Went through Silk again. Maxine Peake (as Martha Costello) is great.

Rick and Morty season 5...

“Rick and Morty Season 5 Premiere: Mort Dinner Rick Andre”

Wolf Hall (2015)

A re-watch. I see through Mark Rylance's acting this time, but he has a good face. Anton Lesser as Thomas More was probably the highlight - but it's a strong cast throughout. A sleepy 40 minutes, and the intrigue begins properly at minute 52, when we meet Anne Boleyn, but there's a lot to recommend, including the music.

Also started watching Halt and Catch Fire again... for the 4th time? 3rd?

I need more great shows.

The First (2018)

2nd viewing. Still the best original Hulu show I’ve seen. Iirc it got cancelled bc viewers found it too slow or were disappointed season 1 didn’t feature Mars. We can’t have nice things. Signed up to Hulu bc it was 99c/month that year, and to check out this show. Was pissed off by the end of it.

Great cast, great writing - sometimes one compensates for the other, but on the whole it’s delicious. Looks great, sounds great. Sean Penn & LisaGay Hamilton (mission commanders) are mesmerizing when it’s about the mission, slightly less so when it’s about family life (more to do with their supporting cast) but they make it work. Natascha McElhone (mission CEO) is difficult to pinpoint, but her character's interesting nonetheless, and episode 6 brings it into focus in a tantalizing way. Otherwise the cast is a lovely, interesting, quirky bunch. I believe in them, and I believe in the mission. I fucking wish we got to see what happened next.

Rick & Morty season 5 isn't stellar... and ep 4 was pretty bad, like a few half-baked ideas that were rushed through. Probably the least polished/interesting/funny episode in the series so far.

Band of Brothers. 3 episodes in....virtually indescribable - authentic seeming to the point of profundity. In other words, completely fucking excellent.

arugula2 wrote: Wolf Hall (2015)

A re-watch. I see through Mark Rylance's acting this time, but he has a good face. Anton Lesser as Thomas More was probably the highlight - but it's a strong cast throughout. A sleepy 40 minutes, and the intrigue begins properly at minute 52, when we meet Anne Boleyn, but there's a lot to recommend, including the music.

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for Britbox, I've really had it with American TV and the idiotic nonsense that passes for entertainment from that country, so, I don't know if it's old age, but I wanted to watch something that takes my mind off the things that bother me, so I gave it a try. What a pleasure. At 2 am this morning, I was literally laughing out loud at Victor Meldrew, and Wolf Hall is on my watchlist. British TV from the 90s and early this century his brilliant. Well acted, swearing where appropriate, and none of the skin tight skirts and wokeness gratuitous sex of American tv. Maybe old age Is making me prudish but I've really had it with the endless padding of poor acting with people stripping down and simulating sex for half of the show. At least these shows are just entertainment and in language that doesn't make me cringe with the endless mispronunciation and misuse of the English language. Yep I think I have now officially become a grumpy old woman.

Partner and I are doing the entire 13 season cycle of Dr. Who 2-4 episodes a night. Currently on the David Tenant round, the toothsome Rose has been replaced by and equally toothsome partner who reminds us of our former housemate.

••••

Aggie you could try Killing Eve which is dark fun....a most diabolical cutie as a villain.
Downton Abbey of course. I enjoyed Outlander and Poldark. The Crown is well crafted.

If you can find it, The Man from Snowy River is enjoyable...just incredible horse riding and photography. Partner and I were in the Snowy Mountains this year for a couple of weeks so was a treat for that reason.

Macdoc wrote:Partner and I are doing the entire 13 season cycle of Dr. Who 2-4 episodes a night. Currently on the David Tenant round, the toothsome Rose has been replaced by and equally toothsome partner who reminds us of our former housemate.

••••

Aggie you could try Killing Eve which is dark fun....a most diabolical cutie as a villain.
Downton Abbey of course. I enjoyed Outlander and Poldark. The Crown is well crafted.

