Sunday!
I attempted Hannibal and, man, it’s bleak. I was told (from a co-worker) that “A Killing” was a really good procedural and I should totally watch that and, wouldn’t you know it, it’s bleak.
So I said “Heck with it” and said that I would just sit through one, just one, episode of Bob’s Burgers.
I laughed so hard I almost threw up.
There might be a handful of you out there who remember the show “Home Movies”. If you don’t, know that it was a mumblecore cartoon that was positively brilliant. It used “retroscripting” and the improv skills of everybody involved are top-notch. (Retroscripting is when you just tell the actors that there are a couple of notes you want hit but everything else is up to them.)
Well, like most stuff that is waaaay too awesome, the show got cancelled. I had thought that that was the end of it… BUT NO! Bob’s Burgers are what those guys are doing now and, lemme tell ya, it’s funny. It’s still got some of the mumblecore feel to it but, at the same time, they’ve got an actual budget. I’m thrilled to have given it a chance and, if you’re wondering whether you can handle a half-hour comedy cartoon before bed… I’ll ask you to give this one a shot. Seriously.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
Mostly articles and chapters and screeds and policy papers about RDA and BIBFRAME. Lemme tell ya, some of these PDFs exemplify the “written horribly, genius insights” stereotype of systems librarians like nothing else could. It’s work.
But I did finish some things – a kid’s book by Francesca di Goldi, The ACB of Honora Lee, which I really enjoyed; and the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which is both fluffy AND dark – that was kind of weird.
Oh, I also finally finished reading The Complete Father Brown. Like many of his contemporaries, Chesterton always leaves me with the angst caused by the “such a kind person” + “so incredibly casually racist” dichotomy. Think I’d be braced for it by now, since I’m so attracted to that time period, but I’m not. Is probably good for me to keep butting up against everything that was so WRONG about that time period…
Still plugging away at GoT season 3; Rob’s uncle is about to get married (yes, I’ve read the books). I’d be done by now if I weren’t so damn responsible.Report
Chesterton was not crazy about Jews either, though it was a politico-religious dislike, and so far as I know it never led to any personal unkindness. In fact, his solution to the Jewish Problem was to get them out of Europe by creating a homeland in Palestine, which made him an ally of the early Zionists.Report
Yes, I was folding his anti-Semitism (and his anti-Irishism, for that matter) into the larger rubric of casual racism. He was, of course, also subject to most of the prejudices about women that one expects from his contemporaries…. but somehow those never surprise me the way the casually offensive racial slurs do. Perhaps because his remarks on women remain “genteel” to the present day?Report
Bob’s Burgers is fantastic.
Still on my LA Quartet reread, and throwing in more Conrad for levity. (Picked up an OK copy of Conrad Argosy yesterday, making the whole thing easier.)Report
I should give it a shot. To date, the only exposure I’ve had to Bob’s Burgers was when they did the Bob’s/Archer crossover.Report
Bob’s Burgers is hilarious, especially Louise. But I’ve watched the whole first season, and it’s still weird that two of the three female leads are voiced my men.Report
Finished Volume 1 of The Gulag Archipelago. Looking forward to diving into Volume 2 after family festivities this afternoon.Report
Season 1 of Hannibal just finished on TV here the other night. I was on the verge of giving it up until it suddenly got good in the second-to-last episode. If that’s too long a wait for you, then fair enough.Report
I made it 4 episodes. I couldn’t make it five.Report
S2 has been pretty great, though the last two eps have dipped a little bit in quality due to the need to sort of “reset” the show’s dynamic in a way that seems a bit…implausible, even for this show, which isn’t exactly heavy on the realism to begin with.
That said, it’s still never less than entertaining. And it looks like it’s getting ready to go insane(r) again.Report
I’m reading Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.Report
Did you see the recent story about the CIA playing a role in getting it published?Report
@chris
Suggest that for the next linky Friday.Report
I just got back from seeing The Only Lovers Left Alive.
Flawed but one of the most original movies I have seen in a long, long time. I’d rather watched an original but flawed movie than a well-made rehash.Report
I’m getting caught up on Arrow. Caught up on Mindy Project and Big Bang Theory. Scandal is probably next.
Listening to Brad Meltzer’s “Millionaires” Need a change of pace for the next audiobook.Report
@jaybird Did you mean “The Killing?”
If so, this is as vague a spoiler as I can muster. I’ll rot13 it, but it’s something I wish I’d known when I first started watching…
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The Bridge (also based on a Nordic series) is better. Not great, but good. Warning: Also bleak. But they do know how to spread a bit of funny on it, which makes it work. I don’t remember any funny in The Killing.Report
I made it through the first two seasons of The Killing, dark as it was (and it’s dark), then watched the first episode of the third season and thought, “OK, this is too damn dark.”Report
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I really thought the first season of The Killing was pretty remarkable. There’s so much murder and violence on TV; I don’t know of another show that has really dwelt on the fallout for survivors of the crimes that are made fodder for procedural pyrotechnics. The title really said the intent of the show: to present a foul murder in as full an aspect that a drama show could do and still have a plot and dramatic arc an, intrigue, and etc.
