What I've been watching

I watched all five series of this sci fi show and I'm surprised at how much I miss it now that I'm done with it.  The premise is a storm hits London and somehow it endows some with superpowers and it causes others to become what they truly were inside.

Like most all great series that originate in Britain each series is only 6 to 8 episodes long and usually, the cast changes from series to series, especially so after series 2 in the case of this show.  At first I found some of the changes to be off-putting but eventually I grew to like all the main characters.

This show is funny, exciting, suspenseful, and fun.  It's also chock full of beautiful young women, which is always a plus for me.  It's currently airing on HuluPLUS and on DVD.

I'm not ashamed to say this creepy little limited series about the goings on in a creepy WW2 English orphanage made me choke up a little.  I hate to see kids mistreated, even if it's a fictional story.  And of course I always identify strongly with the kids who are being abused and bullied because I was mistreated and bullied growing up.  This one is suspenseful and enjoyable if you like supernatural shows.  I liked it.  It's on HuluPLUS.

Sugartown is another in the long line of shows about how a scrappy bunch of quirky oddballs save a small English town from greedy developers.  It's quirky and fun but you can see everything coming a mile away.  It's on HuluPLUS.

Bob Guccione was the sleazy flip side to Hugh Hefner.  He made a fortune off his porn magazine Penthouse and he in turn lost most every penny he made because he was stubborn, pig headed, and thought he was smarter than everyone else.  Yes, he made money off sex, but most all his employees were women who were devoted to him.  Yes, he sold porn and made money off the sexuality of others but he also used his publishing platform to push science literacy, fine art, and other issues that benefited mankind.  I know many people today, both men and women, have problems with and hate porn but back in the '70's, Guccione was one o the people who helped bring us to where we are today, we're better off because he did what he did both for the sexual side of things and also for the first amendment cases he helped along.  At one time he thought he'd live forever but in the end, he died nearly penniless and a pariah.  His life was quite a ride and this film tells his story in an eye opening non prurient way, although there is a fair bit of nudity in it.  This documentary is on Netflix.

TV Reviews

 We just finished watching all seven series of the British import Wild at Heart.  Overall I very much liked this show but I have a big problem with it.  The show itself is about a British veterinarian who heads to south Africa with his blended family on holiday.  They end up loving it so much they decide to stay and help a crotchety old Afrikaner turn his old homestead into a game park and animal sanctuary.  They all go through ups and downs and people come and go, some die off or get written off the show.  Like I said, it's all very entertaining, it's well acted, well written, and the scenery is beautiful.  But there is one huge glaring problem and that's how black actors on the show are credited.  Only white actors are given top billing in the opening credits.  Two black African actors are in most every series, the characters of Fatani and Nomsa, and yet they are never ever allowed to have their names scroll in the opening credits.  And it's not like they're incidental characters, they figure prominently in every series.  White actors who join for one or two episodes are given top billing in the opening credits but no black actor is allowed to be.  It kind of sucked ass and made me hate the show a little. 

After a month of Wild at Heart episodes, we began the slow weaning process by catching the very heavy British drama Torn.  Torn tells the story of a well off British family who's daughter is kidnapped when she is four.  They convince themselves that she's drowned but she was actually taken by a childless woman who raised her for 11 years.  Her birth mother spots her by chance one day and with the help of a dogged female police detective she gets her daughter back.  But things don't go smoothly for anyone for a while after that.  I won't go further into the plot because I'd be giving too much away if I did, you'll just have to trust me that it's a well told, well acted three part story.  The ladies in the photo all turn in great performances and Bradley Walsh as the partner of the woman who kidnaps young Alice is also pretty damn great in this series.

I highly recommend this one.

Both of these shows are on Netflix instant streaming. 

What I'm watching

It's been over a year since we dumped cable for our streaming Roku device.  In that year we've seen countless movies, TV shows, and more.  And we've only been without streaming for about two hours in that whole year.  When we had shitty Charter Cable, we'd be down for days at a time and have huge swaths of channels that we paid for but could not get.  Lately I've been watching some really great stuff on Netflix and HuluPlus.  Among the TV shows I'm currently enjoying are:

I'm blown away by this great Aussie import on Netflix.  They started streaming the second series first and I got hooked immediately, due in no small part to the outrageously hot Anna Hutchison.  I watched the first five episodes of the second series, which is about drug dealing gangsters and corrupt cops in 1970's Australia, and then I noticed that they put the first series on, so now I'm going back and watching the first series before I finish the second. 

