He looks kinda like “Lewd Imond” Phillips.
One of my favourite episodes, though.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (NFLX).
Inna’s first time through these two, a full rewatch of BCS and a partial rewatch of BB for me.
BCS is, frankly, the better show. BB had some garishly cartoony moments which made us realize we’re watching a TV show and a few really big plot holes (for example, Skyler, who is really big into making sure the money is clean/laundered, still blasts through $1.6 million of unlaundered money as to help Hank/Ted/purchase the car wash, but castigates Walt for buying a $300 bottle of wine.)
(To be fair, BCS had Super Mike Ermantraut, the man who could do EVERYTHING, which was also cartoonish. But it wasn’t as bad as, say, BB’s Gus vs. the Cartel in ‘Salud’, which was just eye-rolling.)
As mentioned above, we saw this in chronological order, so that the story was more about Jimmy McGill than about Walter White - I phrased it as the story of Jimmy McGill and the asshole who brought him down - and it worked very well in that framing.
Anyway, BCS 5 of 5 stars, BB 4.5 of 5 stars.
Death By Lightning (NFLX). This one was interesting, not too sure it’s worth all the hype, but we are glad we saw it anyway. In explaining to Inna about how the civil service worked prior to 1883 and how Garfield’s assassination led to reforms actually being made I was able to use the hoary Stalin quote about how ya gotta break some eggs if you want an omelet, which cracked her up. (Pun intended.)
Recommended.
I just gave Squid Game: Challenge a try. I made it halfway through the first episode and gave up. The first thing that annoyed me was how much time the contestants had face to face with the camera. I figured it was just part of the intro, but it was still going when I stopped. Maybe it stops after the first episode or two, but it didn’t seem like it was going to.
But what really did it for me is two things I noticed during the Red Light Green Light game. First, I noticed that when everyone was stopped, some people would just give up and lay down, sometimes mentioning how much pain they were in. The other thing I noticed was how many people were running with their hands in their pockets. It seemed odd. I did some poking around and found that conditions on the set, at least on the Red Light Green Light set were pretty bad. Apparently, the set was below freezing (30F, -1C). They had hand warmers in their pockets to help stay warm. Also, we see them frozen for a few seconds before they can start running again. The contestants were told (before filming) they’d have to remain still for about 5 minutes, but in practice it was 30-40 minutes, in the freezing cold. Now it makes sense why people were giving up. That also explained why some of the contestants chose to lay down when the music stopped. It’s going to take a lot longer to get up and start running again, but at least you didn’t spent a half hour in some stupid pose (ie squatting).
Between all that and reading from some contestants saying the show was rigged so certain people would win, or at least advance, did it for me.
It sounds like there were a lot of other, off camera, issues with how the production team handled the contestants (specifically eating, using the bathroom etc).
Maybe it gets better, but it wasn’t working for me, even before I started reading about it.
It’s probably worth noting that I don’t mind, and often like game shows, but I’ve never been into reality game shows like Survivor or Naked and Afraid or any of the [find someone to fuck] Island shows.
Some time ago I posted high praise for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a fine half-hour drama series that ran for 7 seasons from 1955 to 1961. Although Hitchcock himself directed very few episodes, the great man introduced and concluded each story with whimsical monologues, and the series has the quality one would expect from Hitchcock.
A friend who collects this stuff introduced me to its sequel, which I didn’t know existed – The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which ran for 3 seasons between 1962 and 1965. A season in those days was around 37 episodes, so that’s a lot of material!
At first I was disappointed when watching them at random. The move to the one-hour format had great potential, but it seemed ill-advised as it seemed to dilute the quality with unnecessary filler and it just wasn’t as gripping as the older series. But then I thought of consulting IMDb for episode ratings, and found over a dozen real gems rated from 7.9 to above 8.
It makes for great late-night watching, but if you’re going to go out and buy this on DVD or Blu-Ray I think you’d get the most value out of the half-hour series. I’ve seen every single episode, in some cases more than once. The Foghorn is absolutely classic, and The Glass Eye a close second. As the saying goes, they don’t make 'em like that any more! Alfred Hitchcock was a genius.
I love both this and the short story it was based on.
And it features a very young William Shatner, long before he was given command of the starship Enterprise!
