What was the last TV show you watched?

[scottyrocks]

That's funny as my girlfriend watched the show when it was on and I'd occasionally stroll into the room: my takeaway, I never learned the characters or story line, but did think that vampires get naked often and have a lot of sex.

Well, I wasn't implying it was all bad. haha

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Killing Eve. AMC/BBC America. I didn't know about this show, so I didn't watch season 1 until now. One of the review quotes in the propaganda is something like "the only TV that matters". Talk about hyperbole. If this is your idea of the finest TV, we aren't coming at it from the same place. I'm 2/3s through season 1. It's kind of fun with a good pace. I can see why people like it. You're definitely expected to suspend belief beyond the norm, though. The characters are put in situations where there is no way out except to put a hole there. Reminds me of Dexter like that. If you watch TV, constantly looking for things that could never happen, this isn't a show for you (or it is prime TV if that is how you enjoy watching TV). I think I'll finish season 1 and also check out the new episodes for season 2.

Just in case you don't check out the promotions in your On Demand section or tend to speed past all the commercials, I think Xfinity is running a nationwide deal this week with all the premium channels free. I noticed they aren't accessible through the guide, but if you go through the On Demand tab, they show up as free until April 14th.

 

[3fingers]

Land Girls. We started watching when it was first on TV but had drifted on to other things. We started in again last weekend and are enjoying it very much. It may not be deep and historically perfect, but it's better than most television.

 

[Touchofevil]

Versailles and more Peaky Blinders

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

High Maintenance. HBO. season 3. Taking advantage of the free week. I forgot how much I enjoyed this show. I haven't had HBO for a long while now. For those who enjoy simple people watching of everyday, common events without the goal to entertain or motive. I can't think of another show that is basically about nothingness but snapshots into daily life. For instance, a funeral that isn't about drama or the profound. Like if you didn't know anyone involved but were allowed to sit in the corner and experience people being people dealing with what everyone experiences. The audience is in the room. Filling a plate with food. Moving out of the way in a crowded room. Uncomfortably smiling at someone you don't know. Watching a conversation that you can't hear, seeing how people communicate with their faces and bodies. People watching in nearly a pure form, but obviously created for this purpose. No great plot lines or story. Events and situations of this day or that day of life. I have a difficult time describing this show, but I feel I know exactly what it is. 20+ minutes is the perfect length for such an exercise.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Camping. HBO. pilot. I think this might be a play on National Lampoon's Vacation, but with actors with little chemistry or talent for comedy. Nothing is on. The premise isn't interesting either. Jennifer Garner has always struck me as a genuinely nice person, but she isn't much of an actress inasmuch as I've seen. That's no different here. Jenni Konner and Lena Dunham missed with this one.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I enjoyed its earlier seasons, but I gave up on High Maintenance a few episodes into this season. I just wasn't connecting with the characters, and after a couple of especially meh episodes it really wasn't working for me any more.

I didn't even try Camping: it looked like a loser. Jennifer Garner is charming, but she seems to end up starring in a lot of bad projects.

I watched the first episode of Fosse/Verdon on FX. It's well done and really well cast, but I'm not seeing seven more episodes worth of story there. I'll give it another ep to hook me.

Better Things... I'm still enjoying it, but it's a somewhat different show this season. I think it was less scattershot and uneven last year (and you know what's different about its production this time.)

And speaking of weaker second seasons, American Gods - while not as weak as all the reviewers who can't get over the original showrunners leaving keep saying - has slipped a notch. But I'm still enjoying it, it's trippy fun and you gotta love Ian McShane chewing the scenery as Mr. Wednesday.

Actually, I've mostly been watching documentaries and movies...

