There is an antagonist called “The Swede” on the show Hell on Wheels. If you haven’t seen the show I do recommend it. It’s kind of a Deadwood lite but Anson Mount, Common, and Colm Meany are really great in it, as are many of the other actors.
Watched Zero Day on Netflix. Started slow, got better, not too sure it stayed better in the final episode, but it was an enjoyable 6 hours.
“But I’m not even Swedish, I’m Norwegian…”
A good character, but by the end of the series, he’s gone all over the map!
Season 3 Episode 1 did not disappoint! I like the new spin of having Manuelito in a different geographical and workplace setting down at the border, hopefully temporarily.
Other things I like include having random occasional dialogue in Spanish and/or Navajo without subtitling, emphasizing the experience of the characters who aren’t understanding what’s being said. I know these plotlines aren’t being particularly faithful to the books except in broad aspects of setting and characterization, but I’m happy letting the screenwriters run with it, at least so far.
Anybody else watching Japanese TV shows on Netflix? I started that exploration as part of my quest to understand what the hell is up with Studio Ghibli films. I cannot claim that I yet understand that, or many other aspects of Japanese cinematic art, but I’m having fun in the meantime. So far, (multipart, not long-running) series I’ve enjoyed include:
** The live-action workplace drama and/or comedy shows with some kind of quirky or specialized setting.
- Atelier: feisty young textile study graduate joins high-end lingerie design company. Warning VERY GIRLY, except no love-story stuff, which is refreshing. I like this workplace-drama genre that’s getting its drama from the business and mission of the workplace itself, rather than treating it as an office-furniture backdrop to the personal relationships of co-workers.
- La Grande Maison Tokyo: feisty middle-aged aspiring chef joins forces with former superstar chef to develop international-status haute cuisine French restaurant in Tokyo. All main characters Japanese, but lots of French dialogue relating to matters culinary. Apparently there’s a 2024 full-length feature-film “sequel”, La Grande Maison Paris, which I am still waiting to be able to see in some subtitled form.
- The Hot Spot: not-very-feisty middle-aged-ish resort hotel clerk finds out about the unusual abilities and background of one of her colleagues, and the situation sloooowwwwly spirals in the general direction of out-of-control, although remaining firmly anchored in mundane-realism details that may strike some viewers as plain tedious, though I confess the series has really grown on me. New weekly episodes still arriving.
- Giri/Haji: I don’t know if this counts so much as a “workplace drama”, given that the protagonist is an LEO coping with a surge in yakuza gang warfare, so more of a police procedural/thriller? Not much comedy so far (um, I’ve seen like 1.5 episodes).
** The anime adventures, generally based on manga:
- Forest of Piano (Piano no Mori): A young student discovers his abilities and aspirations in classical piano, along the way sharing experiences and development with a number of contemporaries who are his rivals and friends.
- Blue Period: A young student discovers his abilities and aspirations in studio art, along the way sharing experiences and development with a number of contemporaries who are his rivals and friends.
- The Way of the Househusband (Gokushufudo): A former yakuza gangster kingpin is now married to a high-powered though somewhat ditzy businesswoman, who has no time (and not many skills) for traditional homemaking activities. The husband, whose impressive violent-crime qualifications aren’t much use to him as a law-abiding citizen seeking legal employment, turns instead to the challenges of mastering domestic duties, a mission that he takes VERY SERIOUSLY, meanwhile instructing a young ex-yakuza apprentice in their mysteries. (Warning: not very “animated” in a continuous sense, more like quickly flipping through successive frames of a manga story.)
- Thermae Romae: A young bathhouse architect in Imperial Rome develops his professional abilities through occasional accidental time travel to modern Japan.
Any other dorama/anime watchers with opinions on these shows? (See also: Blue Giant, anime feature film about aspiring Tokyo jazz trio, similar to the above in some ways but not a series.)
Yeah, and it’s nice that they are including Navajo ritual and tradition. I had to laugh at Joe’s wife nagging him about having “a ceremony” to ward off any bad juju in the last season. He always has a stoic look while mentally rolling his eyes.
I just binged The Madame Blanc Mysteries. I really enjoyed it. Highly recommend.
I signed up for Acorn just so I could watch it.
I can’t wait for next season.
Checking, I see it has Robin Askwith in it. But the title doesn’t start with “Confessions of …”. Drat.
I’d never heard of him before, but it also has Steve Edge and I like him a lot. Great actor.
He is playing against type. And surprisingly very likeable in it, despite playing a bit of a nob.
Rewatching That '70s Show. I remembered Eric as always being obsessed with Star Wars as a definitive trait, but they had a Star Wars episode in season one and almost never mentioned it again until season five, when Eric was suddenly obsessed (and was obviously meant to always have been).
I have been watching Deep Space Nine from the beginning again, as it has been showing on a cable channel I get.
With Quark as a prominent character we hear a lot about the rules of acquisition. Has there ever been published a complete list of the rules, at least the ones we hear on the show?
Thanks a lot!
We have watched this, having read some of the manga. It is quite funny in his extreme reactions to incredibly mundane things.
Giri/Haji is excellent, very much a police/gangster thriller. Has moments of comedy, but more tension and violence. Excellent performances, really strong character/relationship elements and builds genuine drama on top of the somewhat twisty plot. What they do with the final shootout/confrontation is incredible, and well worth sticking around for.
Just finished Miss Austen, a BBC drama about Jane Austen’s sister Cassie, and her efforts after Jane’s death to protect her from biographers. It is now generally lamented that Cassie worked so hard to destroy Jane’s letters and other evidence of her inner life - this series shows why a loving sister would do that, while also making full use of the prerogative of fiction to present a guess at what that inner life might have been through flashbacks to the sisters’ lives together.
Great performances from a mostly female cast (Keeley Hawes, Rose Leslie, Jessica Hynes, as well as Patsy Ferran and Synnove Karlsen as young Jane and Cassie), exploring some Austen-esque themes, such as the tension between love, respectability and security, the precarity of women’s social and economic status, and suffocation of social and familial obligations. The end might be a touch more romantic than realistic, but no one complains about Persuasion so…
I also thought it was pretty funny.
I haven’t watched any live-action Japanese dramas, but I have watched a number of Korean dramas on Netflix. One that would fall into the category of “live-action workplace drama and/or comedy shows”:
- Marry My Husband: A woman who works in the marketing department at a packaged food company is a doormat for everyone at work (including her scumbag husband and her backstabbing best friend). She dies relatively young, but is transported back 10 years in time to relive her life (and career) differently. I liked it and I thought the concept was interesting (it ain’t Shakespeare, though).
Curb Your Enthusiasm, 6 episodes in, gotta ask one question:
Every episode has been the same - Larry commits some minor faux pas in the first minute, it bites him in the ass in minute 15 when the person he was rude to is in a position to help David… but doesn’t. Hijinks ensue.
Are they all like this?
Pretty much. It’s just David being a petty asshole. We quit watching somewhere in there.