I watched 3 episodes and quit. Franks is too much of an asshole, too much smoking, and it seems way way way too much “and this time, it’s personal” - in other words, the shows only reason is early Gibbs getting back at his family’s killer.
Oh, and if you fail the psych eval- you don’t get in. Period.
Started watching Anne with an E again. It’s a pretty good comfort show about coming of age.
I think it’s set in the 1800s or so where a redhead girl in Nova Scotia gets adopted by accident but ends up warming up to the parents and vice versa. She doesn’t fit in anywhere and get discriminated for her red hair and freckles, but it’s an amazing show so far. Discovered it willst watching Yt and got recommended some Alex Meyers videos.
Also been rewatching a physological horror show called Yellowjackets in which a soccor team makes it to the nationals but their plane crashes in the woods. It’s a good show so far but season 2s adult timeline takes a dip for some fans.
I definately keep getting in my own way when it comes to enjoying multiple genres and believing I can only like one at a time. It stems from this fear of wasting my own time, which is definately such an awful idea to have.
Are you saying you’ve never heard of the book Anne Of Green Gables by LM Montgomery? I really liked Anne With An E, and am sort of hoping they will do what the previous TV adaptation did and revisit the characters a few years later into their adult lives.
Every single person is the best version of that historical figure. I am so anxious for the second series to come out in March and I read all the amazing books by Hilary Mantel that this series is based on. Mark Rylance is someone who can act volumes with an upward glance but Damien Lewis and Claire Foy are no slouches either.
I’ve heard of the book referenced in Russian Doll but never read it myself. Watching the series, it seems like it’d be an interesting read.
I finished it, but wasn’t any more impressed than you were. I really wanted to like it. But it reminded me of those movies where old women go on zany road trips (80 for Brady) or join risqué-book clubs and, judging from previews, act like brainless morons. Ted Danson’s character was too clueless, like you said. The only character that rang true was the one with dementia. I felt like the show was supposed to appeal to Golden Girls fans. I expected a lot more from Mike Schur.
Also, clearly the writers have no idea how much a place like that runs, especially in San Francisco.
I’ve started watching Homicide: Life on the Streets for the first time, and that’s a big part of what leaps out at me: So much smoking!
And sweating. Seems like every other episode, we see someone, or many someones, just dripping with sweat.
And did Andre Braugher get taller? In Brooklyn 99, he seemed to tower over almost everyone, but in this, he’s one of the shortest cops there. Maybe some good camera work in B99, or just all the other actors being short?
I just rewatched the streaming remaster and what struck me is the way they all hold their cigarettes whether in their mouths or hands – it just sort of doesn’t look lifelike, like as if none of the actors had ever actually smoked (which can’t be the case). Or maybe it’s because I’m just not used to seeing people smoke on TV anymore.
Anyway, it was just something that struck me as weird. Since you’re currently watching it, what is your opinion? Do their smoking habits look natural to you and I’m just imagining it?
I don’t think you’re imagining it. I grew up with parents that smoked, and a lot of my friends smoked.
What I notice is that almost everyone holds the cigarette solidly between their lips, or even between their teeth. This is a technique some smokers use, but it’s not nearly as common as seen in these first two seasons that’s I’ve seen before. My dad used to smoke like that when he was working with his hands, because it lets you smoke and work at the same time, but the actors do it all the time, which is unusual.
One big tell my dad taught me though was how they exhale the smoke. Most people who are faking smoking only draw the smoke into their mouth, like sucking on a drink with a straw, and immediately blow it back out again. But if someone can exhale the smoke through their nose, or can say a line of dialogue, and then exhale, they’re actually drawing the smoke into their lungs.
I suspect there’s one actor who actually smoked, and then a lot of the others copied their mannerisms, not realizing that they were an outlier in their habits.
Started watching The Sticky. A Fargoesque show about the theft of $150 million worth of maple syrup, starring character actress Margo Martindale.
I have to say I really liked this series.
But, as a resident of the Bay Area, I kept thinking: “Wow, they made SF look incredibly beautiful in those shots.” The facility was at the top of Nob Hill, across the street from the impressive Masonic Auditorium (which was in the background in many scenes). One of the most expensive neighborhoods in a very expensive city.
