the revenge of miscellaneous television
Feb. 17th, 2013 02:53 pmApparently I am more middle-class than I realised; my four-year-old had a week of vacation and I am feeling vaguely guilty for not taking him off for a couple of days of learning how to ski. Why? No one else I know is doing this! I haven't been on skis in about 30 years!I had to work this week!
In televisual news:
( Revenge, season 2 )
Other things that I am watching: Ripper Street (police procedural set in London in the early 1900s (I think). Good in many ways, but obviously someone in the production process decided "what this show needs is more whores!" Not a bad thing in itself (the show has a certain Deadwood-but-not-as-good vibe to it), but clearly he (?) also thought that this would be cool and edgy and a great way to discuss the sexual exploitation of women. To which my response is officially "bored now." Otherwise, however, there are some good characters and interesting dynamics.
Utopia. Here someone decided that being ultra-violent would be cool and edgy. It is actually quite pretty, but also incoherent. the first episode it worth it for the worst thesis proposal defence I have ever seen. The would-be student's argument was (as far as I could tell) "you should let me write this thesis because it is relevant to my emotional damage." Normally I don't mind the complete lack of accurate representation of what I do for a living on TV, but this scene is particularly bizarre.
Also, I do not feel that I am spoiling anything to say that the big conspiracy in this is just just like the big conspiracy from the X-Files, but with 100% fewer bees and 100% more comic books.
Dancing on the Edge: Downton Abbey, but with more jazz music and black people. More seriously, if you liked Angel Coulby as Gwen in Merlin, you should totally give this a try. She is amazing. I am assuming that that is really her voice (is it?) -- I had no idea she could sing as well as act. She acts very well in this too, in a way she didn't always get to in Merlin, because it was a very different kind of show.
Call the Midwife. This show remains the ideal Sunday night serial. I am guaranteed to cry at least once in it, but it is so good to watch a show which is more interested in character and storytelling than being cool and edgy. (It is also totally uninterested in the lives of men, who appear to exist mostly to give the women something other than work and the socio-economic situation of their patients to talk about.)
Last week, though, there was a far-too-chatty priest played by the actor who played Herrick on Being Human. I kept waiting for him to try to rip someone's throat out so that Sister Julienne could stake him. That is obviously what would happen.
And speaking of… Although I still feel some residual sorrow for the way the story lines of certain characters were wrapped up last season, the current cast of Being Human is marvellous. I adore Hal and his OCD, and Tom and his sheltered little mind and Alex's general irritation with the universe and her outfit. The show careens neatly from being very funny to very scary -- I would have been perfectly happy to have only the government-cutbacks plot, but who am I to say no to Satan as the antagonist?
In televisual news:
( Revenge, season 2 )
Other things that I am watching: Ripper Street (police procedural set in London in the early 1900s (I think). Good in many ways, but obviously someone in the production process decided "what this show needs is more whores!" Not a bad thing in itself (the show has a certain Deadwood-but-not-as-good vibe to it), but clearly he (?) also thought that this would be cool and edgy and a great way to discuss the sexual exploitation of women. To which my response is officially "bored now." Otherwise, however, there are some good characters and interesting dynamics.
Utopia. Here someone decided that being ultra-violent would be cool and edgy. It is actually quite pretty, but also incoherent. the first episode it worth it for the worst thesis proposal defence I have ever seen. The would-be student's argument was (as far as I could tell) "you should let me write this thesis because it is relevant to my emotional damage." Normally I don't mind the complete lack of accurate representation of what I do for a living on TV, but this scene is particularly bizarre.
Also, I do not feel that I am spoiling anything to say that the big conspiracy in this is just just like the big conspiracy from the X-Files, but with 100% fewer bees and 100% more comic books.
Dancing on the Edge: Downton Abbey, but with more jazz music and black people. More seriously, if you liked Angel Coulby as Gwen in Merlin, you should totally give this a try. She is amazing. I am assuming that that is really her voice (is it?) -- I had no idea she could sing as well as act. She acts very well in this too, in a way she didn't always get to in Merlin, because it was a very different kind of show.
Call the Midwife. This show remains the ideal Sunday night serial. I am guaranteed to cry at least once in it, but it is so good to watch a show which is more interested in character and storytelling than being cool and edgy. (It is also totally uninterested in the lives of men, who appear to exist mostly to give the women something other than work and the socio-economic situation of their patients to talk about.)
Last week, though, there was a far-too-chatty priest played by the actor who played Herrick on Being Human. I kept waiting for him to try to rip someone's throat out so that Sister Julienne could stake him. That is obviously what would happen.
And speaking of… Although I still feel some residual sorrow for the way the story lines of certain characters were wrapped up last season, the current cast of Being Human is marvellous. I adore Hal and his OCD, and Tom and his sheltered little mind and Alex's general irritation with the universe and her outfit. The show careens neatly from being very funny to very scary -- I would have been perfectly happy to have only the government-cutbacks plot, but who am I to say no to Satan as the antagonist?