Rate The Last TV Show Episode You Watched

[mkaroly]

PBS is showing a new Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary on Ernest Hemingway...just watched the first episode. This is one heck of a documentary - highly recommended for fans of Hemingway and for people who love reading literature.

I have only read two of Hemingway's books: THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA as well as ISLANDS IN THE STREAM. Both were very moving to me in a quiet way; unfortunately by watching this documentary I will know the endings of his major novels without having read them...lol...but it is a small price to pay. Viewer beware on that point though!

[AndyDursin]

YELLOWSTONE

We started binge-watching this hugely popular Kevin Costner series from writer-producer Taylor Sheridan, which has the same high production values as his features ("Sicario," "Hell or High Water"). Without droning on, this compulsively entertaining modern western/family drama is the best show I've watched on TV in some time.

Costner anchors a phenomenal ensemble here as a Montana rancher who has to put up with local tribes hoping to build a casino nearby, greedy land barons who want his property, and kids with all kinds of issues. Among them, Kelly Reilly is utterly phenomenal as his damaged, take-no-prisoners financial analyst daughter; Wes Bentley his fragile attorney son; and Luke Grimes the youngest of his kids, a more soulful war vet with an Indian wife and young son. All of that action is mixed with a portrait of "the cowboys" who work on the ranch, a hardened but hearty group led by Dutton's right-hand man "Rip", played by Cole Hauser in the fan favorite role/performance of them all. (Gil Birmingham, who was in much of Sheridan's past work, is also wonderful as the head of the tribal nation, aka Dutton's main opposition).

There are all kinds of wild moments in this show, though the action settles down a little after the first two seasons in favor of more engrossing (and eventually more sympathetic) character interplay that's punctuated with gorgeous photography of actual Montana shooting locations. There's no CGI here either -- this is on-location shooting (even the interiors) with cinematic production values we seldom see anymore. The three seasons (a fourth is on the way) are concise 10-episode anthologies that leave you wanting more, and don't linger on the way some Netflix series do -- in other words, there's never an episode where "nothing happens".

I really can't recommend YELLOWSTONE enough, as you become quickly invested in the assorted story lines and the consistency -- and quality -- of both the writing and performances is exemplary. Be warned, though, this is as R-rated as Sheridan's movies, with profanity, sex, violence, nudity and other elements -- I would not recommend it to my parents (!), though there's a reason it's become one of the highest rated shows on cable.

[Monterey Jack]

I need to put Yellowstone on the binge list, as Sheridan's work as a screenwriter and/or director hasn't let me down yet (he also has that Angelina Jolie firefighter action flick, Those Who Wish Me Dead, hitting theaters next month).

[AndyDursin]

It's a great show. Really, a perfect mix of family drama, modern western, lots of sex, violence, friendship, loyalty -- and a number of familiar supporting faces from Sheridan's movies pop up too. Most episodes are written by Sheridan and directed by him also (especially the first season).

It's a Paramount network show but confusingly NBC's Peacock has the exclusive streaming rights -- it's free with ads there. At least that's where I found it.

[Monterey Jack]

Wait, it's not on Netflix or Prime? Never mind.

[AndyDursin]

The Peacock app is free. They have a premium subscription option but it's just reduced ads. I think the programming is nearly all the same.

NBC forked over a bundle for the rights.

[Monterey Jack]

Can I use the Peacock ap on my 4K TV?

[AndyDursin]

Yeah! Its on the Roku platform.

[AndyDursin]

Actually, just looking at it, you do need to pay for the $5 subscription level to watch Yellowstone beyond the first episode. You could always plow through it in a month and cancel.

[Paul MacLean]

I paid the $5 fee to watch Yellowstone. Actually, I had to register and pay twice -- either there was a site issue and my first payment didn't go through, or there was a site issue and I'll be billed twice. In any case it was hugely frustrating.

As for the series itself -- I'm four episodes in, and I agree it's quite captivating and one is quickly hooked. That said, I don't know if I am going to continue with it, because it's so unrelentingly grim. I do like Costner's character, who is interesting -- paternal, reserved (but passionate within), and yet also has a dark side (the way he uses his influence to pull legal and political strings, and that he actually brands the ex-cons who work his ranch as cowboys -- and more particularly what he consents to have done to the one cowboy who gets fired).

On the other hand, Kelly Reilly's character quickly wears thin, being a bitter, one-dimensional "bitch" who drinks too much, cruelly antagonizes her brother and is far-too caustic to elicit any sympathy. The characters I like the best are the youngest son and his native American wife. But his storyline becomes rather implausible, the way he constantly finds himself in situations where he winds-up killing people.

Agreed, it's a handsome-looking show, and Brian Tyler's scoring is effective, but I'm borderline about continuing. It's just so dark, and at times a little too implausible to take seriously.

