Television

[kid-glove]

Thick of it Season 4. Kicked off today.

Tucker-less episode not quite there without him. Good enough for the epic references (as usual)

He does return next week with great prejudice and wicked sense of humor "Like a family in cuban slum"..

[kid-glove]

Some samples tonight:

"He took the morning off when Steve Jobs died"

'Good to see you Peter Pete' payback from Rajesh Raj!

"You can't even keep the cast of Glee out!"

"You can't apologize for the fart you did a day before. "

"Doing us up the Euro tunnel" ... "Am I in some ghost story.. I got hit by a bus and no one notices me.. "

"Terrific.. what should we do..Mexican wave around the table?"

"What did you ask for...er..er....eh wanker.."

[wizzy]

Thick of it Season 4. Kicked off today.

Tucker-less episode not quite there without him. Good enough for the epic references (as usual)

He does return next week with great prejudice and wicked sense of humor "Like a family in cuban slum"..

give VEEP a shot..just got renewed for second season..JLD's mock up of Sarah Palin

[kid-glove]

Yeah okay, I will try. And how is Sorkin doing with The Newsroom? Of course, I don't expect great insights here. Is it dramatically persuasive?

[kid-glove]

The Street Season 3.

They ended season 2 with atmospheric one-room one to one (through chained doors, windows and confined spaces).

They began this season with 'High Noon' in Salford with the great Bob Hoskins ( hopefully recovers from dreadful Parkinson's)

Half-way through, you begin to see the highly dramatic sermonization and problematic morality lessons, an equilibria seems to pervade this universe. Usually, this turns me off, but to its credit, The Street, offers just the breathing space with mood, tonal changes, visual flux, with richly localzied characters, with behaviors, and quirks I'd wanted. This is Manc in every turn and corner. Have to say well done all round.

Final 3 episodes concludes what is an unrelenting pathos study, so intimately tied to the place (Salford) and time (of recession)

It's so uniformly 'fair' in allowing/sermonizing its characters to reap (as bitter as it may) the seeds that they sow.

To conclude the entire series, they do not even spare Timothy Spall's segment (other than maybe Broadbent in 1st season) that provided light-heartedness and harmony..

[kid-glove]

Parade's End - 3rd episode

A socialite adulteress wants to be chaste and truthful to the Cuckold, who accepts her back without being taken into manly feelings she tries to ellicit (through this adultery, as she says, she'd only do it when he's looking!), whose ideals makes him stop short of consummating the relationship with a young suffragette, a fatherless free-spirited woman(intellectually, unlike the wife, who might be called a 'loose', considering she has sex with another man on day of the marriage) who is happy to be his spiritual companion. The man is awkward looking and perhaps even sexually inert after a point. He choose to serve in World War I. There's also a child who may or may not be his.

This is positively anti-Downton Abbey, what an expertly sensitive filmmaker is Sussanna White.

[kid-glove]

With all the social, familial, religious, ideological underpinnings & sex politics you'd expect. The Elegiac tone of the ruling class, without being inconsiderate of the lesser ones, whose need for change is parallely underlined. People of their time and place, without being any less relevant.

[wizzy]

Yeah okay, I will try. And how is Sorkin doing with The Newsroom? Of course, I don't expect great insights here. Is it dramatically persuasive?

it is except may be for Mortimer whose role seems to be written in a haste..her theatrical acting really does get to you..with the elections next year expect Sorkin to dig deep.

[kid-glove]

Have to finish the 9 episodes of "Luck" (& see if it's a loss), then I will get to The Newsroom.

Yeah, Sorkin's known to be a reliable sexist..

[kid-glove]

Re.sexism,
In lesser hands, Parade's End might be the most sexist show on TV if not for sensitivity & layered approach (against 'hasty judgement') by Sussanna White. Again shows that TV could be a director's medium too.