What TV series are you currently watching?

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Yes, check out The Hitch-Hiker, with Edmund O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy!

She also handled the comedy The Trouble with Angels, with Rosalind Russell and Hayley Mills.

Thanks.  I'm not familiar with the movies, but will look into them.

Stumbled across a new-to-me British show called Maryland.  Intrigued by what I saw of it.  Two estranged sisters finding out (upon their mother's death) that she had a very different past than they knew of (Sorry Cato...getting sleepy here).

PD

[Karl Henning]

Patrick McGoohan turned down the role of unscrupulous womanizer James Bond. In the first two episodes of The Prisoner, Number Six's gallant impulses leave him vulnerable to deceitful women, although in both cases the deception is a matter of leading him to believe that he can escape from the Village.

"Many Happy Returns" is one of my favorite episodes, head-fakes everywhere you turn.

[Cato]

"Many Happy Returns" is one of my favorite episodes, head-fakes everywhere you turn.

Difficult to choose a "best" or "favorite" episode: Hammer into Anvil was a favorite of mine and of my friends.  

Or...any episode with Leo McKern as Number 2!

[Karl Henning]

Difficult to choose a "best" or "favorite" episode

Very true!

Or...any episode with Leo McKern as Number 2!

And very true, again!

[DavidW]

Finished season 7 of the new Who!  And wow, wow, wow!  It was a great season.  And a massive one too for a British episode.  It was 16 episodes long, had two Christmas specials and the fiftieth anniversary!



And I loved the new, improved Cybermen.  The return of the Angels back in their original form.  Also it was good that the season put emphasis on individual episodes instead of the absurd, long arc that was in the previous season.

[Karl Henning]

Difficult to choose a "best" or "favorite" episode: Hammer into Anvil was a favorite of mine and of my friends.

Or...any episode with Leo McKern as Number 2!

This time it especially stands out to me when someone in the Village does indeed go by a name. It starts with "Arrival" when we meet # 6's colleague Cobb. In "Schizoid Man" we have both Alison (the young lady with whom #6 has a mental link) and fleeting suggestions of #12's name. There is  Dutton in "Dance of the Dead."

[Karl Henning]

Difficult to choose a "best" or "favorite" episode: Hammer into Anvil was a favorite of mine and of my friends.

Or...any episode with Leo McKern as Number 2!

"Checkmate"

#8: "May I see you again?"
#6: "Oh, yes, I'm here all the time."

[drogulus]

    Last night I watched the first 2 episodes of Secret Army, the late '70s series about the WWII underground network in Belgium that helped downed RAF fliers escape the Germans and return to Britain. It stars Bernard Hepton, which I don't mind at all.

[George]

Good stuff.

[Bachtoven]

Dark Matter on Apple TV. It's based on Blake Crouch's novel about an alternate universe . He did the adaptation and is the show runner. If it seems similar to HBO's Counterpart, keep in mind that Crouch's novel came out first. The first two episodes are very good.

[Karl Henning]

Difficult to choose a "best" or "favorite" episode: Hammer into Anvil was a favorite of mine and of my friends.

Hammer into Anvil is a nice bookend to Checkmate. In the latter, the rehabilitated Rook applies #6's own character test ("the prisoners are submissive, the warders assertive") to #6 (probably under #2's suggestion) and winds up foiling the current escape plan, where in Hammer #6 fuels #2's paranoia to destroy him from within.

[DavidW]

I finished season 2 of Foundation.  And even with my really fuzzy memory of having read it thirty five years ago, I know that this story is bananas compared to the original source material.  It will probably age very poorly for me... because it inspired me to reread some Asimov which is a very, very different experience.  I reread The Naked Sun, and it was such a clever mystery.  It really reads like Poirot mystery in an sf setting... but exploring the setting is crucial to the mystery.  It all works so tightly together because it is really just about how can Solarians who can't abide each other's physical presence commit murder?  Or have their numerous robots which are bound by the three laws do it?