[AndyDursin]

If you find it compelling at all, I would stick with it, because like a lot of series, it finds its footing and improves as it goes along. It may not be "your bag" Paul but I think if you're getting enough mileage out of it now, it might be worth going on because it only gets better.

It is also not as grim as you get into the second and third seasons (and the seasons are only 10 episodes so that adjustment occurs fairly quickly when you're plowing through it). It's still violent and very R rated though (there's an assault sequence in Season 2 that is very difficult to watch), but the overall tone is not as "heavy".

In fact, as Joanne and I finished Season 3, I was saying to her how much more sympathetic the characters became over time -- that includes Costner, even Kelly Reilly's character (who has a reason for being awful to her older brother, though you don't find that out for some time). Her character is softened quite a bit from the early episodes.

It's also not as implausible -- I agree, the Luke Grimes character (the youngest son) basically runs into some crazy scenario in Season 1 every week where he finds a meth dealer or someone being kidnapped on the side of the road.

That part requires a suspension of disbelief -- but that doesn't keep happening either. They make some adjustments in Season 2 and I think the show improves. I mean, it's still a modern western/family drama/soap opera, but the outlandishness is definitely pared down after Season 1.

I find this to be the case with a lot of successful series, which sometimes have a hard time in the early going (CHEERS, HAPPY DAYS with "Chuck Cunningham", lol). It's like many of them need time to find out what works and what doesn't, then they find a comfortable groove as they make adjustments.

[AndyDursin]

THIS IS A ROBBERY (Netflix)

The fascinating story behind the still-unsolved March 1990 art heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum makes for an initially compelling documentary (even if it was produced by infamous Boston journalist Mike Barnicle's sons).

The 80-minute long robbery ripped numerous, priceless pieces of art literally out of their frames and has long confounded investigators -- though the duration of the robbery and odd elements to it (the main door was left unlocked, a piece of art was seemingly misplaced/stolen in a different room shortly before the robbery itself began) seem to indicate it was some sort of "inside job".

The first episode of this is great -- but like too many Netflix shows, it drags on forever. A 2-hour length would've been sufficient for this material, but the show keeps on going for 4 hour-long episodes that slow down in their actual informational value.

Still, this is something that I remember hearing about throughout my time at Boston College, and the doc has a lot of compelling, mysterious elements to it, despite its unwarranted, excessive length.

[Eric Paddon]

And amazingly after all these decades nothing from that heist has ever resurfaced, which I guess means it was likely done for some eccentric collector?

[AndyDursin]

TED LASSO

One of those bafflingly well-reviewed series by what constitutes the mainstream media these days, this Apple+ series starring SNL vet Jason Sudiekis as an American football coach hired as the new manager of a European soccer team is maybe casually watchable. But the one thing it's not is uproariously funny.

In fact for the most part this played like a joke I wasn't in on. Ted Lasso isn't particularly outlandish as a character -- at least not the typical one-dimensional stereotype you might expect -- yet the comedy is awfully light on its feet. What's worse, the show's R-rated raunchiness flies in the face of its "feel good" elements.

Either way, overrated seems totally apropos, and after a couple of episodes, I felt like I had seen more than enough.

[Eric Paddon]

Star Trek: Arena

-I revisited this episode for the first time in years. As a kid, the Gorn was cool and and I always got a chuckle with that great line of Spock's, "They've locked on to my tricorder!" as it overloads and he tosses it away where it explodes. And of course this episode forever burned the image of Vasquez Rocks in our mind's eye so we could always spot it again whenever it popped up in any other TV show from the 50s onward.

-But what doesn't work IMO is the underlying pretentiousness of the story. The bait-and-switch designed to make us think maybe the Federation wasn't in the right after all and that the Gorn's motives were somehow "understandable" isn't borne out by the facts. The Federation didn't kill any Gorn in their settlement or displace any consciously or even unconsciously like the example of "Devil In The Dark." The Gorn destroyed them through deception and didn't even respond to communications. They were "shoot first and don't ask questions later." Kirk's reaction in that context was quite understandable and the Metrones, if they were really so enlightened and intelligent would have had the sense to discern the degree of difference between the Federation and the Gorn based on the facts.

-I also have to say this. I am not a fan of the trope of supposedly superior alien races playing their holier-than-thou games of judgmentalism in which they see themselves as perfect, odor-free and without all forms of sin so they can cast all the stones they like about how other races must follow their standards......OR ELSE! It's why I am not a fan of "Day The Earth Stood Still" because playing this threatening game that "you must learn how to be like us.......or else we will destroy you in the name of peace and enlightenment" comes across as nothing more than ethnic cleansing. Unless the "superior" race is an extension of God Himself, I don't see where any race has the right to make that kind of claim. (It's also why I think the powers behind Gary Seven are a bunch of glorified buttinskys. In this day and age of so much central authority professing to do things for our own good and destroying our freedom to question and challenge such edicts, this makes the whole premise of "Arena" even more dated).