Category: TV

Endeavour (TV series) – seasons 1 & 2

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Endeavour is a British television detective drama series. It is a prequel to the long-running Inspector Morse and, like that series, is set primarily in Oxford.

Shaun Evans portrays the young Endeavour Morse beginning his career as a Detective Constable …

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

Critics have been generally favourable, though even positive reviews have commented that the show’s murder-mystery plots are occasionally unsatisfying convoluted puzzles or come to a “rushed, melodramatic and fairly preposterous conclusion.”

Each episode is a 90 minute feature film. A big commitment to watch. It took me months to get through season 1.

But I have continued to season 2.

Everything is excellent. But for me the plots are too convoluted. I don’t think I’ve yet been able to guess an ending.

Humans – season 1

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I’ll definitely be continuing with season 2.

Humans (stylised as HUM∀NS) is a science fictiontelevision series that debuted on 14 June 2015 on Channel 4 and AMC.

… the series explores the themes of artificial intelligence and robotics, focusing on the social, cultural, and psychological impact of the invention of anthropomorphic robots called “synths”.  …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The show is Channel 4’s highest rated drama since 1992. It’s had excellent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

Mia is very believable as a Synth. Great casting. It’s based on a Swedish TV series called Real Humans.

Archie Bunker on gun control

On By Rick McIn ethics, firearms, government, humour, TVLeave a comment

Norman Lear was the famously left wing genius behind the ground breaking All in the Family comedy satire.

Trump is STILL Archie Bunker. A dinosaur from the past. Lear partly based the character on his father Herman.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Purity by Jonathan Franzen (2015)

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Depending on whom you ask, Franzen is either the premier living American writer or the last literary dinosaur: a pompous white male Luddite who gazes disdainfully down at us tweeting, Facebooking fools from his comfortable perch of astronomical sales and critical adulation. …

Guardian review – Purity by Jonathan Franzen review – dazzling, hilarious and problematic

Purity is one big and ambitious book. I was prepared not to like it. Prepared not to finish it.

I assumed every character would be educated and talented. Yet find ways to make themselves miserable.

And I was right.

But the plot got me hooked. It’s complex, interesting and entertaining. If you are up for a challenge, I do recommend Purity.

Purity by Jonathan Franzen

The multigenerational epic jumps back and forth across decades. Moves from Germany, to Bolivia, to several different locations in the USA.

I did care about some of the lead characters.

Purity (Pip) Tyler was quite convincing, I thought.

German Andreas Wolf runs a WikiLeaks-like site called the Sunlight Project. Daniel Craig will play him in the planned Showtime adaptation. Purity would make good TV, I think.

Journalist Leila Helou did not do much for me much as a character. But her story was fascinating.

Charles Blenheim,  Leila’s husband, a literary has-been, is not a lead character. But I did find him very entertaining.

Tom Aberant is the most important character, I’d say. An idealist who somehow got himself roped into an insane marriage. He’s the character I identify with most.

It’s only got a 3.6 / 5.0 rating on GoodReads. Critics like it better than do regular folks.

Of his 4 other books, the only other I’ve read is The Corrections. Purity is better IMHO.

Fortitude – season 2

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Season 2 has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes as I post.

Yes it’s good. Yes it’s well acted.

Richard Dormer is particularly good.

Sheriff Dan Anderssen

But the plot is absurd. I’m quitting.

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

A third and final season is planned for  2018.

Just 4 episodes as there aren’t many people left alive in Fortitude. 🙂

Designated Survivor (season 1)

On By Rick McIn government, TVLeave a comment

It’s sappy. It’s not going to win any awards for acting.

Still … I’m going to download season 2.

The premise is fascinating. The plot engaging. I did get hooked.

They do a good job of leaving a cliff hanger end of each episode.

In a world with a Toddler President this alternative looks pretty good.

Tom Kirkman

Designated Survivor is an American political drama … 

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I never particularly liked Kiefer Sutherland in the past. But he’s quite good as “Tom” Kirkman, the independent President of the United States.

My favourite character is Kal Penn as Seth Wright, a speechwriter who quickly becomes one of his closest advisors and the new White House Press Secretary.

Maggie Q as Hannah Wells, is impressive too.

