… tears up nearly-complete PhD thesis on The Value of Taunting in Negotiating during the Middle Ages…
Dammit. Gotta start over.
Meh, just re-read your Henry V. There’s some quality trolling there.
First Ambassador
Thus, then, in few.
Your highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
In answer of which claim, the prince our master
Says that you savour too much of your youth,
And bids you be advised there’s nought in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won;
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.KING HENRY V
What treasure, uncle?EXETER
Tennis-balls, my liege
That seems to be true of all Apple TV+ shows. They’ve taken a pile of that sweet iPhone money and thrown it at their original programming. The production values are high, and the soundtracks tend to have big name artists (possibly through some Apple Music arrangements.)
They haven’t struck gold consistently, but they had a big subscription-drawing hit with Ted Lasso. A few other shows are quite good: Slow Horses, Severance and The Morning Show come to mind. I haven’t seen everything, of course, but For All Mankind, Schmigadoon!, Criminal Record and Dark Matter come to mind (as worth a watch.)
We should probably have mega-threads for all the different streamers, seeing how many of them there are these days. I’ll do a trial or a month of one or another, binge a few shows and then cancel. It seems to be the modern, cord-cutted way to go.
ETA: And speaking of amazing 4K crispness: MLB games looking freaking fantastic on Apple.
I liked it a lot. I especially loved the way they ended the series. Because as it turns out Annie didn’t really have to do anything – Kevin fucked himself.
Kinda the point?
Just finished American Primeval. I thought it was very well acted and held my interest throughout. Very violent, though, if that’s not your cuppa.
Yeah I noped out on Kevin Can F**k Himself after 2 or so episodes. The bad sitcom parts of it were just so painfully unfunny and stupid. Which yes, is the point, but that doesn’t make sitting through them any better.
If/when you make it to seasons 8/9, the revised opening sequence visuals do a lovely job IMHO of highlighting the amazing beauty of many aspects of the admittedly bleak landscape. I’ve never been there, but I really want to visit.
In the meantime, for a little psychological lift in the visual aspect, maybe encourage your eye to be a bit more knitwear-conscious? The Shetland cast, like a lot of people in cold climates, wear some really gorgeous sweaters and other outerwear, not only in the traditional Shetland-sweater patterns either. AIUI, they work with several local knitwear designers on costumes and a lot of what they show is reeeeeally nice. I’ve never known a serious knitter to give up on watching Shetland, irrespective of what they thought of the plot and characters. 
Been watching Game of Thrones with Inna, who has already seen it (but largely forgotten it). At the start of Season 4 and Inna asked me to write out my predictions, so for amusements sake, here they are:
GOT predictions… (s4 start)
(Of course, all this assumes that the show ends with a character ending up on the throne, besting all the other groups.)
The narrative seems to be shaping up between Dany vs Tyrion in the final boss battle.
Jon Snow will join up with the stark boys, Bran and Raisin. Bran’s ability to communicate with animals and people means he connects with Dany & the Dragons somehow. Arya will join them too.
Tywin (aka Old Lannister) will die. He may assume the Throne as regent (see below), but he will die before the end.
Joffrey will die. He’s so dead from a narrative standpoint that we should call him Zombffrey.
Sansa… eh, do we really care? She will warm up to Tyrion, give him a kid, and die in childbirth, Tyrion wracked with guilt and Tywin saying it’s best this way. (Trust me, I’ve read my share of British novels, it’s the only way for her to go. That or she wins it all by merely surviving.)
Tyrion is too tragic a character to live. He may die a noble death, but he likely dies in the final episode (or near it).
Cersei: She tries to kill Tyrion.
Jaime: he ends up with the blonde woman (Briana), and while they die fighting Dany, they die together.
Dany is currently the favorite, but there are two seasons left and I feel her character arc must suffer a downturn - perhaps she kills someone, or gets high on her own power and makes bad decisions - and this causes her to lose the Throne.
In the end, everyone dies and either Sansa or Bran wins the Game of Thrones.
Or Dany.
… or the dragons.
Not 100%, but maybe 50%? And bang on for at least two major points!
oh, yeah, the knits. there are items i covet. many times i say to the cat, “how gorgeous is that?” regarding the scenery.
a few times i did wonder how you can effectively “shadow” someone driving around the island. the police are out following someone driving out some where even more remote. there are only 2 cars on this long narrow road. there is no where to hide.
I’m watching No Good Deed on Netflix. It’s billed as a comedy, and can be extremely funny, but it’s at heart a mystery/drama, with the mystery being “what happened that they didn’t reveal yet?” A couple (Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow) are selling their house and we meet various people who want to buy it. Things get complicated as we learn the house’s secrets, and the secrets of everyone involved.
The first episode starts out slow, but it comes together in the second and keeps getting better as we learn more
Others in the cast include Owen Wilson as a washed up soap opera actor, Dennis Leary as Romano’s psycho brother, and Linda Lavtin as a nosy neighbor
I am now hooked on Astrid. Just finished the first set. On to the second!
Main character Astrid is autistic and her main interest is puzzles. Her father was a policeman and she is very good at criminal puzzles.
This post threw me off a second since the actual title is Astrid et Raphaëlle. I am currently watching the British remake called Patience (the name of Astrid in this version). I’m having a good time watching it, mostly. Ella Maisy Purvis who plays the autistic title character is amazing. Casting an actual autistic person who can act very well nails it. One problem is the “police procedural” part of the story is not done well at times.
They throw in odd things. E.g., a character in one episode is named Peter Venkman. Yes, he is a scientist, so back off man.
Watched the first episode of Black Doves. Looks like it will be next up after we finish the next five seasons of Shetland.
Hopefully not the Joffrey/Tywin pair… that was very obvious in coming. As I told Inna, some characters are just ‘Comic-book evil’, so Joffrey dying is pretty obvious.
Well, I thought I’d watch the start of S2 of Severance, but Apple just makes it so impossibly difficult to resubscribe that I’ve given up trying.
I just finished the first series of British drama The Hardacres, set in the 19th Century about a working class family who manage to run a successful business so well they end up extremely wealthy and can afford to be part of the Aristocracy. It all happened so fast I lost track of how they managed it, I guess the writers got it out of the way to get to the heart of the story as soon as they could.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, full of familiar clichés and archetypes, but it’s competently done, and if it continues will be a nice comfort watch. If you like that kind of thing, it’s the kind of thing you’ll like.
I watched The Sticky, not realizing it doesn’t end at 1 season. I might have waited if I’d known so as not to forget everything by the time the next season starts. I enjoyed it a lot.
I liked it, but I never quite had that “I can’t wait to find out what happens next” feeling. Actually, I still haven’t watched the last episode of season 1 and I’m not in any particular hurry to do so.
New series Watson. It is House, except that House isn’t a jerk and House is James Watson operating a clinic after Reichenbach Falls.