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Yep, we’re that desperate

We don’t watch a whole lot of TV, just an hour or so at the end of the day. When we’re stuck for something to watch, our go-to has been the Seventies British cop show The Sweeney which we have recorded. We’re coming to the end of that, so we’ve switched over to the late Seventies and Minder, which stars one of the guys from The Sweeney.

It’ll do. I’m not necessarily recommending it. In the States, when I had access to Hulu, I used to burn up stuff like Emergency! and Adam-12.

Not great theater, but these old programs are a perfect time capsule. What people wore, what buildings looked like. Attitudes. I remember some of it, I’d forgotten a lot of it. It makes me feel odd, having those old braincells tickled.

Seventies London isn’t part of my store of memories, of course, but that’s interesting, too. Dude ask for tuppence for the pay phone last night!

Uncle B records stuff ahead of time when it’s available on various online channels. Being something of a completionist, he was frustrated to find Season 2 Episode 2 was not available anywhere. So I headed to Wikipedia to find an episode guide.

Terry guards an antique shop owned by Alex, a friend of Arthur, after two men demand protection money. He isn’t keen on the job as he has to share a flat with Jim, a gay man, Alex’s partner. He soon discovers that the story of the protection racket is a fabrication, that Alex is also gay, and that his ex-wife Gloria set up the ‘accident’ that has put Alex in hospital.

Ah. Of course.

I’m guessing gay isn’t presented as an unalloyed virtue. The ep is available on YouTube. The sound is glitched on the very first scene in the bar, though, if you care to watch.

The internet being what it is, you won’t be surprised to learn that minder.org exists to break the show down into its constituent atoms.


New Dead Pool tomorrow. I won’t forget. Pinky swear!

Comments


Comment from Drew458
Time: February 3, 2022, 9:12 pm

The wifely found the old Dexter series, a sort-of cop show about a psychotic who murders people for the good of society. She binged on that for over a month. I think there were about 125 episodes, and now there’s a reboot season coming up. The cats started watching it too, as the theme song sounds like “meow, meow”. Or maybe it was the convenient lap on the couch under a throw blanket.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 3, 2022, 9:17 pm

We watched that first time through. It starts strong and finishes…well, the reboot is because so many people were unsatisfied with the ending. And then apparently a lot of fans didn’t like the reboot ending, either.

It was worth the watch. I wonder if the books it was based on were any good.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 3, 2022, 9:19 pm

We enjoyed Dexter quite a lot at first. Like all such series it ran for too long and the plots got increasingly stupid. I hear the reboot is rubbish, but then what reboot isn’t? (Thinks of X-Files and winces).

Come to think of it, Dexter could have been made for cats.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 3, 2022, 9:22 pm

Heh. We wrote those two comments simultaneously sitting five feet away from each other.

Oh, the uses we make of those billion dollar communications satellites.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: February 3, 2022, 10:34 pm

There are several shows that on a societal level I strongly disagree with and avoided watching while the rest of the occupants of the lair binged on them.

Breaking Bad, Ozark and Dexter.

I do admit though, the writing is pretty damned good, even if I don’t think we should, as it were, glorify this sort of behavior.

We also go back and watch older stuff, especially your British TV because generally the writing is better. But man, some of the plot twists! Holy cow.

And I’ve told Mrs D we are NEVER going to visit a small quaint English village anywhere because the violent crime rate is higher than New York if the shows are any indication 🙂


Comment from Mitch
Time: February 4, 2022, 12:41 am

I liked Breaking Bad, never finished Dexter. Another good show from the early 00’s was Dead Like Me. Only two seasons alas, never found an audience I guess. Six Feet Under was interesting – all the characters were liberal as ointment on hemorrhoids but was actually kind of a subversively conservative show, though I’m sure the creators certainly didn’t intend it to be. I hardly watch any TV at all anymore.


Comment from Armybrat
Time: February 4, 2022, 2:29 am

We cut the cord when we moved to sunny desantis land as we found we typically watched 2 hours of tv a week at $300/month for cable in Boston. We now have just wi-fi and stream everything. We use a fire stick we jailbroke and installed Kodi on. House of mustelid in the nanny state may want to use a VPN but I don’t bother. We’ve been streaming a lot of old stuff lately. We’re working thru Hill Street Blues currently. I had forgotten how good the writing and filming was on that one. We’re also working our way thru the Sopranos (we never had HBO/Showtime, etc so missed that when it was hot). I have to say I’m truly sorry we held onto cable for so long.


Comment from Armybrat
Time: February 4, 2022, 2:32 am

@Mitch- I LOVED dead like me!


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: February 4, 2022, 6:01 am

Check out “Pushing Daisies.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_Daisies


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: February 4, 2022, 4:21 pm

The other thing we like about British TV is you use REAL people for your shows.

Instead of heavily modified actors and actresses who all look sooooo good no matter how trying their life is.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: February 4, 2022, 4:58 pm

JavaMan and I watch a lot of old British television—cops shows, mostly. Ditto what durnedyankee said about small quaint English villages. I watch very little new American programming, but I can’t tolerate much of the old stuff either. Since we entered formal retirement, JavaMan has us on a strict budget; juggling the TV dollars is an ongoing crapshoot.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: February 4, 2022, 5:47 pm

Having 2 sons who are streaming fanatics and can afford to pay the freight for HBO/DISNEY/NETFLIX/PRIME and who might accidentally leave their accounts logged on when they leave after a visit – ROKU is pretty slick.

Now Paramount+ I bought because we wanted to see my half an eyeblink of fame as colorful background in “1883”. Let’s just say if I didn’t know exactly where I was in the shots, I wouldn’t have recognized me either.

But ROKU and your internet work pretty good and some stuff is free if you don’t mind subjecting yourself to good old commercials like we did when there were only 3 networks.


Comment from Drew458
Time: February 5, 2022, 4:56 am

Pushing Daisies was one of the cutest shows ever. Loved it.
Kristin Chenowith is dynamite in a tiny package.

Counterpart was an excellent series, giving the lead to the superb JK Simmons (we are farmers, dum de dum de dum dum dum). Unlike so many other shows, it had a beginning, middle, and end, and that was it. No reboots, no running the thing on forever just to make money. That short horizon outlook was pure, like the short run of Broadchurch, a great vehicle for former and future Dr. Whos. And then the Americans got hold of it, and messed it up. Boo hiss.

We’re giving 1883 a try, but it annoys my awareness of history. And the immigrant pioneers are stupid beyond belief and very one dimensional, except for the evolving character Noemi, played by the drop dead gorgeous actress Gratiela Brancusi, who looks like a young, improved Gina Davis. Beyond WOW, she makes the lead actress Isabel May, cute as a wholesome button, look plain. This week the wagon train hired a cook. “How’m I gonna get back from Oregon?” he asks. “Just put your wagon and horses on the train.” Yeah, no kidding. Why take a ship from Germany, or take a train from Tennessee if you’re a Dutton, to south Texas and then walk your way to Oregon, everyone around you dying left and right, when the railroad already ran from NY to Memphis to Chicago to Sacremento, and the ticket price was half what they paid the wagon masters to guide them? Including meals and a total lack of rattlesnakes. Duh.

Breaking Bad was an awesome show, root for the bad guys, following on the heels of The Sopranos. Walter White and Jessie Pinkman were amazing characters. “Science, bitches!!”
Hank the cop and his purple loving wife, and White’s wife Skyler were total idiots. Since then I’ve never been able to eat fried chicken without thinking of Los Pollos Hermanos.

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