Spoilers What's on TV?

[Huntn]

Just finished the second season of House of Cards (US)- Whether you regard the story as extravagant or not, this is some great writing and acting, what television should always aspire to. I am impressed. I wonder how different it is from the original? We may watch that too.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I spent a short while earlier today watching the ceremonial series of events - and the service - which welcomed the remains of King Richard III to Leicester Cathedral prior to his planned burial in the Cathedral later this coming week.

The reason I saw only a short section was that i hadn't known it was being broadcast (by Channel 4), otherwise I would have been glued to the TV.

It was a wonderfully interesting and beautifully executed ceremony; fascinating to watch and wonderful to experience.

 

[vulcanvillalta]

I watched "Bosch" this weekend. Not a bad show. I feel like amazon's tv shows are very formulaic, and while they are always good, they lack in originality. I would say that the show was very gripping, but I felt like they analyzed other successful movies for what worked in them, and then thrust all the good components into one series.

I guess I'm saying it felt like I was watching a machine's work. It was "too" perfect. Or maybe "Star Wars" was so good because it was flawed....

I might be speaking out of my rear end, but I felt this way also with Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle. I haven't watched Alpha House, but I bet it's similar.

 

[obeygiant]

I'm having fun watching Last Man On Earth. Lots of laughs.

 

[JamesMike]

I watched "Bosch" this weekend. Not a bad show. I feel like amazon's tv shows are very formulaic, and while they are always good, they lack in originality. I would say that the show was very gripping, but I felt like they analyzed other successful movies for what worked in them, and then thrust all the good components into one series.

I guess I'm saying it felt like I was watching a machine's work. It was "too" perfect. Or maybe "Star Wars" was so good because it was flawed....

I might be speaking out of my rear end, but I felt this way also with Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle. I haven't watched Alpha House, but I bet it's similar.

Watched 'Bosch' series also liked it very much, I can also recommend the books, a good read.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Watching - on the British Channel 4 - the extraordinary ceremony currently taking place in Leicester Cathedral which is broadcasting the burial of the remains of King Richard III.

 

[Huntn]

Watching - on the British Channel 4 - the extraordinary ceremony currently taking place in Leicester Cathedral which is broadcasting the burial of the remains of King Richard III.

I assume he'll take up residence in the floor?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I assume he'll take up residence in the floor?

His remains were lowered - executed with the sort of exquisite and meticulous ceremony the Brits are awfully good at - into a lovely prepared stone grave with clean, elegant lines, in - yes - the floor of Leicester Cathedral.

I must say that it was all very well done.

 

[charlesbronsen]

Just watched and loved the first episode of Fargo. Looks promising not to mention it's filled with good actors.

 

[vrDrew]

The first episode of (BBC import) Call the Midwife Season 4 just started on PBS.

(Catchup episodes are available on Netflix, and perhaps elsewhere in the US.)

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The first episode of (BBC import) Call the Midwife Season 4 just started on PBS.

(Catchup episodes are available on Netflix, and perhaps elsewhere in the US.)

That is supposed to be very good; I have never actually watched it, but would be interested to hear what you think of it.

 

[Huntn]

The first episode of (BBC import) Call the Midwife Season 4 just started on PBS.

(Catchup episodes are available on Netflix, and perhaps elsewhere in the US.)

My wife is hooked on that...

 

[JuryDuty]

We just decided to start binge watching Parks and Rec. We started with episode #18 of season 2, which is what some people recommended. We find it hilarious!

 

[mscriv]

Just finished the second season of Black Sails on Starz. It's a fun pirate adventure with well developed characters and lots of plot twists that kept me interested. Good writing in my opinion.

 

[ritmomundo]

I'm already suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms following the conclusion to the BBC TV series 'Wolf Hall' (which was, in practice, the first two books, namely 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up The Bodies' merged together).

(This side of The Pond, it aired on Wednesdays, and any follow up or sequel will have to wait for Hilary Mantel to publish the final book in the series, 'The Mirror and the Light' which may not appear until next year).

When does it air in the US?

Starts here next week... April 5. I'm looking forward to it, based on your recommendation.

 

[ritmomundo]

The Americans - I watched the pilot episode when it first aired 2 years ago, and I thought it was boring and unimpressive. I think I even posted here about how much of a letdown I thought it was. This past weekend, I decided to give it another shot, after having heard several positive things about it (some of it from this thread), and I found the pilot episode really enjoyable this time around! I think I must have been half-asleep or not paying attention the first time I watched it, because it was fantastic. I plan to finish up the first season by the end of the week (I'll have to limit myself to just 1 or 2 episodes a night ).