The hotness that is Anna Hutchison.

I'm loving both series and I can't wait to see how they all play out.  I'm a huge fan of gangster/lowlife TV shows, and this one is chick full of gangsters, lowlifes, and hot women.  I highly recommend these series of shows.

Like Breaking Bad, I'm watching Hell on Wheels on Netflix.  I'm liking it, mainly due to the lengths they go to to make it look realistic.  The story is good too but the look of the series blows me away.  It's in a class with Deadwood and Robert Altman's alternative westerns of the 1970's.  I'm five episodes in and really enjoying it.

I've managed to get Sparky interested in Once Upon a Time.  I watched the first two episodes without her and I liked it but I had my doubts about whether she'd like it since she's not into the whole fantasy/sci fi scene.  But I told her about it, played the first two episodes of it for her and she's hooked like I am.  It reminds me of the comic book series Fables, which I guess is the point, they're kind of cashing in on that series of before DC can make a series of films based on their comic.  It's full of pretty women and it's well plotted so far. 

 I'm really enjoying this British import.  It's a comedy about a guy who stumbles into a job with MI5 and who is also dealing with his precocious young son and his ex wife and her boyfriend.  The kid is a mini adult who is miles ahead of others kids and is often smarter than all the adults he comes across.  His dad, the unlikely MI5 agent trainee, has trouble relating to the kid and that's the source of most of the comedy, the kid thinks he's a thick headed lunk and the father can't tell his kid he's training to be a secret agent.  I know the premise sounds a bit thin, but it's quite well done and I highly recommend it.

Lightening fast TV reviews

 Lil' Steven plays a mobster once again.  This time he's a mobster who rats out his buddies to the FBI and he gets put into the witness protection program.  He chooses to go to Lillehammer, Norway.  Once there he gets involved with shady deals, Norwegian babes, and he runs afoul of a couple of Norwegian cops.

The best thing I can say about this fish out of water show is that the Norwegians who are in it are very good.  The Americans, not so much.  I recommend it only for the Norwegians and their beautiful country.

A well known Shakespeare festival goes through ups and downs and it's casts and crews go through many interpersonal dramas.  It's funny at times, poignant at others.  I liked the first series very much, the second was okay, and the third looks promising.

My favorite characters are Geoffrey, Richard, the ball busting American female exec in the first series, Anna, Oliver, Kate from the first series, Nahum, Sophie, Cyril, Frank, and Darren.  My least favorite character is Ellen, in fact I detest her.  I make it a point to root for older characters, especially older female characters, but I really can't stand Ellen.

I recommend this series highly for the story, the acting, the gentle comedy, the takes on Shakespeare, and the Canadian-ness of it all.  It's very well done and if you're a recovering theatre nerd like I am, then you'll like it even more.

A Monkey mini series review

We just finished watching this mini series on Netflix:

It's quite absorbing and very funny at times.  The main story is about a man who thinks his wife is being unfaithful to him so he goes to great lengths to prove his suspicions right.  The ancillary stories deal with the illicit love that the wife's sister has for a journalist, the sister of the journalist who goes to live with a wealthy maiden aunt, and the engagement woes a small town vicar encounters when he goes to marry.  Those may not seem to be much to hang a whole BBC period production on, but believe me what they do with these slender stories is amazing.  The thing is, even though this production is all about those stories and how they intertwine and weave around each other, what this production is really about is the plight of women in Victorian England.  Women had it pretty bad back then, and they still do today but back in the Victorian era they were little more than property of their fathers, and then their husbands.  If a woman had a husband who treated her as an equal then it was a rare thing indeed.  And not only were women the property of men, children were little more than chattel as well.  When the jealous husband in question kidnaps his son to spite his wife, there's little she can do about it.

These BBC productions are always first rate and filled with actors you recognize if you watch these things for any length of time.  The young women in this production are all impossibly beautiful and poised.  And the men are all dashing and handsome, except for the ones who are supposed to be of dubious moral character.  The real standout performance wise in this show was David Tennant as the engagement phobic vicar.  He steals every scene he vacillates in, and that's to say that's all his scenes.  Bill Nighy as the rakish old man who might or might not be porking the beautiful young wife is good in this as well.  The character I found annoying was the husband.

I highly recommend this one and I must admit this Trollope guy is growing on me, well at least the adaptions his novels are.

