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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 20, 2020 19:02:05 GMT
It’s a very good visual programme. No need to think too much.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 22, 2020 15:06:09 GMT
I drifted away from Doctor Who when the impossible girl (Clara?) appeared. There was something totally unappealing to me about her, even though I liked all of the previous companions. So I wasn't watching when the next Doctor (Peter Capaldi) appeared. He might be an excellent actor, but I had never heard of him and very much liked the younger Doctors (never having watched the series in olden times), so that clinched it for me. I just stopped watching.
Sunday is a day when I often channel surf since there is nothing good on, and so I fell onto Doctor Who again, with the new woman Doctor, whom I had never seen except in articles. I was not impressed at all because all of the swagger was gone -- hesitant (dare I say "feminine"?) reactions to the situations, and then (in whatever episode this was) the Tardis suddenly appears, totally different from the past. This was the Doctor's first sight of the transformed version for whatever reason, and she liked it while I did not. We're talking about someone who is 900 years old and has seen it all. So I am wondering how often the Tardis has changed (since I didn't see it in the previous series from earlier years).
That episode ended since apparently the new Tardis was the big event (it rescued the group of 4 from some unpleasant place). For once, I was happy that another episode started (I think this station shows Doctor Who all afternoon on Sunday.) because I was intrigued to see a bit more. Are there 3 companions now? And the Doctor was unable to direct the Tardis to the correct time and destination. Even though previous Doctors have ended up at unexpected destinations, it was an anomaly, and this time it was something like the 10th or 12th attempt to get where they were going. And instead they end up in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 where they meet Rosa Parks.
So that was enough to keep me watching today, but nothing makes sense anymore.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 22, 2020 22:02:17 GMT
I struggled with Jodie's Doctor...but the last series really was quite good imo. My favourite Doctor is Matt Smith. It was David Tennant until Rose...I hated Rose. I didn't mind the impossible girl...
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Post by lugg on Nov 23, 2020 18:42:07 GMT
I struggled with Jodie's Doctor...but the last series really was quite good imo Absolutely My favourite doctor is still Tom Baker - yes I'm stuck in the past
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 23, 2020 18:54:08 GMT
I am having trouble accepting that the Doctor is a woman, but I understand that this might just be a male hangup. I totally understand how women would want the Doctor to finally be a woman, but for me he is in the same category as Father Christmas or Jesus Christ. You can have a totally equal female creation to represent the same values and occupation, but I don't see any reason to change the sex of the person who was already there. Does that make me J.K. Rowling or just a stupid man? Can we have male versions of the Virgin Mary or Miss Marple?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 23, 2020 19:57:54 GMT
It was a gamble I spose. I see where you are coming from and probably agree with you...but it's a female Doctor or no Doctor at all atm. Given a choice I think that most of us would settle for another white, British male of middle years...I would have thought that a black male Doctor would have been more acceptable than a woman. Sometimes changing a much loved character too much just isn't on. Leave it alone and write a different show entirely.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 23, 2020 21:14:04 GMT
They started showing Bodyguard in France, and I am hooked.
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Post by Biddy on Nov 24, 2020 15:32:29 GMT
K2 - that was a seriously good show. I just finished Roadkill which was pretty good.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2020 15:42:35 GMT
I only have one episode left to watch in this season of The Crown, so I will go ahead and watch it. But really, I'm now disgusted with the show and disgusted with myself for watching it. It's trashy for the series to regurgitate all this old gossip, and unfair in its cartoon-like depiction of the principals. To be completely honest, I probably wouldn't be so prissily outraged were the presentation better, but the baseless character studies, the one-note acting, and the cruel use of private lives became too much of a turnoff.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 24, 2020 16:18:55 GMT
I thought that's what you people loved about it.
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Post by whatagain on Nov 24, 2020 17:03:03 GMT
What is bodyguard Ker ?
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Post by whatagain on Nov 24, 2020 17:06:54 GMT
Last week we watched an episode of the new season of Balthasar, a french series. A cop and a legist, how surprising. But this legists talks to his bodies and has a complicated life. The episide started with bith being stopped by military, in a Porsche, with the barely luving body of a guy who had been shot by the legist with the weapon of the cop. Good scenario.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 24, 2020 17:43:12 GMT
Bodyguard is a British series currently on France 2 on Monday nights. But it only has 6 episodes and the last 2 episodes will be shown next Monday. So if you have France 2 on replay, you need to start at the beginning.