Subsequent seasons went in for more sensational crime scenarios, more needlessly oblique plotting, and more pronounced bleakness, so i can certainly understand jumping off at various points. I was sufficiently impressed with the first season that I stuck with it. I like(d?) the Killing significantly more than most critics seemed to. People seemed to react to the pacing and tone. I really thought it was quite something at times as drama (especially the portrayal of the surviving family in the first season). i also did think that Detective Holder inject just enough levity to keep a person going.
But whoever suggested to Jaybird that this was just a good procedural that a person with a mind for puzzles might be interested in using to pass some time (if that was the gist of the recommendation) really sent him down the wrong path. Aren’t there like three current Sherlock Holmes vehicles running on various English-language networks for that kind of itch? Those are probably your best bet for pure crime procedurals going today (though I’d be interseted in what people would have to say about that).Report
Will,
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Will, no. Like Michael, I really liked the first season, and the second season has its moments, but ultimately it fails.
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I will say that I love the pacing. It might have frustrated the hell out of me had I watched it week to week, but it is perfect for Netflix.
I don’t know if you saw the Canadian cop show Intelligence, which Netflix used to have streaming (not sure they do anymore), but it had similar pacing, and when it was on American TV (I forget which channel), they used to put a warning before each episode about the slowness. Watching it on Netflix, though, I really enjoyed it (Max Headroom was one of the stars! Wait, I’m dating myself, aren’t I?). In fact, good recommendation for Jaybird, because it’s nowhere near as dark as The Killing, is well acted, and Klea Scott is awesome.Report
Intelligence, you say? Is it on Netflix or Amazon Prime?
(Edit: Learn to read, Jaybird.)Report
Jay, yes, Intelligence, filled with Canadian accents, Vancouver scenery, good acting, and did I mention Klea Scott and Max Headroom (Matt Frewer)? It also has Ian Tracey, who’s pretty awesome. The basic story revolves around Scott’s organized crime division in Vancouver, and Tracey’s crime organization which runs much of the city’s drug trade (and other things). There is much scheming and plotting both between the cops and criminals and within the two organizations. There are points where the Americans get involved and annoy everyone, where the federal government gets involved (and annoys everyone), hints that terrorism is the big thing the cops should be looking for to advance their careers, and so on. It’s just well done all around. But the pacing is slooooooooooow. It’s sort of the exact opposite of 24.Report
The only thing that could make that better is if it were set in Chicago and everybody had a Canadian accent.Report
I second Chris’s endorsement of Intelligence. I started watching that with my wife. We didn’t get all the way through, but only because Clancy didn’t want me watching it without her and she never had time to watch it.Report
@michael-drew and @chris My main complaint with The Killing, other than that thing we’re talking about, was the Suspect of the Week pacing. It’s the guy at the store! It’s obviously the guy at the store! No, wait, it’s not the guy at the store! It felt like whodunnit on a roulette wheel.
I did like the parts about it that you liked. It was just that I was evenly split between liking it for that reason (and the characterization in general I thought was good) and disliking it for the above reason. Then… that thing.Report
It is definitely not a perfect show, but the first season was definitely worth it. When I watched the first episode of the third season, my initial reaction was, “Oh, this looks good.”
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@will-truman ,
Yeah, the suspect-of-the-week structure became a real crutch.Report
There’s a TV show called Flashpoint that stars the original Pink Ranger and the photographer dude from Just Shoot Me. According to Wikipedia, it takes place in Toronto, but on the show itself they seemed to go out of their way to avoid any mention of the city or the country. It was developed simultaneously for Canadian and American television.
This is in contrast to Da Vinci Inquest, which very much takes place in Vancouver though from an American point of view it didn’t make very much difference. (Though it remains the only fictional show on TV I have ever seen that bad-mouths the Canadian health care system.) (No politics.)
Unlike Flashpoint, it didn’t air in the US in prime time, though it made its way for reruns (which is good, because it’s a good show). The last “season” was actually a different show. A spin-off. They rolled it in there, though. Lacking an intro, they used the one from the “previous season” despite a significant change in cast.
Intelligence takes place in Vancouver as well (with some of the same cast as DVI). The American government is not particularly portrayed as benign.Report
Yes, that’s exactly the show that I’m talking about. The first episode ended with the father screaming his daughter’s name and the detective looking at the car trunk and frowning.
Well shot, well scripted, well acted.
Maybe I’d enjoy these shows more if I were surrounded by comforts.Report
Just started reading Buddenbrooks, so I’ll be reading that for the next year or so.
Also The Symbolism of Evil, for kicks and giggles.
Watching Hannibal, finally.Report