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    With NS on War of the Worlds. Really odd to go with the excellent idea of being almost faithful to the original in terms of setting and time, but then bring in all sorts of weird and pointless distractions, none of which add anything whatsoever to the plot. I gave up halfway through the second episode.

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      Originally posted by Uncle Ethan View Post
      With NS on War of the Worlds. Really odd to go with the excellent idea of being almost faithful to the original in terms of setting and time, but then bring in all sorts of weird and pointless distractions, none of which add anything whatsoever to the plot. I gave up halfway through the second episode.
      Yep, me too. I couldn't care less about the protagonists and I'm really starting to hate TV shows that basically tell you the ending and then we're supposed to be excited about seeing how we get there. Can we just have one series where we're shown the story in a linear narrative without jumping forwards and backwards in time?

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        I thought the first ep of WotW was quite decent. The second episode was absolute guff. Doubt I’ll bother with the 3rd.

        His Dark Materials though, I’m really enjoying. It seems to have captured the mood rather better than the film version did.

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          I’m watching The Irishman. It’s exactly what I expected. A fantastic film, of course. Very similar to Goodfellas and Casino.

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            We saw A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I loved it. Not sure it would resonate with people who didn’t watch Mr. Rogers as a small child or have children who watched him. I can vividly remember watching Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and Electric Company back to back to back on channel 3 every day in the mid 70s.

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              Originally posted by Felicity, I guess so View Post
              Can I just say fuck The Crown and all who sail in it...?
              On Facebook, wingco commended it. I was surprised at that, seeing as he isn't much of a toady to the royals. Still, he found merit in it.

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                There’s a lot of merit to it. It seems that most people see what they want to in it. It shows that the royal family are all to human and not especially impressive people. But if you’re looking for evidence that the crown brings a needed symbol of stability to the UK and the commonwealth, then it has that too. It certainly makes constitutional monarchy looks better than our system, for example.

                Ultimately, the reasons for getting rid of the monarchy are largely outside the scope of the show. The problem isn’t that the royal family are bad people or even that they’re too rich, though that may be the case. The problem is that it helps perpetuate a toxic class system*. The Crown shows that, I think, but as with class-divisions in the real world, it may only appear to those willing to see it.

                It can also be argued that the monarchy leaves parliament with too much power because there is no elected executive who could balance that power. I’m not sure about that because I’m not sufficiently familiar with systems like those in France, Germany, and Ireland to compare and contrast.




                *Although the US, among others, shows you can have a toxic class system without a formal system of hereditary privilege.

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                  I think the series invests the main characters with a degree of intelligence and empathy that there's precious little evidence for. Particularly HRM and her spouse. That said, for the most part it's very well written and performed, which gives it a pass on dramatic merit. The only episode I found unacceptably hagiographic concerned the death of the Duke of Windsor. Given what we now know now about his political beliefs it was a complete whitewash.

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                    Just watched the last episode of The War of the Worlds, that was turgid rubbish, why do writers take nothing but the title of a book and think they can tell a better story than H.G Wells.

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                      Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                      I think the series invests the main characters with a degree of intelligence and empathy that there's precious little evidence for. Particularly HRM and her spouse. That said, for the most part it's very well written and performed, which gives it a pass on dramatic merit. The only episode I found unacceptably hagiographic concerned the death of the Duke of Windsor. Given what we now know now about his political beliefs it was a complete whitewash.
                      Yeah, I suppose their characters are tasked with personifying and explaining facets of the zeitgeist and that makes them appear deeper than they really are. That’s true of a lot of historical drama. The real Henry V probably didn’t come up with a brilliant speech before the battle of Agincourt.

                      And I think the actors are generally smarter and more charismatic than the people they’re playing. That’s especially true of Margaret.

                      But I still don’t think The Crown is flattering for the royal family. Charles comes of as an entitled doofus. Elizabeth appears to be out of her depth. Margaret is a hot mess who can’t get out her own way. Mountbatten is a pompous dickhead. It’s probably most flattering to Philip. My understanding is that the real Philip is more like James Cromwell’s portrayal in The Queen, which was also written by Peter Morgan.


                      That episode about the DoW’s death in season 3 was a bit surprising given that they already had an episode in season 2 about how he was pro-nazi. I think they tried to reform his as a sympathetic character simply because that set up scenes with Charles and Elizabeth arguing how the family ruined the Duke’s life because he just wanted to be with the woman he loves, which is, obviously, foreshadowing. So that episode is really about Charles, not Edward.


                      And I suppose Derek Jacoby just can’t stop giving his characters hidden depth. Alex Jennings’ Version in the first two series made Edward seem vain, aloof and possibly stupid. That felt more accurate.
                      Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 02-12-2019, 00:14.

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                        Originally posted by elguapo4 View Post
                        Just watched the last episode of The War of the Worlds, that was turgid rubbish, why do writers take nothing but the title of a book and think they can tell a better story than H.G Wells.

                        Never has an hour passed so slowly.

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                          Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                          That episode about the DoW’s death in season 3 was a bit surprising given that they already had an episode in season 2 about how he was pro-nazi. I think they tried to reform his as a sympathetic character simply because that set up scenes with Charles and Elizabeth arguing how the family ruined the Duke’s life because he just wanted to be with the woman he loves, which is, obviously foreshadowing.
                          Yes, I'd forgotten that. Derek Jacoby was maybe an unfortunate piece of of casting as he always seems to carry a sympathetic aura.

