The Artful Dodger on Disney+, or maybe it’s Hulu where you are, follows Jack Dawkins as he tries his hand to become a surgeon in pioneer-era Australia. It’s a weird premise to start with, but it’s a great show. Starring Thomas Sangster and David Thewlis as Fagin, Maia Mitchell, and a bunch of other Australian actors including Tim Minchin, Damon Herriman, and Kim Gyngell, it’s incredibly well acted, and well worth a watch. Great music too.
We enjoyed this- was a lot of fun and I liked the idea of the Artful Dodger becoming a surgeon.
I just binged Dr. Death, season 2. It was 100% trash but could not stop watching. Horrible true story just like the first season so not for anyone that already has a paranoia about doctors and hospitals. It blows my mind how this doctor was able to do what he did with zero scientific oversight.
We decided to start Jury Duty yesterday, and ended up watching the whole thing in one sitting. Very fun.
It reminded us of The Joe Schmo Show from 20 years (!) ago, which is also worth checking out - though I don’t know if I’d pay 13 bucks to watch it on Prime. Not sure if it streams free anywhere.
I cancelled Apple TV+ a couple of months ago, but am currently on a free one-month trial, so I’m trying to watch as much as I can before I start getting charged. So I’m watching Lessons in Chemistry, a series about a 1950s woman chemist. I’m only partway through the season but she ends up hosting a television cooking show and teaching chemistry to her audience. It’s a little bit amusing to watch this after having seen two seasons of Julia, which was about the real-life television chef Julia Child.
My previous response on this.
Mike Colter was Luke Cage. DB Woodside is Amenadial in Lucifer. I see her name spelled Katja on IMDB.
What didn’t you like about the ending? It’s been a while but I remember liking it. Midnight Mass was our first Mike Flanagan, though, so it was amazing. Hill House, Bly Manor, and Fall of Usher have been top notch, although we haven’t seen Midnight Club.
I have heard that is his public persona and in person, Bob Newhart is not the stuttering character. If you weren’t referring to that, I apologize. Newhart still has one of the best series endings ever. I saw that live and still laugh at it!
Thanks for the discussion!
@vislor , I agree completely with your analysis of Evil. When I find I’m hate-watching with no other compensations, I stop watching it. As I did.
As Newhart often comically points out, it’s not “stuttering”, it’s stammering. While some of it is undoubtedly exaggerated on the sitcoms, when I see him on talk shows, it’s as if Dick Loudon just walked off the set of Newhart.
I recently finished this and enjoyed it. However. If I hadn’t been told the premise, I don’t think I would have liked it. While I didn’t finish Seal Team, how they portrayed the team made sense to me. These are people who are dedicated to it. They train all of the time. They may have a beer or two but that’s it. The idea of the team in Obliterated doing as many drugs as they did and still being able to function would have gotten me to quit but I had accepted that premise by then, so could keep going. A friend of mine who wasn’t warned, quit after ep1 because of it.
I did recognize C Thomas Howell but have seen him in things recently. I also found it hilarious that he got billed for no dialog for at least three episodes? Four? Great job if you can get it!
My take is that if you know it’s over the top on everything, it’s entertaining. If you go in expecting either a spoof or something serious, it just pisses you off.
I was watching Millennium, the X-Files spin off, back in the day. Someone asked me what it was about and all I could say was really violent crimes. It was probably novel back then and not as common. In describing it, though, I really did wonder why I was watching it. It was in the X-Files universe, so I expected some stories like x-Files? It never did it that I saw. I mention this as background because I have done that a lot with shows. Dexter was a show I watched for four or five seasons until the show changes or I can’t be sympathetic with the main character anymore. Or it becomes so ludicrous that no one has captured him. The books at least made it a bit more plausible why he’s never a suspect. I know this is an older show but I remembered it when someone mentioned Dexter.
Thanks for the clarification. My understanding is still that is how he acts in public. In private, very different but I have no cite for that.
Yeah, that’s what happened with us. On our first viewing, we kept watching because it was so close to being good, we wanted to see it finally be good. Our second watch was just painful, highlighted what we didn’t like in earlier episodes, and didn’t care about any characters, so we quit faster.
As I’m sure it has been mentioned, I’m glad that I have a lot of SciFi/Fantasy/Supernatural shows to be picky about these days! Certainly not the case before. I’m finding 90s cable had a lot of shows I might have liked in those genres but was either in college or didn’t know about them. Total Recall had a show, Prey, First Wave, and probably more. Of course, I say that but saw or knew of TekWar, Dark Skies, Earth 2, Friday the 13th the series, Time Trax, MANTIS, and again, probably more.
