What TV series are you currently watching?

[Todd]

Ray Donovan.  After binging on the first season, it seemed reasonable to semi-binge on the rest of the series to see what happens.  It was hard to take the first season too seriously, and that gets reinforced with the addition of Hank Azaria as an FBI bigwig in the second season.  I watched the rest of the show taking it as a comedy that is presented as something other than a comedy.  And how else can one take a show where the main character takes on - get ready for it - the FBI, the Armenian mob, the Russian mob, billionaires, and the NYPD and mayor of New York - and wins in every instance.  Um, yeah.  Throw in the standard silliness as it pertains to quick recovery from gunshots, beatings, and such forth, and one must view it is a comedy.  The apogee here is when Susan Sarandon gets pistol whipped one night and then the next morning is cogent and smarmy.  Yep, septuagenarian women get bonked on the noggin something fierce and bounce back like it ain't nothing, I'll tell you what.  It wouldn't really be a problem except that the show goes for that gritty, noir-ish thing.  Actually, it's not a problem.  One just adjusts and happily watches really handsome Liev Schreiber beat and kill people and go to therapy here and there - with therapists C Thomas Howell and Alan Alda! - while his dad Jon Voight beats and kills people, too.  So do his other family members.  It's their thing.  Even his daughter gets in on the act late in the series, which culminates in one of the goofiest scenes I've watched in years.  It involves a chainsaw and dead cops, that's all I'll write.  All the actors end up fully comfortable in their roles as the season go by, making it easy enough to watch, and production and writing more or less keep things in the same unbelievable universe the whole time.  One of the highlights of the show is the addition of Sandy Martin in the later seasons, and she does fantastic work, as she always does, just with more dialogue.  Pity the show was cancelled, though if the promised movie gets made, I'll watch.

[Papy Oli]

Yes, Baptiste was disappointing. We didn't bother with the final episode.

Watched the lot (The Bridge), Olivier. I would say Series 1 & 4 are the best. The ending leaves you in little doubt there will not be a 5th series.

Being French I'm in no doubt preaching to the converted but for us Spiral is if not as good, not far behind.

Belated one but noted about the Bridge, thank you.

Never seen Spiral, so I have added it to my BBC list. I remember seeing some praise for it in reviews and here I think. We'll give it a try.

[SonicMan46]

Rizzoli & Isles - posted below about a year ago - bought the DVD box which was cheaper than buying each season - so we decided to do a re-watch -    Dave

Rizzoli & Isles - we've been missing watching our old crime series (e.g. NCIS, Bones, Major Crimes, Closer, etc.), SO had to find 'something' new to us that would hopefully match those types of plots & characters (short description below) - rented the first season from Amazon Prime and am enjoying - Sasha Alexander is married to a Ponti son - they have two kids and their granny is Sophia Loren.  Dave

[Irons]

Belated one but noted about the Bridge, thank you.

Never seen Spiral, so I have added it to my BBC list. I remember seeing some praise for it in reviews and here I think. We'll give it a try.

Do Olivier. Spiral is excellent. Hard hitting and set in the murky backstreets of Paris. Again a female lead and more then professional association with her male deputy. Sounds like The Bridge, but it is not. Sadly Spiral is over too, bugger all to watch now on a Saturday night!

[Papy Oli]

Do Olivier. Spiral is excellent. Hard hitting and set in the murky backstreets of Paris. Again a female lead and more then professional association with her male deputy. Sounds like The Bridge, but it is not. Sadly Spiral is over too, bugger all to watch now on a Saturday night!

We'll probably get to it quicker than planned, Lol. We tried to go back to Baptiste last night after returning from holiday. Gave up after 20 minutes into the third episode. Utterly boring, which is very sad considering how good and gripping The Missing and Baptiste Series One were.

[DavidW]

I started watching White Lotus.  Pretty funny so far.

[George]

First time through this series and really enjoying it. Surprised to see how many aspects of it remind me of the early days of Miami Vice.

[Todd]

The Loudest Voice.  Fat Maximus, fattened up more with prosthetics, plays super bad guy Roger Ailes in this fair and balanced mini-series based on the crack, objective book by Gabriel Sherman.  How fair and balanced?  The Murdochs are portrayed as quite reasonable and merely money-grubbing.  Maybe Newscorp has a stake in Showtime?  (HBO's Succession offers a more satisfying caricature of the family.)  In addition, one gets Naomi Watts as Gretchen Carlson, some nobody as Sean Hannity, another nobody as Glenn Beck (remember him?), and Seth MacFarlane as some dude named Brian Lewis.  Oh yes, and Sienna Miller gets all frumpy as Elizabeth Ailes.  Really, it's quite impressive to see the insanely gorgeous Ms Miller turned into, what, a Minnesota Karen.  The actress really nails her midwest American accent, though how accurate a depiction of the real Ms Ailes it is I have no idea.  The show is a campy, fun hatchet job.  At the center is Russell Crowe, of course, who so completely dominates the proceedings that it's basically his show with some minor hangers-on.  The dude can deliver spittle with the best of them, there's no doubt.  There is one presence in the show who rivals Mr Crowe for attention grabbing power: The Forty-Fifth President of the United States, here presented only in a handful of his very rare television appearances from the 2016 campaign.  I suspect the producers of the show did not expect quite as many guffaws as it produced while I watched, though they probably take themselves seriously. 

