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DEBORAH CROMBIE: My daughter and I were chatting the other day and it occurred to us that my granddaughter may not know the meaning of the phrase "change the channel." Their TV is all streaming--as is ours, actually, but we have a gadget that gives us broadcast TV in real time.
And how weird is it that I even have to explain that, when just a few years ago everyone had all the major channels and scheduled their time around broadcasts? (Wren also expects to be able to watch Frozen or Captain Underpants on any TV at any time, whether at her house or ours.)
Whenever we do a "What We're Watching" on Jungle Red, it tends to be all about the streaming shows we're bingeing on, so I thought it would be fun to talk about what's good on the good old Big 3. And since I've been living in an entertainment vacuum for the last few months (that inconvenient deadline thing) I've had some catching up to do. (Of course I'm only catching up due to the magic of Hulu, so I suppose that's cheating a bit...)
I hadn't seen The Rookie, the new Nathan Fillion procedural set in LA. A couple of episodes in, it's likeable--I mean, it's Nathan Fillion! But a gentler, kinder, Nathan Fillion. I'll definitely keep watching, although I'm not sure the premise will hold up long term. It's about a middle-aged guy who has a mid-life crisis and decides to become a cop, but is bullied both because he's the new guy and because he's considered too old. So what happens if he makes the grade?)
I also dipped into New Amsterdam, another hospital drama, this one set in a fictionalized version of New York City's Bellevue Hospital. Confession--I was an ER junkie, so tend to be a little jaded. I'll give this one a few more episodes. (Or maybe I'll go back and start ER from the first season--ALL the seasons are on Hulu.)
Then, a big cheer at our house--The Orville is back! This is a weird one, Seth MacFarlane's valentine to the original Star Trek. It's not really a comedy, although it's sometimes very funny. And it's not really a drama, although it sometimes deals with very believable relationships and big issues. What do you know, a show that doesn't fit into a box!! (Neither did Star Trek.) Critics hate it, viewers LOVE it. We are obviously in camp 2.
(I've decided that you should NEVER EVER read reviews of shows you already like, because reviewers will tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't like them.)
There's more sci-fi--Star Trek Discovery is back! Critics like this better. Hmm. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know, and I don't really care. We love this one, too, although it is definitely on the darker side.
Oh, wait, that was cheating a little, wasn't it? Because Star Trek Discovery is CBS All Access, so not really broadcast.
But having cheated a little, I'm going to cheat some more and go full-on streaming.
My big thrill at the moment is the adaptation of my friend Deb Harkness's A Discovery of Witches. We're a few episodes in and loving it. I went into it with a little trepidation, I have to admit. It can be off-putting to see books you've loved brought to the screen, especially books with such complex world building. But the casting in this adaptation is terrific, the pacing is great, and in the first few episodes the Oxford scenes alone are enough to make an Anglophile like me swoon.
Am I allowed one more cheat, since I set the rules here? Tomorrow is the release of the third installment of the second season of Agatha Raisin. I absolutely adore these (much more than the books, in this case,) and LOVE Ashley Jensen, who stars as Agatha. They are deliciously funny and smart--and they are set in the Cotswolds, which we all know is the murder capital of the world!
REDS and readers, what are you watching? Have you gone all streaming or do you still catch a few shows on the Big 3?
And the really big question--do you read television critics reviews?
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| Helllloooooo.. |
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Going to the bank. Back in the day, I'd race over there, every Friday, with my such-as-it-was paycheck. Some weeks, it was literally beat-the-bank to make sure I got that money deposited before the bank debited my checks. Now? I hardly ever walk inside a bank--it's all electronic, with an occasional stop at the ATM. When I do go inside, it's weirdly empty, a vast marble room, with vaults and teller cages. Mostly empty. The banking ritual is history.
Like so many other things that used to be central to our lives, it's vanishing.
When was the last time you made frozen orange juice? You know, that you'd have to kind of thaw, before would goosh out into the pitcher? I thought about that the other day. Things we simply
don't do anymore, and happy to see that one go.
I hardly ever watch TV shows when they're actually on. It used to be a ritual--Ed Sullivan on Sunday! LA Law! Dallas. Now its The Good Wife and Game of Thrones--but they're available whenever we want to watch them. The TV ritual is history.
