Han, in London

Quick update: enjoying Mum, a sitcom about bereavement with a sweet core. It's not hilarious funny but I love the characters. 

Finally finished Scott and Bailey (loved it) and Line of Duty, which is possibly the best thing I've watched so far this year. I have still not finished Happy Valley, or started Penny Dreadful (Shazad Latif is in it this series, so I am VERY excited). 

Emmerdale update, as I've just got up to date:

1) CAIN STOP BEING A DICK
2) HOLLY STOP BEING A DICK
3) JIMMY STOP BEING A DICK

Still really annoyed by Jimmy's failure to take Ashley's condition seriously, and it makes NO SENSE.

I was seriously rooting for Cain and then he started being a dick again. HOWEVER I do not have any sympathy for Holly given that she was essentially emotionally blackmailing her mum by going 'I know I did the horrible wrong thing, but now I've bought some drugs and if you don't call back I'll take them.'

I'm confused by Aaron and Robert apparently being on speaking terms (or back together). Did I miss a day somewhere? 

Not massively impressed with the writing over the last week, tbh. There's a lot of plots coming out of nowhere. 

So there was going to be an entry here about High-Rise buuuuuuut my browser crashed and swallowed it so it will have to wait until I can type it up again (short version, I really enjoyed it). 

In the meantime, here are some things I have recently watched:

The Night Manager - glossy, big budget spy thing with Tom Hiddleston and everyone ever. Good but nothing really new in the spy genre, and Olivia Colman straight up acted everyone else off the screen. 

The Goldbergs - cute and silly 1980s sitcom based on Adam Goldberg's experiences growing up. The mum of the family - played by Wendi McClendon-Covey - is fantastic. One nice touch is that at the end of the episodes you see footage from the writer's own home videos that they've recreated in the show.

The Aliens - odd, no-budget SF drama on E4. Yes, there are aliens in the UK, but funnily enough they look exactly like humans. It's a bit heavy-handed with how the aliens are treated but there are some interesting elements and Michaela Coel plays the most ruthless female character I have ever seen in anything. She is amazing. 

Deadpool - very funny comic book film, although I was so late seeing this I think everyone else who wanted to see it saw it ages ago. This did not stop me having a great time in the cinema.

Trapped - Fortitude but done properly. Icelandic murder mystery set in a town cut off by the weather, really interesting characters and a really satisfying conclusion. 

Line of Duty - Intense as usual, I expect to regret watching it sometime in ep 4 but will be unable to give it up as usual. 

I'm sure there was something else but I can't think of it right. TBH I've been listening to a lot more stuff than I've been watching this week as I have mostly been painting the hall.

No proper update this week, as on Thursday I was grumpy from dealing with Tesco customer service and Southeastern being useless, and then on Friday I had the day off to paint. I painted my bedroom this weekend and I looooooove it. I did purple (as in my last flat; I really love purple) but this time I've done the wall behind my bed in a bright purple as a feature wall and the other walls in pale purple. 

However due to this I have either been a) painting or b) worn out, so I haven't really watched anything or been able to think about things to write or whatever (although I have been working on my Killjoys fic, little by little). I fully expect not to be able to lift my arms properly tomorrow. 

I have helpfully just discovered that I didn't set Call the Midwife to record this week so I'll have to get it on iPlayer. :/ Excitingly, Vera is back this week but I haven't watched it yet. Oh and Jericho is actually turning into something quite intriguing, and has managed to wrongfoot me a couple of times. 

This is quite a boring entry, but hopefully next time I'll have managed to get some pictures with a bit of daylight, so maybe next time will be more interesting!

 

Bit late this week as I was too knackered after work to put things into words and this entry would have just been me going BUT JOHNNY 80 times.

In other TV news, the second episode of Jericho was much more interesting than the first, and it may actually be doing something interesting.

I watched War and Peace earlier and Tom Burke turned up. This was the whole reason I was watching, so hurrah. However the rest was dull and I'm not carrying on with it.