If it ain't British, we ain't watching it

The Buccaneers tells the story of three American women who go to Britain to look for husbands and status. Mira Sorvino, playing a Brazilian woman, tags along because she's got nothing better to do than to chase after her friends, giggle a lot, and wear tight fitting period drama dresses. It's all very classist and over wrought. And I wasn't that impressed with the story as a whole. It was very much meh.

The bright spots in this mini series are Carla Guigno and Mira Sorvino. Any time I get to see those two cinched up in period drama dresses that show off their assets, it's a win for me. And holy hell, Carla Guigino has got some mighty mighty cleavage.

We've been watching Bramwell lately on Netflix instant and I must say that I am hooked on it. Jemma Redgrave plays a doctor in Victorian era Britain who bumps up against class prejudice, sexism, and quack doctors. This series doesn't sugar coat anything and it allows it's characters to be mostly true to the era in which it's set. All the leads turn in great performances and they make their characters really come to life.

This newish adaption of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga has me hooked. Yes, it's over wrought, yes, it's full of self important aristocrats, and yes, it's full of class conflict. And it's full of great performances. But most importantly, it's full of Gina McKee. I've had a 'thing' for Ms. McKee ever since I saw her in the film 'In the Loop' and she's lithe, lovely, and luminous in this series. I find it hard to look at anyone else when Ms. McKee is on screen.

I used to think that Black Books was a one joke comedy and that joke was the drunken owner of the store for which the show is named. But after seeing more than the first few episodes, which ran for a time on Comedy Central, I can truthfully say it's more than a one joke comedy but it's obvious Dylan Moran has only one character in him, the misanthropic drunk. That's not to say he does that character badly, on the contrary, he does it better than anyone else around, but it's not much of a stretch. Tamsin Greig and Bill Bailey are more than worthy co-stars, they are both very fine comic performers in their own right. This is one of those shows that came together brilliantly.

Recapping then, I recommend three out of the four shows I just wrote about. But that's not to say The Buccaneers is bad, it's not, it's just not that good either, in my opinion.

A Monkey Mini Series Review

I'd addicted to BBC period dramas. I admit it. I just finished watching this one:It's not as socially conscious as The Way We Live Now or Lark Rise to Candleford or some of the Dickens productions are but it hooked me and reeled me in nonetheless.

A widower country doctor with an incredibly beautiful daughter meets and marries a woman with a 'troubled' daughter of her own. The new wife of the doctor turns the doctor's household upside down, much to the chagrin of his lovely daughter Molly. Molly takes solace in the friendship of a neighboring down on their luck aristocrat family. Secrets are shared, reputations nearly ruined, and romance is thwarted at nearly every turn but in the end true love triumphs.

I enjoyed this one because it focused so much on the women in the story. Yes, the men were still integral to the plot and the action but overall, this one is about the women. And what a bunch of lovely women they are. I found it hard to look at anyone but Justine Waddell, who played Molly, when she was on screen and she's on screen a lot. She's in 85 percent of the scenes, which suits me just fine. Keely Hawes plays her not so virtuous step sister and she looks magnificent but to me she pales in comparison to Ms. Waddell.

Bill Patterson, as Molly's dad, the country doctor, is very good in this production. As are Tom Hollander and Anthony Howell. But the best male performance is turned in by Michael Gambon, he plays the down on his luck neighboring squire. He's full of himself, full of bluster, and full of piss and vinegar towards those he looks down on, especially the French. He turns in a hugely winning, sometimes hysterically funny, and always great performance.

If you're a fan of British period drama, this one should be right up your alley. I highly recommend it. But don't blame me if you fall in love with Justine Waddell like I have. And no, you can't have her, she's mine. I claim her. And one of these days I'll let her know about it. I'm sure she'll be ever so pleased.

A couple of quick reviews

Don't be fooled by the title, the pictures, or the size and shape of this book. It's not a book for young kids, unless they're seriously warped already.

It's just about the most brilliant thing I've ever beheld. The words are few, the illustrations are fantastic, and the story is insane. Insanely good.

