What TV series have you watched/streamed?

[Kimby]

Apr 16, 2023 11:46:28 GMT whatagain said:

I am back at the gym and i found Sharpe series on youtube.
Dates from the 90's.
Love it.
I tried to watch it years ago but couldn't follow. Apparently my English improved, now i catch it.
Better so, since tbe undertitles are in Spanish... hardly helpful for me.

Off topic, but are you doing anything in particular- besides posting on Any Port - to improve your English?

[tod2]

We back watching DCI Banks. Not that bad really.

[whatagain]

Hi Kimby.
Because of my job I speak daily several hours in English, read and write mails in English.
But hardly ever with native English-speaking.

[Kimby]

We are well into the final season of BETTER CALL SAUL. Though we had a hard time remembering what had happened in Season 5, we were quickly wrapped up in characters new and old. Several deaths took us by surprise. Major enough characters that their sudden demise surprised us as much as it did them!

We are now watching Saul Goodman as he was on Breaking Bad. Quite different from Jimmy McGill of the first 5 seasons of BCS.

We’ll be sad when it’s over, but may start from the beginning of BB.

[cheerypeabrain]

We are watching Will Trent on Netflix about a dyslexic special agent and his uneasy relationship with his team. I'm struggling a bit with the accents, but it's an easy watch, nicely shot...there's a sort of golden glow in the filming. The characters are interesting.

[bixaorellana]

I watched the first episode of Mrs. Davis last night & loved it. Betty Gilpin is brilliant!

[kerouac2]

Sept 26, 2021 3:09:39 GMT bixaorellana said:

I am now watching season two of The Morning Show. As far as I know, Kimby was the only other anyporter who watched it last season. Episode one just drops you right back in the show, arrogantly assuming that you remember everything that happened two years ago. I will keep watching, even though there are many flaws. This article (contains spoilers, if you care) sums up how I feel about the show: www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1037337590/the-morning-show-recap-season-2-episode-1-my-least-favorite-year

So, I watched season 1 of The Morning Show and didn't much like it except for episodes 1 and 10.  I am not a fan of wealthy people bitching and plotting for more and more power.  It's the same reason I never watched any of those series about politics in Washington.  So they ranted and stabbed each other in the back and then went home to their superb apartments to swig whiskey and/or brood and cry.  I am just not a fan of Schadenfreude when it touches no aspect of my own life.

[bixaorellana]

The Morning Show was an extravaganza of missed opportunities. It promised to explore all the ways the youtoo movement can be murkily dangerous, but instead chose to mostly showcase big names & a tired plot.

[Kimby]

In my defense, I only saw a couple episodes on an airplane seatback video system. Thought it had promise.

But it’s not something we can get from our library, so I probably won’t see more of it. (After these reviews, I might not even look for it on airplanes.)

[kerouac2]

I will give season two a try until it pisses me off too much.

You were right to think it had promise, Kimby, because it starts from an excellent idea.

The only reason I watched it was because AppleTV+ was just added to my usual cable service without any supplement and it is one of the series that they are pushing.

[bixaorellana]

I have not seen this mini-series yet, only read the following seemingly balanced review of it this morning. Still, it seems compelling enough that I snitched the whole NYTimes text to paste here. Apparently the series' first episode aired yesterday.

‘A Small Light’ Review: A Profile in Extreme Courage
Bel Powley and Liev Schreiber star in a series that tells the familiar Anne Frank story from the point of view of one of her protectors.

By Mike Hale
April 28, 2023
The mini-series “A Small Light” is the Anne Frank story, but then it isn’t. It recounts the tale of the Frank family in World War II Amsterdam from the point of view of someone who was both intimately close to, and infinitely removed from, their suffering: Miep Gies, one of the extraordinarily brave Dutch civilians who helped to hide the Franks from the occupying Nazis for two years.

Premiering Monday on National Geographic’s television channel and then streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, “A Small Light” is the coming-of-age story of Miep, who — in this dramatized, “inspired by actual events” telling — is first seen waking up hung over, in what appears to be her dress from the night before. Her foster parents are so concerned about her lack of either employment or marriage prospects that they hatch a plan to marry her off to one of her adoptive brothers.