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Good to see you around, Doctor Strange. I was hoping that wasn't the case with Fosse/Verdon, but also suspected so. And agreed about Better Things. It's still a favorite, but the feel is different for sure. I also think Adlon is making some odd choices with her acting abilities. This last episode with the colonoscopy was so over the top and overacted that it was distracting. She's so awkward at times that it makes me uncomfortable. Like that is embarrassingly greenhorn. I still enjoy most of it though.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I don't think its weaker acting so much as overall tone. There's always been an aspect of cringe comedy to Better Things, with Sam being so put-upon and overwhelmed from all quarters, and her discomfort becomes our discomfort. And some significant plot and character exaggeration was always built in. That said, yeah, it feels overdone this year.

I'm not sure if it's because Adlon is more of a one-woman band in running the production or not, but there's a more histrionic edge to it, with some darn strange storytelling choices. It's still a bold show with mostly truthful storytelling about the difficulties of dealing with a family full of oddballs and a crazy showbiz career... but I don't think it's the near-masterpiece it was in its first season. It seems less universal (i.e., we all face such difficulties in the modern world) and more specific to Sam, her wacky family, her unique acting career, L.A., etc.

Someone's surer touch in believably combining cringe comedy with truth-telling is definitely missed.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Fosse/Verdon. FX. pilot episode. Such a great cast. This really isn't a big interest of mine, so talking about it kind of seems pointless in a way. I don't find anything about this interesting. I can't imagine hours and hours of this. It's great to see Rockwell and Williams on TV, but most of me feels it is wasted here, for my tastes anyway. I know Rockwell is a great dancer. This part makes sense, but still, I'm just not there for it. I'll stick it out for another episode, but I'll likely bail on it.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I watched the second episode last night... and it's still holding me, but just barely. I don't like the jumbled timeframe storytelling - this ep is flashbacks within flashbacks, all in the split-second of the last thing that happened in episode one.

But Michelle Williams is tremendous as Verdon. Sam Rockwell is also good, though as one of the recaps of last night's ep pointed out, while all the characters keep telling us Bob has endless charisma... he often comes off as flat, distant, and kind of checked-out. Maybe because this episode was seen more from Verdon's POV? And Fosse is, you know, kind of a douche apart from the work.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

The three-part BBC series Mrs. Wilson, wrapping it up in two nights. We really wanted to see how and why Alexander Wilson lived the lives he did.
We just started the BBC version of Les Miserables, first episode. We will wait and see if we commit to the whole shebang.
...and sprinkled in there from time to time another episode of Corner Gas. We crack up every time.

 

[Touchofevil]

The final episode of season four of Peaky Blinders. Sure wish season five was here.
: D

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

For the Downton Abbey fans...

Julian Fellowes wrote a movie for PBS Masterpiece, and Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Crawley) stars. Yes, a movie, as in theaters. It opened yesterday. I suspect it will end up on TV at some point. It's called The Chaperone.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/the-chaperone/

 

[Fading Fast]

For the Downton Abbey fans...

Julian Fellowes wrote a movie for PBS Masterpiece, and Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Crawley) stars. Yes, a movie, as in theaters. It opened yesterday. I suspect it will end up on TV at some point. It's called The Chaperone.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/the-chaperone/

I read the novel the movie is based on and made these brief comments on FL at the time:

"The Chaperone" by Laura Moriarty. Historical fiction about a woman who chaperones a pre-fame Louise Brooks to Manhattan for a summer in the mid 1920s. After a slow start, it does a pretty good job of evoking the era and the story, while very much seen through a 21st Century moral filter, is enjoyable.​

I could see it making a better movie than book as the story's a bit thin for a novel, but with the on-screen visual appeal of the '20s, it could be fine for an hour-and-a-half-or-so long movie.

 

[Edward]

Yesterday I finished the second chunk of the first season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix. Vastly darker than the 90s 'Teenage Witch' take on the original Archie comics (and based on a much darker comic book revival of the story), occasionally slightly unsettling. A lot of very big themes explored by analogy, from fanaticism and radicalisation through misogyny and religious abuse, hypocrisy in leadership and on, witout being especially heavy-handed about it. It's an interesting, long-term story arc too. I think this has the legs to go to three or four seasons, perhaps.