So while I was entertained by the tv show, this post ended up becoming more how I loved reading Asimov!

[Bachtoven]

The Veil on Hulu starring Elizabeth Moss as an MI-6 agent. The first episode was pretty good.

[SimonNZ]

Feels in every way like it was made in the mid 80s or even the mid 70s rather than 1995. I thought maybe that was meant to be set a some years earlier but then realised they're using 90s-era cell phones.

[Fëanor]

Dark Matter on Apple TV. It's based on Blake Crouch's novel about an alternate universe . He did the adaptation and is the show runner. If it seems similar to HBO's Counterpart, keep in mind that Crouch's novel came out first. The first two episodes are very good.

I'll keep an eye out for that though I'm not an Apple subscriber.

A few years ago I watched another series name 'Dark Matter', 2015-17;  ,mildly entertaining, but I'd hold hope that the new, Egerton/Connelly story would kick it up a notch.



Speaking of Connelly, I really enjoyed the 3-season series, 'Snowpiercer'. I think the IMDB rating of 6.9* is too low, I gave it an 8*.  A 4th season was apparently produced but it seems nobody is willing to bring it to the screen: too bad.

[krummholz]

I finished season 2 of Foundation.  And even with my really fuzzy memory of having read it thirty five years ago, I know that this story is bananas compared to the original source material.  It will probably age very poorly for me... because it inspired me to reread some Asimov which is a very, very different experience.  I reread The Naked Sun, and it was such a clever mystery.  It really reads like Poirot mystery in an sf setting... but exploring the setting is crucial to the mystery.  It all works so tightly together because it is really just about how can Solarians who can't abide each other's physical presence commit murder?  Or have their numerous robots which are bound by the three laws do it?

So while I was entertained by the tv show, this post ended up becoming more how I loved reading Asimov!

I'm currently reading Asimov's Foundation series for the first time (at least the original three books) on Nook, and I watched the first episode of Season 1 a couple of nights ago. It appears the TV series is only loosely based on the books (do the three Emperor clones appear anywhere in the books?) - but I want to finish reading the books before venturing further into the series.

[Karl Henning]

(do the three Emperor clones appear anywhere in the books?)

I certainly do not know, but I guess that Peter Jackson has set a new "standard" for how wilfully an adaptation can disregard the source.

[krummholz]

I certainly do not know, but I guess that Peter Jackson has set a new "standard" for how wilfully an adaptation can disregard the source.

Amen re: Peter Jackson. I loved Tolkien as a child, hated all the previous attempts to turn the books into a movie and was looking forward to Jackson's version, but was horrified at the liberties he took with the story.

[Bachtoven]

I'll keep an eye out for that though I'm not an Apple subscriber.

A few years ago I watched another series name 'Dark Matter', 2015-17;  ,mildly entertaining, but I'd hold hope that the new, Egerton/Connelly story would kick it up a notch.

Same title but not the same story!

[DavidW]

I'm currently reading Asimov's Foundation series for the first time (at least the original three books) on Nook, and I watched the first episode of Season 1 a couple of nights ago. It appears the TV series is only loosely based on the books (do the three Emperor clones appear anywhere in the books?) - but I want to finish reading the books before venturing further into the series.

One of the Cleons is in Foundation and Empire... but he wasn't a clone.  But it is not a bad change, what better way to symbolize the stagnancy of the empire then to have the emperor literally cloned over and over again?

I think the biggest changes were (a) in the books psychohistory predicts what large groups of people do because we are predictable over large numbers, and has nothing to say about the individual, while in the tv show it is exactly opposite.  Special individuals matter more than the group.  And (b) Salvor Hardin was famous for saying "violence is the last act of the incompetent" and finding nonviolent resolutions, while in the tv show Salvor solves most issues with violence, including Salvor and a reincarnated Harry Seldon murdering someone while Harry quips "I never liked her anyway."  Thanks Joss Whedon.  Your witty dialogue which was charming in Buffy has now infected every corner of Hollywood and is just STUPID.