Television programmes [2]

Forest Shepherd wrote:

halfwise wrote: the age when women didn't get a career, and...never had to flex [their] mind[s].

<citation needed>

https://anuhj.com.au/publication/the-housewife-syndrome-an-indicator-of-madness-or-oppression/

though shaded heavily with the language of advocacy, which always arouses my suspicion of bias.

@Halfy - a few years back you recommended the show Northern Exposure to me. I posted something about it somewhere sometime, but someone sent me this the other day: https://archive.org/details/northern-exposure-1990/Northern+Exposure+(1990)+-+S01E01+-+Pilot+(Blu-ray).mkv

All seasons in HD - I bought the DVD set myself, but this is no doubt very nice if stuck in an airport or the like FYI in case you weren't aware! Fantastic show, by the way, almost finished watching it start to finish for the second time.

Talking of airports, I really want to watch The Flight Attendant, its got the girl from BB Theory and the 'wrong' Daario Naharis.

Ringo - the whole of Northern Exposure online for free? That's insane! I hope it stays up.

Figgs - I can't figure that show out, but I suppose they wanted to keep us curious. More importantly, you consider the Daario they ended up with to be the wrong one. I thought the first was friggin's gorgeous (even I could tell that) but an obvious airhead. Tough call.

So I just discovered that a remake of Magnum PI is on the tube. Don't they realize that the same music, setting and general characters aren't enough? You can't just stick another actor in there: Tom Selleck IS Magnum. Like Richard Dean Anderson IS McGyver and William Shatner IS Captain Kirk. They guy they picked doesn't even have a mustache.

The people who know the original won't watch this, so why waste time recreating it for an audience who don't know Magnum PI in the first place?

Worth a look. Anyone seen it?

{{ Another one to add to my overlong list!

Just finished the first series of Vikings. Anyone seen it, epecially our Fjordianfriends? As Im curious if the representation of the culture is viewed as reasonable or more like Braveheart is to a Scot
The history is, ok I suppose, real names are used though often they blend two or more historical figures together or mix a bit of thelegend round them with the known facts. Stuff like the first raid on Lindesfarne is fairly historically accurate, the addition of the monk they take back with them invented. So it works kind of like that, a mix of history and invention.

One thing I do like very much is the use of language- when we first see Viking meet English we hear Old English from the Viking perspective, and we here old Norse from the English perspective, then when the main Viking character, who can speak Old English talks to them it goes into modern english. Works well.
I also liked, despite the fact it was probably confusing to many modern english speakers who only know english, that they kept the old word for an Assembly, Thing. So characters would just say "Are you going to the Thing?" for a few episodes without ever explaning what the Thing was. I kind of feel the writers were just enjoying themselves with language there.

The other feature of it which struck me watching it was it could be a similar approach in writing to how Amazon go about the lotR's series- thee are a lot of similarities in the writing task- both span generations of time and events, both have 'historic' markers they must hit, in both cases all there is to go on is a patchy historical record, rarely filled out with detail and even more rarely with detailed people or what they were like or how they spoke, or what they said.
As in Vikings the LotR's show will have to invent most of the dialgue and the character drama that will need to exist inbetween the big events we know it must have, and both have to either compress time or introduce characters across large time frames. }}

There's so many dratted viking shows out there I'm not sure if we'd be talking about the same one. Did this one have a teenager that looks like Elijah Wood that was picked up in a monastery and taken back as a slave? A blonde woman warrior that darkens her eyes for battle? If so I saw it and enjoyed it enough to watch one season but not two. I did wonder how much of it was historically accurate.

{{ Yeah thats the one Halfy.  Id say its historically accurate in so far as you have known historic events, like Lindasfarne, or the seige of Paris and the like, and you have known histroic figures- but time is compressed a bit, figures merged into one character and the like to provide a connected narrative to follow through it. And I dont have enough knowledge of the practice of Nordic religion to know if all that stuff is accurate or not- I doubt Druids looked so weird though.}}

{{ This popped up on my youtube, a young Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Wooster.
Much like Douglas Admas, Pratchett a lot of the humour of the books is in the careful choice of words used to describe things, making them very hard to put on screen, but this is probably as good as its been done for Wodehouse. }}

yes, I've seen some of that.  Parts of it come quite close to what I imagine in my head, though as you say most of the spirit simply can't be captured on film.  It's about the best team you could conceive, though Stephen Fry is a bit to bulky to fit the image of Jeeves. They managed to make him look slender somehow.

{{ Well he was a lot less, bulky, when he was younger than now. I'd say was worth a watch, as you say you couldnt get much better to play the parts (and supporting cast are great too), and their love for the material (it was their idea to make it) does shine through. Books will always be much better however no matter who is doing it. }}

Foundation has a new trailer out.  Apparently "save your legacy" is the series catch phrase. Urgh.  Comes out late september, I suppose I can spring for a month of apple TV in the hopes that it's not the disaster I fear. That means waiting at least a month so I have a bunch of episodes to watch back to back.

https://www.empireonline.com/tv/news/south-park-creators-sign-new-deal-for-more-seasons-and-14-tv-movies/

My feeling about all these television series is they should have a natural lifespan. 5 years is about right. Though I've always enjoyed both South Park and the Simpsons, there's only so much you can watch.

There's extended trailers for Foundation, some with commentary.





It's gelling a little better now that I see it filled out a bit more. There's some hope it will be good.

looks good

https://twitter.com/TheWheelOfTime/status/1433457075741356039

Watched Sweet Tooth. Thought I would give the first episode a look and ended up watching all 8 episodes in one day.

Interesting. Not what you'd expect Robert Downey Jr to be producing.

Foundation is out and the first review is in from the Guardian.  In summary: it's taking itself too seriously.  I suppose this was evident from the previews, but it's hard to judge from a few minutes.  I'll still plunk down $5 for one month to binge it when I have time.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/24/foundation-review-apple-tv

A more sympathetic review from Variety:

https://variety.com/2021/tv/reviews/foundation-review-apple-plus-asimov-1235073033/

And finally a very interesting discussion from The Verge, who like the first review lament the lack of interesting characters. Bonus points for coining the phrase "intergalactic mathletes" :

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/23/22690292/foundation-apple-tv-plus-review

Hm…

https://mobile.twitter.com/netflix/status/1441830573182525444

I've seen a review of Cowboy Bebop, blue. It was highly rated.

Of the new live action version? This is the opening of a coming live action version, which... seems unnecessary, but hey.

Also the people who were doing Pratchett's The Watch seems to be butchering it, it is now a loosely "inspired by" and the Pratchett estate have withdrawn all support of the project apparently.