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Entries in TV series (16)

10:26PM

Nothing on the List

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoA quiet start, and for once nothing waiting at the other end of it to make the quiet feel like borrowed time. Nothing on the list today. No appointments to be kept to, no morning that needed to be met at speed. Just an ordinary Thursday with the pressure taken out of it.

So the morning went slowly, and I let it. There's a version of me that would have filled the space with something — a project, an errand, some improving activity — but that version has been quietly retired over the years and I don't miss him much. I drank my coffee at the pace coffee is meant to be drunk at, which is to say not while doing three other things.

The rest of the day was paperwork, which I've complained about before and will complain about again, but I'll admit that paperwork on a day with no list is a different creature entirely. It stops being the thing squeezed into the gaps and becomes simply the thing. You can actually get through it. Forms, signatures, the slow accumulation of small administrative debts being settled one by one. Unglamorous, absolutely, but there's a modest pleasure in watching a pile go down rather than sideways.

It rained through most of it. Not the dramatic sort — no thunder making announcements — just a steady grey persistence outside the window, the kind that turns the light in a room soft and makes indoor work feel almost virtuous. Rain is very good company for admin. It removes any lingering suspicion that you're missing out on something.

Home by five, which felt almost illicit. There's a particular quality to arriving somewhere before the day has properly loosened its grip — the house still in its afternoon mood, the evening not yet arranged into its usual shape. I had time, and no plan for it, which is the best combination available.

So I finished the second season of The Gentlemen. And it was great television, genuinely. It has no interest in being important, which these days counts as a mercy — everyone is very well dressed, the plotting is preposterous and knows it, and every conversation is conducted as though the participants have all read the same manual on menace. Ritchie has always understood that style is a substance of sorts, if you commit to it hard enough. The country house continues to be the finest performer in the cast.

There's a small, ridiculous sadness in finishing a season. Not enough to dwell on, but you close the laptop and there's a beat where the evening has to reorganise itself around the absence. I'll find something else. There's always something else.

And that was it. A day with very little in it and nothing missing from it, which are two quite different things that occasionally coincide. Rain outside, paper cleared, home early, good television.

Some days are just well-behaved. Best not to interrogate them too closely.

11:39AM

ASTRO On Demand

I must confess that all this while, I had been taking it for granted. I was flipping the channels and Netflix when I accidentally pressed the VOD button on my ASTRO remote. Then I learned that the new WestWorld season and episodes were out. And to my surprise, they were free and available through the box, via the internet. And they were the uedited US versions.

More exploration and then I learned that the fifth season of “Silicon Valley” was also available. Far out!

I was done with the WestWorld - only 2 episodes released so far - and was catching up on Silicon Valley. The WestWorld episodes were pretty heavy stuff though, with revelation aplenty. Too much for casual viewing ....

Anyway, the point of this post was clearly ASTRO offered a lot more that met the eyes through their “on demand” service. Most of the movies needed paying though and selection were pretty limited. But when it came to TV series, they were free, up to date and were the US versions. Not to be missed!

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8:33AM

Danger Will Robinson

I had been watching the trailer for quite some time and when it finally came out today, I watched ethos first couple of episodes straight up.

"Lost in Space" received a Netflix reboot and the story was quite compelling. The Family Robinson was there of course - to keep the old nostalgic storyline going - although the premise was different.

Another bit that got me was one of the daughters was clearly not theirs. Hollywood wanted to keep the diversity thing going on I guess. I found that rather distracting.

Clearly Netflix spent a ton of money on this. The acting was solid, the special effect wouldn't be out of place in a mobile blockbuster. Now, the story arch must meet expectation. And expectations were pretty high ...

I watched 3 episodes so far. Another 7 to go for the season ...

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9:24PM

Back to Hawkins

Stranger Things was back for the second season and this time around the plot were more personal rather than the spectacular. My boys especially connected to the coming-of-age perspective of the plot line and could not stop watching the episodes. They ended up watching the season with Anita and finished them before I could really start.

The Netflix episodes also carried a companion documentary series - Beyond Stranger Things - featuring the cast, which discussed the plot line in greater details while sharing some anecdotes while filming.

Early 80s in the US had always had this attraction to them. There was the mix of modern as well as the innocent. When I thought about the early 80s, I remembered the LA Olympics. One of my neighbour was studying in the US at the time and I kept hearing the cool things in the US from her. Another find memory was the cassettes album she brought from there. There were no CDs back then. MTV and video music were just bring introduced. And then there was Michael Jackson ...

Watching Stranger Things brought some of those memories back. Kinda a trip back to those innocent times. Truth be told, I was looking forward for the coming season. The series ended in a really good finale but with enough of a hint that mayhem would be just around the corner. Until the next season ...

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6:44AM

The Discovery

Anita and I had been a big fan of Voyager. Last year, when we got Netflix installed, we managed to get through the whole series again. We went through pretty much all the episodes, which brought us the memories of staying in England when the series were first aired.

I was also into The Next Generations and Deep Space Nine. Anita wasn’t much. So, when the latest instalment of the Star Trek franchise was released, we got curious. We soon learned that Michele Yeoh would star, but it turned out that it was more of a special guess as the season developed.

After watching three episodes, we were hooked. We were not initially very keen on the characters but soon understood their motivations and circumstance. It would make for a great series I was sure. Now, we couldn’t wait for the weekly episodes ...