What TV shows have you been watching ?

That's it, basically. With GoT, you knew the characters and you identified with them, villains included. This, you just don't care. The costumes are nice, though.

Quote from Backdrifter

Most of it?!

Every time I catch a bit of a LOTR film, and as with the trailer I saw for this, there are people speaking way too slowly and portentously. I'm sure they'd have crammed everything into just 2 films instead of 3 if they'd spoken a bit quicker

They made fair bit up in LOTR films as well but generally got across most the historical facts. The rings of power though seems to have no relation to what actually happened at all.

I watched the first 2 episodes of Inside Man. It's a drama that combines two threads: a Death Row prisoner who has such detailed insight he is permitted to solve cases that are brought to him, and a vicar in England who gets tangled up in a storyline involving porn.

I had positive expectations partly as I'm a big fan of David Tennant and Stanley Tucci, who play the two lead roles. But having the seen these 2 episodes I won't be taking it any further as it's not very good. I'll be interested in the views of anyone else who's seen any of it.

Meanwhile I'm 3 episodes into drama Red Rose, about a mysterious phone app that causes problems for anyone who uploads it. I'm finding it compelling so far.

I'm watching Kaleidoscope in Netflix. It's a nifty heist caper told in parts that can - apparently - be watched in any order. Each one has a color attached to it. I've watched three or four, and it's well-acted and written. Rufus Sewell is in it, the guy from Man In The High Castle.

I'm also watching 1899 but it's too much like Dark to think of it as being so original.

I'm often late to popular shows and Succession is no exception. This last week I've been watching season 1 and am absolutely hooked. I've got that "can't wait to see the next one" excitement but bar one evening of two back-to-back episodes I've been very restrained, watching one per evening.

I'm also midway through The English on the BBC iplayer. It features a refined woman travelling from her plush London home to the untamed American West in 1890 to singlemindedly fulfill a personal mission, about which we're gradually learning more as the story unfolds. With her genteel accent and nice London clothes she cuts an incongruous figure amid the conflict and bloodshed of the Wyoming hills and plains, and as the show depicts the constant on-edge nature of life there the tension is at near-unrelenting levels. So much so at one point Mrs B was unsure she could continue with it through sheer anxiety!

Ooooookay. 1899 has gotten very interesting in at least two ways. By episode 6 it has this *really* cool thing going where most of the characters speak different languages and have no idea what the other is saying, and when you add those characters into a nightmarish situation it makes it that much more disconcerting.

The second thing is that it is out-Truman-showing the Truman Show in creating walls between the characters and the audience, then breaking them.

Quote from Backdrifter

I'm often late to popular shows and Succession is no exception. This last week I've been watching season 1 and am absolutely hooked. I've got that "can't wait to see the next one" excitement but bar one evening of two back-to-back episodes I've been very restrained, watching one per evening.

Sounds worth a look. I'm often not just late to the party but miss it altogether - I still haven't seen breaking bad or the wire. But some succession finale (I think) made a splash a few months ago on Twitter and had has me thinking about it for a bit.

Quote from thewatcher

Sounds worth a look. I'm often not just late to the party but miss it altogether - I still haven't seen breaking bad or the wire. But some succession finale (I think) made a splash a few months ago on Twitter and had has me thinking about it for a bit.

I'm always tempted and interested by stuff with media/political intrigue and machinations. I'm an admirer of Brian Cox and he is at the top of his game here as the ruthless patriarch but, like his take on Lecter, he doesn't overplay it - a lot of the time he's quite mild but this emphasises his single-minded nastiness and makes his occasional explosions of anger more effective.

The english actor Matthew Macfadyen (many us here in the uk know him from various tv dramas) plays an absolute blinder and for me this is his finest hour. His character is engaged to one played by Sarah Snook who has, erm, quite an - ahem - effect on me.

Obviously the "dysfunctional family" scenario is a frequent device in drama and having most of the characters being essentially dislikeable is a potentially dodgy game but they pull it off and you actually even warm to some of them. There's a character who you sometimes want to just shut up played by Kieran Culkin but he still makes the guy very entertaining.

I'm approaching the end of s1 and looking forward to moving on to s2.

Tried watching Lord of the RIngs - The Rings of Power and gave up after two episodes.

Edit: Just saw Farmer's & BD's posts on this. Agreed. Lenny Henry with an Irish accent....and he is the only recognisable actor in the whole thing.

