What We're Watching

INGRID THOFT
Just as I'm always looking for great book recommendations, I'm equally eager to get movie and TV recommendations.  I'll go first, with the hope that like a chain letter, I'll get many suggestions in return!

Acorn TV has provided the three most recent shows I've been watching.  They're also available on DVD if you don't have Acorn.  The first, SUSPECTS, is a show about a team of detectives in Manchester, England.  The amazing thing about this show is that the dialogue is largely improvised.  This, and the style of the camera work, gives it a documentary-like style.  It's fast paced—I need the subtitles even though it's in English—and the investigative work they do is very compelling.  I'm not sure how they would solve crimes in the U.K. without the help of CCTV!  I hope this show is picked up for another season.

THE DISAPPEARANCE is a french miniseries about the disappearance of a teenage girl in Marseilles, France.  I binged this one and even sent the DVD to my mom since I thought she'd enjoy it, too.  There are many cliffhangers, and the acting is great.  There are a couple of plot twists that are rather implausible (and don't even get me started on the cleavage baring wardrobe of the female cop), but I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys mysteries, particularly those set outside of the U.S.

My third pick is very different in tone:  It's lighter and doesn't focus on serious crime.  STRIKING OUT is set in Dublin and follows a young lawyer who has "struck out" on her own after leaving a large corporate firm.  The main characters are charming, and it's interesting to get a bit of insight into the Irish legal system.  I leave the subtitles on for this show, too.  The accents are lovely, but interfere as I try to follow the plot!

How about you, Reds?  What are you watching these days?

JENN McKINLAY: The last TV show I was really hooked on was THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW. Loved, loved, loved it, but they changed the format and the cast so that's over. Sadly, I don't watch much TV. If I find something I like, I will binge watch it, but most of my evenings are spent reading, playing ping pong with the Hooligans, or floating in the pool with the Hub while listening to the Grateful Dead. I am really looking forward to the recommendations here - clearly I need to up my TV game.

HALLIE EPHRON: The two shows I love are VERA (with Brenda Blethyn based on the series by Ann Cleeves) and THE DETECTORISTS.

Up to now, all seven seasons of VERA have been on Acorn, but suddenly, the new season is going to Britbox. BOOO. I really don't want another subscription.

THE DETECTORISTS is not a crime show—it's a quirky British ensemble comedy about a bunch of sweet sad sacks who love to go out with their metal detectors in search of buried treasure. Can't wait for the new season. Also loved, but waiting for new seasons of: GLOW and THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL.

I'm trying to get hooked on CASE STUDIES and BOSCH, but so far not succeeding. And though I loved the first episodes of SHERLOCK, the final ones that are streaming are too bizarre. And wondering about THE AMERICANS. Advice??

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh, I'm no further along on TV than I was the last time we discussed it. We have one more episode of THE CROWN to watch, then will be waiting for the third season. I will have to try VERA, since I'm so hooked on Ann Cleeves's Shetland mysteries. Actually Jenn, I think you are doing exactly the right thing playing pool with the hooligans and floating in the pool with hub. Great priorities!

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  Ingrid, I'm checking out all three of the shows you mentioned. Although how I'll ever manage to watch all of them, I don't know. I'm behind on VERA and just about everything else.

What we have been watching and loving is a sci-fi series on Netflix called TRAVELERS. People from the future send their consciousnesses back to the 21st century to try to affect the future timeline. There are, of course, the usual time travel paradoxes, but it's so well done, and we love all the characters so much that we are totally hooked. Two more episodes to watch in season two, but I just read that season three is in production. Although it's supposed to be set in Seattle, it's actually filmed in Canada, and all the actors are Canadian.
I'm also loving a series running on my local PBS station, but I think it is also on Acorn, called PIE IN THE SKY. It ran for about five years in the mid-nineties in the UK. Richard Griffith's stars as an irascible police officer who is trying to retire and open a restaurant. Absolutely charming, and I adore it.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So here's what happened. We love THE AMERICANS and really look forward to it. If you haven't watched it, the pilot episode is one of the bet ever, and the show kept going beautifully—now it the midst of the last season. All good. About Russian spies embedded as Americans, and it's great.
We also love HOMELAND. More spies. All good.  But now, one  of the actors who plays a spy on THE AMERICANS is now in the cast of HOMELAND, as a spy!  I am hopelessly confused.

Same thing happened with two other shows. We started watching MADAME SECRETARY long ago—you DO watch that, right? SO good, about a female Secretary of State.  Then we started watching DESIGNATED SURVIVOR, about the one cabinet member left alive after bad guys blow up the US Capitol.  So then the next week on MADAME SECRETARY, they walked into the Capitol building, of course, and I said to Jonathan—hey! How did they  rebuild that so fast? Then I realized—it was another show.

Maybe I am simply not cut out for this, and should stick with PROJECT RUNWAY!

I am also ashamed to say we finally started watching BREAKING BAD.  We had started once, and decided it was a no. Then, for some reason, we tried it again.  Readers, it is fabulous. Fabulous! Surprising in every way. Highly highly recommended, but then you probably are all watching it already.

Brenda Blethyn a.k.a Vera Stanhope

RHYS BOWEN:  Another VERA fan here and having just met Brenda Blethyn, I'm even more of a fan because she was so lovely and friendly and just hung out with us at Malice. I was hooked on THE CROWN and VICTORIA, and I gather there will be a season three of both.  I love THE AMAZING RACE because they go to such different parts of the world. Otherwise a lot of PBS documentaries.


JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The Smithie and I have gotten into a wonderful crime fiction/thriller/horror series on Amazon Prime - FORTITUDE. It's a combination of Arnaldur Indriðason, Michael Crichton, and your favorite arctic nature documentary - a genuinely twisty, puzzling mystery set in a fictionalized version of Svalbard, where climate change is threatening the livelihood of scientists, fishermen and the tourism economy. 