If you can find it, The Man from Snowy River is enjoyable...just incredible horse riding and photography. Partner and I were in the Snowy Mountains this year for a couple of weeks so was a treat for that reason.

Killing Eve is brilliant. A must-see.

See

IMDB blurb: Far in a dystopian future, the human race has lost the sense of sight, and society has had to find new ways to interact, build, hunt, and to survive. All of that is challenged when a set of twins are born with sight.

Season 2 just started, enjoyed season 1. Just realised something I found jarring though, some of the character's clothes have colours that you could only get by dying them. Why would blind folks dye clothes? Other than that, it's a fun show. Though there's a lot of killing and violence, if you're not in to that sort of thing, then give it a miss. It is interesting wondering how the world would be if everyone is blind. And if someone was born sighted, would it really be such a super-power, even in the light? I remember seeing footage of a blind man navigating an American side-walk whilst clicking his tongue, because he'd developed rudimentary echo-location; he even did well on a bicycle. Definitely an interesting watch.

^ I’d put this one off bc of lukewarm reviews. Won’t be re-upping my Apple TV sub until Foundation comes out later this month... will give this one a closer look.

Seen examples of tongue-clickers... pretty neat. Been thinking of training myself to do it (already got above-avg night ‘vision’). I suspect without certain mutations, the gap in human spatial awareness is still pretty great, no matter how well-trained one is. (That reminds me: the trailer for Don’t Breathe 2 looks great.) Particularly in a pinch, say... in wartime, or when avoiding sneaky predators or precipitous terrain during a chase. Plus... it might not take much to neutralize one’s echolocation - just a lot of noise from several directions.

Have you seen Prime Suspect 1973 ? Talk about luscious.



her eyes are astonishing.

This is the most frustrating whodunnit I ever watched. All red herrings and no clues. Nothing to put the viewer ahead of the characters to keep us guessing so we only learn things when they do. This makes the 'twists' not seem like twists in the conventional sense where the foreshadowing and breadcrumbs lead you to either figuring it out before it happens or kicking yourself for not getting it because the answers were there all along. I'd more accurately call them 'surprises' because they come from literally no where.

I gave up trying to guess anything. It even did things like introduce key characters we knew nothing about halfway through the series. Just badly handled all around. The final reveal didn't make any sense at all.

I think I heard it mentioned once in passing the other day, and wasn't sure it was a show... ^that poster makes me hate it.

The "introduce key characters halfway through" bit works sometimes, if the overall story isn't shit. This sounds like shit.

Couldn't get enough of Sandra Oh in Killing Eve... she's amazing. The other gal is good too, the whole cast iirc. Plot contrivances killed it for me around ep2 or 3. It felt like the writing was going to be diluted & recycled to hell just to make the show stretch beyond a season.

Rick and Morty season 5, final 2 episodes airing tonight apparently. Mixed bag this season. Eps 4, 6 & 7(?) are low points in the show imo - hackneyed, lazy writing, thin, noisy... struggling to be funny. I can't find a pattern in terms of writer/director for each episode, it's too random. Ep 8 was fine wine, and it was centered on Rick. I think that might be the issue... even when the show has focused on one of the other characters, that's always worked best when the center of gravity was somewhere between that character and Rick. I suppose Rick is someone's alter-ego & the staff struggles for maximum wit when they artificially segregate him from whatever storyline they're trying to spotlight. (For example, even ep7 is ostensibly "about Rick" - but it's really not, once you see through the skin of it.)

^ The 2-part finale (eps 9-10) was good. Ep 10 was dense, clever, borderline epic. And of course, both parts were almost entirely R&M-focused, emphasis on R.

To my knowledge this wasn't established yet, but in ep 10 Rick states outright that the Citadel is canon, which is reiterated at least twice in the episode. Could be a lie - but it seems to hold up in my mind, so far.

Added: Shit. Just remembered I left it paused halfway. Meh, still best ep(s) in the season.