I was unaware of that, too. I was wondering how they were going to stretch out the whole “we might be shut down next week” storyline.
You’ll notice some cases stretch over multiple episodes.
Like the elderly man with a middle-aged son and daughter who is dying. The children are having trouble letting him go, which is why they initially insist on intubating him. Meanwhile, Noah Wyle’s character Robby is trying to encourage them to let him go without extraordinary interventions. He experiences flashbacks to the darkest days of the COVID epidemic.
The two big talents involved in the show were the writer Roy Clarke, and Patricia Routledge as the central character. The BBC was forced to end the series when Routledge decided to move on to other projects, because she was absolutely irreplaceable.
I’m currently watching Still Open All Hours, also written by Clarke, which ran from 2014 to 2019. It’s not nearly as good as Keeping Up Appearances, probably because Clarke was well into his 80s when he started writing it. After two episodes I wasn’t even sure I wanted to continue watching, but it grows on you and has some really funny moments – Clarke hasn’t completely lost his touch!
After Keeping Up Appearances ended, Patricia Routledge did a detective program called Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, which was fun and very different.
Related (and a series of four episodes) is SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, available on Peacock. The episodes have different topics, such as what it was like to interview for SNL, the role of writers, the disastrous season, and my favorite episode, following the evolution of their most famous sketch More Cowbell. I really enjoyed this inside view, and wished there woild be more episodes.
As someone with a teeny-tiny bit of experience in video production, I have to say the opening of the show, with the 6 minute montage, is probably the most brilliantly executed piece of editing in the history of television.
The first 3 episodes of season 2 are now out.
I’m watching The Pitt too. So far so good. I love medical dramas.
I’m also planning on watching Paradise. Looks very interesting.
I have no experience in video production but I agree that it was dazzling.
Another fan of Lincoln Lawyer here. Serious or not, the stories are well-written and engaging.
Finished watching season 1 of Patience.
As I noted before, it is both great and not-so-great. The title character/actress is just amazing. Lots of nice little touches. E.g., in one episode there is a locked room murder. Patience is giddy about having such a case to solve.
OTOH, the actual police procedural stuff is oftentimes poor and some cases really absurd. The last two episodes in particular just reek in this area.
I mentioned in regard to Black Doves that there was so much silliness I wondered if someone was using AI to generate scripts. I also wonder about the same thing here, at least on the procedural side. No human familiar with police work could have possibly thought of this stupidity.
A spoiler example.
The last episode involves an eco-terrorist group with anthrax bacteria. The lead cop, Bea, gets exposed to someone who died from it early on. As the episode continues she gets sicker and sicker. All the time spreading bugs all over. Not a single person says “Get thee to hospital stat and get tested!” Late in the show she finally collapses, Patience finds her. Sent to hospital. (UK show so no articles there.) Of course she magically recovers and is out of hospital in no time flat for the ending of the episode.
Can’t wait for another season. But they really need to bring in better writers for the police stuff.
Started S2 of The Recruit. A good adventure/spy yarn with enough humor to keep it interesting.
I tried Watson. It is House but without the sexist, sexaul harrassing, asshole as the star. It indicates Holmes was real, but a recent 20th/21st century detective. But so far the “medical detective” thing is not impressing me. It gets one more episode.
We watched two episodes of S3 The Traitors and Alan Cumming is fabulous. It is basically live “Werewolf”. My wife loved it. However, we got only two epis as it was a teaser, the rest is streaming only, and we dont stream much.
I’m with you on Watson. I was looking forward to it, but having trouble with the characters and Watson’s interactions with them. Also, the reveal at the end of the episode.
As much as I wanted to like The Traitors because of my fondness for anything Alan Cumming does, I cannot stand reality shows, and the format of having the players talking about each other gets on my nerves. Also, are we supposed to be impressed by who they are because of the other shows they’ve appeared on previously?
Yes, the reveal was really stupid/
Yeah Cumming and the castle were the parts I liked. I didnt like the general idiocy of the cast and they endless purposeless chat. Alan can put so much inflection on his lines, and his gard was just fantastic.
I finished watching “Strong Girl Nam-Soon” (16 episodes, on Netflix), a series about a super-strong girl raised in Mongolia who reunites with her Korean birth family and gets mixed up with a drug ring.
I thought it was 50% charming and 50% terrible. The main actress (who won an Emmy for the first season of Squid Game) did a decent job, but a lot of the comedy was just painfully unfunny (her fat brother eating a big pile of sandwiches! her feeble uncle moaning and falling down! her man-hungry grandma!). I ended up fast-forwarding through some of the goofier side stories.
If you love seeing stunt performers getting pulled by wires, this might be the show for you.
The scenes with Cumming were literally the only parts of the show I liked. I only watched part of the first show and bailed out of the second because the scenes with just the players felt like having an icepick slowly driven into my ears. I suppose I could have just fast-forwarded through those and just watched the scenes with Cumming, but it didn’t seen worth the effort.
And speaking of Cumming, I’m still pissed that they canceled Instinct. I loved him in that.
We got around to watching The Pitt. Reaction is similar to those above. Mrs. FtG esp. likes it. Looks like it’s going to be a permanent item on our DVR watch list.
Still in my Game of Thrones watch (S6 just started) and the one thought which keeps coming to me repeatedly is that the demographics of Westeros make no fucking sense whatsoever. And that whoever wrote this thing apparently has a hate-on for women.
I guess that’s two thoughts, my bad. 
He flirted with me in Bar Italia in soho about 5 years ago. I’m mostly straight, but I took it as a compliment.