I really liked The Undoing. I gained a lot of respect for Grant’s acting ability.
I was slightly disappointed in the plot end, but it wasn’t a huge letdown.
? Are you sure that’s how it works? I’m pretty sure I’ve sometimes been defaulted into the current season of a Netflix show when I click on it out of curiosity, even if Netflix is also carrying earlier episodes of the same show, none of which I ever watched.
In this case, episodes watched have a bright line across the bottom, which is typical for several streaming services. All of the firs four seasons have them, but not season five.
Yeah, glad the new season is available because we like it, too. Added bonus is all the realistic scenes of London. I’m sure it’s been TV-ized a bit, but it seems like real places with real people. I’ve always liked Adrian Scarborough. He played a really cranky (well, he often plays cranky) bellringer in a Midsommer Murders episode. Worth watching just for him and his character’s “arc.”
Hard disagree. We found it laughably stupid, poorly acted, and lame as all hell. I did like all Kidman’s coats as she did here midnight city strolls. 
It took me a good long while, but I finally finished watching Downton Abbey. Overall, entertaining and enjoyable.
I could ramble on a lot about the series, but I’ll just say that Mrs. Patmore was my favorite character. And Mary was quite the spoiled bitch.
I’ve started North of North on Netflix. It about a Inuk woman living in a small westernized village in northern Canada. Siaja leaves her oblivious husband Ting to set out on her own, which it difficult in a town so small where everyone thinks Ting is a great person. Siaja has to get work so she has the income to raise her daughter and remain independent.
Charming comedy drama with some interesting twists.
So you are team Edith not team Mary?
Not a huge fan of her either, although she did manage to disappear for a year, have a kid, and nobody suspected anything. And she was smart enough to hone her writing talent and parlay it into a management position.
We enjoyed Downton Abbey. She saw the first movie but I haven’t seen it yet. I liked it for the portrayal of the classes, although the upper and lower were too chummy as I understand it. All of them are spoiled. Later in the show, I didn’t mind the girls, but they had a lot of growing up to do.
I rewatched and caught up on The Rookie. Ugh, the last one this week was the True Crime style that never do well in IMDB ratings (all in the 4s) yet they keep doing those. Seeing it from the beginning, it was interesting to see how much the rookies (Nolan, Lucy, and Jackson) had learned since the beginning. I thought I might lose interest when Nolan’s Rookie, Celina, but pushed through and it has been okay. A friend doesn’t like it because it’s such a bland cop show but as this is the only cop show I have watched, I find it good. I will say that equally, as a show with a cast, they do force a lot of things to get Bailey involved. What does it mean when a show starts expanding the cast? Are they running out of ideas? Or is it still character driven with the new characters? I also wonder how realistic it is from procedure as I’m sure the action they see is a lot more than happens in real life.
Now I’m in the middle of a Castle rewatch. I still don’t know what happened between Stana and Nathan and it is coloring my rewatch of it a bit. I will say that in The Rookie, they showed Celina didn’t fully clear a room. Celina didn’t look in the closet. I say that because in the rewatch of Castle, Beckett didn’t clear a closet, either. In fact, a lot of the things that The Rookie shows as bad, the cops do in Castle. I don’t know if that’s because it’s typical cop stuff and so they do shorthand when it isn’t he focus? In the season three opener, though, the hint is that Beckett knew about the counterfeit money but let Castle figure it out so he could come back. In all other episodes up until now, they have been shown as equals. A lot of time, they have the same thought on motive or that a suicide was a murder. This changes that dynamic. It might have been better if instead of leaving it vague, she said “only a few minutes” or some such. It also seems to be a typical show in how it shows female relationships. He’s shown as a playboy and has several flings and attempts a relationship with an ex. Yet, they barely show Beckett dating and the one time she gets with someone, she breaks it off when she realizes her feelings. I think it’s a big disservice in how that dynamic is shown.
Thanks for the discussion!
Just finished Dope Thief on Apple+. Pretty good effort and some good acting by all. I recommend it.
The documentaries? Yeah, I really do not like those.
I watch Blue Bloods, and of course my fave was Barney Miller, perhaps the most realistic cop show ever.
Struggled a bit with Season 2 of Wheel of Time …confusing. Final episode was insanely action packed.
Season 3 started out okay and more things make sense. I;m old Season 3 is very good so looking forward to it.
Do like the characters/actors involved and talk about diversity …Amazon sure lived up to it…and spent an incredible amount of money in production.
Just finished watching The Good Place, my first time viewing it. I loved the first season and the twist at the end, and it resolved nicely in the last episodes of season four. But boy, season three was quite the slog for me. “Get on with it!” was an ongoing thought. But I’m glad I stuck with it until the end.
It’s interesting that they wrote it so that there couldn’t be additional seasons or sequels. Or could there be?
I avoided Yellowjackets because I thought it was some kind of teenage paranormal romance. I watched the first episode with my wife and was hooked. We finished season one and have started season 2. There is some brilliant dark comedy going on here and it’s a pleasure to watch Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis chew the scenery.
Started watching Bosch: Legacy Season 3. Enjoying it thus far.
Finished up the final ep of Unforgotten. Good show. I think we’re going to start on the latest season of The Handmaid’s Tale next.
This was a good one. Subtle in a lot of ways, it showed but didn’t tell, you had to infer a lot, and the people in the story led lives which weren’t the story… if that makes sense.
A good example of this is Parker Posey’s character. When we meet her, she’s an Assistant District Attorney for the State of North Carolina. When we last see her, she’s working an hourly job at a laundromat. We are not told, at all, what happened to cause this change, but the sharp-eyed viewer would remember the couple of times that, as ADA, she snuck a bottle out of her desk, took a swig, and put the bottle back. No mention of drinking, no lectures on alcohol at work, no catty asides, none of the usual precursors we come to expect in televised fiction. None of that: she took a couple of swigs while working late on a case, 6 years later she’s in a laundromat and it’s because she lived a life beyond the story.
Anyway, hope that made sense. I genuinely liked this one, we may watch the original documentary (despite me telling Inna this week that we need to watch a happily married couple once in a while, 
), and it is definitely recommended.
I am watching The Lost on Acorn. The two detectives are so broken, it is amazing to me they even halfway function, but I guess that is the new meme- detectives with dark secrets and pasts.
Top Chef
Bravo used to run day long marathons of the show. I watched the first 5 season multiple times. I burned out after the first All Star (season 8).
It’s over 10 years later and I’m catching up on the seasons I missed. Most of the Top Chef and Top Chef Masters seasons are on Peacock.
I’m relieved they’ve kept up the standards. They still invite some of the most influential people in culinary circles to dine and enjoy the meal challenges.
The still have the silly quickfires. Occasionally the food is good. It’s hard making great food in 20 minutes.
Ooops- not “The Lost” the show is called “The Gone”.