sister_luck | Entries tagged with television

Oh yes, once again, I'm about three years late in starting a TV series.

Last night it was the pilot and the second episode of The Americans and as I'm conflicted about it, I am throwing some of that out here. ( Spoilers for episode 1 and )

Yes, I still watch television, though not as much as I used to.

The Easter break means that I've been watching more than the weekly episode of Agents of Shield (which is more than a guilty pleasure).

Still not caught up with Justified.

But we managed to return to True Detective and we watched episode 4 last night. Which was more of a linking episode, I think, showing us how these two detectives are spiralling out of control, in their personal lives and in how far they are willing to go to solve this case. They don't seem to have a superior who is really interested in them - in contrast to Justified. Also, really want to find out how one of them managed to masquerade successfully and the other dropped out.

We are nearly done with the first season of Transparent. I've been enjoying that, because it has got humour, heart, lots of neuroses, and gorgeous architecture. I sort of have developed this theory that (interior) design reflects the characters, but I am not sure yet where they are going with it. Is there a unified theory behind it?

Oh, and we watched the Veronica Mars film, which was pretty harmless, but fun. That said, I wanted to feed the actor playing Logan Echolls. I used to like skinny guys, but not anymore.

A link to the BBC Yearbook from 1930 has put all my other online activities on hold.

( Read more... )

Did anyone else watch Defiance last night? It got a near-simultaneous start in several parts of the world thanks to SyFy. I caught the last twenty minutes or so and thought it was rather predictable. It felt like a very American narrative to me (circle the wagons and all that).

( Of saintly men and palm trees: )

It turns out that the biggest project of the holidays is to get the kid to sleep in his own bed again and go there at a reasonable hour. Yes, an early bedtime and a daily routine are meant to be oh-so important, but this goes all out the window when you're travelling around a lot, not to forget that sometimes it's good for the grown-ups to have a kid snuggle up to them. Also, he had the knack of tiring himself out in kindergarten and not getting enough of a nap there and then falling asleep in the early evening. And yes, we tried keeping him awake, but he manages to nod off mid-play. Rousing him: not a good idea. Either doesn't work or you have a screaming kid on your hands.

( While you were sleeping )

Last night on arte TV there was a 'documentary' called The naked Shakespeare about the author of the famous plays.

The whole thing was dripping with condescension (this country lad couldn't have known about law, falconry etc, he wasn't educated enough, he wouldn't have known how courtiers spoke) and the main evidence was from an American gentleman who travelled to Italy and 'found' that 'the author' had described real places in Padua, Verona etc. down to identifying the very Sycamore Grove of Romeo & Juliet fame. We even got to see those sycamores, which were barely 100 years old, and we were told that at this very spot there had always been plane trees. He must have travelled to Italy in his lifetime because no writer ever described places sort of accurately that he had never seen.

I fell asleep before the big reveal. NOW I WILL NEVER KNOW! Sadface.

As you know, no writer ever wrote about things outside his immediate personal experience, so maybe he was actually the time-travelling ghost of Julius Caesar.

Here is the link to the arte website, giving you a little teaser.

[Edited to add: Oxfordians they were, of course, and don't ask me why I wasted my time researching this. I only feel sorry for the president of the German Shakespeare Society who was interviewed and they managed to make him look sympathetic to their cause and he is anything but.]

( Favourite holiday movie )

As I already mentioned elsewhere it's playground time again. Yesterday's sunshine meant that everyone came out of the woodwork again. There is the family with five girls, half of them toothless because their drink of choice is supermarket ice tea, from age one onwards. You can always count on Grandma to show up on her bike. I still haven't figured out which of the
various kids and Mamas are actually related to her. Then there are the teenagers, who always generate lots of drama often involving accusations of theft, the police and threats of mass brawls that usually fail to materialise. Then there is Kevin (not his real name) who is a fast talker with the most fascinating stories 90% of which are complete fabrications. Currently, he's telling everyone that he might be a dad soon - at 15. His mum is also a regular and she is always going on about Kevin's troubles with his health and his teachers. Some of the adults show up without their kids - for the gossip and the company. It's like the village square.
I try not to listen, but it's hard to ignore the constant oversharing. It's strikingly similar to our scripted reality programs on TV just a lot less fake.

Yeah, not quite in the zombie "I'm terribly hungry" sense though I'm not feeling far off. School's horrible at the moment.

I'm currently obsessing about something that I'd already forgotten once, then managed to dredge up from the depths of my memory and forgotten again. It's not as urgent as I was making it out to be in the last hour or so - I've just realized that I only need this in three weeks' time, as I've got my next two lessons already planned for tomorrow and then it's the class trip and then two weeks autumn break.

BUT I'm sure you at least one of you knows this (and I used to know it, too):

In one of the television series that I watched in the last five years there's an episode where someone goes undercover at a school and then teaches a Shakespeare sonnet. And no, it's not Zoe in Spooks Series 2, Episode 3 - she mostly talks about Great Expectations and uses a Dido song to teach about romantic poetry. I think it's British and I think the 'teacher' is female.

Any idea what I'm talking about?

The thing is when I first watched it I wanted to use it in class next time the sonnets came up and then when that happened I only remembered about it afterwards and didn't quite remember what tv series it was and then I found it again and I might have written it down somewhere to remember but that knowledge has disappeared again.

This could be good. Or it could be very, very bad.

Salman Rushdie to write sci-fi drama for Showtime.

Definitely something to watch out for.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

weird words

plus pictures

Entries tagged with television

The Americans (ep. 1+2)

Television.

Fell down a rabbit hole:

Defiance and religious pictures.

Watching.

Who wrote Shakespeare's plays?

Capturing December: Day 2

Playground season has started.

I need your brains.

Potential.

Profile

November 2020

Links

Page Summary

Expand Cut Tags