I just finished watching the first series of Land Girls on Netflix instant streaming. And yes, it's brilliant as well. It's just the type of production that the BBC does so very freakin' well. It's got fully realized characters, damn good actors who bring them to life admirably, and the story is full of ups and downs that keep you entertained and absorbed.
The plot revolves around four young women sent to live and work on a farm during the early years of World War 2. And yes, there was an actual organization that was called The Women's Land Army, their task was to farm the farms of Britain so that they would not remain fallow while the men went off to war. The 'girls' get into all sorts of interpersonal dramas and they share tragedy and triumph along the way. They're not all angels with lilacs and roses for pubic hair, they all make mistakes, suffer for them, and keep on going. And yes, it's all terribly interesting and engrossing.

The four female leads are very good and very easy on the eyes. After all, they're all British babes who get down and dirty on the farm, in the fields, and behind each others backs. What's not to love? However, as good as the four leads are, the best performances of this series are turned in by the two villains Lady Hoxley and Sgt. Tucker, played by Sophie Ward and Danny Webb respectively. Lady Hoxley is as cold and distant as an iceberg is to a native of the tropics and Webb's unhinged uber patriotic sergeant in home guard is a thing of evil beauty.

I highly recommend this one.

TV reviews

This series is an update/reinventing of the 1970's BBC series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. In this one Martin Clunes plays a middle aged man who's hating his job but can't leave it because of all his financial obligations. He loves his wife, played by Fay Ripley, but he's as bored with their marriage as he is with is job. He indulges in Walter Mitty-esque flights of fancy and fantasy as he tries to cope with the stultifying life he's trapped in.

This series is okay, it's not great but it's not bad either. They made it seem too much like an American sitcom and it suffers because of that. Some of the characters are just caricatures and never rise above two dimensionality. Clunes has done better work elsewhere, as has Ripley. I'm glad I saw this one but I doubt I'll see the second series. But if I do it's because of one thing, Lucy Liemann.

Ms. Liemann plays a woman who works with Perrin. He develops an instant crush on her and they have a fling at having a fling until Perrin calls it off. The idiot.
Liemann is super cute and sexy in this series and in fact I've developed an instant crush on her as well. And I'm glad to say that she's now my imaginary British comedy girlfriend. Is that okay with you Lucy? Being my imaginary British comedy girlfriend? Say nothing, just smile if you're cool with that bit of news:
Hells yes.

In this series Stephen Fry plays an asexual small town attorney who handles all sorts of cases while dealing with all sorts of odd small town people, some of whom he's purported to be related to. He takes all cases, no matter how small or trivial, and he somehow manages to win them all while placating his nutty neighbors.

I found this series a bit twee for my tastes but I can see how others might love it, it's chocked full of the usual eccentric loveable British characters we've come to know over the years. My main problem with the show is Fry himself. He's almost sleep walking through this thing by playing a version of himself. There's no stretch to anything he does or says in this show. He's essentially a straight man who is there to react to all the 'oddballs' in his town of Market Shipborough.

My other problem with this show is that some of the oddball characters are not really odd at all, they're just annoying or worse yet, bland. Hermione Norris as Fry's half sister is super annoying and the guy who plays his brother Simon is perhaps the most boring actor I have ever seen. I wanted both of them to go away and never be seen or heard from again, and that's saying something because I usually love the work Norris turns in.

The bright spots, performance wise, in this show belong to Karl Davies, Phyllidia Law (Emma Thompson's mother), Tony Slattery, and Celia Imrie. I'll admit to having an inappropriate crush on Ms. Law, she's a silver fox.

This show is okay, it's a fun time waster but don't expect great acting, plot lines, or stories.

More reviews

I don't know what it's like to be a minority and to grow up seeing people like me portrayed as buffoons, savages, noble stoic stewards of the earth, or drunks. Most all the people I saw in films and TV shows were the same color as me, so the things they talk about in this film didn't happen to me but I see where they're coming from.

Hollywood has willfully and woefully pigeonholed Native Americans into a few kinds of roles and it's only been since 1990 that things began to change. I grew up thinking all Indians lived in the southwestern USA and that they were either drunk or ready to start a war to take their land back. Then as I grew I saw that in the entertainment industry as a whole they got the same kind of treatment we had given them since the day we, European settlers, got here. This fine documentary tracks the evolution of how Indians are portrayed in Hollywood productions starting with silent film and going up through today. It's a fine film and it tells a much needed side to a heretofore lopsided story. I was glad to see that some of my favorite films featuring Native Americans (Little Big Man, Black Robe, Smoke Signals) were talked about in this documentary.

I highly recommend this one.


