So .. What Do You Watch On TV?

[Toast 15,025]

On 22/04/2022 at 22:35, Great Uncle Bulgaria said:

Enjoying 'Slow Horses'. Gary Oldman is excellent and TLK fans will recognize Young Odda as a baddie wanting to cut a pakistani-born student's head off.

 

Young Odda is a monk in Shardlake which has just arrived on Disney+, just a few days after the death of CJ Sansom, the author of the Shardlake books.

[time 8,000]

Looking at Young Odda's credits (he's Brian Vernal btw), I realise now I recognised him from Gangs of London; such is the contrast in the parts of Odda & Billy Wallace (his Gangs of London character) I didn't recognise him in GoL from TLK.

[DCI Frank Burnside 2,918]

 

[Paul Bearer 5,758]

Currently watching The Tattooist of Auschwitz.  Meh! 

[Toast 15,025]

Final series of Inside No. 9 starts tonight.

It's series 9, of course.

[Sod's Law 241]

13 hours ago, Toast said:

Final series of Inside No. 9 starts tonight.

It's series 9, of course.

Now THAT I didn't see coming... 

[time 8,000]

16 hours ago, Toast said:

Final series of Inside No. 9 starts tonight.

It's series 9, of course.

This reminds me, I haven't finished series 8 yet!

[time 8,000]

I finished Slow Horses (S1),  yes, it did pick up from episode 3, as someone pointed out but I wasn't over-enamoured with the final episode. Still, I'll probably get around to S2 before my free trial runs out (possibly even S3 just to get my money's worth)!

 

I've also been watching Justified (on Disney+) which is pretty enjoyable so far. It's like a Redneck soap opera/police procedural (it's set in rural Kentucky). I'm approaching the end of S2 (of 6) so lets see if it can maintain that standard throughout. A sequel set in Detroit was released last year and is also available so that's on the list.

 

Another US programme I tried and got fed-up of is Burn Notice. It starts off OK (and has Sharon Gless in it) but before long the lead character (as well as the preposterous premise) starts to grate.

 

I also tried Alias but didn't get on with this (strangely, as its created by JJ Abrams whose work I've previously enjoyed).

[Toast 15,025]

2 hours ago, time said:

I finished Slow Horses (S1),  yes, it did pick up from episode 3, as someone pointed out but I wasn't over-enamoured with the final episode. Still, I'll probably get around to S2 before my free trial runs out (possibly even S3 just to get my money's worth.

 

I need to give this another go, as I've read all the books now and they're a very good read. Some nice atmospheric descriptive passages, but otherwise easy narratives with plenty of humour.

I've had a 3 month Apple free trial, but looks like I can get another via Vodafone, but it will only be 2 months.

 

I've started watching Shardlake on Disney (only 4 episodes) but it hasn't really pulled me in.  Partly because the title character is nothing like my mental image from the books, he looks too young.  I know Shardlake is only meant to be in his 30s at the start of the books, but people aged earlier in Tudor times. 

 

The other thing that riled me is a bit of woke casting. The Abbot is black.  Come on!  While there might well have been some black Africans around in 1537, they wouldn't have been in such exalted positions.  This is particularly irksome because one of the other characters, who recurs through the series, is a Spanish Moor turned Christian monk and apothecary.  He meets quite a bit of racial prejudice. The inappropriate casting of the Abbot undermines this.

[En Passant 3,007]

2 hours ago, Toast said:

narratives with plenty of humour.

 

This is what sells me these days and Slow Horses is just the ticket. I'm old, and the trope about there 'only being about 6 stories in total, everything new is just a variation' hits home too often with most things.

Convoluted plot twists, end of episode cliff-hangers and the like just turn me off really, I find myself dis-assembling the style and the daft plots too much to really enjoy them at that level.

[Toast 15,025]

I tried one of Mick Herron's Oxford series but gave up about a third of the way in. It was a very different style, way too slow and I didn't like the main character.  To be fair, it was his first novel so the others might be better, but it was nothing like the Slough House ones.  I've got a collection of his short stories from the library so will try those next.

[time 8,000]

Finished Slow Horses S2, and enjoyed it much more than S1. I don't know why, maybe familiarity with the characters or maybe its a better/better told story than S1.