Crawling out of the TV doldrums...

 

HALLIE EPHRON: My go-to place for TV diversions is and has always been Public Television. For anyone who's similarly a fan (and too cheap to sign up for BBC), you know that public tv in the summer is the doldrums. Seems like they runs a cavalcade of what they euphemistically refer to as "Viewer Favorites," plus cooking shows and episodes from This Old House and Rick Steves. Zzzzzz.

So I did the happy dance when I saw that they are starting to release new shows for fall 2023. My current favorite, Professor T.

It's a British series (of course) about a obsessive-compulsve (Hello, "Monk"?)curmudgeonly (Hello "House"?) Cambridge University professor--Jasper Tempest--who begins his days ritualistically washing his and donning latex gloves. And has an uncanny ability to interpret crime scenes (Hello "Sherlock").

An added bonus, Frances de la Tour (AKA Madame Maxim from Harry Potter) costars as his (to put it mildly) idiosyncratic mother. 

The show is dark, smart, and has a terrific supporting cast. And I'm thrilled that I've only watched 2 of the episodes from Season 2 and I'm on the hunt for where I can stream Season 1. 

Also... 

I'm excited that we have a 3-parter with Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix! Princess Margaret!) in "Nolly" to look forward to.

And, the (literal) icing on the cake? A new season of the Great British Bake Off is in the offing. And the producers didn't dump my favorite of the co-hosts, Noah Fielding.

I watched the first two episodes of the new Star Trek show, but (been there, done that) didn't like it well enough to sign up for Paramount. 

 I am going to bite the bullet, however, and sign up for HULU since ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING sounds like one I'll be sorry if I miss.

So do you agree (or disagree) that the offerings on regular TV are looking up this fall, what programs are you looking forward to?

50 Years of Masterpiece

DEBORAH CROMBIE: This month PBS is celebrating fifty years of Masterpiece Theatre. FIFTY YEARS! 

I'm pretty sure that I can blame a good deal of my abiding passion for mysteries, and my desire to be a writer, on Masterpiece. The very first season in January 1971 began with  the broadcast of the 1967 BBC adaptation of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. I remember being absolutely glued to the TV (okay, I was a weird teenager...) I then read all NINE Forsyte novels! (Even weirder teenager...) Then the wonderful Alastair Cooke became host, and we were off to the races. Here are just a few of my highlights from the first ten years (after which the mystery programs were shunted into Masterpiece Mystery.)

Cold Comfort Farm, Elizabeth R, the first adaptations of Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey novels, I, Claudius, Poldark, The Duchess of Duke Street, Our Mutual Friend, Testament of Youth--and of course, Upstairs, Downstairs! Those are just a smattering.

 And then there was MYSTERY. 

 

How much do we love the Edward Gorey opening sequence?? I even have a signed and numbered Gorey print.) 

 And the shows! Foyle's War, 

Poirot, Morse, Rumpole of the Bailey, Cadfael, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Prime Suspect are among the early broadcasts.

There is so much more--far too many shows to list. But some of my standouts for the last few years of both Masterpiece and Masterpiece Mystery have been Sherlock, Endeavour, 

 

and, of course, the one we cannot leave out, DOWNTON ABBEY.

Going back to that first decade, one of the defining shows for me was the original series of James Herriott's All Creatures Great and Small. I even set my first book, A SHARE IN DEATH, in the Yorkshire town where Herriott practiced. So I think it's entirely fitting that PBS is celebrating the beginning of its fifty year anniversary with  a new version of All Creatures!

REDs and READERS, are you fans of Masterpiece (in all its permutations?) What are some of programs you've loved most?

And who will be glued to the screen tonight watching All Creatures, and the new mystery, Miss Scarlett and the Duke?