Television thoughts
22 August 2010 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeHere's the blog entry I would have posted on MySpace, before I discovered that my ability to post there at all had apparently been discontinued...
Wed August 18th, 2010
Apparently my last blog entry vanished into the aether -- probably just as well...
I've been watching a lot more television than usual. Decided to have a look at "Mad Men" when the BBC started re-running the series from the beginning, since everyone has been raving about it for years. In a similar situation, I never got beyond the first episode of "The Sopranos"; I've managed two weeks of this so far, but am not really hooked. Presumably it's being very post-modernist in that the (apparent) main protagonist isn't actually very likeable, but I'm oldfashioned enough to find this a barrier to being drawn in. The only person I really felt for was the immature Pete Campbell in the most recent (4th) episode; and I really can't identify with either...
"Sherlock", on the other hand, I unequivocally enjoyed. Benedict Cumberbatch is a performer whose career I've been watching with interest for some years (and I have -- somewhere -- the scrapbook clipping to prove it), so when the "Guardian" ran a big article trailing his appearance in a new TV series I was a little annoyed to discover that it was going to take place during the two weeks I was away! Managed to tape the second episode, and despite a slight disorientation during the opening scenes (who was who? where on earth are they? Watson in the supermarket?!) very soon found myself into the swing of things and thoroughly enjoying the cameraderie and wit. I was inspired enough to go to some lengths to seek out the first episode, which I ultimately managed to watch in two chunks split across the transmission of the third, and currently last, screen adventure -- the latter, unfortunately, was something of a let-down (particularly as I'd been praising it to the skies in advance to everyone who would listen), with the ending undermined by a giggling Moriarty. But returning to the closing sections of the first episode reconfirmed my initial impression; this is potentially really, really good.
(And for once I get the satisfaction of watching the media raving about something I've actually seen and liked; usually I'm either alienated or utterly disconnected!)
Wed August 18th, 2010
Apparently my last blog entry vanished into the aether -- probably just as well...
I've been watching a lot more television than usual. Decided to have a look at "Mad Men" when the BBC started re-running the series from the beginning, since everyone has been raving about it for years. In a similar situation, I never got beyond the first episode of "The Sopranos"; I've managed two weeks of this so far, but am not really hooked. Presumably it's being very post-modernist in that the (apparent) main protagonist isn't actually very likeable, but I'm oldfashioned enough to find this a barrier to being drawn in. The only person I really felt for was the immature Pete Campbell in the most recent (4th) episode; and I really can't identify with either...
"Sherlock", on the other hand, I unequivocally enjoyed. Benedict Cumberbatch is a performer whose career I've been watching with interest for some years (and I have -- somewhere -- the scrapbook clipping to prove it), so when the "Guardian" ran a big article trailing his appearance in a new TV series I was a little annoyed to discover that it was going to take place during the two weeks I was away! Managed to tape the second episode, and despite a slight disorientation during the opening scenes (who was who? where on earth are they? Watson in the supermarket?!) very soon found myself into the swing of things and thoroughly enjoying the cameraderie and wit. I was inspired enough to go to some lengths to seek out the first episode, which I ultimately managed to watch in two chunks split across the transmission of the third, and currently last, screen adventure -- the latter, unfortunately, was something of a let-down (particularly as I'd been praising it to the skies in advance to everyone who would listen), with the ending undermined by a giggling Moriarty. But returning to the closing sections of the first episode reconfirmed my initial impression; this is potentially really, really good.
(And for once I get the satisfaction of watching the media raving about something I've actually seen and liked; usually I'm either alienated or utterly disconnected!)