Thank gawd for Netflix. Without Netflix instant streaming I never ever would have seen this superb miniseries. It's not one I would have bought on DVD but holy shit am I glad I saw it on Netflix.

This miniseries is a satire on Victorian greed and societal mores. It's centered around a couple of families, the wealthy Melmottes and the struggling Carburys. The Melmottes are led by financial genius Augustus who seeks to win his place in British society by helping others get rich and the Carburys are led by matriarch Lady Carbury who seeks to get her children into marriages with rich partners so she can live the high society life. The problem with Augustus is he's a fraud and the problem with Lady Carbury is she can't see that her son is a feckless cad who's a drunk and a gambling addict. Other characters come in and out of the story and in the end Melmotte is unmasked for the fraud he is and Lady Carbury's kids get what they have coming to them.

This lavish production is rich in fine performances. David Suchet as Augustus Melmotte is chillingly good. Shirley Henderson is balls out great as his spurned in love daughter who ends up winning financially as her father is ruined. Matthew Macfadyen is funny and repulsive as the young cad Felix Carbury. Cheryl Campbell exudes sexiness as the matriarch of the down at their heels Carbury family, her cleavage is among the most magnificent I have ever seen, I'm pretty sure her boobs have their own gravitational pull. Cillian Murphy and Rob Brydon are great as the only honest men in London. Anne-Marie Duff shines as the girl who desperately wants to marry and who almost weds a Jewish banker but in the end is undone by her mercenary greed and religious bigotry. Paloma Baeza is sexy and winsome as the young daughter of the super sexy Lady Carbury. And Helen Schlesinger is funny and sad as the second wife of Augustus Melmotte, most of her performance is done without words so it's all pure reaction and her reactions are priceless.

This mini series is as true today as it was when it was first written. Greed is greed and it ultimately ruins those who worship it. Suchet's Melmotte could just as easily be Mitt Romney, in fact much of his dialogue sounds as if it was written by today's wealth apologists. The people in this mini series get wealthy off moving money around and just like in real life, when they do, they end up screwing working men and woman. For that reason alone I love this mini series, but I also love it because most of the honest characters who see what's going on behind the smokescreen the wealthy 'job creators' throw up are female. It's women who see the damage rich men do and by joining up with a couple of honest men, they bring down the greedy and those that need it, get punished, some get hit with the ultimate punishment.

The only thing I didn't like about this production was Miranda Otto's accent. It grates on my nerves to hear bad southern accents, especially when they come out of the mouths of actors who I usually like. But other than that, I was blown away by this timely topical and very funny satirical send up of Victorian era greed.

Super highly recommended.

Family Values

I recently watched the Canal+ miniseries Borgia: Faith and Fear on Netflix. This series is not to be confused with the Showtime series starring Jeremy Irons. But I'll safely say without having seen the Showtime series, the Canal+ series beats it hands down.

This series plops us into the middle of Rome in 1493. It's a time of intrigue and shifting loyalties all around. Priests, cardinals, and bishops during this time were attracted to women and they not only slept openly with then, they had children by them, and they actively promoted their children to positions in the church.

With the impending death of one pope, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, played brilliantly by John Doman, plots and schemes his way to the papal throne. He uses anyone and everyone around him to get what he wants. He pimps out his daughter, he pits his sons against one another, and he uses other cardinals like they are his pawns. After his ascension to the papacy he uses kings and queens to do his bidding, with mixed results. As you expect all his machinations and double dealing come back to bite him on the ass and by the end of the series he gets what is coming to him.

I found this 12 episode series to be an over the top brilliant, gripping piece of work. Doman, Marta Gastini, Isolde Dychauck, Art Mailk, Dejan Cukic, Assumpta Serna, and Mark Ryder are all very very good in their roles.

The story line and most all of the acting in this show is very good but I did have a few problems with it. Since it was filmed in Europe, primarily for a European audience, many European actors were cast and their accents clashed at times. I know, I know, I'm petty to complain about someone's English accent when English is their second or third language, but there you go. Some of the characters were hard at times to understand, especially the kid who played Juan Borgia. Another thing that bothered me was the anachronisms. At one point Pope Borgia tells a woman she will be banished to a city fifty kilometers from Rome. The only problem with that statement is there was no such thing as a kilometer back in 1493, the metric system had not been invented yet and it would not be invented for another 300 plus years.