Also LaMonica Garrett as Secret Service Agent Mike Ritter.

 

World Without End by Ken Follett

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

The audio book is 45 hrs long. A sweeping historical novel set in 12th-century England during the time of the Black Death. The plague.

It follows characters over 40 years.

The Church is still powerful. New architecture and building techniques are revolutionizing the lives of people as they move from serfdom to free entrepreneurs.

It’s a bit of a soap opera with too high a percentage of the pages devoted to love stories and romantic disaster.

Still … I’ll be continuing on to book 3 in the series –  A Column of Fire, published 2017.  It’s set in the same English city starting 1558.

World Without End is a best-selling 2007 novel by Welsh author Ken Follett. It is the second book in the Kingsbridge Series, and is the sequel to 1989’s The Pillars of the Earth.

World Without End takes place in the same fictional town as Pillars of the Earth — Kingsbridge — and features the descendants of some Pillars characters 157 years later. …

A television miniseries based on the novel aired worldwide in 2012.

Fargo season 3

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

I expected to love the series, but gave up after 4 episodes.

It’s as quirky as ever. Ewan McGregor plays both of two brothers.

Some of the winter scenes were filmed out of Calgary.

I couldn’t get into the plot nor did I care much about any of the characters.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It’s getting rave reviews from everyone else.

The Tunnel – season 1 (2013)

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I enjoyed watching the 2 seasons (24 episodes) of The Bridge (2013-14), an excellent police drama set on the Mexican / American border.

It was based on ‘Bron, Broen’ (2011), a Scandinavian hit.

The Tunnel (French: Tunnel) is the British-French adaptation. Season 1 launched 2013.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The series stars Stephen Dillane and Clémence Poésy as British and French police detectives Karl Roebuck and Elise Wassermann …

The plot follows the two detectives working together to find a serial killer who left the upper-half body of a French politician and the lower-half of a British prostitute in the Channel Tunnel, at the midpoint between France and the UK. They later learn that the killer – who comes to be nicknamed the “Truth Terrorist” – is on a moral crusade to highlight many social problems, terrorising both countries in the process. As the series progresses, the killer’s true intention is revealed. …

The American adaptation was best in my opinion. Then the Scandinavian original.

The Tunnel is worth watching. Indeed, the similar storyline was better in some aspects than the other two.

When they cast Clémence Poésy  (Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter film series) as one of the detectives, it must have seemed ideal.

But she’s not nearly as intriguing as were the female leads in the other two series. One difference in this adaptation is that Elise Wassermann does not necessarily have Asperger Syndrome. She’s simply direct. And socially awkward.

Dillane is at least as good as the male leads in the other two series, however. Very believable as the “rumpled British Everyman“.

That’s it. I won’t watch season two of The Tunnel. I’ve finally had enough of The Bridge.

The Bridge (‘Bron, Broen’) 2011

On By Rick McIn TVLeave a comment

I enjoyed watching the 2 seasons (24 episodes) of The Bridge (2013-14), an excellent American police drama set on the Mexican / American border.

It was based on ‘Bron, Broen’ (2011)

When a body, cut in half at the waist, is discovered in the middle of the Øresund Bridge, which connects Copenhagen with Malmö, placed precisely on the border between the two countries, the investigation falls under the jurisdiction of both the Danish and Swedish police agencies.

It is not one corpse but two halves of two separate women: the upper-half being that of a female Swedish politician; the lower-half being that of a Danish prostitute. Saga Norén from Sweden and Martin Rohde from Denmark lead the murder investigations. …

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

‘Bron, Broen’ is good too, but not nearly as good as the American remake.  I doubt I’ll continue on to season 2.

The highlight is Sofia Helin as the Swedish police detective Saga Norén.

Suggested, but never stated, to have Asperger’s syndrome she is portrayed as completely oblivious to social norms, but a brilliant and devoted police investigator.

The finale of Bron, Broen season 1 was very well done. Better than the American version.

There have also been remakes made on the British / French border and Estonia / Russia. It’s a good premise for a TV series.

I’ll download the The Tunnel next.

The plot follows the two detectives working together to find a serial killer who left the upper-half body of a French politician and the lower-half of a British prostitute in the Channel Tunnel, at the midpoint between France and the UK.