We've hit Winter here in Victoria, Australia, and the cold weather and early sunset makes for good TV weather. Plus, I'm flat out at work, and the best way to unwind seems to be sitting in front of the idiot box, as it requires less thinking and more zoning out. Yep, life's been a little like that, especially with a leg injury that's stopping me going surfing or doing anything overly physical. As I read a lot for my real life work, sometimes the last thing I want to do is more reading. By day, I listen to podcasts in the garden or walking, so... well, look at me trying to justify my binge watching behaviour. Sometimes a girl's just gotta own it - I'm addicted to a good story.
What are YOU watching at the moment?
Here's what I've been watching this month.
The Handmaid's Tale, Season 4
I've been watching the last series of The Handmaid's Tale, which I have found excellent. Despite my resistance to anything Coldplay, I did cry as Moira finds June in the rubble of a bombed Chicago (sorry for the plotspoiler). My husband calls it my dystopian porn. I'm certainly addicted - dystopia, sci fi and post apocalypse films are my jam. They're pure escapism, but I also like to think about what I'd do if I was in that situation. I wonder whether anyone who is a misogynistic asshole would watch such a thing, and whether they'd be likely to find Atwood's stark criticism of gender oppression enlightening. Whilst I may have found series 3 a little tedious, this series is showing promise. Will June go back to Gilead or fight to get her daughter back from afar?
Another Round
We also watched Thomas Vinterberg’s “Another Round”, which explores Danish drinking culture. We found it absolutely hilarious, especially since we are both teachers. Watching Mads Mikkelsen (you might know him from Hannibal) be a boring middle aged teacher and become transformed by maintaining a BAC of over .5 makes me want to put vodka in my drinking bottle to do a better job of teaching Romeo and Juliet to teach disinterested Year 9's. Watching the teachers push the limits of their drinking to end up fishing whilst inebriated is worthy of a belly laugh. Best of all, is there's no real moralising - sure, drinking might affect your relationships, cause addiction and even death, but hey, just keep living, right? Watching Mikkelson dance at the end is a lot of fun too.
StartUp
Ah, I really loved this show. Perhaps it's because I know a little about the rise and fall of tech companies and crypto, but I do think it was really well done. Martin Freeman is fantastic as a FBI agent on the take, but he's not the only one to enter into morally questionable territory. No sooner do the characters make gains with their projects than does something happen to turn their fortune into failure, and this narrative arc continues throughout the entire three seasons. I particularly loved Ronald Dacey, the Haitian thug who hopes to make life better for his family and community by buying into a crypto project that he's offered by the people he's trying to shake down for money he's been hired to recover. A lot of the show is Dacey trying to rise above the hustle, but at the same time using his streetwise hustle to gain legitimacy in a pretty white world of rich players. By the end of the series, I was in love with all of the characters, though none of them were particularly likeable, given their propensity to rip off even their friends to suit their own interest. Whilst the series ended in 2018, there is rumour that Netflix might kick start another show - I do hope so, as I haven't been able to stop thinking about the final scene all week, which paved the way for the possibility for another series for me!
Wakefield
The Blue Mountains are the backdrop in ABC's Wakefield
And in other TV show news...
- BRASSIC is one of my favourite British comedies since Misfits. It features Joe Gilgun, who was also in Misfits. If you're not English or haven't lived there, or don't appreciate a British comedy, then don't bother - but I can't wait for the next series.
- Loved New Amsterdam. Totally junk food for the mind. If you were ever hooked on ER, New Amsterdam is almost, almost a replacement - okay, no George Clooney, but gee I enjoyed this little hospital drama, though the hubs made me watch it with earphones. Yep, I get that.
- Please, hurry up with the next season of Taboo - I need me some Tom Hardy grunting.
- When's the new Westworld coming out?
- We watched Greenland on Amazon Prime. I don't mind a disaster movie but I'd probably give this one a miss.
- I totally adored My Octopus Teacher - if you're into nature, freediving or animals, do yourself a favour. This made me immediately want to go dive into the ocean.
- Can't say I wasn't disappointed in the last series of Line of Duty. I found the acting more wooden than usual, the camera work terrible and obvious, and the plot full of holes and untied ends. If they don't do another series, I won't be disappointed, though I have totally loved the series up until then.
- Give Deadwater Fell a miss - it's NOT as good as Broadchurch by any means, and it's just an average crime story with no real suprises. In fact, I think I'm done with crime TV in general - nothing is packing any suprises of late and I've seen enough Nordic Noir to know how to hide a girl in a pine forest.
What have you been watching?
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Good that you've got a few series going...Might be another lockdown on the way judging by the way things are going.
Yeah, mixed feelings. A snap lockdown would be great, as I need a break from work haha. But I've booked Robe and Fleurieu, so they better let me cross the border in a month. x Currently it's Wellington Paranormal, which I should have mentioned too. Good for a silly giggle.
Robe, virtually my back yard. I hope you get to deploy.
I hope so too. Not looking good currently, thanks to you guys letting the virus out ... now we're copping consequences lol.
SOUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSTRALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't watch the news so I'm not sure what you mean. I'm hoping we get locked down for a week or two though, I could use the Lego building and ammunition making time. Lol.
I didn't know about StartUp but I'll watch anything with Martin Freeman. No questions asked!
Thanks for sharing!
Oh and he's great in this, especially in the first season and a half - after that he disappears, but he is very good and quite creepy!