                          Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                          But I still don’t think The Crown is flattering for the royal family. Charles comes of as an entitled doofus. Elizabeth appears to be out of her depth. Margaret is a hot mess who can’t get out her own way. Mountbatten is a pompous dickhead. It’s probably most flattering to Philip.
                          Not flattering but not close to accurate either. These are people who are remote from the everyday, so unworldly in every aspect of their lives — except possibly sex, sickness and childbirth — that the constraints, pleasures and anxieties of other people's lives are inconceivable to them. That's the series I'd like to see.

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                            Originally posted by Uncle Ethan View Post
                            With NS on War of the Worlds. Really odd to go with the excellent idea of being almost faithful to the original in terms of setting and time, but then bring in all sorts of weird and pointless distractions, none of which add anything whatsoever to the plot. I gave up halfway through the second episode.
                            Someone just adapt Jeff Wayne's version,though not as a musical but leave "Forever Autumn" in.


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                              Originally posted by tracteurgarçon View Post

                              Yep, me too. I couldn't care less about the protagonists and I'm really starting to hate TV shows that basically tell you the ending and then we're supposed to be excited about seeing how we get there. Can we just have one series where we're shown the story in a linear narrative without jumping forwards and backwards in time?
                              A large amount of dramas I've seen in the last year have done this. Glad I'm not the only one getting annoyed about it.

                              Might give WOTW a miss based on the reviews here. I've watched enough crap lately without being subjected to more.

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                                I'm struggling to think of one I've watched recently that does that. Fleabag does almost the opposite, hiding the truth behind the setup until the very end of season 1 (which I assume is the end of the play). I suppose Killing Eve does, in the name, though not in the narrative itself.

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                                  I was so 50/50 as to whether to watch WOTW last night. I was ready to fall asleep, and last week's had been pretty dire, but it was the last episode, and it's very rare for me to watch even a three part series, so I should for completeness sake, and it might get better...

                                  I decided not to. Reading the above, it seems I made the right decision for once.

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                                    Originally posted by pebblethefish View Post
                                    I was so 50/50 as to whether to watch WOTW last night. I was ready to fall asleep, and last week's had been pretty dire, but it was the last episode, and it's very rare for me to watch even a three part series, so I should for completeness sake, and it might get better...

                                    I decided not to. Reading the above, it seems I made the right decision for once.

                                    Very wise. I can sum up what happened in the full one hour programme in two sentences for you if you'd like me to.

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                                      Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                      We saw A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I loved it. Not sure it would resonate with people who didn’t watch Mr. Rogers as a small child or have children who watched him. I can vividly remember watching Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers and Electric Company back to back to back on channel 3 every day in the mid 70s.
                                      The more I think and read about it, the more I feel the need to promote this film. Here's Tom Junod's piece on it in the Atlantic. The film is based on the friendship he formed with Fred Rogers, but they changed the name and some of the details of his character for the film.

                                      It's about forgiveness - the Junod character is struggling to forgive his father for not being a great father and I think the way the film resolves that might come off as a bit too neat and tidy. But Mr. Rogers' real lesson for adults is that being a decent person takes some effort. Religion or spirituality or a guiding philosophy or whatever it is that allows you to get up in the morning is not really about what you *believe* but what you choose to *practice.*

                                      https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...ers-do/600772/


                                      *As such, our pastor mentioned this film in his sermon yesterday. He said he'd never recommended a film from the pulpit before, but he was so moved by this film that he shoehorned it into a sermon about "making all things new" and the "beating swords into ploughshares" business in Isaiah.

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                                        The Storyville documentary on Franco's victims is harrowing, yet compelling - amazing to think there are still streets and squares in Madrid named after him and his accomplices.

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                                          Originally posted by Diable Rouge View Post
                                          The Storyville documentary on Franco's victims is harrowing, yet compelling - amazing to think there are still streets and squares in Madrid named after him and his accomplices.
                                          That is upsetting

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                                            The new Madrid council, inc Vox fascists, removed plaques last week listing names of those shot against the walls of a particular cemetery. Not that the PP have ever needed encouragement to perpetuate the “2 Spains”

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                                              Did they succumb to the common cold?

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                                                Can I just say the Godfather of Harlem is my favourite TV show.
                                                If you are not watching it, it is a lesson in early 1960's civil rights (particularly in Harlem) as well as the relationship between various black community leaders as they jump in an out of bed with each other for personal gain.

                                                Forrest Whittiker and Giancarlo Esposito are brilliant (as one would expect) and the guy playing Malcolm X is fantastic. The last episode was amazing, dealing with the murder of JFK and Malcolm's silencing by the Honourable Elijah Muhammed. The guys who play the Itallians (uncle Pauli from Goodfellas), Bonnano and the other fella.
                                                This should clear the deck come Emmy's, it probably won't, but it would.
                                                Also the social issues faced then and covered by this show are still in effect today.

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                                                  Originally posted by hobbes View Post
                                                  Did they succumb to the common cold?

                                                  On the assumption that this relates to WofW rather than anything to do with the Spanish Civil War, well, no. Not really. The drama was a such a muddle we weren't even left knowing whether they had indeed succumbed or if others were on their way. The Martians landed, started feeling a bit icky and then we shot forward 10 years or so to a cloudy, barren land which didn't appear to have any aliens but was disease-ridden and hungry. Then they figured out that rotting flesh + germs helped kill the red weed and produced a rather limited batch of weedkiller from a little boy's blood. Then a new, green shoot grew (think WALL-E without the litter) and the sun broke through the clouds a bit. And that was it.

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                                                    Picking up an earlier discussion about Dublin Murders. For me, it's become pretty good. There have been some interesting twists. Starz in the US has only shown 4 episodes, but I'm digging it. Because I'm about travel a bit, I'll likely see the fifth episode and then a couple weeks off.

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