yet at the same time there are those who would confound this (I've always been impressed by the quiet way in which Paul Macartney looked out for Julian Lennon when the latter's own father didn't.)



That would certainly be a good starting point for just such a debate.



Quite so. Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a long time before England can tolerate just such an honest debate on Churchill.

This is very interesting to me. No one I know under 40 knows anything at all of Churchill. They couldn't say hero or villain but would probably go with the latter based on the fact he is generally seen as an old, tubby, posh, white man. Does the subject of Churchill come up much with younger people and do they have a view?

 

[Edward]

This is very interesting to me. No one I know under 40 knows anything at all of Churchill. They couldn't say hero or villain but would probably go with the latter based on the fact he is generally seen as an old, tubby, posh, white man. Does the subject of Churchill come up much with younger people and do they have a view?

Churchill is part of the popular mythology in England, part of what it is to be "British". His name is evoked as a folk hero in the way that, in earlier times, Arthur or Robin Hood might have been referenced; when people despair of the current political leadership, whatever that might be, they often express a "wish Churchill was here", the perception being he was the Strong Leader Hero Who Won the War. Many genuinely believe that, but for Churchill himself, "we'd all be speaking German now". In 2002, the BBC held a poll in which he was voted "the Greatest Briton in history". Even in England today, you criticise Churchill at your peril. He's such a totem, particular among the generation now largely running everything, (who grew up on family nostalgia, experiencing the war second hand through their parents' memories and 60s-era WW2 films, the British equivalent of the unreconstructed 'Cowboy good, Indian bad' Western), that mis mythology carries significant power. This leads him (and his iconic speeches) to often be raised as a potent symbol, as big as the Union flag itself, of patriotism - not least, perhaps ironically, by the far right. Younger folks, millennials and such, it rather varies. There are those who take a more nuanced view, but in my experience they're far from the majority.

 

[MisterCairo]

Getting back to television and away from political figures, ahem, we watched some more Supernatural last night with the girls. We are on season six, have not seen these since back in the day, and really enjoying our revisit to the story line!

 

[Edward]

Getting back to television and away from political figures, ahem, we watched some more Supernatural last night with the girls. We are on season six, have not seen these since back in the day, and really enjoying our revisit to the story line!

Historical figures and how they are viewed at a distance.

Just watched the first episode of the second series of Derry Girls, and it remains a wonderful evocation of what it was like to be in your teens in the early nineties in Northern Ireland. Sister Michael continues to be the stand-out star. Beautifully realised, but the quality of the writing in what really shines through. Bonus points for deploying Derry's finest, The Undertones, as incidental music (the monumental Teenage Kicks, quite plausible the finest two minutes and some odd seconds Ireland has ever given the world).

I also recently finished the Netflix take on Lemony Snicket. I've never read the books or seen the movie version so cann't comment on its mertis relative to those, but oh, my is it beautiful. The aesthetic, the writing, the overall quality all sustains the whole way through all three seasons. I suspect it's destined to be one of those "children's" classics that only rally adults fully appreciate.

Beyond that, watched a few episodes of Vic and Bob's Big Night Out on the BBC; still as surreal, childish, dadaist as it ever was - and a sheer joy for it. Sometimes, fo all I enjoy asharp satire, you just want to laugh at to men hiting each other with comedy props because it's a pure rush of innocent fun.

Oh.... and I caught the first episode of the new Alan Partridge show on the BBC. Perfect satire as ever he was of a cetain kind of middle-class English man. A true joy of comedy of the uncomfortable.

 

[MisterCairo]

This past week's Gotham (good one!) and I think it was episode six of True Detective, current series. This is really good!

 

[3fingers]

We have started on Bosch on Amazon. It has been on the list to try for a long while and since we are between shows at the moment it moved into the rotation.
We are really enjoying it.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Supernatural Season 10 and 11 - there are some cool moments but it seems a touch enervated and familiar.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Churchill is part of the popular mythology in England, part of what it is to be "British". His name is evoked as a folk hero in the way that, in earlier times, Arthur or Robin Hood might have been referenced; when people despair of the current political leadership, whatever that might be, they often express a "wish Churchill was here", the perception being he was the Strong Leader Hero Who Won the War. Many genuinely believe that, but for Churchill himself, "we'd all be speaking German now". In 2002, the BBC held a poll in which he was voted "the Greatest Briton in history". Even in England today, you criticise Churchill at your peril. He's such a totem, particular among the generation now largely running everything, (who grew up on family nostalgia, experiencing the war second hand through their parents' memories and 60s-era WW2 films, the British equivalent of the unreconstructed 'Cowboy good, Indian bad' Western), that mis mythology carries significant power. This leads him (and his iconic speeches) to often be raised as a potent symbol, as big as the Union flag itself, of patriotism - not least, perhaps ironically, by the far right. Younger folks, millennials and such, it rather varies. There are those who take a more nuanced view, but in my experience they're far from the majority.

Thanks Edward - I know this legacy well (it was very much part of the Australian conservative tradition when I grew up in the 1970's) but I would have thought in this era this perspective would have all been lost in social media and sick-making reality TV.