Call the Midwife was back tonight and it was excellent, and terribly sad, and lovely, and I'll probably talk about it on next week's entry.

As usual with TV recs I don't want to give too much away so some of this may seem a bit vague.

So, my sister has a pretty good run of getting me into things, and she mentioned Killjoys to me AGES ago, and then gave me the first three episodes on USB, which I duly watched and enjoyed. I then got hold of the rest of the episodes (starting from 5 because ????) and watched them in quick succession a couple of weeks ago. THEN I realised I'd missed an episode so still had one left (HURRAH!) so I got hold of 4 and watched that too. And then I wrote 6600 words of fic in the last two weeks (although some of that will have to be rewritten as my memory is faulty and I'd forgotten some fairly important details because that's just what I do, SIGH). Basically, it's been a blast. I'm literally rewatching episode 1 as I finish this off and it is a very good starter episode.

The basic setup of Killjoys is that the main characters are bounty hunters IN SPAAAAACE, and there is political intrigue and civil unrest and all that fun stuff so there's an arc plot as well as fighty chasey bits. And there's a lot of fighty chasey bits. It's SO GOOD. It also feels a lot like someone made the show in about 2002 and then just held onto it for 13 years because it is a big old throwback in a lot of ways (this is a good thing, there need to be more SF shows with people doing fun things in space, it's all getting a bit boring and grim).

The main characters are Dutch and Johnny, who are both Reclamation Agents (Killjoys) working for the Reclamation Apprehension Coalition (R.A.C.) and are best friends and basically platonic life partners. Their relationship is such fun (soooooo satisfying) and the backstory that gets revealed is great too. The other main is D'avin, who is Johnny's brother and who they pick up from a slaver ship in episode 1 and who then becomes a Killjoy as well. Everything in their area of space is run by The Company, who are clearly no good at coming up with interesting names (although the RAC is an independent body somehow). There are dynasties fighting for control and nationalist factions and revolutionaries and class issues and all sorts.

They mostly operate in the Quad, which is made up of a planet (Qresh, where the aristos live) and three moons (Leith, where the middle classes live), Westerly (where the plebs live) and Arkyn (dead moon due to being stripped for resources, well done everyone). 

Dutch is basically the boss of everything, and she is played by Hannah John-Kamen, who has been in a few UK things including The Hour and Happy Valley. Dutch is really fascinating as she is instantly super-cool and then the more her past gets revealed the more interesting she becomes. Also she's really good in a fight, and sometimes all I want out of life is to watch attractive people fighting, so this show really delivers on that front.

Here is a long list of evidence in gif form (spoilers): www.buzzfeed.com/katangus/dutch-killjoys-yas-kween

D'avin originally looks to be just muscle (quite nice muscle tbh) but he does quickly become a useful member of the team. He's a soldier who hasn't been in contact with Johnny for 8 years, and I really liked the way they dealt with what happened to him and what they did with him and Johnny (I could have happily had it go on a bit longer but they did only have 10 episodes in total). D'avin is the audience proxy in a lot of ways as he is learning about the Killjoy stuff as he goes along, and actually one of the fun things about the show is the worldbuilding and working out what's going on in the Quad.

Okay, and Johnny [deep breath]. Look, I am basically guaranteed to fall for any character who is loyal, supportive, caring, not usually the main character etc etc. It happens every time. EVERY TIME. I can literally think of one show where my favourite character has been the main. ONE. Most recently before this it was Pythagoras on Atlantis, and for the past few years my OTC has been Justin Ripley from Luther. So I had a vague idea going into this that I was going to like Johnny. Did I know how much? NO I DID NOT. He's just so kind and so supportive and so lovely and good at fixing things and probably a bit too soft to actually be a Killjoy, and I don't even know what to tell you. Just. Johnny Jaqobis <3. Dude literally starts the series getting beaten up. There was no way I wasn't going to love him. Sigh.