But some rituals, although on the verge of being outmoded, are still valuable to me. How about reading the paper? The actual paper? Is still am so happy, especially Sunday mornings, when we can spread out with three newspapers and bagels and coffee and luxuriate for an hour or so. I would miss that, if it were all on a tablet. It's not the same. Reading the paper is a good ritual.
And getting the mail. I LOVE to get the mail. I look forward to it, almost as if there was going to be something other than bills (now mostly on line) and ads and weird coupon fliers and fifteen catalogs from Levenger. The "real mail" ritual is still a good one.
I still take notes on a legal pad instead of in a Word doc. Why? My producer teases me about being old-fashioned. But it works for me.
What vanishing rituals do you have? Which are you holding on to?
LUCY BURDETTE: Me too on the paper, Hank. We get the New York Times and the Key West Citizen every day. Online is just not the same...And the mail too, although it's less exciting than it used to be. (I mean, not so much good stuff comes in:). Too funny about Levenger! I bought one thing from them and it's been a deluge ever since.
Things that have gone by the wayside: Easter dinner. After the eggs were hunted and the Easter baskets were found, we'd put on our new dresses and hats and go off to church. Then my mother would cook a big dinner--often lamb roast, which I don't like anyway. These days I might make Easter brunch, but never dinner in the middle of the day.
HALLIE EPHRON: I go to my bank all the time, and you're right it's pretty empty. So how come does it seem like every time there's a new business being built on a corner somewhere, it's a bank?
Vanishing rituals, some I miss, some not so much...
- Going to the dry cleaner. I don't buy it if I can't wash it. Not something I miss.
- Going to the movies
- Going to the video store
- Going to the dump (it is no more)
- Making my own pie crust - I confess the ready made Pillsbury is pretty darned good
- Picking up the poop my neighbors' dogs deposit on the sidewalk
RHYS BOWEN: I still go to the bank. I think it's a good idea to have a relationship with a bank manager, just in case...
But how about getting shoes heeled? haven't done that in years. Dry cleaners occasionally, but I no longer buy things like slacks that need cleaning almost every time.
And dinner parties--who gives dinner parties these days. We do occasionally but we're sort of the only ones. Other couples invite us to meet them in restaurants. I still enjoy having friends and family around the table at home.
Writing thank you notes, on real cards? I try to for the big events. My grandkids phone to thank me, but don't write real letters the way I made my children.
And one thing I really regret--letting kids run wild all summer, out all day just playing, exploring,
making up their own games. Now it's play dates and camps and scheduled activities. I still treasure my free running summers.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, Rhys, that is so true about the kids' freedom. Summer was one long ritual when I was a child. You got up in the morning, you went outside and you played all day. You just had to be in for supper. Where is there room for imagination in all those scheduled activities? But I suspect that's a subject for another day...
My vanishing rituals... Easter, certainly, as there are no little ones to do eggs and baskets for. And even when my daughter was growing up we'd pretty much abandoned the "new Easter dress and patent leather shoes" that were so essential in my childhood. This year my daughter and I decided we'd all go to Mi Cocina for our favorite Mexican food and sit on the patio. Suits me.
I have mixed feeling about the newspapers. I gave up print all together for about a year, and I really missed it. Lucy's right, it's just not the same online. So now I take the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday (the food section) and Sunday, and the New York Times Friday through Sunday. The problem is, I hardly ever have time to read a fraction of the things I want to read, so the unread piles of newspaper accumulate and make me feel both cluttered and nagged.
We've never been a family for Sunday dinners, but for years I've made Sunday brunch. Something we don't have during the week, like French toast or whole grain pancakes. But the last year or so even that seems to have fallen by the wayside. I always seem to have too much to catch up on to cook. We have kept up with our Sunday night homemade pizza ritual, however, something we've done for years.
Which brings me to TV. I know it's great to be able to time-shift everything, but I do sort of miss the ritual TV nights. For us, it was The X-Files on Sunday (that was what started the Sunday-night pizza) and for me, ER on Thursday, without fail.
