Current Watching

[Jobi1]

We binged the semi-autobiographical Big Boys on Channel 4 last week, just a phenomenal piece of TV – ludicrously silly and funny in places, alongside some devastatingly poignant moments that could easily reduce you to a helpless pool of tears on the floor. Cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Slightly Brown]

Clandestine Aussies get a fucking ton of work over here. They're usually really good at hiding their accent, but you catch a hint from time to time.

Charlie Hunnam spoke really strangely on Sons of Anarchy sometimes, and it was clear he was struggling with hiding his English accent.

I didn’t realise he was English until I looked it up. His English accent in The Gentlemen was terrible. Trying to serve too many mistresses, I guess. Maybe waiting for the Esparanto film-wave. Directors clearly like him, so good for him.

[Jobi1]

Charlie Hunnam has spent an awful lot of his career in roles requiring accents despite him being fairly hopeless at doing them. His legendary/notorious attempt at cockney in Green Street makes Dick Van Dyke sound pretty accurate. Best I've heard him was actually the first thing I saw him in, which was Queer As Folk (Manchester), but even that was more generic northern than specifically Manc. Presume he's naturally a Geordie speaker, but I've never heard him interviewed.

[Jobi1]

Clandestine Aussies get a fucking ton of work over here. They're usually really good at hiding their accent, but you catch a hint from time to time.

Fun story going the other way, jobbing bit-part Aussie actor Jonathan LaPaglia has spent so long living in the States that when he was hired to present the Australian version of the show Survivor he had to take to take some accent coaching lessons to get his Aussie accent back properly.

[NHH]

Sherwood was really good, but continuity aside (how did Daphne's phone number end up on her old boss's phone, given she dropped off the radar around 15 years before phone became ubiquitous) it was great until the last episode. They really did a number on us with the disguise - I actually said to my wife that if she wasn't one of the sisters, or the cop's wife, then who the hell could she be since that was all the main female characters. Doh.

In retrospect, a guy who'd attacked a left-wing activist, an islamic train driver, an asian solicitor and finally a black guy playing golf would have been pursued as a right-wing terrorist rather than a guy on a mission to right some wrongs from 38 years previous. And the old 'we're the white working class and no-one notices us' bollocks.

TT - The Boys is great. The departures from the original material have been really good and have enhanced it.

Just watched Gaslit, which was really good. Julia Roberts was great in it; all the guys were real shit bags, feeble, or feeble shit bags. Nice cameos by someone looking like Redford c. 1976. Seems to rebalance the story in the popular mind by pointing out that Woodward and Bernstein were mostly irrelevant to the actual developments that matters.

[Amor de Cosmos]

all the guys were real shit bags, feeble, or feeble shit bags.

Except the doorman at Watergate who discovered the break in.

[Hot Pepsi]

Stranger Things’ last two mega episodes are badass.

[Tony C]

Sherwood was really good, but continuity aside (how did Daphne's phone number end up on her old boss's phone, given she dropped off the radar around 15 years before phone became ubiquitous)…

Possible Sherwood Spoiler

The related incident I found confusing was that when St Clair was given the list of ‘Romantic poets’ numbers from the dead detective’s phone he sat and phoned them all up and wait for a response. Surely any detective would trace the owners of a phone by using the police data system to track them.

[NHH]

I thought that, but he had just been told to drop it by his superiors, so that might have been something where there would be a trace of his efforts?

[Slightly Brown]

I thought Sherwood was ace. The murders were almost incidental. The London dude’s relationship with the head-teacher was sad and brilliant. “The spell has been broken”. Adeel Akhtar is one twitchy, awkward, mesmeric actor. I’m
going to search out his other stuff.

[Benjm]

We watched the final episode of Inspector Montalbano last night. The scenery put in a tremendous performance to drag it across the line but it was a bit ropey otherwise.

[Sean of the Shed]

Do we do The Boys here? It's good, isn't it?