There are some really cool recurring characters as well, including dodgy aristo Delle Seyah Kendry (who has a thing for Dutch, which is just sensible really), bar owner Pree (who I think is the character who fulfils 'this person needs a better job than listening to these idiots all the time' function in the show) excellent AI Lucy and Level 5 Killjoy Fancy Lee (who is awesome and needs to be in it more next series pls, preferably in scenes with Johnny AHEM).

There are so many interesting little details that I've skipped here, but the choice is either short and posted or long and never posted, hahaha. There are only 10 episodes so it is easy to catch up on, and so I would recommend just watching the whole thing (although my faves are episode 6, because Fancy and episode 7 because of fallout from D'avin's past and I am UNDERSELLING THIS LIEK WHOA to avoid spoilers). Also there is bugger all fic (EIGHTY FOUR WORKS on AO3. EIGHTY FOUR!) which is a damn shame, so preferably people should watch it and write more (I am working on it myself, so if anyone wants to beta some Fancy Lee/Johnny fic let me know, lol).

Happily there is a season 2 coming, which I am SUPER EXCITED about, especially as the first season ended in a really interesting place and on a big old cliffhanger. I neeeed to know what happens! However right now I need to go to bed so I am going to end there despite having only said about half of what I could say. And tomorrow I'm going to rewatch episode 2, yay!

So recently London Spy has been on BBC 2, featuring Ben Whishaw being his usual excellent and slightly melancholy self. I watched all of it (I know a lot of people gave up partway through, which totally makes sense, frankly), and I have spoilery thoughts:

( Spoilers ) and between the two of us we worked out that the show either needed to be shorter (so no timewasting) or longer (so the plot points had time to breathe). Overall it was an unsatisfying viewing experience that - with a bit more thought - could have been much much better. 

Oh GOD I am useless. I'm so useless I've actually set myself an alarm to come and post here every week (or comment on fic if I really have nothing to say). I hope you are all ok! 

ANYWAY! First post of the new regime, lol. The weather has turned, going from surprisingly mild to OMG LAYERS, so that's a pain. More of a pain was the storm the other night which blew over one of the pots I have outside of my front door, which is worrying as they've got rocks in the bottom. Oh well, tree seems to have survived, though a lot of stuff went over that night and a bunch of things ended up hitting my windows (mostly paper/plastic).

Recently I have been crocheting a lot to get Christmas presents done (and will be doing that again once I post this), I did Open House (pictures here: metropolithan.blogspot.co.uk/), I've been to Brussels with Lesley (there will eventually be photos of this but I am slow) and I have been doing a lot of tech support for my parents. I have recently accepted that this is basically my purpose in life now ;)

I'm typing this while listening to Watch What Crappens, which is a podcast about the Real Housewives shows (which I don't watch) and they're attempting to do Cheshire accents and it is completely ridiculous. All their accents are completely ridiculous tbh but hilarious.

I have also been slowly working my way through the stuff saved on my Freesat box and other TV shows, mainly because I want to watch Justified but can't start that until I have less than 50 billion other things to watch. Last weekend I watched Under the Skin, which was very odd (Scarlett Johansson was amazing though) and made my way through a few episodes of River. The last episode was this week, and scattered thoughts are under the cut, mostly taken from an email conversation with delgaserasca earlier:

( RIver )

 Sporadic TV update time!

1) Weekly Wipe is currently on, cynicism yay! (presume everyone's seen this now, but in case not - www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/10/nathan-barley-charlie-brooker-east-london-comedy)

2) Musketeers has been great so far this series, Marc Warren (ugh) notwithstanding. I only got round to watching last week's (2x05) last night, and I enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than I expected to (based on comments people had made and spoilers I hadn't managed to avoid). Everyone is still incredibly attractive, damn them all. 

3) Call the Midwife has been amazing this series, but also pretty fucking upsetting, frankly. However Patsy is AMAZING and I love her. 