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Starts here next week... April 5. I'm looking forward to it, based on your recommendation.

Bear in mind that this is not 'The Tudors', neither in pace nor in content; the pace is slow, thoughtful, and requires a degree of concentration - this series does not patronise the viewer, but rewards someone who takes the time to lose oneself in it. The content is solid history, rather than a wildly creative - and frankly improbable - interpretation of facts with a vague resemblance to a rather well known historical story. Now, the interpretation is open to some dispute - because the tale is seen through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, or rather, Thomas Cromwell as conceived and imagined by Hilary Mantel and further refined by the needs of drama on TV.

Actually, this is not a series you can watch with one eye on the TV screen, and the other idly flipping through an iPad.

And bear in mind that 'Thomas' seemed to have been a name given to many boys in Tudor England - there are a number of them, in this story. To wit, Thomas Cromwell, our protagonist, Thomas More, Henry's intellectual friend who become Lord Chancellor, Thomas Howard (Duke of Norfolk - superbly played by Bernard Hill), and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

There are a lot of characters in it, and working out their complicated relationships with one another - kinship, family, friendship, other loyalties - can be a bit of a challenge.

Settings (they used actual Tudor buildings, and have filmed a few scenes in the actual place where the scene depicted had, in fact, occurred), costumes, and lighting are all incredible. The cast is superb, classical British acting at its understated best, and the music and dialogue first rate.

By the end, you realise that the character arc of the three main characters - Thomas Cromwell (an outstanding Mark Rylance), Henry himself (an increasingly formidable Damien Lewis), and the superb Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn - have all developed quite significantly over the course of the series.

Enjoy it and let me know how you find it.

 

[vrDrew]

but would be interested to hear what you think of it.

I think I'd sum it up as being one of my better guilty pleasures.

(Full disclosure: by a strange combination of circumstances, I was born only a few miles and years from where the series is set.)

Call The Midwife, like Mad Men in the US is one of those stealth history lessons of the near-recent past. In between the melodrama and the nuns on bicycles, it manages to serve up a stark reminder of quite how much our world has changed in just a few decades.

Like many British TV shows, it benefits from a wealth of character actors who, apart from the dentistry, seem utterly believable as denizens of late 1950s Poplar.

Like the Showtime series The Knick, its also a reminder of how much medical technology has changed. If nothing else, watching the friendly GP puffing away on a cigarette in his surgery is a little jarring.

In all honesty, I felt that Call The MidWife lost a little creative and emotional steam by the middle of series Three. The most emotional, and IMHO best, episodes came in the first two series. That said, having lost the central character (Jenny Lee, played by Jessica Raine) the series may be able to refocus and regain some of its charm.

Its definitely a good show, one that is almost by definition feminist in its portrayal of strong, capable, and courageous women. That it manages to do this without becoming hectoring or overly judgmental is quite an achievement. The stories don't always have happy endings.

The only real criticism I'd have of the show is the soundtrack. Sometimes I think they just jam in a late 1950s classic - Dean Martin's Volare or Doris Day's Que Sera Sera because they could. The songs don't seem to "mesh" into the storyline with quite the same artistry that Mad Men's producers manage to pull off. And - like a certain other well-loved British period drama, the soundtrack seems overly reliant on plangent plucked strings to punctuate plot points.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I think I'd sum it up as being one of my better guilty pleasures.

(Full disclosure: by a strange combination of circumstances, I was born only a few miles and years from where the series is set.)

Call The Midwife, like Mad Men in the US is one of those stealth history lessons of the near-recent past. In between the melodrama and the nuns on bicycles, it manages to serve up a stark reminder of quite how much our world has changed in just a few decades.

Like many British TV shows, it benefits from a wealth of character actors who, apart from the dentistry, seem utterly believable as denizens of late 1950s Poplar.

Like the Showtime series The Knick, its also a reminder of how much medical technology has changed. If nothing else, watching the friendly GP puffing away on a cigarette in his surgery is a little jarring.

In all honesty, I felt that Call The MidWife lost a little creative and emotional steam by the middle of series Three. The most emotional, and IMHO best, episodes came in the first two series. That said, having lost the central character (Jenny Lee, played by Jessica Raine) the series may be able to refocus and regain some of its charm.

Its definitely a good show, one that is almost by definition feminist in its portrayal of strong, capable, and courageous women. That it manages to do this without becoming hectoring or overly judgmental is quite an achievement. The stories don't always have happy endings.