Across eight episodes, Miep, in a sturdy, appealing performance by Bel Powley, channels her spirited party-girl rebelliousness into fearless loyalty to her new boss, the businessman Otto Frank, and angry contempt for the Germans who take over the city and systematically empty it of its Jews. Once the Franks and their friends go into hiding above Otto’s offices, Miep exhausts herself providing for and comforting them while her husband, Jan (Joe Cole), helps the Dutch resistance spirit Jewish children out of Amsterdam.

Filmed on location in Prague and Amsterdam, “A Small Light” is a handsome, literate and moving production; like the people it focuses on, it is honorable in its intentions and choices. At the same time, it has a glossy, commercial sensibility — its creators, Joan Rater and Tony Phelan, previously collaborated on broadcast-network series like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Fire Country” — and a chipper tone that doesn’t always sit comfortably with the material.

This is nowhere near a “Life Is Beautiful” situation, but there’s an undeniable incongruity — while the agony of the Franks and their friends the Van Pelses and Fritz Pfeffer receives ample and serious treatment, it alternates beats in the narrative with scenes like Miep and Jan meeting cute at a jazz club or reuniting in a Technicolor tulip field. (That rural reunion, in a field that was earlier seen being fertilized, is a good indicator of the series’s audience-pleasing instincts: It’s both an on-the-nose metaphor for renewal and part of an ongoing gag about manure.)

Another way of looking at the show’s texture is that a serious attempt is being made at a complicated mix of tones, the kind of thing an accomplished director working in a shorter time frame would be more likely to pull off; here, executed by committee, it’s done proficiently but without the kind of subtlety or imagination that would do full justice to the story.

But there are moments in “A Small Light,” particularly in the first two episodes and again at the end, when it fulfills its promise, and can move you to sudden, unexpected tears. They are provided by Liev Schreiber, who gives an utterly believable, exquisitely modulated performance as Otto Frank. From his first moment, quizzically interviewing the unlikely secretarial candidate Miep, everything Schreiber wants us to know about Frank is apparent: the stiff reserve, the shrewd pragmatism, the quiet nobility, the sneaky sense of humor.

Much of “A Small Light” is devoted to the relationship between Miep and Jan, but its most potent emotional arc is the growing friendship and trust between her and Otto. And while the balance of the series is dominated by familiar (though well staged) scenes of derring-do and tragedy, its best moments by far are quiet conversations in which Schreiber and Powley supply the emotional shadings and complexities of real drama. (Powley’s performance goes to a higher level whenever she’s alone with Schreiber.)

Otto’s place in the story recedes during the middle of the series, after the Franks have gone into hiding. But as history would have it, he re-emerges, and Schreiber, with graceful understatement, uses his body and expression to convey the ravages of the camps. With what might seem like a minimum of effort, given the containment of his performance, Schreiber succeeds in making us see Otto as both a mensch and a man.

Mike Hale is a television critic. He also writes about online video, film and media. He came to The Times in 1995 and worked as an editor in Sports, Arts & Leisure and Weekend Arts before becoming a critic in 2009.
A version of this article appears in print on May 2, 2023, Section C, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Another Side of the Anne Frank Story.

[lugg]

May 2, 2023 17:43:00 GMT bixaorellana said:

‘A Small Light’ Review: A Profile in Extreme Courage

Thanks Bixa - it sounds good , will see if I can view it

[lugg]

My two and other (younger) family members have been raving about " The Last Of Us" It is based on a video game that they both played ;. of course that turned me away from it until my daughter forced me into viewing Episode 1 this weekend. Son and daughter even went so far as to give me their passwords to view it.

Anyway ... I wanted to hate it but I am intrigued and watch more . I do love a futuristic , dystopian type of series , with a lot of characterisation and I think this may hit the spot . Any one else watched it yet ?

[bixaorellana]

Lugg, I only watched the first episode. It seems quite well done, but I realized that I wasn't in the mood for something dystopian, so haven't watched more.

[Kimby]

I went on a binge of rewatching This is Us season 1 on the long flight home from Florida yesterday. I’m glad I did. I had watched 6 or 8 episodes on the way to Florida last month and watched another 6 or 8 on the way back. There were huge chunks of storyline that I had no recall of whatsoever. Maybe I went on a trip back then and Mr. Kimby kept watching without me?