Also watched the first episode of Into the Badlands, which seems to be enjoyable enough as a bit of post-apocalyptic fluff, as lnog as it doesn't go too heavy on the martial arts.

My wife has been re-watching True Blood as of late, and occasionally I'll sit down with her and look at it. What I have seen just reinforces my feelings about most vampire TV shows - just silly.

I've only seen the first two series, though I have rad all the books. FRom what I gather the show only loosely reflects the books from Season 3 onwards. Bookwise, though, while I loved the concept early on, I was disappointed when each new book began to introduce a wave of new magical creatures rather than enrichen the depth of the vampire society instead.

 

[scottyrocks]

Yesterday I finished the second chunk of the first season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix. Vastly darker than the 90s 'Teenage Witch' take on the original Archie comics (and based on a much darker comic book revival of the story), occasionally slightly unsettling. A lot of very big themes explored by analogy, from fanaticism and radicalisation through misogyny and religious abuse, hypocrisy in leadership and on, witout being especially heavy-handed about it. It's an interesting, long-term story arc too. I think this has the legs to go to three or four seasons, perhaps.

Also watched the first episode of Into the Badlands, which seems to be enjoyable enough as a bit of post-apocalyptic fluff, as lnog as it doesn't go too heavy on the martial arts.



I've only seen the first two series, though I have rad all the books. FRom what I gather the show only loosely reflects the books from Season 3 onwards. Bookwise, though, while I loved the concept early on, I was disappointed when each new book began to introduce a wave of new magical creatures rather than enrichen the depth of the vampire society instead.

We got our feet wet with vampire novels in the '90s after the film version (1994] of Interview With the Vampire (1976] was released. I read The Vampire Lestat (1985] after that, and my wife read the whole series.

I saw the movie version of the first book (1994], and was fairly impressed with it, from what I remember, although I was never a big Tom Cruise fan. I actually thought it would have been better if almost anyone else had played that role.

 

[Edward]

We got our feet wet with vampire novels in the '90s after the film version (1994] of Interview With the Vampire (1976] was released. I read The Vampire Lestat (1985] after that, and my wife read the whole series.

I saw the movie version of the first book (1994], and was fairly impressed with it, from what I remember, although I was never a big Tom Cruise fan. I actually thought it would have been better if almost anyone else had played that role.

Anne Rice herself was furious when he was cast, and made no secret of it. After seeing the film, she did take out an ad in the NY Times to say she'd seen it now and had been proven wrong, though rumour has it that this was under pressure from the film's marketers, and, well... no Alan Moore, she.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I think Interview is a very good adaptation of the book (yeah, I read nearly all of them), with a surprisingly good performance by Cruise. He was not afraid to go big and strange in the role - which he wouldn't have done at a later stage of his career.

I was (and remain) much more annoyed by the casting of Antonio Banderas, who (while a sexy dude and good actor) was definitely NOT the eternally 15-year-old "angel out of Caravaggio" that the vampire Armand is in the books. But it's a well cast and lavishly done film, and Neil Jordan did a fine job directing. (The less said about that awful film of Queen of the Damned I've been trying to forget, the better!)

I also liked Neil Jordan's recent vampire film Byzantium with Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

There's a new vampire/witch series on AMC, A Discovery of Witches. By the cast, it is more likely just new to America. It's being simulcast on BBC-America, as is Killing Eve. I watched part of the first episode and then was pulled away. I noticed actors from both Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. I'm guessing most of those into this subject matter are aware of it, but just in case. I like the cast and production, but I doubt I'll be moving forward with it.

RE: Into the Badlands. AMC. It's funny that you mention the martial arts scenes. That's really not my bag, but it's one of my favorite parts of this show. They're outlandish. Not believable, but I feel they work perfectly within how ridiculous the rest of the show feels. I look forward to seeing what crazy, physics-defying move they'll choreograph next. There's probably an entire genre of this, but as it were, I've been looking forward to this series ending. I barely have the appetite for this show. The costumes and set design are so low budget that I almost feel for the people responsible for them. "Here's $34. See what you can do with that."