As you probably noticed, I don't have a habit of watching TV - it was something I would do when on vacation between two ship assignments - however, this January I caught a bad Flu or whatever it is and was forced to sit home quietly for a while, together with my equally infected flatmate. So what to do, we started watching TV and to his biggest despair, I discovered that I prefer to move on between different programs instead of being faithfully glued to one thing in particular. Binge-watching something that goes on for several seasons feels like a big undertaking and if left to my own decisions, it would just be short youtube clips about the life in frozen Yakutsk (which delights me) however this time it was watching together, so I am at the moment balancing several things simultaneously.
"The Last of Us" is the latest HBO sensation and it was so heavily promoted & advertised that I just could not resist having a look. Not one, but two actors from "Game of Thrones" are involved here and so far they are both main characters - the series are based on a famous video game and apparently it was created with a huge budget, that makes it something like producing a full scale Hollywood movie - not being familiar with the video game, I approached it without any previous knowledge about the plot and so far it was quite gripping, though after only two episodes I started to feel unusual fatigue. Not only that the story covers fairly routine plot (survivors of something apocalyptic roam trough the ruins of civilisation and are fighting mutants & zombies) but two main characters are so far not very simpatico and its difficult to follow something where I don't care about main actors. I like Pedro Pascal but so far he is just very traumatised and scarred person, while teenage Bella Ramsey is perpetually angry and foul-mouthed to such degree that I almost wish she gets eliminated. While visually impressive, series have a distinct feeling of déjà vu because I have seen this kind of setting before - from 1962. "The Day of the Triffids" to 1964. "The Last Man on Earth", ultra creepy 1971. "The Omega Man" to 2002. "28 Days Later" and its sequel "28 Weeks Later", not to mention "The Walking Dead" - the main positive thing here is that HBO shows only one episode per week, which actually creates motivation to continue watching it.
While I am on HBO, I got somehow convinced to check out old, classic 2001 TV series "Six Feet Under" that earlier escaped my attention, probably because it coincided with my sailing years - it was impossible to follow anything while I worked on a ships without internet - now, when I say "old" its only old from current perspective, because I am actually serious fan of 1930s and 1940s movies so something from 2001 does not really count as "old" but its been two decades since than. Its about bereaved family of undertakers, or perhaps not really undertakers but owners of funeral home - they are selling funeral arrangements, cremations, coffins, preparing mutilated bodies for viewing, etc - to my biggest surprise, it turned out surprisingly watchable and it has enough off-the-wall unexpected dark humour AND likeable characters to keep me watching, I gulped the whole first season with greatest pleasure. So far my favourite character is mother (Frances Conroy) whom I remember playing The Angel of Death in "American Horror Story" - here she is a sweet, slightly eccentric widow who has a delightful innocence about her and I love watching her.
Her daughter in a series is a very young Lauren Ambrose who is currently starring in M. Night Shyamalan produced TV series "Servant" and before you know it, I started watching that one as well. Its a very unusual story but I expect that from Shyamalan, about young couple dealing with the loss of the baby and as a therapy they accepted to treat a lifelike doll as the real child - to such degree that they even engage nanny (hence, servant) to live with them. But the doll is creepy and the nanny is creepy and both parents appear slightly unhinged so this actually turned out quite gripping and compulsive - each episode is only 30 minutes long, which makes for a very effective watching and so far I did not get bored yet. The only complain I have is a character of Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in Harry Potter movies) who is constantly either opening the wine bottles or pouring himself drink in every single scene, to the point that it became tedious - you already know when he comes on a scene that he will gobble some wine and that puts me off. Otherwise a very good series.
What I enjoy the most is something I stumbled upon completely accidentally, as it should be: an Australian detective series "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" set in 1920s Melbourne. It feels like a homage to all the classic Agatha Christie characters and the main focus here is glamorous private detective Miss Fisher (played with confidence by excellent Essie Davis) who in each episode solves another latest problem, while prying around and basically annoying police detective (Nathan Page) who is reluctantly forced to accept her assistance. None of the series above have such a feel-good atmosphere as this one, which is maybe surprising considering its about crime and murders but its done in a such lovely manner that there is nothing specially upsetting or gruesome about it - stories are fairly standard and almost generic, costumes and locations are joy to watch, characters are likeable and each episode ends with bad guys being arrested or punished. Strange to say, but its almost a comfort watching, comparable to "Midsomer Murders", "Miss Marple" or "Murder, She Wrote" - so far, I am genuinely enjoying this one the most.
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