Masterpiece Theater

[Drunk Monk]

I forgot to mention my fave scene in that previous ep. The guys come home after the bachelor party and the housekeeper Audrey calls out the uptight Siegfried for the mess, dropping his muddy clothes randomly. He defends himself by saying he needed some cheese. I felt that.

E2 is adjusting to the married James & Helen as Siegfried still exerts his petty tyrant control and Tristan slacks. There’s a gratuitous dog tracheotomy scene that was shockingly graphic (and strangely bloodless) for masterpiece. Another ep that ends happily. And those rolling fields are still so lush.

[Drunk Monk]

E3 began with a flashback to Siegfried’s WWI ptsd. Dammit. If I wanted to watch trench warfare, I wouldn’t be watching this. S3 is oddly fascinated by wounds and now shows closeups of lacerations (clearly fake) on animals. Sure, this ep pulled back the curtain on Sieg’s character a bit but the other situation where James, Helen, & Tristan get scratched up by some old lady’s cat was more the speed of this show. S3 is starting to annoy me.

[Drunk Monk]

E4 was very pleasant and pastoral. James struggles with his choice to push controversial TB testing and his guilt for not enlisting. Tristan hooks up the the rival vet’s daughter and Audrey sorts out her relationship her fellow dog walker. Everything works out the best in the end and it’s all overshadowed by Jess & Tricki - the dogs - as it should be.

[Drunk Monk]

E5:’Now that’s what I’m talking about. What a sweet ep. Mrs. Hall goes to meet her semi-estranged son at a train station. He’s in the navy about to be shipped off. It’s a poignant story and being an old softie, I got all misty. There’s a nicely played out involvement with a hearing impaired tea server. With her away, Tristan takes over as housekeeper and Siegfried takes a young boy on as his shadow as part of some school thing. The boy is an aspiring vet and Siegfried’s tender side emerges and he explains the back story between him, Tris, and his dead wife, which is also touching. James & Helen are at the family farm and Helen sorts some stuff out with her younger sister Jenny. That’s fluff, but the rest of the ep was all feels, with tea and shortbread. That’s just how we like Darrowby to be.

[Drunk Monk]

E6&7 
The tb testing thing comes around in a somewhat predictable way. The head of MAG is such a dick. Tris proposes and that end up like expected. WWII begins.

Ep7 is the season finale and it felt like some eps were missed in between. A new character is introduced, a Jewish girl who the bets have taken in after all the kids were relocated from major cities. She’s a bit too stable about it all. This is a Xmas ep and that feels off in Jan. Audrey finally kisses her man under the mistletoe. And the cliffhanger is Tris is off to war. Got the feels as Reis and Siegfried finally cleared the air about their brotherly love.

It was an ok season. Charming but it tried to push to improve which instead detracted from it. They should be happy with charming.

[Drunk Monk]

Vienna Blood
S3e1&2: This season opened with a two part serial murderer that wants to play head games with Max. Oskar calls Max in because the initial kill was surgical at the studio of a fashion designer. I spotted the two major clues because they stood out from the course of the story, and the first one put me on to the culprit, but there was a twist that was tipped off by the second clue, although it was a stretch.

I like this show because Max & Oskar have a good chemistry. I find the freudian bits amusing and Vienna looks scenic (I’ve never been - has any D00Mer?) Also there’s gratuitous nice tea sets. And I like a nice tea set.

[Drunk Monk]

E3&4: every ep this season is a two-parter. This murder surrounded stolen treasure by brit soldiers during the boxer rebellion so it starts with a sword fight in tianjin. It uses a lot of old Chinese tropes like opium chambers and made up Buddhist god curses - the ‘god of shadows’ is a Tibetan mask. That being said, VB has an Asian character - a librarian/archivist - so there’s this attempt at inclusiveness. The tale was mediocre but it has swords.

[Drunk Monk]

E5&6 Season finale - Bravo! This story hit all the right notes. A complex murder mystery with several good twists, Freudian analysis that made sense, forward motion for all the main characters, humor & tragedy, scenic architecture & topiary, an almost meta perspective on cinema, and a thought provoking commentary on an extreme right movement. I guessed the ultimate culprit but not from evidence presented, instead from thinking about where the writers would go for the finale. 

Good series. I’m all in for next season, assuming Vienna Blood gets renewed.