4) I am really enjoying Catastrophe - Sharon Horgan is brilliant in sitcoms and I really love her writing on this one. I adore the relationship between Sharon and Rob in this show (for anyone who's not heard of it, Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney play a couple who meet in London, have a lot of sex, and then decide to make a go of it when Sharon gets pregnant) and it s hilarious. It's all on 4oD if you want to give it a go.

5) The Last Leg is currently on Channel 4 and is as funny as always, although it is still suuuuuper dude heavy which is disappointing (so far this series the only female guest has been Kathy Burke, which was great, and apparently Sarah Millican is going to be on next week). 

6) I have finally got Sky Go sorted out (thank you parents!) and have watched the first 3 episodes of Fortitude which I have really enjoyed so far. I loooooove the atmosphere and the setting and the occasional hints that it might turn into The Thing (it won't, I know this). Everyone is a little bit dodgy so far. 

7) Also on the Sky Go theme, I can now watch Psychobitches properly instead of just the clips on Youtube \o/ oh, the Brontes are the best.

8) Up the Women has also been great this series (second Rebecca Front thing on this list), and I have just remembered that I need to dl some more episodes!

9) Spiral series 5 was fantastic. Gilou and Laure's relationship is the best thing on television - I could watch them forever. Everyone was super attractive and super screwed up this series, but the actual plot was really exciting too. 

I think that's it, though there's a 90% chance I'll come back to edit this entry later when I think of something else I've watched recently. 

I have watched a bunch of things recently. Currently I am watching the third episode of The Driver, a David Morrisey vehicle (PUN SO INTENDED) which is essentially what would happen if you set The Transporter in the real world and then gave the guy a family to stress about. I love it. OBVIOUSLY. I now fully intend to watch The Transporter this weekend, if not 2 and 3 as well. It also made me dig out my most self-indulgent wip and do some work on that (yes, I am still writing, and yes, I do intend to post things eventually).

(I am still avoiding the TV series on the presumption it will be utter rubbish, but if anyone knows different, do tell!)

I am also watching Our Girl, though I am currently three episodes behind. Enjoying it a lot - I think Lacey Turner is great in everything and it is nice to watch a military-based show with a female lead character. 

I have watched the first three episodes of Brooklyn 99, all of which were as great as series 1. SUCH a funny show. 

I watched episodes 1 - 3 of Gotham while we were away and really really enjoyed it - far more than I expected to as I was literally just watching for Sean Pertwee (who is lovely as ever). I actually really like Ben McKenzie as Jim Gordon but have seen a bunch of reviews talking about him being boring, oh well. 

I have also picked up Emmerdale again recently and am loving/hating shouting at the screen as per usual. Declan is SUCH a bastard. The Dingles can mostly fuck off. I keep forgetting both Alicia and Leyla are in it again. 

Lesley and I watched the first two episodes of Grantchester but then gave up because a) we did not find the main guy sympathetic, b) it didn't really hang together and c) everyone was very much a stock character with one or two personality traits. And when both Lesley and I lose patience with a show that is a pretty bad sign. 

The latest series of Lewis started up two weeks ago, (I still don't like having it on Friday nights in chunks), and hm. Well. I had gone off the show a bit in the last series (it just didn't seem to be going anywhere new) but now apparently all my Hathaway feelings have come back. OH, HATHAWAY. DAMN YOU. Anyway, I really enjoyed this story (I hate calling them 'stories' when they split the episodes but I can't think of a better word) and am considering going back to rewatch the last series. Perhaps I judged it too harshly. 

I am sure there is more - I must have watched other TV - but can't think of anything right now. 

Or, what I have watched recently and what I think about it.

In no particular order:

Orphan Black

Have seen three episodes so far and wooooo it's exciting! And twisty. And interesting. And I'm so behind that really, I probably don't need to tell anyone this because you've seen it already. Anyway, it's really good.

