We Need a New Telly Series

[richardfinegold]

By coincidence my wife and I have managed to finish the two series that we have been watching for several months in the same week--Deutchland 83 and Foyle's War (we are really going to miss Foyle, how could they stop that series?).
CAndidates include The Night Manager and the Breaking Bad spin off Better Call Saul. I have also ordered Boardwalk Empire on Blu Ray but none of these are making my heart go pitter pat in anticipation. My wife is particularly feeling the loss of Downtown Abbey. Any suggestions?

[Nick Armstrong]

The Night Manager and the Breaking Bad spin off Better Call Saul.

You should DEFINITELY give in to a spot of the pitter-pats about both. In particular, The Night Manager.

I also like Better Call Saul very much. Mid-second season here - which I think is better than the first - absolute pleasure, amusing and visually satisfying (on Netflix with HD image quality) - that blue-sky, vivid colour world of Breaking Bad very much the same here. Plus some favourite characters from BB - Mike 'the cleaner' Ehrmentraut, the 'insane ass-clown' Tuco...

I watched a couple of seasons of Boardwalk Empire, and loved that too. If it were on Netflix I'd gobble it down, but being a Sky series and not easily available, haven't bothered (and I don't buy blu-rays any more).

Other suggestion - the Netflix update of House of Cards with Spacey and Wright: thunderously good!





S'all good, man

(Hence 'Saul' .... we'll, you'll find out )

[Dave2002]

Don't some of us have anything better to do that watch TV?

[Nick Armstrong]

Don't some of us have anything better to do that watch TV?

Lots of equally good things, and some better (but define 'better'), yes! But it's all part of life's rich pageant!

Like the finegolds, these series can take several months to watch, half-an-hour or an hour at a time, when this or that just hits the spot. Plus when a series is exceptionally good, it's good to ration it to spread the pleasure. Only finished Dickensian last week, started Boxing Day! It's the great thing about modern watching (other than sometimes superlative quality) - absolute freedom from 'scheduling' tyranny.

[richardfinegold]

Don't some of us have anything better to do that watch TV?

If up to me, I could easily spend the rest of my life curled in the sofa with a good book and music. The wife likes to watch something a couple of nights a week, the rest of the time keeps me company in the reading department. And I have to say the quality of these series sure exceeds the American TV that I grew up with. Breaking Bad was the epochal paoint for me when I realized the potential of television for quality.
How can they cancel Foyle without even telling us the gender of Sam's baby?

[Dave2002]

We never got into Breaking Bad. Was it good, as it has been claimed to be? Trouble is looks like around 60 sessions - even if we do buy a box set! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breaking-Ba...p_ob_title_dvd

I am weeks behind now with Undercover - not sure really whether I can be bothered to finish it. Hinterland is curiously interesting - but perhaps not so interesting to rfg (have you got any relations in Aberystwyth or Pategonia?) - it does have some interesting twists. I have heard that Marcella is worth a try - not got into that one yet either, but might give it a go. What else does that leave? Indian Summers is/has turned out to be a ragbag of inconsistency, though perhaps it's more realistic that one might expect. Life itself can be a ragbag too ...
Interesting to see some of the issues - even if the script is increasingly ropey.

Line of Duty was quite good - though I didn't see the first series.

For a while we were addicted to the West Wing, and we do have the box set of that one. It got played more often than the DVD boxes of Shakespeare plays which languish in one of our cupboards.

One problem with current TV is that the episodes are now mostly quite long - or maybe we haven't found many of the short episode programmes which may be hiding in the schedules.

Dad's Army and Frasier are two examples from the UK and USA which do spring to mind - usually quite good for 30 mins at a time. Yes Minister probably only appeals to Brits, as also Fawlty Towers.

Interesting to note the recommendation for Dickensian. I think I've got most (all?) of the episodes on our PVR and hard drives, but I've not watched a single one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm still wishing they'd do a 9th series of The Onedin Line. Series 8 ended with the birth of a son to James. It would be good to see the son taking over the shipping line in the early years of the 20th century. Apparently the creator, Cyril Abraham, had sketched out a storyline for the series history up to continue up to 1970.

[pastoralguy]

I bought the entire 'Moonlighting' series that was a vehicle for a young Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd. It's oddly compelling.

[Ferretfancy]

Don't some of us have anything better to do that watch TV?

You seem to be pre-occupied with sorting out computer technology, Dave. I have a feeling that all this has taken over from the realm of hi-fi buffery, or is it that you never find a computer that really does what you expect ? I'd better cut this short, there's a lot of Shakespeare to catch up.

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm still wishing they'd do a 9th series of The Onedin Line.

I'm afraid the teenage Caliban found it deeply tedious. Good theme tune though !

[jayne lee wilson]

By coincidence my wife and I have managed to finish the two series that we have been watching for several months in the same week--Deutchland 83 and Foyle's War (we are really going to miss Foyle, how could they stop that series?).
CAndidates include The Night Manager and the Breaking Bad spin off Better Call Saul. I have also ordered Boardwalk Empire on Blu Ray but none of these are making my heart go pitter pat in anticipation. My wife is particularly feeling the loss of Downtown Abbey. Any suggestions?