Now the DVRd TV shows are a bit like the piled up newspapers... more than I can manage.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've pretty much well and truly given up watching TV shows when they air.Why stay up and sit through ten minutes of commercials when I can watch when I want for the price of four 30-second ads? Also given up - not due to technology, but to age - dancing in clubs. I cannot remember the past time I went somewhere just to dance. Which is why I love weddings. I think more Bouchercons should have dances, like the one in Alaska did!
Almost gone but not quite yet: my children's bedtime rituals. Overseeing tooth-brushing, saying prayers and singing a lullaby, coming back for one more drink of water... I still comb and braid Youngest's long hair before bedtime, and tuck her in and give her a blessing, but she'll be fourteen this August, and I know those moments will be over soon. Sigh.
HANK: Dear Julia, you always make me cry. Should we all dance at Bouchercon?
So Reds, when was the last time you...used rollers in your hair? Sat under a hair dryer? Made frozen OJ? Watched a show when it was actually on? What rituals and activities are vanishing from your life?
And one ritual we LOVE and face with crossed fingers--the arrival of a new book! I'll send an arc of TRUTH BE TOLD to one lucky commenter.
REDS THIS WEEK!
Debs: is back from three weeks in London, recovering from jetlag, putting the finishing edits on To Dwell in Darkness, and plotting her next book.
Rhys: is vacationing on the continent
Hank: is celebrating, in week six on the Globe bestseller list for THE WRONG GIRL! and just won two Emmys for investigative reporting
Hallie: will be at the Milton Library tonight talking about summer reads for lovers of crime fiction
Julia: is splitting her time between working on the next Clare and Russ book, HID FROM OUR EYES, and hacking back several years of overgrowth in the forsythia border
Lucy: is sitting tight, writing 1000 word a day challenge with good pals S.W. Hubbard and Mike Cooper aka Mike Wiecek. More on what's coming next soon
Susan: is coughing and watching Orange Is the New Black. (She's under the weather..send good wishes!)
TOMORROW ON JUNGLE RED: Linda Fairstein!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: On Sunday night, September 25th, a new series, Pan Am, premieres on ABC. Set in 1963, it stars Christina Ricci, and "follows the lives of stewardesses circa 1963 and their bouts with passion, jealousy and espionage at 30,000 feet." (I'm quoting the show's Facebook page.) "Stewardesses," mind you, not "flight attendants." Remember them? If you don't, the show will bring it all back, especially those adorable sky-blue uniforms and the little pill-box hats. And girdles. They had to wear girdles!
It all sounds like complete fluff--super soapy Mad Men in the Sky--but the show is directed by Thomas Schlamme of The West Wing, and written by Jack Orman of ER. Not only that, but for all you former ER fans, this season will feature a four-episode guest arc with Goran Visnjic (Dr. Luka Kovak). Be still my heart.
But pitter-patter aside, all this retro-sixties air travel glamor started me thinking about the way we used to dress for plane flights. Can you imagine that we used to actually "dress up" to get on a plane? (My first plane flight, for the record, was circa 1966--a Dallas to Houston hop on a prop plane for my brother's wedding, on which I disgraced myself by having to use the sick bag. Remember those? These days I am, fortunately, a much better flyer.) Even in the mid-seventies, when I made a number of trips to Europe with my parents, we took our in-flight ensembles very seriously. My mother was horrified at the thought of not being well-turned out on a plane.
These days, I'd wear pajamas on a transatlantic flight if I could get away with it.
I'll have to watch the first episode of Pan Am a few weeks after the premiere, as on Sunday night I will be boarding an American Airlines 767 flight to London. Ten hours of scrunched up economy, bad food, and circulating viruses. Glamor, indeed. I'll take my own blanket as I'm not sure AA is still giving them out in Economy even on transatlantic flights. (Business Class is my idea of heaven...)
What about you, Jungle Reds? Do you miss the days of glamor in the skies, when air travel was an adventure rather than a trial?
JAN BROGAN: I still can't believe I used to smoke cigarettes on an airplane. But while I miss leg room - and will pay extra for it -have to point out that air travel is also way more affordable. No matter how much glamor there may or may not have been (wasn't most of it in our heads anyway, because the experience was rare?,) you were always cooped up on an airplane for an ungodly amount of time. At least now it costs less.