But all in all, those two things that I didn't like pale in comparison to what I did like. I loved most all of the performances, the look of the show, the music, the realism, the beautiful women, and the multi dimensional characters. Since this show was produced for the European market, there is a fair amount of nudity and lots of talk about sex. Violence also abounds, so be aware but don't let either of those things keep you from watching this great show.

I highly recommend this show and if you have Netflix streaming and don't watch it, I'm going to excommunicate you.

Two TV Reviews

Whites is a sly slice of life comedy set in a fine dining restaurant. It's executive chef is past his prime and doesn't much care anymore, his sous chef is a hard working neurotic, his new intern is a conniving little horse's ass, his front of house manager doesn't like him, his boss is a lush, and one of his wait staff is a barely functioning idiot. This comedy is a very effective modern Brit-com. It's not a knock you over with stupid jokes style American sit com, instead it takes it's time setting up jokes and it gives us fully realized characters instead of stereotypes or cartoon archetypes. Alas, they only made 6 episodes and then the BBC cancelled it. I highly recommend it.

I found Review with Myles Barlow on HuluPlus, it's also available on Hulu on your computer. This is a screamingly laugh out loud black comedy that will leave you in stitches with it's biting satire. The premise of the show is that critic Myles Barlow, written and played by Phil Lloyd, reviews things that other critics won't. Things like stealing, cults, sex, murder, divorce, having a dickhead friend, and much more. Lloyd's deadpan delivery and overly earnest acting are sublime to behold.

I have yet to watch an episode of this show that didn't make me laugh long and hard. Between the things Barlow goes through while reviewing and the things he says to sum up his reviews, there's nary room for a breath because you're usually laughing too hard to breathe. I can see how some would not find this show funny but to me, it's one of the funniest shows I have ever seen. This show and The Librarians are the gold standard of modern Australian comedy against which every other Aussie made show will be judged.

If you're a fan of great comedy, DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW.

And if you like this sort of post please donate to my campaign to get a new pair of glasses. I live on a very fixed income and I'm asking you my dear readers to help me buy a new pair of glasses. Please donate what you can and those who donate $25 or more will get a random selection of four of my handmade art cards.

Reviews you can use

I can see how a film about four bungling wanksta would be Jihadist Muslims might not be funny to some, but I found this black comedy to be one of the funniest films I've seen in recent memory. It skewers not only fundamentalist Muslims, it also jabs complacent Brits, doltish upper class members of parliament, and dopey police hostage negotiators who watch too many made in the USA cop movies.

I highly recommend this brilliant ensemble pitch black comedy.

On the other hand, I recommend everyone avoid this piece of shit:
Scarlet is the young tea bagger/libertarian/right winger/fascist masturbatory fantasy come to life in comic form. A hot young edgy chick with big tits and loads of sex appeal is wronged by the corrupt government so she leads the fight to over throw it. I'm sure when it's target audience, lonely disaffected males who vote Republican because they've fallen for the hype that Obama is a socialist who wants to take away their guns (but when I say guns, they hear 'penis and fuck white women'), reads this they do it with one hand while stroking their engorged Ron Paul's with the other.

The best thing I can say about this comic is that the art is pretty, sometimes.


I have mixed feelings about this series I finally saw:
I started out loving it. And I still do love the first series, the first six episodes. But by the end of the last six, the second series, I hated it. I hated it so bad I wanted every character on it to suffer long and painful deaths. I wanted to punch the guy in the wheel chair who kept spurning all the beautiful women who were throwing themselves at him. I wanted to punch the bearded idiot who was the boyfriend of the American woman in Edinburgh who started the book group. I wanted to waterboard the milquetoast literary agent who let everyone walk over him. And I really really REALLY wanted to push the sister of the woman who started the book group down an abandoned mineshaft.

It all started so well, a lonely American woman living in Scotland starts a book group as way to meet people. And she does meet and befriend a motley collection of misfits. But then in the last six episodes the show took itself too seriously and it stopped being quirky, funny, and winsome, and it became annoying and then even more annoying.

I recommend the first six episodes, but not the last six, in fact, avoid the like the plague if you can. This series is on Hulu and HuluPlus, but honestly, if you're going to Hulu, do yourself a favor and watch The Librarians instead.