The only real criticism I'd have of the show is the soundtrack. Sometimes I think they just jam in a late 1950s classic - Dean Martin's Volare or Doris Day's Que Sera Sera because they could. The songs don't seem to "mesh" into the storyline with quite the same artistry that Mad Men's producers manage to pull off. And - like a certain other well-loved British period drama, the soundtrack seems overly reliant on plangent plucked strings to punctuate plot points.

I have to say that I am a huge fan of those classic, understated, well scripted, and exceedingly well acted British dramas which tend to practice some form of fidelity to historical accuracy, and allow for nuanced stories (and endings) which accurately reflect the human condition.

Foyle's War, for example, was long one of my favourites.

'Plangent plucked strings'? Oooooh. Nicely expressed. What can I say? Well, I think I know the drama in question, that of which you speak and write….

 

[Huntn]

Generation War (2013)- Excellent 3 part German mini-series (sub-titles), 5 friends, 2 brothers from Berlin head out to war during WWII. The camaraderie and inhumanity of war on display. Viewed on Netflicks.

​

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Generation War (2013)- Excellent 3 part German mini-series (sub-titles), 5 friends, 2 brothers from Berlin head out to war during WWII. The camaraderie and inhumanity of war on display. Viewed on Netflicks.

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I haven't seen this - I was abroad when it was being broadcast - but I did read glowing reviews and it is supposed to be very good. Let us know how you find it.

 

[Huntn]

I haven't seen this - I was abroad when it was being broadcast - but I did read glowing reviews and it is supposed to be very good. Let us know how you find it.

Although brief, I thought I had! Excellent! One viewer review said it was based on a true story. It felt real. One of the 5 friends was Jewish. His experience was as expected, however I won't spoil the story with more than that. Two brothers join the army. The two women, one becomes a nurse, the other a singer. It hammers home that war harms all that are associated with it.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Although brief, I thought I had! Excellent! One viewer review said it was based on a true story. One of the 5 friends was Jewish. His experience was as expected, however I won't spoil the story with more than that. Two brothers joined the army It hammers home that war harms all that are associated with it.

Sorry! Mea culpa.

I thought you were flagging that you were about to watch this, rather than that you had actually sat down and viewed it in its entirety.

I remember reading about it when it came out and some of my German friends spoke highly of it, although one or two, with military experience (and family lore) were mildly critical.

 

[Huntn]

Sorry! Mea culpa.

I thought you were flagging that you were about to watch this, rather than that you had actually sat down and viewed it in its entirety.

I remember reading about it when it came out and some of my German friends spoke highly of it, although one or two, with military experience (and family lore) were mildly critical.

Can I assume these German friends were born post WWII? Or were they kids during the war? As I said, it felt real to me. It would be interesting to know what they critiqued in general.

One interesting point, which I've heard and read, was that although Jews were vilified, the general German Army, as compared to the Gestapo/SS did not know specifically the resolution intended for the Jewish population, although through association and witnessing events, some/many had to become aware. This was touched upon, in this series, when one of the Brothers in the Army witnesses Jews being rounded, including women and children being abused. However, one or both of them were involved in lining up civilians, categorized as partisans and shooting them.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Can I assume these German friends were born post WWII? Or were they kids during the war? As I said, it felt real to me. It would be interesting to know what they critiqued in general.

One interesting point, which I've heard and read, was that although Jews were vilified, the general German Army, as compared to the Gestapo/SS did not know specifically the resolution intended for the Jewish population, although through association and witnessing events, some/many had to become aware. This was touched upon, in this series, when one of the Brothers in the Army witnesses Jews being rounded, including women and children being abused.

They were individuals who - in some cases - held pretty high rank in the police or military, were, some of them, fairly close to retirement, but others were in their 30s, or 40s, or 50s, - and whose parents would have been alive (and serving, in some instances) during the war. Obviously, they would have been born post WW2, but with parents, (or grandparents) who had served, so family lore also informed their opinions.

These were bar conversations, late at night, close to closing time, with slow and deep and thoughtful conversation, and they were critiquing details, the old 'it was worse than that, in reality' sort of critique, and thought some of the stories were a little too pat and neat (but that is movie or TV story telling).

By contrast, these guys all loved 'Das Boot' which they thought a superb portrayal of war, and an outstanding German production. In fact, at least two of them informed me that 'Das Boot' was their all time very favourite movie (or TV series, as it was both).