Just started season 3. This series looks like being even more outrageous than the last two.
The best thing about it is that it feels like a far more realistic portrayal of how people with superpowers would actually behave compared to Marvel/DCs ideas.

[Patrick Thistle]

I can tell The Orville doesn't have much cultural impact because the most recent episode would have infuriated any vocal anti-trans bigots who happened to catch it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Is there new Orville?

[Hot Pepsi]

I know! A bit on the nose, I thought, but I still like the show.

Things are bad, but we are in the same country where sponsors pulled out of Ellen Degeneris’ sitcom when she came out. Hollywood isn’t afraid of the bigots anymore. That is progress. It’s not nearly enough. But it is progress.

Also, this season of Star Trek:Strange New Worlds features a villain played by a trans woman whose name escapes me. She’s excellent and, I assume, will be recurring. Like Q was.

What is hilarious is that every time Star Trek, or any sci-fI, does something like this, the right-wing media act like it’s a new “wokeness.” Star Trek TOS and TNG had tons of episodes like this.

I particularly liked that one where TNG crew met a species that pretended to have no gender, but one of them was female and fancied Riker. It didn’t go well for her.

And of course, that one where the species has black and white faces, but which side was black vs white determined one’s status. I recall, I didn’t notice that until about half way in.

As it happens, I’m currently working my way through TOS. I’ve only ever seen a few. I was a Star Wars kid and didn’t get into Trek until the early 90s.

The special effects are, of course, terrible and it isn’t as progressive as I hope the 23rd century will be, but I can see how it blew kids minds in the 60s.

That doc on Leonard Nimoy is good too.

[Hot Pepsi]

Just started season 3. This series looks like being even more outrageous than the last two.
The best thing about it is that it feels like a far more realistic portrayal of how people with superpowers would actually behave compared to Marvel/DCs ideas.

I gave up after season 1. It just revels in its violence too much.

“How superheroes would really behave” isn’t new. That’s what Watchman was about. Over 35 years ago. That’s what Invincible is about, except less impressed with itself.

[Tony C]

I thought that, but he had just been told to drop it by his superiors, so that might have been something where there would be a trace of his efforts?

Ah yes, true.

[Hot Pepsi]

Watching the last two of Stranger Things again. I think it’s in my top 3 favorite TV shows ever. The others being The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror.

At it’s best, The Simpsons would be #1, bits been diluted by 20 years of mediocrity.

Battlestar Galactica was awesome, but didn’t quite stick the landing.

[WOM]

I can tell The Orville doesn't have much cultural impact because the most recent episode would have infuriated any vocal anti-trans bigots who happened to catch it.

Is it any good? I'm immediately skeptical of anything by whatshisname because I'm pretty sure it'll be all snide satire.

[WOM]

Stranger Things’ last two mega episodes are badass.

Agreed.

[Hot Pepsi]

Is it any good? I'm immediately skeptical of anything by whatshisname because I'm pretty sure it'll be all snide satire.

It’s not really satire at all. It’s basically just an homage to Star Trek with a few more jokes.

[Hot Pepsi]

This Is Going To Hurt is pretty great. Ben Whitslaw plays an NHS obstetrician who is struggling with some personal stuff.

[Patrick Thistle]

Is it any good? I'm immediately skeptical of anything by whatshisname because I'm pretty sure it'll be all snide satire.

Well I like it and it's quite removed from Seth MacFarlane's usual milieu. There is one episode where a dodgy porn simulation for the we-can't-call-it-the-holodeck-for-legal-reasons turns out to be a virus that crashes the ship's systems. But apart from that it is like a less po-faced Star Trek.

[Sits]

This Is Going To Hurt is pretty great. Ben Whitslaw plays an NHS obstetrician who is struggling with some personal stuff.

He’s also struggling with being an NHS doctor. It is indeed pretty great.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Is there new Orville?

Can he fly yet?