But of course, I suffered from a really bad plane phobia for a long time and now I don't. So for me, personally, there's been a lot of progress in air travel.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, it used to be such fun! My sister and I would fly to see my father (When I was maybe, 10? And Nina 7), and instantly scoop up all the little salt and pepper shakers from the dinner tray. Remember? They had real food! And we thought those little bottles of alcohol were SO exotic. We dressed up, of course.
And I adored the flight attendants, and wanted to be a "stewardess" for such a long time. I mean--they were gorgeous, had those cool uniforms, and were so worldly, and seemed to be in charge.
Now I make sure I have a shawl and flat shoes and non-smelly food. And I still am impressed by the flight attendants. They are so patient, and so brave.
RHYS BOWEN: I remember the first time I flew to Australia the plane made about six stops along the way and at each one we had to get out and go into a lounge. And every segment they served another meal and more alcohol. My husband John was an airline sales manager so we got to travel first class everywhere, but had to dress accordingly--me in suit and high heels, the kids as if going to church. I liked getting dressed up. I liked the glamor of flying. I liked the linen table cloths and the caviar (sigh). And friends coming up to the plane door to see us off and my kids sitting up with the pilot and helping to fly the plane. When John was laid off reality struck and the kids stared in horror. "You mean we have to fly economy?" they asked. It's been going downhill ever since.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, that makes me laugh. "You mean we have to fly economy?" And also helps put in perspective my nostalgia for flying in the pre-deregulation days. Yes, it WAS nicer, and people did dress up instead of wearing pajama pants and flip-flops, and you actually looked forward to the "jet set" experience...but I wasn't the one paying for the tickets back then.
Hank, my mother had a whole collection of those china salt-and-pepper shakers! When I think of the glamor of air travel, I think of my mom back then - a slim, stylish officer's wife in a miniskirt and long red hair. (I quickly add she's still slim and stylish.) Even back in a time when there were porters and skycaps all over, my mother perfected the art of packing for a week in a single Samsonite Fashionaire.
ROSEMARY HARRIS: We didn't fly anywhere when I was a kid - it was more like piling into the Chevy and driving to upstate NY. How glamorous you all were! Don't remember my first flights - probably Freddie Laker to Europe. Anyone remember him? I'm sure I wore jeans and wanted to look adventurous. Nowadays i try for Kate Moss chic - black, denim, shawl, slipons, large carryon. I think it works, although I suppose there's always the chance I think I look like Kate Moss and I really look like a bag lady.
In the 80s I didn't pinch the salt and pepper shakers but I had a pretty large collection of those cloth napkins with the hole in them (so men could attach them to their shirt buttons.)
It is nice to fly first class or business - and I upgrade whenever I can - but I'm a pretty good traveler and don't really care, particularly if my husband is with me. What I do confess to loving is Priority Access. Not having to wait in line is such a good thing!
LUCY BURDETTE: Ha, ha, you girls make me laugh. Hank, you'd be the best stewardess ever. And Ro, you couldn't look like a bag lady if you tried! We didn't fly when I was young either, we drove everywhere in a station wagon with no AC, two German shepherds, and a pop-up trailer towed behind. The only flight I can remember really loving was an accidental upgrade to first class years ago from Hawaii to New York. It was one of those planes where the seats reclined completely into a real bed. Heaven. We took a bike trip in Hungary this summer and I lobbied hard for an upgrade--told my sister-in-law we were doing that so she could pile on.
"I'm not that big," she said. "I don't need that much room."
I'm not that big either, and I'm here to say that has nothing to do with it! Being treated like a reasonable human is what I crave. And I DO look like a bag lady when I travel--it's all about comfort and as close to PJ's as I can get:).
DEBS: I lost my Priority Access this last year--missed it by 500 miles. Didn't have immediate trips planned so didn't want to pay the ridiculous fee to re-up. I am SO regretting that . . .
What about you, readers? Do you still like flying the friendly skies?
Oh, and be sure to come back, as we have a great week! We have the multi-talented Crescent Dragonwagon to tell us about Fearless Writing, and cooking; thriller writer Sophie Hannah; and on Friday, Louise Penny!