It has an amazing cast, comprising Scandanavian and Irish actors I've never seen before with star power like Stanley Tucci, Michael Gambon and Dennis Quaid. The breakout is Richard Dormer as the lonely, conflicted sheriff at the center of the story. I can almost always spot the clues and figure our whodunnit well before the end of movie or TV mysteries, but I was well and truly stumped throughout the first series. Two seasons are up already, and the Irish/UK producer, SKY Atlantic, has signed for a third and final series. If you have Prime, check it out, and let me know what you think.

What TV gems can you share with us today, Readers?

Reds look forward to fall TV

HALLIE EPHRON: It's always a little sad when the temperature starts to drop, as it has this past week in New England, and we know that after fall (my second favorite season) will come winter (ick). On the up side, no more "Member Favorites!" on Public TV (exactly whose favorites are they, anyway? And am I the only one that thinks some of these are 'pay to play'?)

The new shows are here!

The other night I watched "Churchill's Secret" on PBS. With the glorious Michael Gambon as Churchill recovering from a stroke that nearly killed him and was kept secret. I'll watch anything with Michael Gambon in it. Michael Gambon aka Albus Dumbledore. The Singing Detective. Michael Gambon whom I had the great pleasure of seeing in London perform in "The Unexpected Man," a two-character play with Eileen Atkins... sitting six rows back center with my young children who were as transported as I was by the performances of two true greats.

And I'm dying to know what our resident expert on Churchill thinks. Susan did you see? And of course it made me think too about what a great TV vehicle Susan's Maggie Hope series will hopefully be.

I'm also watching "Stranger Things" on PBS. Rejoice, X-Files junkies! I am one. Savoring this slowly, so NO SPOILERS! And isn't it nice to see Winona Ryder chewing the scenery. Terrific performances all around. Those kids? Amazing! 
   
And, don't tell anyone but I'm re-watching Star Trek Voyager.

As the new TV season takes off, what are you looking forward to watching?

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I haven't seen Churchill's Secret yet, Hallie, but can't wait. It was odd to write about his illness in MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE because I don't believe Maggie Hope would have known, yet had to allude to his pallor, unexplained absences, etc.

Fall TV? Noel and I are looking forward to Once Upon a Time, which we watch with Kiddo and I will admit to still watching Grey's Anatomy after all these years. Right now watching Broadchurch on Netflix — halfway through season 2. And when is The Fall (with Gillian Andersen and Jamie Dornan) coming back?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Oh, gosh, I remember The Fall Season when I was a kid and there were only three channels and PBS (and we drove to our one-room schoolhouse in a buggy...) I would pour over the extra-extra large edition of TV Guide (Didn't everyone have a subscription to TV Guide?) with the pictures and synopses and behind-the-scenes glimpses. Nowadays, I'll notice something about a show online only to discover it was a limited run summer series and I've already missed it!

Can I include shows that won't air in the US until this winter? I'm looking forward to MORE POLDARK. I understand there will be sweaty bare chested mining to replace the sweaty bare chested scything. I'm very much looking forward to Kiefer Sutherland in Designated Survivor. I never saw much 24, so I still think of him as a terrific indy film actor, and the premise sounds fascinating. Also, Shonda Rhimes has a new series out that looks like what you'd get if you mixed Shakespeare, Once Upon a Time and a romance novel together. It's called Still Star-Crossed, and it has an amazing trailer.

Hallie, you're the second person I know to rave about Stranger Things. I'm going to have to try it! Thank God for Hulu Plus, or I'd never be able to catch up on continuing story television.

RHYS BOWEN: I watched Mr. Churchill's Secret on Sunday. It was brilliant. Such a good script and good acting, and it's always interesting to learn something one never knew about a public person. I felt the same about the series telling the life of Prince John, the youngest son of King George V who had epilepsy and died young. I'm also looking forward to more Poldark and, strangely enough, I plan to catch one or two episodes with all the old guys in Asia (you know William Shattner, Henry Winkler etc. I love travel-related shows.)

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh I am not the person to ask about great TV in our house (that would be John!) I watch the PBS news and then head off to read. But I still want to catch up on the latest ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK season and we are several years behind in THE GOOD WIFE. But best of all, I just read that my favorite current show, NASHVILLE, will premiere its season 5 on January 5. I only have to figure out how to either get CMT or stream through Hulu…

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Churchill's Secret, yes, indeed! And the Kiefer Sutherland Designated Survivor, which sounds like a rip-o--er, borrowing from THE MAN by Irving Wallace, right?  And yes, the return of Project Runway. And won't there be a new season of THE AMERICANS? And you know how I love POWER! (The show, you know what I mean.)  

I'm also interested in PITCH, about a woman who's the first to pitch for major league baseball. Hmmm..I wish TIMELESS, the time travel series, was good. But it's not getting good reviews. Bring back QUANTUM LEAP! 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Aw, I was looking forward to TIMELESS. I'll give it a try in spite of the reviews. I love time travel shows, and yes, bring back QUANTUM LEAP.

Also looking forward to DESIGNATED SURVIVOR. I got burned out on the last couple of seasons of 24, but I do love Kiefer, and it's an interesting premise. And POLDARK! (I was a huge fan of Aidan Turner from a show called BEING HUMAN, long before he was cast in POLDARK.)

I loved CHURCHILL'S SECRET, too. That's the ONLY thing I'm current on. I seem to get farther and farther behind on TV. We're just starting Season 1 of TREME!

Oh, and am going to look up STRANGER THINGS right now! Thanks for the tip, Hallie.

HALLIE: So how about the rest of you? What are you looking forward to seeing or catching up on as the temperatures drop?