So over the last few weeks, with Dickinson between seasons, we’ve sort of been looking for some new programs to intersperse amongst the lighter Big Bang Theory and New Adventures of Old Christine fare—sitcoms that my wife likes to refer to as “dessert”. I had been hoping the new HBO series The Nevers would fit the bill:
Continue reading “Not a Review of “Mare of Easttown” and “Upload””Category: TV Shows
Not a Review of “Dickinson”
So recently we’ve been watching the dramedy series Dickinson on Apple TV+. Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Who subscribes to Apple TV+?!” The answer is, nobody; like virtually everyone else who has it, we got a free subscription to Apple TV+ when we purchased some Apple gear last year. Since then, Apple has continually extended the free subscription period, most likely in the hopes that viewers will eventually find a show to get hooked on and will ultimately pay for the service. If that was their plan, it seems to have succeeded, because my wife is most definitely hooked on Dickinson, which is a fictionalized account of the life of the poet Emily Dickinson. Maybe you’ve heard of her.
Teaser Tuesday: “The City & the City”
So the other week I was reading The City & the City, a novel by China Miéville, who, as I’ve alluded to once or twice, is one of my favorite writers.
Te Big Bang Teory
So since we’ve spent the last ten months or so basically never leaving the house (other than to take the animals to the vet when necessary), we have, unsurprisingly, been watching a lot of television. One show that we picked up—which, amazingly enough, we never watched when it was originally airing—is The Big Bang Theory. My wife refers to this show as “dessert”, i.e., a nice little marzipan confection to be consumed after watching something dark, say, an episode of His Dark Materials or I May Destroy You or Lovecraft Country* or, you know, the news.
Continue reading “Te Big Bang Teory”Carpet That Bad Boy
So a while ago I mentioned that we were watching Lodge 49, the short-lived comedy-drama set in, of all places, a Masonic*-type lodge up in Long Beach. The show only ran for two seasons**, so even at our snail’s-pace approach to bingeing TV shows, we already finished it. Towards the end, most of the regulars plus a few guest stars piled into a vehicle for a road trip to Mexico in search of a stolen set of ancient scrolls that putatively contained long-sought alchemical secrets. But while the characters were focused on obtaining the scrolls, my wife was focused on something else.
Continue reading “Carpet That Bad Boy”The Subtitle Rebellion
So I’ve mentioned a few times that during the last year or two of Dennis’s life, when he got in the habit of complaining loudly in the evenings that he thought it was time for everyone to go to bed*, we humans got in the habit of watching television with the subtitles on, so as not to have to keep pausing and going back to catch missed dialog. Running with the subtitles on also has the occasional side effect of injecting a little bit of extra amusement value, such as describing characters’ speech as “French-like gibberish” or saying things that seem prima facie ridiculous such as “goo snarling“. But then, sometimes, you get cases where the characters say one thing but the subtitles say something completely different and you say to yourself, that can’t possibly be a mistake. To wit:
Continue reading “The Subtitle Rebellion”Odds & Ends from This & That
So this week I have a bit of a smorgasbord from our viewing over the last few months: Things that are not long enough to become their own “Not a Review” but that I found amusing at the time. Because, really, this blog is mostly a series of posts about things that amuse me. Mostly.
Continue reading “Odds & Ends from This & That”About Your Dating Profile …
A few months ago—before the shelter in place started, but not long before—I started watching The Expanse. This is an adaptation of the science fiction book series of the same name; the first season (mostly) follows the plot of the first book, Leviathan Wakes, which I read last year during my recovery from The Event. I say it “mostly” follows the plot of Leviathan Wakes because it includes characters and subplots I’ve never seen before, which is what’s making me a little reluctant to watch too much of the series just yet, because …
When adaptations are involved, I usually try to read the book before watching the adaptation, so that I can properly position the adaptation somewhere on “the book was better”* spectrum. (By this measure, The Expanse is pretty good.)
It’s the Wild Wild West … of Grammar
I’ve posted previously about how we started watching television with the subtitles on during Dennis the Vizsla’s later years, when he got in the habit of barking and carrying on in the evening because he thought we should all go to bed. Sometimes these subtitles can be amusing, making a comedic scene funnier; sometimes they can sort of puncture the drama a little.
Then there’s this:
Did You Ever Wonder What Sound A Zombie Makes When It Hits The Ground After Being Pushed Off A Balcony?
Then through the magic of subtitles, wonder no more!
Coincidentally, splat was also the sound made by this mostly-unfortunate season of Fear the Walking Dead as it limped to its conclusion …
