What are we watching on TV?

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I'm coming to the end of the final book in Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. It's a big book !! Poor old Thomas Cromwell is on his end game as Henry VIII expresses his dissatisfaction with his fourth wife Anna of Cleves. (What she must have thought of a big fat aging Henry is hinted at by Hilary. Legend has it she was rejected because she was ugly, but the Hilary doesn't really go with that. And that idea originated with the King himself by all accounts. I'd call that cover on his part !!)

Anyway, I know what happens to Thomas in the end, that is reasonably factual, and the Plantagenets and the Tudors have always interested me, so I was never in doubt where it would end. Given this I started to re-watch the BBC Series 'Wolf Hall' based on the first two books in parallel with finalising this last novel. I'll say this for Hilary, her writing is powerfully atmospheric. You can almost smell the 16th Century !!! (Not that I'd know what the 16th Century smelt like, I'm not that ******* old !!)

The TV series is exactly how I pictured the books, although I don't know if the author would agree. One thing I feel fairly sure about, each member of a really great cast must have read the first two books to get the feel of the characters they were playing, because they all fit the descriptions with perfection.

If they do dramatize this final book with the original cast, I think they're going to have to pad Damien Lewis out a bit as Henry VIII. He was for sure athletic and strong in his youth, but all that was gone by the time he hooked up with with Anna. (Not that he actually 'hooked up' if you know what I mean. :hmm: )

It's all really top class stuff.
 

Carole

Well-Known Forumite
We’ve just started watching the current series of Killing Eve.
Thought we could binge watch and then watch the finale live on Sunday.

After absolutely loving series one and two, I have to say that I’m very underwhelmed with series 3.

Three episodes in and I’m bored.
Is it worth carrying on or should we not bother?
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I've only watched the first one of series 3, and I thought it lacked a bit of lustre. Has to be down to the writers, nothing wrong with the cast. I'll stick with it though.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
We’ve just started watching the current series of Killing Eve.
Thought we could binge watch and then watch the finale live on Sunday.

After absolutely loving series one and two, I have to say that I’m very underwhelmed with series 3.

Three episodes in and I’m bored.
Is it worth carrying on or should we not bother?
I'm enjoying it. It is perhaps a little less 'focused' that the first two, but i like the 'cues' from the first episode where it 'looks' like Eve has gone back to - Japan? Korea? - but is back in a London that could look like it was anywhere.

That is the mise-en-scène that sets the stage.

Everybody in the story is questioning their part in the story.

Kenny is the rug that really ties the room together, so
when he hits the ground early on
the story really becomes about him.

So Whodunnit?

In the first two of the series we are focused on the trail of Villanelle, in the third we have found her - so what do we know of her?

Perhaps we could look for some character development?

But how do you develop a character that has already been defined by her lack of ability to develop?

Episode 5 is like that one in the second season of Stranger Things - the one where 11 uncovers another 'part' of the program, meets her, and literally nothing happens as a consequence - I don't really know why they did that. In both instances.

Then it gets back on form - Konstantin and Carolyn in particular are, in their own disparate ways, obviously done with this shit.

Everything is falling apart, everyone wants out, no one knows how.

How do you bow out from this world?
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
A film, but obviously on my TV...

Dating Amber on Amazon Prime. Really good, and had Sharon Horgan in which is always a bonus.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Dead to me, season 2, Netflix, I might *have* binged watched 6 episodes yesterday.
Finished Season 1 the other day - loved it, taking a deep breath before starting on Season 2...

13th on Netflix is almost essential viewing now, it's not easy but necessary.

Likewise Filthy Rich about Epstein, and the Dirty Money series - all pretty deep 'n' dark - not exactly easy viewing - but you need to know your enemy, what?
 
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