Category: TV

Line of Duty – season 1 (2012)

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Another GREAT British TV show.

Line of Duty series 1 is a a British BBC police procedural …

… BBC Two‘s best-performing drama series in ten years …

It focuses on the activities of two senior AC-12 officers, Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and Detective Inspector Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure).

They actually work for Superintendent Ted Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar.

And investigate corrupt officers with links to organised crime.

In season 1 their nemesis is Detective Chief Inspector Tony Gates, played by Lennie Michael James. 

Although the police refused to co-operate with the programme’s producers, the production team was advised anonymously by serving officers and by retired police officers.

Ozark – season 3

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I swore I’d quit Ozark after season 2.

But — for some reason — ended up going back to it. Like an abused, cheated spouse.

The weakest season so far. 

Wendy’s brother’s arrival was … something, however.

Too intense for me.

I’m quitting. Again.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

 

Patriot – TV series

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Patriot is an American comedy-drama web television series.

81% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Weird, original, quirky, dark. 

I can’t compare this show to anything — other than Royal Tenenbaums — Wes Anderson.

The first 5 episodes are excellent. The last 5 slow and painful.

I doubt I’ll continue on to season 2.

To prevent Iran from going nuclear, intelligence officer John Tavner must forgo all safety nets and assume a perilous non-official cover (“NOC”)—that of a mid-level employee at a Milwaukee industrial piping firm.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Of course we all know Sherlock Holmes.

He’s Cumberbatch.

But I’d never read the original Arthur Conan Doyle short stories, first published on 14 October 1892.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is excellent, well worth reading.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

 

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy (1993)

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Without Remorse is long. Stephen King long.

…  Kirkus Reviews gave it a mixed verdict, stating that it is “twice as long as the two rather creaky storylines can bear …”

The writing is not particularly skillful.

Chronologically it’s the first in the Jack Ryan universe.

But I’d never gotten much into the Jack Ryans: Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and John Krasinski. 

Jack Ryan is not an important in Without Remorse. This book introduces a more interesting character, John Clark, portrayed by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber over the years.

Published 1993, it’s dated. Every marijuana users is EVIL, for example. And likely to die.

That’s the bad news.

But, surprisingly, I made it through.

I enjoyed learning about John Clark (real name John Terence Kelly), the former Navy SEAL. His particular skills are fascinating.

His main talent is killing people. Vigilante justice.

In any case, I’ll give Red October a try. Second book chronologically in the series.

Bosch – season 6

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Amazon’s first and longest running original series is one of their best.

Season 6 is based on The Overlook and Dark Sacred Night.

One of the many things I love about this show is how closely they stick to the feel of the books.

Great writing.

Great actors. An ensemble cast. Older and more believable than most American TV stars.

Troy Evans and Gregory Scott Cummins as Detectives Crate and Barrel steal the show every time they get on screen, for example.

It’s interesting to see Bosch’s daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz) get more important over the seasons.

Complex yet easy-to-follow multiple plot lines.

Bosch’s surprising yet perfect partner is J. Edgar, played by Jamie Hector.

Lance Reddick as Chief of Police Irvin Irving is always good. He gets married this season to Linda Park.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Season 7 will be the last in this series.  I was hoping they’d bring in a new character from the books: Renée Ballard. But rumours are she won’t be in the final season.

She’s a Bosch-like intense female detective working the night shift (“late show”) in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives.

related – Why Amazon’s ‘Bosch’ Is the Underrated Mystery Show You Should Be Watching

British TV – Bodyguard – season 1

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Bodyguard is a BIG HIT British police-thriller TV series.

I highly recommend it. 

… set around the fictional character of Police Sergeant David Budd (played by Richard Madden), a British Army war veteran suffering from PTSD, who is now working for the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London’s Metropolitan Police Service.

He is assigned as the principal protection officer (PPO) for the ambitious Home Secretary Julia Montague, whose politics he despises. …

Madden played Robb Stark in the first three seasons of HBO‘s fantasy drama Game of Thrones …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

CCTV crime drama – The Capture

On By Rick McIn government, TVLeave a comment

The Capture is a British mystery crime-drama staring Holliday Grainger as hot shot Detective Inspector Rachel Carey of Homicide and Serious Crime Command.

She played Robin Ellacott in Strike, an even better recent British TV series.

Ron Perlman is excellent too.

A fascinating plot – the story starts with a soldier acquitted of a war crime in Afghanistan, based on helmet cam evidence.

But the most interesting part is CCTV video footage being manipulated. 

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is used for security as well as video surveillance around the world.  Facial recognition software is used, as well. Scary.

There is one surveillance camera for every 11 people in Britain.

I did think writers had trouble ending this great story. It was dragged out. And I didn’t buy the wrap-up.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

 

 

 

Absentia – season 1

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I’d like to recommend Absentia as it has a lot of promise, … but I fall in line with Rotten Tomatoes which has it at 70%.

Too much chase, not enough resolution of plot.

Stana Katic is FBI agent Emily Byrne who disappears without a trace while hunting one of Boston’s most notorious serial killers, and she is declared dead in absentia.

Six years later, she is found in a cabin in the woods, barely alive and with no memory …

She returns home to learn that her husband has remarried and her son is being raised by the new wife …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

 

Harry Bosch – book 2 in the series

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I bought both the first and second novels in Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, both as good as any of the later novels.

The Black Ice starts with an apparent suicide of a narcotics officer in Los Angeles.

It was rumored that he had been involved in the selling of a new drug called “Black Ice”.

As the L.A. police higher-ups converge on the scene to protect the department from scandal, Harry Bosch inserts himself into the investigation.

The trail he follows leads to Mexican drug gangs operating across the border while he gets attracted to Calexico Moore’s widow as the case progresses. …

Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch in the TV series