What TV series are you currently watching?

[SimonNZ]

And with this finishing the final installment of this superb series (though there is talk of a This Is England '00). And on the strength of these will be immediately starting on the rest of Shane Meadows' filmography.

[DavidW]

True Detective: Night Country

It had really bad writing.  Jodie Foster could not save it.  It was not without merit, but it wasn't particularly good either.  The kind of thing you forget you watched a week later.  It goes in the bin with seasons 2 and 3.  Season 1 is lightning in a bottle, and they really should not have tried to do anything else.

[Bachtoven]

True Detective: Night Country

It had really bad writing.  Jodie Foster could not save it.  It was not without merit, but it wasn't particularly good either.  The kind of thing you forget you watched a week later.  It goes in the bin with seasons 2 and 3.  Season 1 is lightning in a bottle, and they really should not have tried to do anything else.

I agree--a junior high student could have written most of the dialogue. I give it high marks for atmosphere, though. Overall, I thought it was the worst season by a wide margin. There was way too much back story and not nearly enough investigation. Not to mention every character was so unlikeable. I was hoping some sort of creature was behind the killings, would kill everyone in the second episode, and it would be over in two episodes...no such luck!

[SimonNZ]

[Roy Bland]

[Fëanor]

I enjoyed Boy Swallows Universe a lot more than most stuff I've viewed recently.

[LKB]

I enjoyed Boy Swallows Universe a lot more than most stuff I've viewed recently.

Boy Swallows Universe...

Will it be a Big Bang, once it reaches the other end? 

[Irons]

A sensational series. The second is even better imo. Flawless tv, I'm bereft now its over. Mercifully a third series in the offing for 2024. 

What a climax! Wow! The swagger of Viking and as for 'da' Bren, evil seeped from every pore of his body.

[Iota]

What a climax! Wow! The swagger of Viking and as for 'da' Bren, evil seeped from every pore of his body.

Oh yes, sensational! I still feel the absence of that series in my life. And Bren as you say, an evil horror of almost intolerable proportions!

[George]

Kings from Queens: the Run DMC story

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Shogun.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/disney-series-shogun-breaks-mould-with-careful-respect-for-japanese-culture?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[DavidW]

I thought Shogun (the novel) was hot garbage for the odd, racist way Clavell depicted feudal Japan.  I never finished reading it. 

I want to try the new series because it sounds like they might have made something decent.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I thought Shogun (the novel) was hot garbage for the odd, racist way Clavell depicted feudal Japan.  I never finished reading it. 

I want to try the new series because it sounds like they might have made something decent.

Still white savior in disguise and implicitly ethnocentric. But it's a drama made in the West, and the producers etc. have no bad intentions and they must sell the series to the lowest denominator. Nice cinematography and gorgeous costumes. The story is half fictional and half nonfictional.


After Mifune Toshiro starred in the original series of Shogun, disgusted Akira Kurosawa quit using him for his movies and he cut tie with Mifune.

[SimonNZ]

After Mifune Toshiro starred in the original series of Shogun, disgusted Akira Kurosawa quit using him for his movies and he cut tie with Mifune.

The story I heard was that Mifune broke ties with Kurosawa after the shoot for Read Beard went nearly two years over deadline for no reason other than Kurosawa's megalomania and Mifune had to turn down a number of roles he was looking forward to in that time.

[DavidW]

I watched Murderland, which was a real compelling three parter:

[Fëanor]

Shogun.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/disney-series-shogun-breaks-mould-with-careful-respect-for-japanese-culture?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

From the Guardian article ..."But where a 1980 miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune was told largely through Blackthorne's eyes, this new series elevates the Japanese daimyo's role via a critically applauded performance from the acclaimed actor and martial artist Hiroyuki Sanada.

The inclusion of Sanada, who plays Lord Yoshii Toranaga (based on the real-life Tokugawa Ieyasu), has piqued interest among viewers in Japan. ...

If Clavell's novel was "blue eyes watching Japan", the series put on "Japanese lenses", Sanada said shortly before the first episodes aired."

Sounds good to me.  The actual history of the period in Japan is fascinating and there is a lot to tell, whereas the 1980 Shogun version was sketchy on the actual history.

I'll be watching this one.

[Florestan]

This series is inspired by the same Colin Dexter who inspired the Endeavour series --- there are even recurrent references to a regular pub-going, big opera fan DCI Morse*. The main difference between Lewis and Endeavour is the sense of humor: exquisite in the former, altogether absent in the latter.

* in Endeavour, Morse was only a on-and-off pub going, big opera fan DS.

[Mandryka]

Someone's just put me on to Midnight Diner and I am very impressed. Presumably @Dry Brett Kavanaugh knows it well!

[George]

KILL TONY

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Stumbled across Hotel Portofino and have been enjoying it.  It's a period piece set during the inter-war years between WWI and WWII with Season One starting in approximately 1926.  It's set in Italy (any guesses as to where?) with an ex-pat British woman setting up a very nice hotel there and learning how to deal and survive with the local powers-that-be, various relationships both new and from the past, etc.  Lots of intrigue!

PD