By Any Means

I have only seen the first episode so far, and it was a Hustle knock-off with pretensions to being a crime drama. However I have watched so much depressing drama recently that this kind of nonsense was pretty much exactly what I needed, so hooray for a show where Warren Brown isn't going to die. </bitter>

Southcliffe

Southcliffe came across as one of the aforementioned depressing dramas - and holy crap, it was - but I found it to be a really interesting drama that went in a few ways I wasn't expecting (Rory Kinnear's character was particularly intriguing). It wasn't afraid to make its characters unsympathetic at times, but managed not to make them ALL awful all the time (looking at you, Mayday). Some of the timeshifting was a bit tricky to follow though, and as a result there were some elements of the show I wished had more focus.

Atlantis

Lovely shiny nonsense. LOVED. IT. High hopes for the rest of the series being as cracktastic.

The Bridge

Watching episode 3 as I type, and really enjoying this remake so far (also looking forward to The Tunnel). Diane Kruger's particularly great as Sonya Cross and I'm enjoying the US/Mexico stuff compared to the Denmark/Sweden stuff.

Brooklyn Nine Nine

LOVED. THIS. Loved the characters (and they were really well introduced in the first episode - I feel like I have a clear sense of who they all are), loved the acting, loved the jokes (still laughing about Terry Crews' character naming his daughters Cagney and Lacey). Really looking forward to the rest of the series.

Elementary

Oh I LOVE the casting for the UK characters in Elementary. SEAN PERTWEE AAAAAAAAAAH <3. And Rhys Ifans was great - I really didn't expect him enjoy him that much. Really liked the Lestrade plot as well, And ohhhhhhhhhh Joan and Sherlock <3 <3 <3. So happy this is back.

Sleepy Hollow

I just want to watch people who've been kept away from the modern world for some reason being confused by daily life, is that so wrong? (my GOD, this show is good for me - yes alright Lucas was away for eight years, but hundreds? OK YES PLS) Loving this, wishing I had not got through the first two episodes because now I am up to date and I WANT MORE. Loving the characters (interested in where they're going with Jenny 'Sarah Connor' Mills), not loving the occasional creepy moments that come out of fricking nowhere aaaaaaaargh.

Person of Interest

I love this show so much. It's just the best. I watched 214 and 215 today, and Logan Pierce! Zoe! Joooooohn you ridiculous man. Still not over 213 either (the rooftop aals;fk;ffd; so good).

The thing is, objectively I can tell when the show is not that great, but I just don't care. Every single thing about it just hits me on a really deep level (the reason I am still on s2 is because I save up watching episodes - I could easily marathon it) but I find it hard to explain why.

Dancing With The Stars

I am not watching this properly, thankfully - I did watch a full episode today and it was pretty tedious outside of the dancing. Mostly I'm watching for the lovely Amber Riley and Corbin Bleu, who I have loved since HSM. I have also watched him in other stuff, including Disney stuff, because I have no shame. He's great. And his week 2 jive was AMAZING, especially after the Contemporary in week 1 (it was good, I'm just not a massive fan of Contemporary):



Strictly Come Dancing

Yay, it's the Stricty time of year! Not a great start to the series - seriously, is there ANYONE who wants Bruce to carry on presenting? HE IS TERRIBLE - and it seems to be quite a weak field atm, but it was good fun anyway. Favourites so far are Patrick Robinson (well, he is in Casualty) and Natalie Gumede (who has an amazing face and seems pretty awesome). Also slightly Dave Myers, because the Hairy Bikers are the best TV chefs. Would like Vanessa to be knocked out first, but that's mostly because I don't like her at all. Suspect it will be Tony, however. 

It'll be interesting to see how people look after the second dances - I really don't like having jives in week 1, I think they should be week 3 minimum so the celebs have had time to get used to just dancing before they tackle it. 

I think I've caught everything - this does cover a few weeks of viewing, although I watched a lot today! (the only upside to being ill)

FINAL EPISODE! 

Not sure how I feel about this yet. Need to rewatch 3 & 4 together to see if it does hang together properly (I have my doubts about certain things). 

Longer meta on the whole series to come eventually...

1. ( Spoilers )