Never seen True Detective? Yet another HBO masterpiece, Series One is officially a classic (Woody Harrelson, Matthew McConnaughey (with the most beautiful, darkbrown Texan Stoner's Drawl you'll ever hear)) but Series Two came in for much criticism. Don't give up on 2 - though after 3 episodes you may well want to - because despite near-unfathomably complex plotlines the last 3 (6-8, these series are at least not unmanageably vast) are some of the most stunning & gripping TV I've seen, and the climax (out in the white sands of the Mojave) has an almost Shakespearean grandeur & intensity, a depth of emotional and moral ambiguity.
Leads in 2 are Colin Farrell; and Vince Vaughn who, as Frank Semyon, the career-criminal-trying-to-go-straight, gave us - despite the terrible things he does - an unforgettably, against-all-your-better-instincts, heartbreakingly charming, loveable assumption.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YTJCnzrgeQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-PDn0SNASI

There is of course, Game of Thrones. I'm hopelessly addicted....but it is vast and complex, and you might have to start from the very beginning to get the most...
Still, I came into it at Series 4, then the truly brilliant 5th, catching up via, well, catch-up, and background reading via Wiki etc. You can bluff it, probably...

Brilliant stuff from Clive James here - (though I differ from him in at least one respect - I love the dragons, and whenever they appear with Daenerys... I cry, and can't stop crying... I still don't quite know why - something to do with the human-animal bond perhaps...)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/the-raw-appeal-of-game-of-thrones

[Dave2002]

You seem to be pre-occupied with sorting out computer technology, Dave. I have a feeling that all this has taken over from the realm of hi-fi buffery, or is it that you never find a computer that really does what you expect ? I'd better cut this short, there's a lot of Shakespeare to catch up.

Indeed, I do use computers a lot, and have several. I probably won't buy another one for a year or two. Recent interests have been in recording, both video and audio, and film and photo editing. Photo editing is not too bad, but video editing does go better with very fast equipment, and large storage devices. The computer I use for video editing is probably 3-5 times slower than the latest comparable model, though it can be fast enough using Final Cut Pro X and remembering to use proxy videos. Adobe Premiere Elements is slower, as AFAIK my software doesn't use proxy videos. Audio editing seems relatively trivial compared with video.

I probably wouldn't watch so much TV, or would at least watch different programmes if left to myself, but like rfg there are other people to consider.

I have, as you might have figured out, been using computers one way or another since the late 1960s, and most of the time my work was with computer systems, writing software etc., but also teaching. I often get other people's computer "problems" to sort out. Computers are very useful in so many ways - I just probably use them in more modes than many other people do.

[EdgeleyRob]

Watching TV always seems like music listening time wasted to me nowadays,unless the football's on of course.

[Petrushka]

Watching TV always seems like music listening time wasted to me nowadays,unless the football's on of course.

I've felt this for very many years (though substitute horse racing in my case). Exceptional series such as War and Peace and the Night Manager were required viewing but didn't disturb my music listening.

[jayne lee wilson]

A truly great TV series can extend your being; offer you something you never knew you wanted, but end up falling in love with; bring you face to face with yourself, those aspects of yourself you'd rather not acknowledge, even though you always knew they were there; as Frank Semyon said, show you what's on the inside beyond the pain. You carry their characters with you, dwell upon them and inside them, miss them when you don't watch or bingewatch to satiate or compensate, think of them fondly long after they've gone. (Which didn't apply to the two-dimensional portrayals in Night Manager - helpless moll, exserviceman with elegant manner & hidden demons, ruthless international arms dealer with embittered hangers-on, &c &c.... despite its initially gripping plot lines.)

American Productions like HBO seem to produce such richness and complexity of character with stunning regularity - Don Draper and Joan in Mad Men, Omar, Nick, and Spiros in The Wire; Rust Cohle in True Detective 1, Tyrion in GoT, Dexter Morgan.... all the way back to Bobby in NYPD Blue and Frank Pembleton in Homicide Life on The Street.
BBC and other British Productions seem to often lack this individual magnetism, a visual and verbal charm, this compulsion to care: of recent shows I've seen only Catherine in Happy Valley or, especially, Dot Cottan in Line of Duty come close.** (Perhaps Lindsay Denton too - Shame Danny Mays got bumped off so quick).

As for "music or TV"... some of these shows are so addictive you watch episodes twice as routine, then find yourself calling them back up for months afterward (or cheating your way through the best bits on youtube...)...

**I find plenty of such qualities in that miniseries "The Hollow Crown" of course - but that does seem to have an exceptional writing team...
(God, you see it last night? HIGH body and blood-count, no punches or sword thrusts pulled, Towton as an English Iliad...! Stunningly done again, Cumberbatch gleefully wicked as Richard III...)