Anyway, how sweet it was to spend more time with these characters that I grew to love and then were taken away from us when the series wrapped up. I wonder how wrenching it must be for a series cast when the show ends and their little family breaks up. It must be like having 8 deaths in the family all at once.

And then the actors go on to other projects. I see ads for Milo Ventimiglia’s new series THE COMPANY YOU KEEP. Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?

I can’t imagine him not being Jack Pearson. I see on IMDB that he also starred in the film The Art of Racing in the Rain, a story I loved as a book, and will have to try to watch on DVD.

[htmb]

For me, he’ll always be Jess on Gilmore Girls.

[kerouac2]

Tomorrow I'll be watching the new mini series Bardot on France 2. It covers the years 1949 to 1960. It should reach the screens of other countries before long.

[whatagain]

I don't like BB either.
A sex symbol advertising the perfect girl in the 1960's : sois belle et tais toi.
Beautiful and silly.
Then she is on tbe far side of the far right, being condemned several times for racial hatred.
But she was iconic to tbe cause of helping animals.
Somebody who likes animals better than humans.

[kerouac2]

All of that happened much later in her life. I agree that she is a horrible old woman now.

In the early years, she was a woman freely living her sexuality at a time when almost everybody thought it was indecent for a woman to enjoy sex like a man. Some people still do.

[kerouac2]

I have really enjoyed watching the first two episodes of Bardot. The actors are very appealing and look amazingly like the real people back from 1950 (Brigitte Bardot, Roger Vadim, Jean-Louis Trintignant) but at age 21-22. It is perhaps a bit too smooth (except when Brigitte told her parents that she had been sleeping with Vadim for 3 years since she was 15, but too bad for them. They still approved her marriage at age 18 even though they didn't like her marrying a Russian Orthodox man unless he converted.).  The reviews appear to have wanted a bit more sleaze.  What happened later in Saint Tropez was really exciting. I understand why she still lives there.

[cheerypeabrain]

We are watching Dalgliesh on itv.

[tod2]

Currently watching "The Sinner" on Disney Channel. Some parts playing too much on the features of the actors when all you want is a car chase or something moving a little faster but sticking with it pays off.

[lugg]

May 7, 2023 12:10:52 GMT Kimby said:

see ads for Milo Ventimiglia’s new series THE COMPANY YOU KEEP. Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?

I can’t imagine him not being Jack Pearson

Me neither Kimby but I will search out The Company You Keep , thank you

[lugg]

May 7, 2023 15:00:09 GMT kerouac2 said:

I agree that she is a horrible old woman now.

Is she and why ?

[kerouac2]

Right wing anti immigrant fascist. Supporter and friend of Le Pen.

[Kimby]

We are three episodes into The Offer, a 10-part miniseries that tells the story of the making of the film The Godfather. Well-cast, well-acted and a fascinating look into how a movie gets made. Or almost doesn’t get made. Now I want to see The Godfather again.
www.imdb.com/title/tt13111040/

Edited to add that we have seen 3 more episodes and we LOVE this miniseries! The characters are great, the storytelling is riveting, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and the show seems to have mostly followed the true story as Wikipedia reports it.

I hope others of you will seek this one out, it’s that good.

[bixaorellana]

Thanks for the follow up on that review, Kimby. To be honest, I wasn't drawn to The Offer until you added to your post.

This anecdote is all over the internet, so you've probably seen it: advicetowriters.com/advice/screenwriting-101

It's fairly well known that Puzo wrote The Godfather to make money, since his previous literary efforts had not done so.
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/290370/the-godfather-by-mario-puzo-with-a-new-introduction-by-francis-ford-coppola-a-note-from-anthony-puzo-and-an-afterword-by-robert-j-thompson/9780451205766/readers-guide/

[tod2]

Going to watch the last two episodes of Hope Street. I tend to hop from that to old episodes of Endeavour. The latter is so brilliantly done but gets heavy, Hope Street is really a Soap Opera disguised as a detective/police drama. Maybe I just like the Irish Accents...

[kerouac2]

I'll be watching Abysses (The Swarm) tonight, an international series about mysterious creatures in the ocean exacting ecological revenge.

[cheerypeabrain]

Ooer...that looks diturbing Kerouac....