Two of best TV series I've ever seen

We discovered this Australian gem of a TV show on HuluPlus on our Roku:
It's about a library run by a panic attack prone semi racist/semi homophobic woman and her support staff. Frances O'Brien, played to perfection by my new comedy hero Robyn Butler, is one of those bosses who takes all the credit, none of the blame, and who has a tortuous relationship with almost everyone in her life, including her mother, her daughters (who we never see), her husband, her priest (she's a 'good Catholic'), and her support staff.
Under her 'guidance' the library, The Middleton Interactive Learning Centre, has it's ups and downs, mostly downs. Ex cons, old friends, dodgy patrons, kid vandals, a government minister who wants profits above all else, make life miserable for Frances and her crew.

Ms. Butler breathes so much humanity and life into what could be an otherwise awful character, her layered performance is a thing of beauty and such a pleasure to behold. She does the nearly impossible, she makes a totally unlikeable character loveable. This series was written by Ms. Butler and her husband Wayne Hope, who also plays her husband in the series. I can't say enough good things about this sweetly funny and knowing show. To me, it represents all the best of what TV has to offer, which is why you'll never ever see a show this perfect and good on American TV. Seriously, I'm besotted over Ms. Butler and her magnificent show.

You can see this show on Hulu on your computer and HuluPlus on Roku.

The other TV show I've fallen in love with lately is this one:
On the eve of her marriage to her long time boyfriend Karl, Donna decides that she'd rather be single, footloose, and fancy free like her two friends Karen and Louise. So she dumps Karl and moves in with her friends. Her friends turn out to be an angry sex addict alcoholic (Karen) and a bubbly but socially stunted awkward woman-child (Louise). Donna manipulates Karl and uses him as a crutch as she navigates single life.

This series shines an unflinching and uncomfortable light on these three female characters. Much of the humor of this show comes from the comedy of awkwardness, which was pioneered by Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, although this show takes it to new and even more uncomfortable heights. Pulling was written by and stars the lovely Sharon Horgan.

One of the many reasons why I love this show, and The Librarians as well, is that the writers of the shows wrote complex and not flattering parts for themselves, they end up, more often than not, the butt of the jokes and their characters come off looking like idiots most of the time. And that's not something you'd ever see in a mainstream US sitcom, Sarah Silverman here in the USA is the main exception I can think of.

The other thing that endears me to these shows is that they are limited. They only made 12 episodes and one hour long special of Pulling and 20 episodes of The Librarians. The producers of these shows knew when to quit and they both went out on top.

Pulling is available on Netflix streaming and on DVD.

I recommend them both highly.

A short TV review

I highly recommend this absorbing well written, well plotted, superbly acted TV show. I watched the first episode, which is a 90 minute self contained film, and it's riveting. Don't miss it.

Four quick TV reviews

Louie is the best most original show on TV. Period end of story. If you're not watching it, you should be. If you watched it and didn't like, you're dead to me.


I really like Wilfred but I have problems with Elijah Wood. He's not really that interesting and his character isn't compelling. But I can't get enough of the guy in the dog suit, he makes the show.

They've already run all the first series of Workaholics on Comedy Central which is bad because I really like this show about three underachiever potheads who work for a soul crushing corporation. It works for me on so many levels, the main one being I used to be one of those guys. I like it's sometimes outlandish situations and I really like the three leads and the two female leads, the chunky well meaning co worker of theirs and the bitchy boss character. The good news is they ordered a second season of this show.

And finally we come to the newest series of mysteries on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery, Zen. This show purportedly takes place in Italy, yet almost all the characters have British accents. Now, that wouldn't be bad if the lone person who has an authentic Italian accent play's Zen's (Rufus Sewell) love interest. It's jarring to hear all those British accents and then hear one lone real Italian accent. This series is not gettin' it done for me. I find it unbelievable, and boring. And Mr. Sewell never saw a piece of scenery he didn't want to chew, grind to bits, and then spit back out. I'll be avoiding this one now and forever.

No thanks, one was enough

I had never heard of this TV show until I saw the DVD's at my local library. We dig the British stuff here at Monkey Central so I got the first one and we watched the first episode the other night.

My verdict after watching an episode and a half: yuck. No thanks. Make it stop.

My main problem with the show is the lead Richard Griffiths. He's fine actor in some of his projects but in this, holy hell, he stinks. He's simply not believable as a police detective. He's too fat, shambling, and befuddled. I did not believe for one millisecond that he was a cop, even a desk jockey cop. Criminals would laugh at this fat bastard as they walked away from him. If he ever got into a chase with one they'd just toss some fish and chips or chocolate covered eclairs at him and they'd skip away free while he chowed down. Seriously, his character looks like he'd be more at home at Apu's All U Can Eat Indian Buffet than at a police precinct. And watching the younger cops defer to Griffiths character as if he's the gold standard of policemen, is just painfully laughable.

