89% Rotten Tomatoes. That’s about right. I’d change a few things, if I could.
Intense. But skillfully done.
Unlike typical Agatha Christie, the dialogue is believable.
Emma Corrin is excellent as Darby Hart, a 24-year-old “Gen Z Sherlock Holmes” hacker who has written a true-crime book about her past as an amateur sleuth.
She’s Rami Malek‘s paramour right now IRL.
Harris Dickinson as Bill Farrah is quite good, as well. They make a charmingly socially awkward duo.
Darby and eight other guests are invited by a reclusive billionaire to participate in a retreat at a remote and dazzling location. When one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must use all of her skills to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer takes another life. …
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman once told the New Yorker he estimates more than half of Silicon Valley billionaires have invested in some type of “apocalypse insurance,” like an underground bunker.
… follows the adventures of fearless private investigator Alexa Crowe, who solves the most baffling crimes as well as coping with the frustrations of everyday life.
Lucy Lawless as PI Alexa Crowe, former detective of the Victoria Police Crinimal Investigation Branch (CIB) . As a side hustle, she bakes bread in her kitchen for Baristas Café. …
Not bad. Standard police procedural.
But what makes it worth watching for me is the humour. And the Melbourne scenery.
There are some personal mysteries you ponder.
WHY is Alexa working cold cases for the police? She doesn’t seem to get paid.
WHY does Madison — who actually does work for the police — drop everything instantly anytime Alexa needs a hacker / analyst?
I’d best continue on to season 2. For one thing, the show moves to New Zealand, my former homeland.
Over the years, I’ve finally watched all 79 episodes 2004 and 2022. A joy.
Sitcoms are pretty much the same formula for each and every episode. But for me seasons 1 and 9 were best.
I MIGHT have to start over again with episode 1.
I finally learned that — in real life — Martin Clunes is exactly opposite the character he plays in this comedy.
For one thing, he LOVES dogs! 😀
And he’s a charming people person, unlike the ramrod stiff and unpardonable Doc Martin.
Sigourney Weaver appeared in season 9 as a stubborn American tourist because she’s a good friend of Selina Cadell, who plays Mrs Tishell, the pharmacist.
International adaptations were made in Czech Republic and Slovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, and Spain.
It’s an excellent anti-hero drama, that happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. Technology and special effects are incidental to the story.
It’s gritty. The characters flawed and conflicted.
A BIG complaint about Star Wars is that it’s cliche. Andor takes pains to be surprising.
Of all the made-for-streaming Star Wars and Marvel spin-offs to shuffle off the Disney+ production line, few have arrived with less anticipation and lower stakes than Andor.
A prequel to a prequel, the series explores the origins of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a Rebel Alliance captain introduced in the 2016 wartime heist film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Rogue One was set immediately before George Lucas’s original Star Wars films and ended quite decisively …
With no Jedi or Skywalkers to be seen, this politically charged, slow-burn thriller adds human stakes and a real sense of the fascism behind Star Wars’s endless civil war.
The Body in the Library (1942) concerns the murders of two girls of outwardly similar appearance.
One of them was an 18-year-old dancer, and the other was a 16-year-old Girl Guide with aspirations to an acting career.
The identities of the two victims were deliberately left ambiguous by the killers.
Jane Marple eventually discovers that the dancer was the intended adoptive daughter and heiress to a wealthy man. She starts suspecting the other potential heirs to the old man’s fortune. …
Somewhat too complicated for me. I didn’t find myself assuming that everyone was the killer as I typically do in Christie stories.
Many of these old TV shows are available as full episodes on YouTube.
English actress Emilia Fox is Signora Volpe. 😀 Sylvia Fox in this excellent TV show.
Well, the first 2 episodes are great. I could have lived without episode 3.
Disillusioned with her work at MI6, spy Sylvia Fox travels to Italy for the wedding of her niece.
Although her relationship with her sister, Isabel, is troubled, Sylvia is welcomed warmly by her family.
But when the groom goes missing, leaving a dead woman behind, Sylvia feels compelled to investigate. The trail leads her from an empty pizza box and stolen children’s book to a deadly showdown.
The badass decides to move to Italy at the end of the first episode.
It’s Italy. Beautiful.
There’s romance. Charming.
An English language TV show set in Italy well done, with many Italian actors and Italian dialogue.
They did not make the same mistakes as Murder in Provence. 😀
Liverpool-based veteran cop DI Colette Cunningham uproots to Dublin when she learns that her estranged daughter, Stacey, has taken her own life.
Once there, Colette meets her two teenage grandchildren for the first time.
Despite having never known of their existence she’s their named guardian. Determined to do right by her daughter in her death, Colette joins the local Dublin Police and cares for the kids.
However, not everything about Stacey’s life is what it seems. Colette sets out to uncover the truth.
The first series sees the sudden arrival of DC Leila Hussain (Amara Karan) in the fictional Northern Irish town of Port Devine.
The local residents question the reason behind her arrival; only Inspector Finn O’Hare knows why Leila has been transferred, but is keeping it to himself. …
Too long. Too slow. But still worth reading as are all the books in the series aside from Ink Black Heart. Do NOT bother with Ink Black Heart. It’s gawd awful.
Well … perhaps slightly less irritating as he’s quit drinking and has lost weight, due to health concerns.
We still can’t imagine why partner Robin Ellacott likes him as a boss — or for possible romance.
I would have preferred if these two had finally got together. They don’t … quite … in this book.
But their detective agency is finally successful.
In this book they investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) — a cult.
At one point Strike realizes it was formed on the site of a 1960s to 1980s commune, one of the places he, and his half-sister Lucy, had lived as a child, as his mother Leda Strike drifted around the country. The commune had closed after its leaders were arrested for child sexual abuse. Lucy was one of those abused.
Robin volunteers to infiltrate the modern UHC …
It made no sense to me that she stays so long. Not much was learned from her undercover weeks.
Rowling tries to defend the harm she’s done by attacking people who happen to be born transgender.
I’ve read some of her written defences, as well.
Rowling believes she’s defending feminists. It started by her defending Maya Forstater, who was fired for arguing against transgender people the right to live the life opposite their birth gender.
Rowling believes that you should be allowed to say that biological sex cannot be changed, even if that turns out to be wrong. Rowling believes in freedom of speech on that issue.
Most agree that after a wonderful life, it’s a disappointment that such a wonderful writer and billionaire picked this issue as the hill to die on.
I’m disappointed in Rowling, too.
This controversy is a big part of her legacy.
That said — I’m not cancelling Rowling. She’s 95% good. 5% bad.
In some ways having such a famous person talking about the issue is bringing daylight. We have a long way to go yet in terms of making life fair for transgender citizens.
Rick McCharles 