One thing about both series is that they feature some actors who went on to become big names in the movies or TV, or in same cases already were. One of the excellent episodes I just saw in the one-hour series, Behind the Locked Door, featured an older woman who was an excellent actress and reminded me very much of Gloria Swanson, famous for many performances but most notably for her role in the award-winning classic film Sunset Boulevard. It turned out, by golly, it was Gloria Swanson!
We decided to give Wayward with Toni Collette a shot despite some negative reviews. We liked it. Creepy and weird and more than a few laughs. And the chips don’t all fall the way you expect at the end.
Ah! Spoiler warning please!?
(I kid, I kid—haven’t gotten to that part yet, but I’m familiar with the history).
Wayward (Netflix, 1 se. limited, 2025) Orange is the New Black except the prison is a creepy school/cult in Vermont and our two protagonists are teenage rebels. In tone the most recent thing I’ve seen close is Yellow Jackets or The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of A Clockwork Orange.
I do not watch abuse towards children for entertainment so this is red lining my patience, but this focuses on social control rather than pure misery and that’s a thing kids have to deal with so I can tolerate this.
4 episodes in and my wife and I are committed for the entire season.
For the sake of accuracy, I should say that I initially watched a couple of episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour at random that weren’t particularly great, but with the guidance of IMDb ratings, I made a list of 33 episodes (each about 50 minutes long) that were rated at least 7.5 or better. I’ve so far watched 23 of them, and these curated episodes have all been great.
For example, the last two really stick in my mind. In Return of Verge Likens, two brothers in a poor farming family find out that their father has been shot by a powerful but corrupt politician, who claims self-defense and is exonerated by a friendly judge. One of the brothers (Peter Fonda) plots an elaborate and surprising revenge. In A Lonely Place, a husband and wife on an isolated peach farm hire a drifter as a temporary hired hand, who becomes more and more creepy as time goes on. It ends in a typical Hitchcockian twist.
I mentioned in the earlier post that one of the episodes featured Gloria Swanson. Another one featured none other than Lillian Gish – yes, the famous silent film star, who continued acting in movies and television well into her advanced years. Born in 1893, she died in 1993 not quite making it to her 100th birthday.
One of the interesting things about Hitchcock’s post-episode monologue in both the half-hour and the hour-long series is that he felt a moral obligation, in case it wasn’t clear from the endings, to announce that the perps were always brought to justice.
I have a pet theory that when Hitchcock was creating his persona for the show’s introductions and exits, he looked to Robert Benchley’s theatrical shorts.
The title character Zebulon Sixkill.
We zoomed through The Franchise, a British comedy placed on the set of a major super hero franchise action movie set. It’s hilarious, and I was delighted to realize Himesh Patel, who plays the protagonist, was Jeevan in the excellent science fiction drama Station Eleven.
The two roles couldn’t be more different but he nailed both of 'em. The casting for the Franchise was excellent and it worked so well because the actors were fully committed to their ridiculous roles. It’s absurd madness, and actually has a point to make. Recommended. (HBO Max.)
Started Atlanta starring the multi-talented Donald Glover, plus that guy from Sorry to Bother You. It’s about a guy trying to manage his cousin’s fledgling rap career. It’s very clever. Two episodes in and looking forward to more.
Taking a break for Season 17 of Taskmaster. Hey look it’s Nick Mohammed from Ted Lasso! He’s losing. And dressed like a vampire for some reason.
Season 3 has its moments, but is a slog overall. Season 4 was solid. A strong finish.
We’re still watching The Beast in Me, but Clare Danes’ quivering chin is very distracting.
Season 17 is just about my least favorite season (bottom 2 or 3 for sure), yet I still think it’s great 
. Nick Muhammed is a gem.
You should binge them all! Season 18-20 are all great! Well, my very specific version of great. Keeping in mind I mostly watch Taskmaster for the studio banter, the tasks are very, very secondary to my enjoyment.
Ha! I wish I’d never seen the SNL Homeland skit. There goes the chin…Now I can’t stop staring at it.
The miniseries is an entertaining, well-made and well-acted piece of entertainment. It just felt kind of pointless by the time it wrapped up.
During that first scene with Madison’s parents, I couldn’t figure out why the father seemed so familiar. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him in another production, but I’ve definitely heard him. He was the voice of TARS in Interstellar.
Same. I’m there for Greg Davies.
I have to say I think the sausage drawing activity was my favorite end-of-episode competition.