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Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

I Don’t Want to Know

Posted in Culture, Movies, Television, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 22 Jul 2014| 13 Comments »

I know nothing about James Garner. And I want to keep it that way.

When I was young, I had several TV Westerns from which to choose:  Have Gun Will Travel, Branded, Bonanza, F Troop, The Rifleman, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, and Maverick, just to name a few.

By far, Maverick was my favorite, and James Garner was the reason why.

Later, when Mr. Garner showed up in a new series, The Rockford Files, I tuned in regularly.

Growing older, I looked farther back and found his movies, including Sayonara, The Great Escape, and my favorite, The Americanization of Emily (which I echoed in the title of my novella, The Revitalization of Emily).

In short, I was a fan.

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3 Things You Need to Know About HBO and Game of Thrones

Posted in Books, Television, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 29 Apr 2014| 1 Comment »

I don’t have HBO, so I can only watch HBO’s Game of Thrones a decade or so after the premium class sees it. However, that has not saved me from seeing meme after meme based on the series, nor from having to wade through a sea of posts about how this was so good and that was so bad and–of course–how so many things were different than they were in the book.

Aficionados are terribly tempted to hold forth on the subject of their passion (and trust me, I do understand this temptation) but before you do so, before you post that screed on that critical aspect that HBO got wrong, there are three things you need to know: (more…)

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Naught but Death

Posted in Television, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 02 Apr 2014| 3 Comments »

Last year, I brought to your attention Ripper Street, the BBC  crime drama set in Whitechapel (London) in the years after the Jack the Ripper murders. Last year, the premiere season was showing on BBC America, and I was all atwitter about it.

It’s back for a second season–a good bit of news–but it’s also back in the news.

You see, Ripper Street was canceled at the end of its second season. Even The Guardian was gobsmacked by the news, calling it “Dreadful news for fans of quality drama.”

And I agree. But all is not lost.

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Hit & Miss

Posted in Television, tagged , , , , on 13 Dec 2013| Leave a Comment »

The British television industry has a tradition of creating short-lived series. In America, a show may have 23 episodes in a season; in Britain, it is often only half that or, as fans of the recent Sherlock reboot well know, only three. In addition, the Brits will create a “series” that is only expected to live one, maybe two years. Where we Yanks will keep a show going well past its sell-by date, the Brits make a show, air it, and move on to the next idea, the next story.

Naturally, they have their long-standing staples like Coronation Street, East Enders, Top Gear, and Time Team (which sadly was canceled after two decades of wonderful programming), but by and large this “one-off” approach to television creates a more varied viewing landscape where, if you don’t like a show, just wait a month or two and something new will be on.

And so, British television will often take risks that would give American television execs apoplexy.

Hit & Miss is a perfect example. (more…)

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Two Early Results

Posted in Culture, Television, tagged , , , , , , on 25 Sep 2013| Leave a Comment »

Monday was a bit of crazy around our house, so we missed the two premieres we were waiting for. To be fair, we were going to miss one of them, anyway, since they were both on at 10PM and I was not staying up until midnite…not on a school night.

But last night, we caught up with both “Castle” and “The Blacklist.”

Warning: there will be some mild spoilers in this post.

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Defining Best

Posted in Movies, Television, tagged , , , , , , on 13 May 2013| 9 Comments »

Mother’s Day was spent, in part, watching dramatizations of Jane Austen novels. I’ll freely admit that this is not a tiresome chore for me.

I love Austen’s novels, as does my wife, and we have nearly every dramatized version of every Austen novel, so we often have discussions of which version is best. The answer often boils down to, “This version is best for a lazy Sunday, but this one is best for a Friday night.” That sort of thing.

But I have decided that there is one Best Austen Dramatization, and it is the BBC’s 2007 version of “Persuasion.”

Full disclosure: Persuasion is my favorite of the Austen novels, but I do believe I was sufficiently objective in my decision.

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Replacement Therapy

Posted in Culture, Television, tagged , , , , , on 02 Apr 2013| 4 Comments »

I watch a lot of British television–a lot for an American, that is–and not just on BBC America. I watch Masterpiece Theater, I subscribe to Acorn TV, and I even buy DVDs direct from the UK so I can see some shows not available any other way (“New Tricks” is a good example). But there’s one thing I hate about British television series: They’re too damned short.

Now that my beloved “Ripper Street” has completed its stingy 8-episode Season One, I was jonesing for a new series. I saw the ads for the new show called “Orphan Black,” but to be honest, I wasn’t going to watch. Then an advert for the opening 3-minutes popped up on my Facebook feed and I thought, why not?

In the first minutes, we meet Sara (Tatiana Maslany) at a train station somewhere near New York City. She’s a Brit, and she has serious problems. But whatever she’s up against, it’s  nothing compared to the what’s bothering that woman over there, crying at the end of the train platform. Sara goes over to the woman, and discovers that the woman looks just like her…right before the woman steps in front of the oncoming train. Sara, distraught, has a moment of panic, then a moment of clarity; she grabs the dead woman’s purse and flees the scene.

That’s the three-minute setup, and it was pretty good. Good enough, in fact, to get me to plunk it on the DVR and watch the whole episode.

Is it as good as “Ripper Street”? No. Is it better than most things on American network television? Yes.

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