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 24, 2020 17:52:39 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 24, 2020 18:04:56 GMT
Actually, there are so many 'fuck-with-your-boss' series and movies now that maybe it is more common than we think.
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Post by lugg on Nov 24, 2020 20:55:53 GMT
They started showing Bodyguard in France, and I am hooked. I really enjoyed it too
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Post by Kimby on Nov 24, 2020 22:24:19 GMT
I presume those of you disappointed with the current season of The Crown (is it 3 or 4 now?) have watched - and enjoyed - Victoria?
I loved the first 3 seasons and am trying to get my hands on season 4. I’m glad that they have kept the same actress, and I suspect that changing lead actresses is part of what has “spoiled” The Crown.
We’ve only seen two seasons of The Crown, and very much liked the lead who played the young Elizabeth.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2020 23:25:40 GMT
Kimby, I'm an avid watcher of Victoria*. So far there are only three seasons, although the creator of the series says there will be a fourth. Keeping the same actress in Victoria has made sense, since she is still young in series time. I don't agree that changing actors has anything to do with what is wrong with The Crown in this season (4). I'd rather see a new, age appropriate actor than suffer through seeing the same, but artificially aged younger actor. What I wrote in #1088 capsulizes the problems in this season & the last. Let's see what you think when you watch season three and four. *pee ess ~ If you've never seen The Young Victoria, it is worth watching, although borderline boring. I'm not a fan of Victoriana, but the costumes in this film are fabulous. www.imdb.com/title/tt0962736/
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Post by patricklondon on Nov 25, 2020 10:43:08 GMT
I'm an avid watcher of Victoria Just don't take it as literal, documentary, history, especially when it comes to the secondary political figures.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 25, 2020 18:43:20 GMT
I'm a huge snob when it comes to 'Historical Drama' altho I quite enjoyed Wolf Hall. The worst ones here seem to be made by ITV altho the beeb's Henry VIII series was utterly ridiculous.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 25, 2020 18:53:23 GMT
ust don't take it as literal, documentary, history, especially when it comes to the secondary political figures. No, Patrick -- I've read enough real history to know better. I have no snobbery about historical drama (costumes!), but do hate glaring inaccuracies or padding with too much romance. Is the Henry VIII one you're talking about the one with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the world's worst ham, Cheery? That was unwatchable. Wolf Hall was pure class, so it was okay for you to watch Watching it was what made me get started on the Hilary Mantel trilogy on which it was based -- well, it was based on the first two books. The tv version was amazingly close to the book. I just finished the last one of the trilogy, which I dragged out as long as I could because I didn't want it to end. It may be the best book I ever read in my life!
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 25, 2020 18:54:32 GMT
Yes...you got me. It was awful.
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Post by Biddy on Nov 25, 2020 20:45:29 GMT
Totally agree Wolf Hall was superior.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 27, 2020 20:10:45 GMT
So, I watched the first three episodes of Strike. I was motivated by reading the first book, The Cuckoo's Calling, which was frankly an ordeal. While I was captivated by the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling as a crime writer was sluggish and with far too much detail. Move the story along, dammit! Nevertheless, the book slowly but surely grew on me, and I became interested in the characters.
However, I must say that I found the televsion series more interesting, and it moved along at the proper speed. I was not even disturbed by the plot changes, which is generally one of the most annoying things in adaptations.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 2, 2020 20:39:14 GMT
The Arte series No Man's Land is excellent so far. It's about a French guy whose sister was killed in a terrorist attack in Cairo. But a couple of years later, he recognises her in a television news report about Daech in Syria. So he rushes off to Syria against all advice and is immediately captured by one of the warring factions. It is in English, Kurdish, French and Arabic.
The American trailer makes it look like everybody speaks English as per its usual cultural superiority. Maybe they really do in the Hulu version. Foreign languages are so annoying.
