I watched the first 2 episodes of The Beast in Me. So far so good. I’m liking it so far and looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
Matthew Rhys’ character is truly frightening. Claire Danes’ character stammers incessantly - it’s really hard to listen to. I’m assuming she stammers less as the miniseries goes on.
Seven Dials (Netflix) Ostensibly a series, but with only 3 episodes it could have been compressed into a 2-hour movie. With Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham Carter, and based (in theory) on an Agatha Christie novel. I’m curious to read the original as I suspect that the plot there might be different, as this new version doesn’t make a lick of sense.
It ends with an obvious lead-in to further adventures of the heroine.
We watched the season opener. All of the characters are more or less happy and on an even keel. Time for the writers to start torturing them again. There’s a fun guest appearance by Micheal J. Fox.
Funny you should mention him – I recently started watching The Americans on Hulu, starring him and Keri Russell. I’m just starting Season 3. I’m interested in seeing how it turns out, given what I know about certain geopolitical events….
The other thing I’m watching on Hulu is You’re The Worst, and the two main characters live up to the title. The type of characters you’d find loathsome IRL but are kinda fun to watch.
Yeah, I liked that one. Bit of a sleeper hit I think, though I recall it getting a fair bit of praise for all or most of the run. It also had a satisfying natural ending with a full five seasons, rare on serial TV these days.
I’ve got two new series started on Netlix.
Death By Lightning- I’m halfway done and impressed by the casting- Michael Shannon as Garfield and Vondie Curtis-Hall as Frederick Douglass in particular look straight out of the history books. I don’t know if the f-bomb was as common in spoken language as it is today. I suspect not and that makes the series less authentic in my book. Of course, being historical fiction they invent conversations that likely didn’t happen. Guiteau’s pep talk to Arthur seems way too convenient to the plot.
Victoria- I’ve only seen one episode so far and the lead actress is amazing. Unfortunately, I described it to my wife and she may want to see it, so I’ll have to pause and rewatch episode 1 with her, after she gets done with her current obsession, Bridgerton.
As has often been mentioned about “Deadwood”, when they researched cursing from those days it was stuff that would be considered mild today, so they had to ramp it up with lots of f- and mf-bombs that you wouldn’t have heard back then. Probably the same thing going on here.
The guys from Band of Brothers have said they didn’t like all the cursing in it. They were in combat. They were mostly working class poor. They said they cursed but not that much. By the time I joined 40 years later fuck was used as punctuation.
Yeah, no kidding. I heard such gems as “That fuckin’ fuck is fucked up” on a regular basis.
The pace did pick up after the first couple episodes, but the end felt like a bit of a cheat. It doesn’t work as a proper whodunnit because important information was withheld from the audience until literally the final scene of the series. Thus, the reveal of the killer seems very much out of left field. More like a “Ha! We tricked you!” ending than a truly satisfying and rational resolution.
Still, it was a fun watch, if nothing else.
Shrinking Season 3, Episode 1.
This show makes me feel so good. I’m always laughing the whole way through. Yeah it has sad parts, but it has so much heart. I appreciate that everyone is so deeply flawed and yet loved and loving.
Everyone needs a Derek.
As I’ve said it’s one of my favorite shows of all time. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to get through this season with my wife. Since the last season her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
I watched the Pitt first and loved it. Binged s1 twice, in fact.
I went and tried to watch ER and it wasn’t as good to me. Both shows have medical and personal drama happening but something about ER wasn’t as good to me. Maybe it’s 90s TV? I mean, I love 90s TV, but this one didn’t work for me. I stopped about four episodes into it, not interested in many of the characters. That’s on me, not the show.
The waiting in the ER is certainly true but I would never take out any frustration on the people working there.
Thanks for the discussion!
I think the difference is Pitt is a Medical drama, and ER was a medical Drama. The emphasis in the first is on the medical issues, not the dating or personal issues of the Doctors etc.
Big Little Lies, HBO Max (2 seasons).
You know, I like musicals. I like needle drops (Layla in Goodfellas, much of the music in Tarantino films), that sort of thing.
But for whatever reason, I hate musical interludes - 10-30 second passages where a character is doing nothing (running, exercising, meditating) while some mood-setting song is being played. Much of the time it strikes me as pretentious, “look how cool my taste in music is” crap.
Well… it at least played out that way in this series. Completely brought the story to a screeching halt every time I had to watch Jane job to some slog-assed, mopey song.
Other than that, this was a quite enjoyable soap opera. Performances were good, especially from Reese Witherspoon, Adam Scott, and Laura Dern (though the guy who played Nathan (James Tupper) was one-note), season one was more developed than season two (for example, the kids were largely just dropped in S2, even when the story involved the kids), all in all, a good time was had by Inna and me.
Anyway, I’ll give it 4.5 stars on my totally lenient, I’m-glad-they-at-least-tried, scale. What can I say - if I were a teacher, I would be an easy grader.
Watching Shrinking, I love that Neil Flynn gets another reunion with Harrison Ford. He previously met and acted with Ford in:
The Fugitive. He yelled out, “Kimble!!!” and got killed.
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. He questioned Indy’s loyalty to America.
On Scrubs, Neil Flynn plays the hospital janitor that, up until near the end of the show’s run, goes unnamed. At the end, they did give him a name, which bugged me because technically, within the world of the show the character WAS Neil Flynn, the actor from the movie The Fugitive.
But now, as I’m rethinking it, maybe he was messing with JD when he ‘admitted’ to being in the Fugitive. I see Bill Lawrence confirmed his name is Glen Matthews. Though some are saying Glen Matthews is his in-show, ‘real’ name while Neil Flynn is is stage name.
Question for people who watch Shrinking:
I just saw(season 2) that the guy who drunk drove and killed Jimmy’s wife…is not even in prison?
It had been only 1 year in season 1, so about 2 years in season 2.
Does the show explain out the Drunk-Driver is not in prison?
Season 2 episode 8 has a flashback to a conversation between Louis and his then-girlfriend. She says:
So, I just got off the phone with your lawyer about the plea deal. Even though it’s a year, it could be ten months with good behavior.
And I think that’s the most that has been said about it. Apparently he served the time and got out.
Given the context that’s later given, I could see how he would have a light sentence with a plea deal. Leaving a restaurant slightly buzzed and driving because you perceive your girlfriend has had too much, when you have no prior history of drunk driving is probably a situation a jury would find more sympathetic than crawling into a car completely wasted, so maybe it gave him some bargaining power.