You wait ages......

[LMcD]

...for an excellent TV drama series, and then three arrive together.
As I don't have Sky, I have to trust the reviews as to the brilliance of Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Patrick Melrose'.
Episode 1 of season 2 of 'The Handmaid's Tale' was every bit as brilliant as season 1. Visually stunning with a scarily relevant and dramatically riveting storyline that refuses to make any concession to the viewer, it features an extraordinary performance by Elisabeth Moss and a strong supporting cast. Aunt Lydia is truly terrifying!
Then there's 'A Very English Scandal', featuring a real tour de force by Hugh Grant. After only a few minutes, the word that sprang to mind while watching his performance as Jeremy Thorpe was 'lubricious'. Also well worthy of mention are Alex Jennings as Peter Bessell and Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott.

[Serial_Apologist]

I watched A Very English Scandal and laughed almost continuously throughout - especially at the "sexual encounters". Thorpe appears as a hollow man, interested in socially progressive issues only for his own advancement. I can't help thinking the script has been thought up as some kind of Whitehall farce.

[jayne lee wilson]

Patrick Melrose?
Best thing on TV now, with writing acting directing and photography of the highest, most compelling class...at first I thought: oh yeah, been there done that, Englishman-in-New-York posho-wastrel getting repeatedly stoned, dependency-and-rejection, hints of damage in childhood.... but Episode Two (going back to Patrick's 1960s childhood at the family's French villa: glamorously raddled, bored, dominated wife (behaving as if kept but actually the source of their wealth), disillusioned, cruel,abusive & feared husband; young Patrick wandering lonely and afraid in the countryside) changed everything and what had seemed a very classy black comedy gained unexpected range and tragic depth.
It is the expressive range that is so exceptional; there's an excruciating dinner party which moves from nervous politesse to sarcasm to lost tempers and rapid mid-meal departure... but we still find the little boy Patrick, hand bleeding from a broken glass, finally let down again and left alone on the stairs...
I've seen nothing this good since... The Night Of, True Detective, The Wire....

Handmaid... yes, excellent again, but where can it go from here? Offred and Aunt Lydia playing the same scenes, same dynamics... (Same problem with Humans..) Apart from revealing a little more of how Gilead came about... but in the era of #Metoo, S2/Ep1 seemed too extreme as an allegory of our own times, in the USA or elsewhere. More of an extreme sci-fi dystopia so far...but brilliant last scene - now the Resistance?

Very English Scandal... again, brilliantly brought off, if a bit colour-by-numbers.... magnetically-watchable Whishaw and Grant just perfect playing off each other.

Still they all make up for the so-unpredictable its-all-too-predictable video-game brutality that Westworld has become...and fill the gap that the ever-wonderful Homeland has left.

[vinteuil]

...
Then there's 'A Very English Scandal', featuring a real tour de force by Hugh Grant. After only a few minutes, the word that sprang to mind while watching his performance as Jeremy Thorpe was 'lubricious'. Also well worthy of mention are Alex Jennings as Peter Bessell and Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott.

... this is just splendid, a complete hoot.

And let us not forget -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U

Lordy, how things have changed - and for the better - within one's own lifetime.


.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes - watching the Thorpe/Scott story now, there is a desperately tragic awareness of how gay men had to behave to survive then - the lies, subterfuge, denials and panic, all forced upon them - let alone have a career, let alone a very prominent public one....

[Serial_Apologist]

... this is just splendid, a complete hoot.

And let us not forget -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U

Lordy, how things have changed - and for the better - within one's own lifetime.


.

Not all things have changed for the better by any means - humour least among them!

[LMcD]

Patrick Melrose?
Best thing on TV now, with writing acting directing and photography of the highest, most compelling class...at first I thought: oh yeah, been there done that, Englishman-in-New-York posho-wastrel getting repeatedly stoned, dependency-and-rejection, hints of damage in childhood.... but Episode Two (going back to Patrick's 1960s childhood at the family's French villa: glamorously raddled, bored, dominated wife (behaving as if kept but actually the source of their wealth), disillusioned, cruel,abusive & feared husband; young Patrick wandering lonely and afraid in the countryside) changed everything and what had seemed a very classy black comedy gained unexpected range and tragic depth.
It is the expressive range that is so exceptional; there's an excruciating dinner party which moves from nervous politesse to sarcasm to lost tempers and rapid mid-meal departure... but we still find the little boy Patrick, hand bleeding from a broken glass, finally let down again and left alone on the stairs...
I've seen nothing this good since... The Night Of, True Detective, The Wire....

Handmaid... yes, excellent again, but where can it go from here? Offred and Aunt Lydia playing the same scenes, same dynamics... (Same problem with Humans..) Apart from revealing a little more of how Gilead came about... but in the era of #Metoo, S2/Ep1 seemed too extreme as an allegory of our own times, in the USA or elsewhere. More of an extreme sci-fi dystopia so far...but brilliant last scene - now the Resistance?

Very English Scandal... again, brilliantly brought off, if a bit colour-by-numbers.... magnetically-watchable Whishaw and Grant just perfect playing off each other.

Still they all make up for the so-unpredictable its-all-too-predictable video-game brutality that Westworld has become...and fill the gap that the ever-wonderful Homeland has left.

I think (well, I hope) that 'The Handmaid's Tale' will continue to address the question of how the central character's present and future actions are and will be informed by what happened to her, and to those around her and her country, in the past. And perhaps something interesting might happen to the baby's 'mother'. I doubt whether Aunt Lydia will change, however. This is not one of those cosy US series which can't help contriving a happy ending for everybody.

For me, one of the great things about this series is that is wonderful teleVISION - it makes full use of the medium, and is often a treat, albeit a rather grim one, for the eyes.

Another strength of the programme is that the writer is clearly determined to make the most of Elisabeth Moss's very considerable talents.

As for the dialogue - what better proof could you have of the truth of the dictum 'less is more'?

[Belgrove]

Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels form some of the best writing of the past 25 years and the TV adaptation has thus far done them proud. The two episodes are quite distinct in form and look, the first being a (hilarious) inner monologue shot with a cold, urbane colour palate, the second a (harrowing) narrative from multiple perspectives, drenched in the late summer sunshine of the Vaucluse. The dialogue is pretty much taken directly from the books, but then it would be difficult to improve on this - 'What one aims for is ennui', says David, Patrick's monstrous father, summing up his life and attitude with haiku-like precision. Hugo Weaving's portrayal of David was masterly, betraying the momentary flicker of self-aware revulsion at his own behaviour, before continuing with his manipulating, physical and psychological abuse of everyone around him. Sebastian Maltz as the young Patrick was heartrending. Benedict Cumberbatch as the elder Patrick, on a chemically fuelled 'celebratory' bender in New York, was a perfect realisation of the character. Despite his excesses and flaws, Patrick is a hugely likeable character who gains our sympathies, and Cumberbatch nails him. This is the best thing I've seen on the TV since Breaking Bad, and I can't wait for the next episode.

[jayne lee wilson]

I just wish they'd make episodes 3-5 of Patrick Melrose available sooner boxset style - I'd probably finish it in one night (especially as insomnia has come to stay with me again...)