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Post by patricklondon on Dec 3, 2020 13:25:48 GMT
Waiting impatiently for BBC4 to run the final series of Spiral(Engrenages), I've seen, in their Saturday night "foreign cops" slot, DNA, a Scandi-Franco-Polish collaboration all about baby-trafficking. It has Charlotte Rampling, whom I could watch reading the phone book, but I thought she was under-used and basically miscast as a French senior detective, which was sad. But still, an engagingly complex plot. Now we're on to the Icelandic series Valhalla Murders (no, no Brünnhilde or Wotan, but a rather run-of-the-mill police procedural, with all the grey-filtered ice and gloom you might expect). And I've also discovered, on our Channel 4's streaming service, The Announcer/Speakerine, set in 1962, where the eponymous glamorous lady who outlines the upcoming TV programmes (as they did in those days) finds herself embroiled in a murky brew of professional back-stabbing (more than a touch of All About Eve), political intrigue (with TV heavily under the thumb of de Gaulle's government as it deals with the consequences of extricating itself from Algeria), male chauvinism and a murder. Grégory Fitoussi is in it, so it's one for his fans, and for those who like the clothes and style of Mad Men. My blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 8, 2020 22:55:57 GMT
Quite some time back I gave The Last Kingdom a try, but wound up rejecting it rather quickly. I think one problem was that the actor playing the lead is so extremely pretty that I dismissed the whole production as being fluff. Recently my son recommended it, seconded by his girlfriend which made me think maybe it was more than just attractive men charging into battle. Sore oppressed at the time by having no historical drama to watch, I gave it another try and am glad I did. I thought season one was okay, but not something I felt I needed to recommend to everyone. Season two, on the other hand, has added in some excellent elements of suspense which really made for much more compelling viewing. I now see that Alexander Dreymon's twinkly boyishness in the first season worked in that it starts being eroded in season two, so that the character seems to be naturally maturing. And he, along with the rest of the cast, is quite a talented actor. I'm looking forward to more. The 9th century -- ya gotta love it:
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Post by Kimby on Dec 8, 2020 23:33:06 GMT
I watched 4 episodes of the final season of The Good Place (with Ted Dansen and Kristin Bell heading up a very good cast) on the airplane. If I’m lucky, there’ll be 2 or 3 more to watch on the way home. I really like that show, and Mr. Kimby didn’t, so airplane travel allows me to catch up on “my shows” without monopolizing our TV room. Finally finished the Final Season of The Good Place - on DVD from the Sanibel Library. Wow. Well done. I’m really going to miss the characters. The quirky plot appealed to me very much. I especially liked the frequent forays into philosophy. (Such as this Buddhist take on death: We are like waves in the ocean. You can see the wave, it is real. But when it reaches the shore, the wave disappears and the water returns to the sea.) I didn’t love every minute of the four seasons, but pretty close!
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Post by spaceneedle on Dec 20, 2020 9:57:19 GMT
Recent Faves:
The Queen's Gambit, limited series - Netflix The Ripper, limited series - Netflix Hillbilly Elegy, movie - Netflix Uncle Frank, movie - Amazon The new BeeGees Documentary on HBO I also recommend that those with access to PBS online view the latest Frontline episode "Return from ISIS"
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Post by Kimby on Dec 20, 2020 16:58:32 GMT
On an airplane last week, I watched a couple episodes of The Morning Show, starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell. I liked it. www.imdb.com/title/tt7203552/Mild spoilers follow. The show opens with the abrupt departure of the male half of a beloved morning network news show team due to accusations of inappropriate sexual relationships with staffers. Jennifer Aniston has to go on air alone and address this upset as it becomes obvious that her own position at the network is shaky because of declining ratings. Meanwhile, in a small news market, a sharp-witted and sharper-tongued female reporter (Witherspoon) unleashes a profanity- and fact-filled tongue-lashing on a coal-supporter who body-slammed her cameraman at an anti-coal rally. Though her camera wasn’t rolling, the confrontation was captured and shared online, going viral overnight. This caught the attention of The Morning Show’s network execs and they bring her on to be interviewed by Aniston, and things snowball from there. There was a bit of deja vu with NBC’s Today Show debacle over Matt Lauer’s extracurricular sex life and his cohosts shocked and saddened response on air, but while that casualty of the Me Too movement has faded into obscurity, the Morning Show has been renewed for another season. Looking forward to more of this show. And BTW, Jennifer Aniston seems to have learned how to act while I wasn’t paying attention, though this role isn’t much of a stretch for her.
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