[Drunk Monk]

Finale of Sanditon ( http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...6#pid55776 ) 
This series is based on an unfinished work so they decided to take every Austen cliche and stuff it in there. The ending was ripped straight from Pride & Prejudice and was so obvs that Stacy threw her hands up in despair. She declared it as a bad mix of hallmark and Bridgerton, and I smirked at the notion. Not D00M recommended, not even for KB who has actually read Austen.

Marie Antoinette - Stacy’s been watching this. I jumped in on e6. Marie isn’t booking up with the king and divorce is pending so her brother comes to stimulate the relationship. It’s got a lot of sex talk. They silence when they say fuck (at least I assume that’s what’s being censored) and the subtitle reads a&a&a&a or something ridiculous like that. The king is given a sex instruction book but they blur all the pix digitally. Which is all to say this show would be better with more graphic sex. Chevalier is portrayed which made me want to see that film. The D00M jury is out on this one…

[Greg]

She probably needs better books to book up.

[Drunk Monk]

Marie Antoinette - much of this ep centered on a libelle of Twoinette and someone other than the king but it was an illicit drawing so it was blurred out so it lost a lot of impact. The birthing scene of her first child had all the royals watching because it’s a lineage thing I guess, but that seemed off somehow. I do like the costumes and sets and a lot is shot at Versailles so I occasionally recognize something. So that’s cool.

Tom Jones - premiere. We bailed after 5 mins. Stacy railed on how Bridgerton spoiled masterpiece in its wake and everything is like a dumb Sanditon now. It did feel pretty cliche. Masterpiece needs anothe good police procedural murder mystery again.

[Drunk Monk]

Endeavor season 8.

This show really deserves its own thread. It stands out as one of our favs from Masterpiece, which has been a tad middling of late. Endeavor is redeeming. S8 is hour and a half long eps. Stacy snuck ahead and watched pirated releases on YouTube as this already showed in th UK months ago. I’m watching it on PBS passport but we’re probably letting go of that soon. It’s just not delivering like before. 

Anyway Endeavor S9 is to be the final one and that makes me sad. The show has a great cast chemistry and a keen eye for the period - the wallpaper alone is worth the watch. My fav character remains the coroner.

 
Endeavor S9 the final season

3 movie length eps. E1 is prelude. It starts out strong with an orchestra death then gets a bit lost with call backs to earlier story arcs from the series and the lining up of some major finale. The cast still retains great chemistry and I’ll be sad of the finale but it’s time. At least they go out on their own terms.

it’s a great series from start to finish. Recommended for anyone who likes Brit police procedurals. This show has been one of the best. It’s got such style, prim and proper like Oxford detectives should be.

[Drunk Monk]

Didn’t update this after watching s9e2. I watched it twice. It was dense and had a lot of call backs to various eps and characters throughout the series, on top of the Murders that needed solving (and it was a complex solve). There’s a subplot about a detective TC show coming to an end, a meta angle in on the penultimate ep. The main story arc is a deep corruption case that goes all the way up to top brass. 

Tonight is the finale episode.

We know Morse will survive. This is a prequel series to Inspector Morse, a series based on books that ran 33 eps (started watching that but it was dated and didn’t have the same chemistry). I’m worried Thursday will die.

[Drunk Monk]

The finale was brilliant. Understated, yet powerful, and very British. We were moved by its elegance and appropriateness. Bravo!

We watched S8e4, which was a BTS tribute. It filled in a lot of gaps because We'd both only nibbled at Morse and Lewis (the two precedent series that Endeavour was the prequel to). The Easter eggs were clever, and we'd missed almost every one.

Endeavour is a brilliant character-driven police procedural, one of the finest of Masterpiece. I wholeheartedly D00M recommend it.

[Drunk Monk]

Van der Valk
Season 3 eps 5&6
There’s three stories this season, each told over 6 eps. Stacy watched them all and said it was ok but I’d probably only like the last story because it has an occult angle. Someone is murdered during a demon summoning ritual. It was ok. I wasn’t watching carefully enough to spot the murderer and there was a red herring shaman/seer/magician that I liked. Van der Valk is the acerbic investigator with a motorcycle riding leather clad female partner, and typical of police procedurals, the mortician is the best character. 

Don’t think I’ll go back for the earlier eps, and the show isn’t as good as it was when it was fresh. Could’ve benefitted by a better ritual dagger.