My second problem with this crap show is the pacing. To say it was glacial is to imply that it's fast paced. I wanted to scream at the actors, "Get a fucking move on! Your hour is about to be up!" But I didn't because Sparky had fell asleep while watching this turkey. I'm kind of glad she did because watching her sleep was more exciting that this show.

The production values of this show are pretty daft as well. It looks like as if it's been shot with a pound and a half of Vaseline on the camera lens, which I guess is supposed to make everyone look sexier than they really are. There is not enough Vaseline in the world to make most of these people look sexy.

The only bright spot in this show is Maggie Steed. We came to know her through Clatterford, and she's great in that show but not so much in this one. She does however look smashing in this show, and unfortunately she's the only on who does.

But alas, a cute GILFy Maggie Steed is not reason enough to sit through hours of this crap show. It might be someone's idea of a good TV show but it's sure as hell not mine. Avoid this turkey at all costs. Oy vey, it stinks.

TV series review

Somehow I missed this series when it first aired, I think it was because I wanted to not watch any other hour long series on ABC other than Lost at the time. Crazy, I know, but that's what makes the wonder of me.

Anyhoo, I saw Anna Friel talking about the show one night on The Graham Norton Show and I fell in lurve with her. Then one day my local library had the first and second seasons of this show in and I checked them out.

And wow, I fucking loved this show. The premise is a guy, played by Lee Pace, can touch a dead thing and bring it back to life and if it stays alive for more than a minute something near it dies. If he touches a thing he's brought back to life again, he kills it forever. And if the thing he brings back to life is touched by him within a minute then it dies again and there's no harm, no foul. As he grows up he slowly figures out how to make all this work to his advantage and he collects a menagerie of quirky friends and business partners. He touches his childhood sweetheart, who he had though lost forever after he had killed his mother and her father (it all makes perfect sense when you watch it) after she dies and they fall in love but they can never have skin to skin contact.

The leads are brilliant and the supporting cast, which includes the outrageously cute Kristen Chenoweth (who won a well deserved Emmy for her part in this show), Chi McBride, Swoosie Kurtz, and Ellen Greene, are fantastic. There's more high powered guest stars than you can shake a stick at and the writing for the show is genius. The dialogue is whip smart and whiplash fast. The look of the show is eye poppingly beautiful, the show is drenched in rich deep colors and the costumes are kick ass cool

The first season of the show got cut short due to the writers strike which is why the first season is only six or so episodes. The show is a self contained series, the writers knew they were getting canceled after the second season so they ended the series in the final episode, which was smart.

I highly recommend this clever, stylish, funny, and cute as a button show. It's even well worth owning because it's one of those shows you'll love to watch again and again.

Two out of three ain't bad, in fact two out of three are really great

I have a confession to make. I didn't used to be crazy about Sherlock Holmes. I grew up watching those Basil Rathbone Holmes movies when I was a kid and they bored me to death. I never read the books either. I never got into the Jeremy Brett incarnation of Holmes on PBS and I have yet to see the Guy Ritchie version of Holmes.

Keeping all that in mind, I decided to give the new PBS version of Sherlock a try and hot damn I'm ever so glad I did.
It's freakin' brilliant. This version brings Holmes and Watson into the 21st century with spectacular results. The story, at least this first one, A Study In Pink, was a whip smart blazing fast tale that introduced all the principals and set the stage for the next episodes. And it didn't hurt that it had two of my favorite British actors, Martin Freeman and Philip Davis, in it.


I read the first three Fables collections back to back to back and I got kind of burnt out on them as a result. But after a year of being off Fables, I read the fourth collection and damn, it blew my socks off. It's full of great story telling, great dialogue, and great art. In this collection we meet new characters and we find out a little more of the back story of the lives of some of the current and newish fable characters. This collection is brilliant. It made me want to read more of these collections and since my library has them, I'll do just that in the next few weeks.

The art in this adaption of Kidnapped is really good and I'm sure the adaption of the novel itself is good, my problem with it is that novel itself. I found the story to be meh, boring, hackneyed, done to death. I'm not a huge Robert Louis Stevenson fan and I gave this one a try but in the end, I didn't care for the story. I should have given this one a miss.