This post of yours got me excited again! I love exchanging cool TV shows, and you seem to have a similar taste to mine. This is what I thought about what you listed:
Handmaid's Tale: The fourth season is out? Okay, that's up next for us to watch! I like it a lot, but my wife is absolutely crazy about it. And yes, it does have a lot of porn-like characteristics. Not so much the sex (which is hardly what porn is about anyway, IMO), but the institutionalized domination. To your question, what a real misogynistic asshole would say - guessing from actual specimens I've met - I suppose they wouldn't think the general practice to be out of place, though they might agree that it looks ugly on the surface, and that they would do it all "in a nicer way".
Another Round: Ooohhh... now this sounds heavy AS!!! I've only seen The Celebration by Vinterberg and that one managed to knock me right into the corner! So I can only guess what he could do with alcohol as a topic. Such a common yet potentially destructive substance! By the way, in my early days I experimented with teaching my classes (all adults) under various influences: cannabis was an absolute disaster, slowing me down into incoherence. Alcohol was fun and upbeat, though equally uncoordinated, but my students got lots of laughs out of it. Red Bull might have been the most dynamic, where I felt I had most focus and passion, but I guess I must have driven my students just as fast too, as they mentioned how exhausting my class was. Anyway, why am I telling you this...?
Start Up: Never heard of it, but I put it high up on my list. It reminds me of another show I greatly enjoyed (and now I want to write a Binge on This review on it): Silicon Valley. Nerdy software devs and greedy business types chasing the dollar with new apps. Though Silicon Valley is mostly comedy, Start Up sounds like there is also a bit of criminal drama involved. Still I want to see it.
Wakefield: Not quite sure about this. The psychological aspect sounds interesting, but I'm not so sure about the singing and dancing. But this inside-outside question about the nurse's own mental issues might just tip the scale in its favor. In any case, it sounds like it's worth checking out.
The other shows you've mentioned I'm not familiar with, except for New Amsterdam. I acquired it a few years ago when I finished reading Washington Irving's Knickerbocker, hoping for a similar time-period subject matter. As you can guess, this is where New Amsterdam did not deliver, which doesn't mean it can't be cool for other reasons.
NICE! Thanks for writing these reviews! Am I making my TV obsession way too blatant? In any case, I'm glad to share this vice with someone who's into the similar weird stuff I'm into.
Funny, as I was writing this, I wanted to tag you!
I can 100 Percent tell you NOT to watch New Amsterdam - it's almost embarrassing that I admitted it! It really is feel good drama, a kinda girly guilty pleasure.
You'll love 'Another Round' - if you've done any teaching at all, you would really connect to this. I've arrived hungover before, and absolutely buzzed on caffeine (poor kids) but anything else, no, unfortunately!
I think you'd like 'Wakefield' too - the dancing and singing are plot devices which make sense. I'm not a musical drama kinda person, but I did enjoy this, as the landscape, subject matter and the actors were all excellent.
Funny how us woman appreciate The Handmaid's Tale, but the men just put up with it. I'm not sure if it's because they are confronted by it or feel attacked, which I totally would understand, or whether it's because it's quite an emotional drama that deals with motherhood and other things outside men's comfort zones. I loved the book when I was young, so I had a particular affection for it anyway - but I do think the scriptwiters have done a fabulous job.
I wish I could offer you something more cerebal like Carnivale or Taboo, but there's nothing that good on at the moment!
Well, I'd say the Handmaid's Tail raises the point of enforced patriarchy in a (post)modern context, and ... well, that would make you kinda uncomfortable, especially if you are a proponent of it. In fact, I suppose the more secretly you embrace this oppression, the more uncomfortable it would make you. It's also worth keeping in mind that Atwood wrote her book as a reaction to the Islamic revolution in Iran, suggesting that it could happen anywhere. Little did she know about the current rebound of patriarchal laws in the US, such as the criminalization of abortion in certain states.
What my wife liked most about this show, was how it illustrated being a refugee from an oppressive regime, giving the list of reasons that would qualify June for refugee status. Needless to say, that's her profession as a lawyer who works with migrants and refugees, and she says that it is (mostly) realistically made. In my case, I have always liked a good dystopia, and especially to full institutionalization of anything crazy is what fascinates me. Granted, there is a lot of madness in the world, but when you raise them up to an institutional level, it just makes it incomparably so. Then you only need to take the idea only one step further to see how this has been done in our reality, getting us to accept things on the societal level that should never be acceptable. Again, there are a lot of parallels to porn, as I commented on your aptly chosen word.
I've not had a TV since 1983. But I got The Beatles 'A Hard Day's Night' from the library and am watching that and the features in spurts. (We do have a monitor for movies.) Mostly I don't watch a lot of stuff, especially this time of year.
I can't imagine you'd have time!!
Well, that's another thing, one gets much less done if there's a screen to sit in front of....
Hmmm... Perhaps I should actually ask my younger sister or brother for their Netflix password or consider Amazon Prime to just watch shows that others recommend. I find it nearly impossible to find the jewel like needles in the Netflix haystack.
Cheers for the recommendations!
No worries, I think you'd like the Danish one!
I am pretty sure I would. I heard of it before. Thanks for the reminder :>)
Nothing wrong with a little binge watching. I actually don't have any current shows - that I can access, anyway. One of these days I'll have to sign up for a month of Netflix just so I can binge watch the last couple seasons of Peaky Blinders, and the second season of Marco Polo, neither of which I can access in any other fashion (they apparently refuse to put them on DVD). I started watching both by borrowing DVDs from the library and I guess Netflix didn't like that! How dare the poors watch their shows via LIBRARIES?
I was watching Vikings but was enjoying it less and less with time. It went off the rails a while ago and it kept going further and further into Ludicrousville, such that the final season is out and I really just don't give a shit.
If there is ever another season of Call The Midwife, I'd watch that. :)
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