What TV series are you currently watching?

[André]

Started season 1. OK so far.

[Daverz]

Started season 1. OK so far.

Boy, Victoria aged badly.

[milk]

Enjoyed this far more than other recent adaptations

The Brussels / Waterloo stuff was especially well done

My wife and I watch a lot of these costume dramas. We're really enjoying this one. I can't remember if I ever read the book. I appreciate the campiness of it. I'm also impressed by the production values of these things. Just a few years a go, it wouldn't have looked this good. Anyway, the characters are fluffy and silly and the whole thing is kind of light but the actors keep it going. We seem to roll our eyes less than in BBC Dickens adaptation in which you notice how hard Dickens (in the TV versions) works to keep it going. I think they do it justice - though I can't recall the book. I think this is a nice bookend to BBC's War and Peace which gives another angle on those Napoleon wars (that one I read when I was 25. reminds me of Cheers: "theres a movie!?!).   

[André]

Boy, Victoria aged badly.

She forgot to look at her own Best Before date  .

[SimonNZ]

My wife and I watch a lot of these costume dramas. We're really enjoying this one. I can't remember if I ever read the book. I appreciate the campiness of it. I'm also impressed by the production values of these things. Just a few years a go, it wouldn't have looked this good. Anyway, the characters are fluffy and silly and the whole thing is kind of light but the actors keep it going. We seem to roll our eyes less than in BBC Dickens adaptation in which you notice how hard Dickens (in the TV versions) works to keep it going. I think they do it justice - though I can't recall the book. I think this is a nice bookend to BBC's War and Peace which gives another angle on those Napoleon wars (that one I read when I was 25. reminds me of Cheers: "theres a movie!?!).

Glad you mentioned the recent BBC War and Peace, which also surprised and impressed me. Finally the book has an adaptation it deserves (defenders of the Bondarchuck film will cry out at this point - and while that has much to recommend it I personally find it ultimately disjointed and meandering)

[JBS]

Boy, Victoria aged badly.

Not that badly.

But behold the power of painters!

Which dates from 1843. The photograph was taken two years later, the first known photograph of QV, when she was 25 or 26.

[Daverz]

Not that badly.

Yes, JBS, I know.  I was joking because of the beautiful young actresses who have played the young Victoria, e.g. Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria and Jenna Coleman in this new TV series.

Abbie Garland seems more the part, if the comparison here is to what is probably a very idealized portrait.



https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9424514/mediaviewer/rm1568896256

[Ken B]

Yes, JBS, I know.  I was joking because of the beautiful young actresses who have played the young Victoria, e.g. Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria and Jenna Coleman in this new TV series.

Abbie Garland seems more the part, if the comparison here is to what is probably a very idealized portrait.



https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9424514/mediaviewer/rm1568896256

Prettification is universal in TV and movies. Daniel Day Lewis played Lincoln. He was great, but he was much prettier.  The only example of a real person I can think of who wasn't prettified on the screen was Grace Kelly!

[SimonNZ]

Andrea Riseborough as Margaret Thatcher was a pretty egregious example of that - and for some reason they went so far as having men routinely "cor blimey" and "phwarr" at Andreal/Margaret.

(Riseborough is a great actress, though, and nailed the voice and mannerisms)

[Todd]

Season four of Catastrophe.  A couple of the storylines are a bit much, but overall the show maintains the same snappy pace, witty writing, and real world scale that made the first three seasons so good.  The two leads are excellent, but I have to admit that Ashley Jensen is just delightful, and Mark Bonnar, too, and they are even more interesting than the leads when they are on screen. 

[drogulus]

     I'm watching Our Planet, the latest Attenborough nature doc. This one is more focused on the effects of climate change than the previous ones.

[SimonNZ]

Very well made six part documentary on that media-circus-in-a-teacup. Interviews with pretty much everyone apart from the Clintons, and extended interviews with Lewinsky herself who comes across with intelligence and dignity - unlike a number of others.

You have to smile bitterly now at a number of righteous Republican responses from the time that have been selected: a long-haired Roger Stone on values, freshman Lindsay Graham on moral leadership, a less leathery Kellyanne Conway on transparency, etc etc.

Hadn't realized there was a Brett Kavanagh connection before this, as one of the Federalist Society "elves".

[Todd]

I freely admit that the only reason I watched The Widow is because Kate Beckinsale is in it.  She looks impossibly beautiful, even while traipsing around the Congo.  The story involves Ms Beckinsale's character trying to learn what really happened during the plane crash that killed her husband.  There's political chicanery, resource exploitation, some twists and turns involving good (?) and bad (?) guys, and so forth.  I can't report that Ms Beckinsale does great acting, but she does have the hot chick with a gun thing down.  Charles Dance offers the most solid support in the unnecessarily convoluted series.  Meh.

[Todd]

I slowly worked my way through the second half of the fifth season of Arrested Development.  Very slowly.  I had to split a couple episodes into multiple viewing sessions.  While there are some laugh out loud funny bits in a few episodes*, the whole thing is generally a mess.  The extra-long final episode is actively bad.  It was excruciating to watch.  I almost wonder if the writers and producers sought to make the episode as bad as it is.  The highlight of the season is the addition of Colbie Smulders as a young Lucille.

One of the best jokes has to do with a crappy law firm nicknamed The Guilty Guys: they never won a case, they never lost a fee.

[vandermolen]

I prefer this to the more recent version with Gillian Anderson.
On DVD:

[milk]

This was good fun.

[Mirror Image]

I'm currently not watching anything, but my mom has been binging on A Game of Thrones. She's even bought herself two t-shirts. How's that for fanaticism?

[SonicMan46]

Several weeks ago, we re-watched The Closer (bought on DVD) - now re-watching Major Crimes (had finished 5 seasons but did not watch again for a while); on the 3rd season - the final 6th season ended in January 2018 (streaming on our Netflix account) - Dave

 

[SimonNZ]

Recently:

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

It seems inevitable I will be watching the final season of Game of Thrones before too long, so I have been catching up on the old seasons. Just got through Season 1. I remember watching it the first time and not being aware of how important the supernatural nonsense (the white walkers, etc) would become. Also not obvious how a blithering idiot such as Robert Baratheon could become king of anything.

Favorite line from season 1: "I'm your prince, not your lord!"