[Irons]

Not a series but Help (Channel 4) is harrowing stuff. Set in a Liverpool care home during the early Covid crisis starring Jodie Comer from "Killing Eve" and Stephen Graham. A political message of gross failure and deserting the most vulnerable in their hour of need. But the message is balanced and fair, not hectoring.
The story centres around the developing friendship of a recently recruited nurse (Comer) and a resident of the home with early age dementia (Graham). Yes, it is grim and hard edged but I found it moving too and glad I was not put off by the subject matter. Acting is top draw.   

[milk]

First time through this series and really enjoying it. Surprised to see how many aspects of it remind me of the early days of Miami Vice.

The best show ever. 2nd (and 5th) season is the weakest, though still great.

[North Star]

The best show ever. 2nd (and 5th) season is the weakest, though still great.

What, the 2nd season is maybe my favourite of them all..

[drogulus]

     Tatort Alert!!

     I'm watching Tatort, Streets of Berlin, which popped up on Prime not long ago. I wish they wouldn't just dribble them out like this.

[Iota]

First time through this series and really enjoying it. Surprised to see how many aspects of it remind me of the early days of Miami Vice.

Simply one of the best things I've ever seen on TV.

Here:



The North Water (BBC2)

A blisteringly menacing turn from Colin Farrell as an uneducated but highly intuitive and cunning psychopath aboard a whaling ship with all manner of ne'er-do-wells mixed in with pack. At first I wondered if it was going to be too unrelentingly dark and bleak to stay the course, but either I adjusted, or from the second episode onwards it improved, but I ended up very involved.
The Arctic scenery both beautiful and an inseparable part of the dramatic intensity. Highly recommended.

[Todd]

Brockmire.  Gonna watch Hank Azaria pretend to be an FBI guy, might as well watch him pretend to be a baseball announcer.  Here, Mr Azaria gets to use his well-honed voice acting skill to deliver colorful calls.  Of course the show is not about that but rather is about a voyage of self-discovery for the main character after he finds his wife cheating.  Brockmire becomes a hard-drinking, drug-ingesting manwhore, who then slowly tries to redeem himself.  The show blends an attempt at blending a woke outlook and the raunchiest possible humor, and it mostly succeeds.  Azaria is the only person in every episode, but he is surrounded by able support.  Tyrel Jackson Williams does excellent work as his sort of sidekick, and JK Simmons and Richard Kind (especially) lend superb support in brief bits.  George Brett (!) makes appearances, and Joe Buck does a great riff on his persona.  But the show's secret weapon is Amanda Peet.  She spices up the first season, matching or surpassing Azaria scene for scene, and comes back in the fourth season to salvage what's left.  The duo deliver the funniest abortion gag ever, outdoing even It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  Not everyone's cup of tea, but entertaining to start and finish.

[Todd]

The Defeated.  Things ain't right in post-war Berlin.  There's the whole four power carve up mess, gobs of destruction from all them bombs, etc.  Such ruin gives rise to crime, naturally, and into the mess wades a New York detective played by Taylor Kitsch, who boasts a mean, pinched Brooklyn accent.  He's summoned by an American diplomat, but he has his own agenda, too.  The story has a lot going on.  There's a sorta German crime lord who uses women as his soldiers, high-end art thievery, and a very Seven-esque subplot.  The show was shot in the Czech Republic, but recreating post-war Berlin requires a lot of CGI, so any outdoor shots encompassing more than thirty lateral feet has a matte painting feel.  The acting is more or less fine, the directing and composition, such as it is, is pretty good, but the whole show is much less than the sum of its parts.

[Irons]

After an exhausting day and bored stiff by "Strictly" I was quite happy to watch paint dry last night on TV. My wife on the other hand owing to the fact that as a child her parents often took her to Ridley Road on a Saturday afternoon made the decision to watch the opening episode of an eponymous series on BBC.

 

From not being the least bit interested at the outset by the end I was completely hooked. The production is first class, even unique, in capturing the atmosphere, music and the awful persecution of Jews in 1960's London. A serious shameful subject but Ridley Road has lightness and East End humour too. Looking forward to episode 2.

[milk]

What, the 2nd season is maybe my favourite of them all..

I love the second too. I wonder how I'd rank them though. 5th would be last. I think 2nd would be second to last. The whole show is the greatest drama ever made IMO. The worst season is better than anything ever made. I also think Deadwood, Breaking Bad and Madmen were excellent. I don't watch anything anymore because nothing is that good. Fargo was close but I don't know about the latest season. The first season of True Detective was good too. But I've given up on TV dramas. Has anyone seen Escape at Dannemora? How about this new show on Amazon about the historical arctic voyage?

[Papy Oli]

After an exhausting day and bored stiff by "Strictly" I was quite happy to watch paint dry last night on TV. My wife on the other hand owing to the fact that as a child her parents often took her to Ridley Road on a Saturday afternoon made the decision to watch the opening episode of an eponymous series on BBC.

 

From not being the least bit interested at the outset by the end I was completely hooked. The production is first class, even unique, in capturing the atmosphere, music and the awful persecution of Jews in 1960's London. A serious shameful subject but Ridley Road has lightness and East End humour too. Looking forward to episode 2.

Noted, Lol.
We caught the last 10 minutes of the first episode while waiting for the News and Match of the Day.
It sounds worth adding to the ongoing list of series to catch up on 

[Iota]

First Episode.

Well that got my attention! Picked me up the moment it started and didn't put me down till the end. A bevy of ambitious young types being inducted into a city bank, tight, involving direction, plenty of barbed/ruthless/dysfunctional behaviour on display, but not without compassion from the directorial eye - a shiny cannonball of an opening! Hope it sustains into the rest of the series.

[Roy Bland]