Category: TV

The Diplomat – season 1

On By Rick McIn government, TV1 Comment

Rotten Tomatoes 83% — but I’d rate it higher.

For an American show, it’s surprisingly surprising. Non cliche. And the plot almost makes sense. 😀

Debora Cahn is an award-winning writer/producer known for The West Wing (1999) and Homeland (2020).

The Diplomat is an American political thriller television series …

The series centers on Kate Wyler, the new United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, as she helps to defuse an international crisis, forges strategic alliances and adjusts to her new place in the spotlight. She also manages her deteriorating marriage to fellow career diplomat Hal Wyler. …

Ato Essandoh as Stuart Hayford, deputy chief of mission of the US embassy in London, is very good. You really feel sorry for the poor guy.

Actually, the entire cast is excellent.

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I’d complain it drags some in the final episodes.

A cliff-hanger ending.

Hopefully season 2 will be a little faster paced.

Less emphasis on the romances.

The Simpsons LIVE Opening – People

On By Rick McIn humour, TVLeave a comment

From Season 17, Episode 15. “Homer Simpson, This is Your Wife”

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It’s very close.

Click PLAY or watch Original V.S. Real Life Comparison on YouTube.

Cunk on Earth – Eat THIS, David Attenborough 😀

On By Rick McIn Art and beauty, education, humour, TVLeave a comment

Very. Funny.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 100%.

Cunk on Earth is British mockumentary TV, brilliantly skewering everything and everybody historical. 

… stars Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk, an ill-informed investigative reporter …

The series introduces subjects such as the development of agriculture and early civilization, the rise of Christianity and Islam, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War and the Space Race.

With an eye to the future, Cunk concludes the series with a speculative comment on the possibility of AI takeover. …

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Wednesday – season 1

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

Normally I would not be much interested in another reboot of the Addams Family (1964).

BUT got intrigued when I first saw the dance scene.

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It’s a tribute to the original Wednesday dance.

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This is a Tim Burton project. Therefore skillfully done.

Sounds like Burton is a long time Addams Family fan.

A coming-of-age supernatural comedy horror. There are parallels with Harry Potter and some of the superhero schools.

Students are  “outcasts“. The rest of the town’s citizens “normies“,

All good — but I’d say the casting is the highlight for me.

Of course, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, carries this show. I can’t see how anyone else could do it better.

The creative team met with her first via Zoom, concluding “nobody else on this planet” was better suited to the role.

Emma Myers as Enid Sinclair, Wednesday’s roommate
Joy Sunday as Bianca Barclay

The entire cast is good.

A good call ➙ Christina Ricci as Marilyn Thornhill / Laurel Gates. Ricci played played Wednesday Addams in the film The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993).

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Lupin – 17 episodes

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Everyone likes this show.

70 million households streamed it within the first 28 days of release.

Lupin is a French heist TV series. Very entertaining.

17 episodes over 3 parts available on Netflix as I post. MORE are planned.

Omar Sy in the role of Assane Diop is charming.  An over-the-top, funny French version of James Bond.

Diop emulates a  fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise named Arsène Lupin.

Author Maurice Leblanc featured Lupin in 17 novels and 39 novellas.

The story follows professional thief Assane Diop, the only son of an immigrant from Senegal who had come to France to seek a better life for himself and his child.

Assane’s father is framed for the theft of an expensive diamond necklace by his employer, the wealthy and powerful Hubert Pellegrini, and dies in his prison cell, leaving the fourteen-year-old Assane to fend for himself on the streets of Paris.

Twenty-five years later, inspired by a book about gentleman thief Arsène Lupin his father had given him on his birthday, Assane sets out to get revenge on the Pellegrini family …

The hilariously bad voice over and subtitles in English didn’t bother me (for a change). In fact, it almost adds to the silliness of some of the plot lines. 😀

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related – Rolling Stone review – The Good Thief of ‘Lupin’

television’s most charming new antihero

Harry Wild – season 1

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

A recently retired English professor discovers a real knack for investigation and cannot help but interfere with the cases assigned to her police detective son.

IMDb

Only 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. With critics.

77% audience rating.

An entertaining comedy, as far as I’m concerned.

Episode 7 is particularly good.

Jane Seymour was born 1951 (now age 72). She looks GREAT in this show released 2022.

She was a Bond girl in Live and Let Die (1973).

A Playboy model, 3rd time at age-67.

I really like her sidekick, Rohan Nedd. This young man is a star.

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The Night Agent – season 1

On By Rick McIn books, TV1 Comment

Surprisingly good. 

And much better than the book.

More believable dialogue than most predictable, explosion-filled, cliche Hollywood thriller TV.

78% on Rotten Tomatoes is about right. Worth watching.

Some interesting characters.

FBI Agent Peter Sutherland is thrown into a vast conspiracy about a mole at the highest levels of the United States government.

To save the nation, he plunges into a desperate hunt for the traitor, while protecting former tech CEO Rose Larkin from the people who murdered her aunt and uncle. …

Wikipedia

I like how Peter is a rule follower with a strict moral code — in the midst of all this corruption.

A second story line involves the Vice President’s daughter. 

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Agatha Raisin – season 1

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

Agatha Raisin is lightweight British comedy-drama.

Mostly comedy, I’d say. 

A high-powered PR executive retires to rural Biddestone, Wiltshire. 

Another fish out of water scenario. Agatha wears expensive high heels around town. Through the mud. 😀

Biddlestone had not had a murder — until Agatha Raisin moved there. Now they have one / week.

Season 1 first aired in 2016. 

My favourite character is Jason Barnett as the dimwitted DCI Denzel Wilkes.  His sidekick, Matt McCooey as DC Bill Wong is good too.

It’s quite formulaic. If you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all.

The Lincoln Lawyer – season 2

On By Rick McIn books, TV1 Comment

I’d say the 2nd season is even better than the first.

I like everything about this TV show.

Everything BUT — for me — Matthew McConaughey is still the Lincoln Lawyer.

Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Mickey in the TV adaptation. And he just doesn’t match the character in the book nearly as well as McConaughey.

The Lincoln Lawyer is attorney Mickey Haller, half-brother of Michael Connelly’s mainstay character Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch.

In season 2 he’s rich, famous, and successful. 

My favourite character is Becki Newton as Lorna Crain, Haller’s 2nd wife and office manager.  GREAT LEGS … say some sexist macho assholes. 🙄.

Her fiancé, Angus Sampson as Dennis “Cisco” Wojciechowski is excellent too.

ALSO Neve Campbell as Maggie (McFierce) McPherson.

It was good to see Elliott Gould as David “Legal” Siegel, Mickey’s mentor and a friend of his father.  He’s age-85 now.

10 episodes. All good.  Terrific finish.

Dalgliesh – season 2

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Classy. 

Everything that’s good about television out of the U.K.

Dalgliesh is a British crime drama television series, based on the Adam Dalgliesh novels by PD James. Bertie Carvel stars as the title character, an enigmatic detective–poet. …

… investigating complex crimes in mid-1970s England.

Dalgleish is dour, understated, calm, quiet. Very British.

Season 2 is three movie length stories, each broken into two parts of about 45min.

He drives a 1971 Jaguar E–Type. That’s one bit of flash.

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