Going to go on the record, again, that I thought the Newhart final episode was one of the worst ever, like, X-Files bad. Maybe even worse than that.
I just finished all eleven seasons of the original Frasier series. It really holds up extraordinarily well, although they relied a lot on farce in the latter seasons. But the writing was solid throughout.
Speaking of older stuff, I’ve been fairly slowly going through all of The Addams Family and The Munsters. Both of those are still pretty good, too, except neither of them care one whit for continuity and both have what are glaringly racist moments from a modern point of view. (Example: Herman has bought a detective kit made in Mexico. Grandpa calls him “My son-in-law the wetback detective”, then tells him the company is a gyp outfit.)
Finished:
Mr Queen - quite good and nicely wrapped up, although a long slog of 20 episodes each over an hour long. I finally realized why this seemed so different to other series and decided it’s because all the story arcs were long ones; there were few to zero one episode story arcs and most of them ran the full 20 shows (and previously mentioned, there were a lot of characters and political alliances to keep track of). A decent dramedy I would recommend if you have the time and patience.
Archer, S14 - I still think they should have quit at 10 seasons but I have to admit the writing for this one is a notable improvement over the previous three. A return to the more classic style of the show.
Drug Store in Another World - The Slow Life of a Cheat Pharmacist - Continuing the “medical science in a fantasy world” anime theme (and the “stupidly long name” theme), this one is light on everything (science, story, seriousness). In fact I’d suspect that it was aimed at younger children if it weren’t for the occasional sex references (the pharmacist at one point is asked to make an “aphrodisiac” to help a woman’s flagging fiancé; he names the potion “Emotional Dream” because of the initials). Also, ghosts in this world get sick, eat, sleep, exercise, take medicine, etc. which I find a very weird sort of afterlife.
What If…? - Not much to say about this that hasn’t already been said. Love me some Captain Carter though.
Started:
1602 - Much funnier than I thought it was going to be, but it’s still early. Let’s see if they can keep it up.
We binge watched Beef in a day , it was fantastic and quite a ride with things spiraling out of control.
We then binged season one of Russian Doll, also excellent. Not sure about season 2 if we will watch given the premise I’d think it should be a one and done story , is season 2 any good?
We have been on a Netflix comedy special run, Trevor Noah’s latest, ok, one from Anthony Jeselnik ( fire in the maternity ward, he had some great bits in it, particularly the ending segment, other parts were meh and trying too hard to be shocking but not funny, but overall thumbs up)
and a Marc Maron one from 2020 End Times Fun which was excellent. I listen to his podcast but hadn’t ever listened to his standup, and have been missing out so will go seek out some more .
Yes. Season 2 played with time travel instead of groundhog daying, so not a rehash.
If anything it was even more trippy. Quite a different focus, though, letting it remain fresh.
Finished The Sopranos on the last day of the year, some thoughts:
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These people were the most emotionally whiny group of men in the history of television. Jesus Christ, Pauli, grow the fuck up!
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Inna really liked how it ended.
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Carmela was more trashy than I remembered, just an absolute horror show in her outfits.
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Still amazed at all the open violence, what, nobody called the cops when they saw some rando getting beaten?
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100% convinced Meadow became a lawyer for mafiosi… that is, assuming she was able to process the trauma of watching her father get killed.
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AJ definitely was dead by 35, a needle hanging out of his arm.
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Do ya think Pauli dimed out Tony? The series ended with Pauli the top ranking guy in the Sopranos crew, so it may have happened.
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Zelenskyy killed Tony!
(Not really, but Inna agreed the guy looked like Zelenskyy, lol)
- My alphabetical ranking of Sopranos sociopaths:
A. Richie Aprile
B. Livia
C. Janice
D. Phil Leotardo
E. Ralph Ciporetto
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Bobby wasn’t made for this shit.
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Vito Spatafore’s story was a case of the writers running out of ideas and grasping at straws.
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AJ was less irritating the 2nd time around… but still irritating.
I figure both of them died with Tony. I always assumed the whole family likely bought it - too close quarters for assassins to get cute with aiming. Guess it depends how it was done, but I like to think Tony ended up de facto killing his whole family through the life he led. I’m cheery that way 
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It seems to me the assassination was done by the guy in the members-only jacket walking up to Tony and putting a bullet in his head. I don’t see why he would kill the family. The mob looked down on hitting family members unless absolutely necessary.
I agree. Assuming Tony was killed (and one could easily make the argument that he wasn’t), there’s no need to assume that Carmela and AJ were also shot. And I doubt that Meadow would get offed, she wasn’t even at the table.