Quote from Backdrifter

Obviously the "dysfunctional family" scenario is a frequent device in drama and having most of the characters being essentially dislikeable is a potentially dodgy game but they pull it off and you actually even warm to some of them.

Echoes of The Sopranos which I really loved. Will definitely be checking out Succession!

Quote from Noni

New Faulty Towers confirmed by John Cleese with his daughter.

Is this true? If so, it's a truly terrible sounding idea.

PS: Fawlty

EDIT: Ah shite, just checked and yes it's true. He and his daughter will write and star in it, based on Fawlty and his recently discovered daughter running a hotel together. It's being exec-produced by Rob Reiner.

Strictly speaking this shouldn't be in What Have You Watched thread as none of us will watch it for some time.

Quote from thewatcher

Ooooookay. 1899 has gotten very interesting

I just finished 1899 and can't recommend it enough. It's only 8 episodes, and I can't remember smiling so much as I did for the last 10 minutes of the last episode. What a great trip. And - I believe - the best ever use of a David Bowie song on film in the last scene. I say that as a massive David Lynch fan who's favorite Lynch movie is Lost Highway which features "I'm deranged" heavily.

On the excellent UK archive channel Talking Pictures I've been watching repeats of drama series Crown Court. Any brits of similar age to me remember this? It used to air during the afternoon on ITV (1972-84) and for usually 3 episodes would depict a court case, ending with the verdict. I never knew this at the time and only later realised that the jury in each trial was a real one, with members of the public, independently reaching their verdict based on the drama played out before them. I gather that two script endings would be written for each case to account for the possible outcomes. Which might explain one episode I recall, in which the jury foreman stands and is asked by the Clerk, "Has the jury reached a verdict?" to which the foreman answered "No" and the episode ended right there! Presumably because a 'no verdict' script hadn't been written.

I was at school in the 1970s so wouldn't usually see Crown Court. But I was very ill and away from school for a few months and that was when I got hooked. So seeing it now brings back strong memories of that time, sitting on the couch and waiting to see how each case panned out, wearing my 'ill jumper' - this is the jumper you only ever wear when you're off sick from school (it was Andy Partridge of XTC who articulated this in a Sounds interview in around 1983, I realised he was right and it stuck in my mind).

It featured a number of stalwarts of British TV including some who later went on to greater fame, so it's good fun spotting some very familiar faces.

Other notes on Crown Court - it was one of the rare shows that had a different opening and end theme tune, with an austere and slightly forbidding opening theme, but a gentle melodic end theme. Also, the fictional court was located in equally fictional 'Fulchester' which later became the setting for many of the cartoons and spoof features in Viz.

Tonight's episode of "Grace" (ITV1, 8pm) it tiled "Not Dead Yet". The show is written by Russell Lewis, who also wrote Endeavour, an episode of which (Nocturne) was themed around The Musical Box. Tonight's show is about a murder in the music community of Brighton.

I'll be recording it, as I haven't watched the first 2 yet!

Quote from foxfeeder

Tonight's episode of "Grace" (ITV1, 8pm) it tiled "Not Dead Yet". The show is written by Russell Lewis, who also wrote Endeavour, an episode of which (Nocturne) was themed around The Musical Box. Tonight's show is about a murder in the music community of Brighton.

I'll be recording it, as I haven't watched the first 2 yet!

Excellent show, looking forward to tonight's episode

Picard season 3. Phenomenal so far. They are really getting the band back together with more and more of the Next Generation crew popping up each episode. Some of Worf's dialogue is too good to be true.

"I am Worf, son of Mogh, House of Martok, son of Sergey, House of Rozhenko, Bane to the Duras family, slayer of Gowron ... I have made some chamomile tea, do you take sugar?"

Yes, out of all the new Star Trek stuff (and I liked all of it so far) Picard season 3 beats everything. Just can't get any better.

South Park don't do bad in their new season too. For a show running that long it is incredible they keep coming up with so many good ideas. I would agree they might be past their absolute zenith but man, the Diknbaus episode had me crying with laughter.

Quote from genesis1964

Excellent show, looking forward to tonight's episode

I like Simm so was tempted but am experiencing the condition known as Crime Drama Fatigue. Yet another new one, Blue Light, has just started. It might be brilliant but I don't feel bothered enough to watch it.