Damien Lewis didn’t have too much to do early on, but he made up for it later. That scene with Anne holding Elizabeth in her lap, and Henry slouched next to her bored to tears was chilling.
Maybe- in CA only about 6% are smokers. New York city is also low, mostly less than 10%.
Maybe now, but in the 90s when the show was produced I imagine the smoking rate was considerably higher. Plus, these are actors - one of those professions with, traditionally, a high percentage of smokers (it’s a job that involves a lot of sitting around waiting with not much else to do but smoke).
OB
Yeah. And also the fact that, as actors, they probably all had plenty of previous roles where their character smoked, so even the non-smokers would know how to at least reasonably fake it. Which just makes the way they handle their cigarettes on HLOTS even weirder.
Just finished The Americans with someone qualified to speak to the Russian side of things. (This was my 2nd viewing, her first.)
Inna said that much of the depictions of Soviet life were correct (there was one segment where she said “Oh, that’s what my mother did her entire life” - and on the screen was a woman following a tractor stuffing just-harvested wheat (or corn) into a bag.) I asked her about the muted colors, and she said that was accurate - Soviet clothing and decorations were drab and not colorful at all.
There were some issues with their use of the Russian language, but Inna appreciated that the show continued to keep Oleg Burov as a major character until the end, including extended Moscow sequences.
It was the 2nd show in a row we watched which featured shitty parents (Friday Night Lights being the first (look into your hearts: you know I’m right)), and Philip and Elizabeth’s…
… not having a good cover story for Paige when she has the inevitable questions about their bizarre behavior is just the tip of it. “We commit espionage on behalf of Boeing” or “we do the flight reservations for the mafia, and that shit is just stressful, Paige” work just as fine, guys, and is easier for her to contextualize.
Watching Matthew Rhys mope for 6 seasons after watching Matt Saracen mope for 3 seasons put both of them on my Mope Rushmore. Who else should be on it?
Poor Stan. His life in tatters, the damned KGB ‘illegals’ who were responsible for his bosses downfall and death AND Stan’s own professional embarrassment, literally lived across the street from him for 5 years. His career will never recover, and the parting shot about his (Stan’s) wife will haunt him forever.
I think the American Fame Machine catches one of the kids. Their story is just too juicy to be ignored. Paige definitely needs a lawyer, though, and stat!
Inna thinks that Elizabeth is a dead-woman walking, soon to be executed by the KGB faction she betrayed. If they can outlast the USSR (four years to go, kids!), their future as American-Russian linguistic experts and negotiators is assured. Inna also thought that Elizabeth had NO IDEA of what things were like in the Soviet Union and was going to be inevitably disappointed.
One of the rare shows where everyone is worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. Recommended.
Some The Americans comments…
I haven’t rewatched it since it was new, so my memory isn’t too fresh, but I thought the plan all along had been to develop Paige and the other one as assets, to basically make them legal illegals. So they were going to take them into the real family business at some point anyway and Paige just sort of forced the issue. I mean, if they lied to her when they confronted her (Boeing/mafia), that would just be compounding the lie they were already living. That’s not a great way to establish her trust.
I hate quoting myself, but this is from the Season Six thread from like 5-6 years ago:
I think Succession is one of the best TVseries ever. I’ve watched it all already, but recently re-watched Season 1. I see that it got mostly very bad reviews in this thread 3 years ago, but I agree with this comment:
Succession is a “black comedy.” Wikipedia has a list of films and series that are “black comedy”, and it’s a very motley collection: Black Comedy needs to be divided into sub-genres! In Succession the blackness is evident; the comedy more subtle.
Very much like Fargo. Now people in Quebec will get a taste of what us in Minnesota have to put up with over-the-top depictions of how they speak. There was an interview on NPR with Martindale and the show’s director (?) He says they continually asked the local cast and crew if they are getting the flavor of rural Quebec correct. Yes, they said, but we have a lot of strip clubs all over the place. So that’s why the scene in the strip club. Nice attention to detail!
I don’t normally comment on a show I didn’t watch, but I tried out the first episode of Black Doves on Netflix and couldn’t even get fifteen minutes in before I gave up on it. Trying way too hard and failing at every step. Even a cast like Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw couldn’t keep me interested.