What Was the Last Television Episode You Watched?

I watched the third episode of The Walking Dead. This is basically going to be people bickering, isn't it? It all feels pretty soapy. Another angry redneck arrived and they went to rescue his brother. It does make me think that unless you go completely wild, Fury Road style, there's actually not much to say about an apocalypse that's very interesting. Perhaps it would be more interesting if it was set 20 years later, or if the zombies were something else - maybe if there was a race of human/zombie hybrids, say - but it's not doing much for me at present. I doubt I'd persist with this.
 
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Toby Frost said:
I watched the third episode of The Walking Dead. This is basically going to be people bickering, isn't it? It all feels pretty soapy. Another angry redneck arrived and they went to rescue his brother. It does make me think that unless you go completely wild, Fury Road style, there's actually not much to say about an apocalypse that's very interesting. Perhaps it would be more interesting if it was set 20 years later, or if the zombies were something else - maybe if there was a race of human/zombie hybrids, say - but it's not doing much for me at present. I doubt I'd persist with this.
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It's a while ago, but I liked the 2nd-3rd seasons, I think, a lot more than the first. I did stop watching around... season 5 or 6, something like that. I'd advocate watching the season with the mayor. Excellent chap, although amusing to see two Britons putting on American accents.
 
There's a bit in The Wire where Detective McNulty (played by an English actor putting on an American accent) is trying to defeat the criminal Stringer Bell (also an English actor putting on an American accent). McNulty phones a brothel and puts on an English accent, which makes him sound like Bert from Mary Poppins.

Actually, the American accents in The Walking Dead are pretty heavy, and I did have to concentrate pretty hard at points to make them out. Which isn't anyone's fault, but it didn't make it easier to get.
 
THE INVADERS - Wall of Crystal - We learn David Vincent has a brother (Linden Chiles) and that he had contacted a tv reporter (Burgess Meredith) months before and now comes back to him with proof of the aliens. Meredith is going to expose the aliens until alien Ed Asner kidnaps Vincent's brother. It seems to me that they would have probably gone after his brother earlier but whatever.

BANACEK - No Stone Unturned - A 12-foot, 5000 pound statue disappears from an exhibit. Banacek is reluctantly sent by Linden Chiles to find it. I guessed how it was done after 5 minutes first time I saw this. Premiered 50 years ago this week.
 
ST:TNG Season 5 S5.E21 ∙ The Perfect Mate Famke Janssen is the gift that will seal an interstellar treaty - a metamorph that will imprint sexually for life on just one person. Taken out of stasis too soon she raises temperatures and questions about free will and enslavement. An Ok story but I was totally distracted by the utter hotness of Ms Janssen - which I guess was the whole point of the story

ST:TNG Season 5 S5.E22 ∙ Imaginary Friend A lens flare enters the Enterprise and takes on the form of an American child actor's imaginary friend (played by another American child actor). Blackface Worfson also appears so yet another American child actor. Imaginary alien friend is petulant. Imaginary alien friend will destroy the Enterprise. Imaginary alien friend gets speached at by Picard about the 'meaning of friendship'. Imaginary alien friend decides not to destroy the Enterprise. The end. The Brady Bunch in Space.

ST:TNG Season 5 S5.E23 I Borg - Another 'meaning of friendship' episode as a lone Borg - the survivor of a crashed Borg ship - is bought onboard the Enterprise and, as the crew try to weaponise his core programming to destroy the Borg's collective consciousness, he becomes less Borgy and more peopley. Various crew members have emotional conflicts. Geordi gets to do sad acting when Borg boy has to go home.

ST:TNG Season 5 S5.E24 The Next Phase A pure technobabble episode. Geordi and Ensign Ro get 'phase shifted' while being transported - everyone else thinks they're dead. They can see and hear what is going on around them on the ship but are unable to touch anything or be seen by any of the crew. (How they can walk through bulkheads, doors, and other crew members but stay solidly anchored to the floor and need to use the turbo lift to get to other decks is a good question.) Anyhow. several layers of improbable make-it-up-as-you-go-along technobabble later Geordi and Ro are de'phase shifted' and they aren't dead at all and can tell the rest of the crew about whatever technobabbly thing it was those naughty Romulans did to the warpcore (which would cause it to explode).

An episode leavened by the presence of this extra in a later scene who looked so pleased to have the camera panning with her, knowing she'd end up with a close up before exiting frame, that it just made me happy to watch. Hot too,

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Sometimes you get a random synchronicity.


MANNIX S 5 Ep 1 -- Dark So Early, Dark So Long - A school friend of Mannix (Rosemary Forsyth) with a history of mental issues is suspected of killing a man and ultimately jailed despite efforts to conceal blame. But it turns out she was being manipulated by a family member who did the actual killing.


A client also tells Mannix that she tried a big agency which uses computer to find people. He smiles as he assumes it is Intertect, his employer in the first season.


CANNON - Death of a Stone Seahorse


A woman (Sondra Locke) with a history of mental issues is suspected of killing a man and ultimately jailed despite efforts to conceal blame. But it turns out she was being manipulated by a family member who did the actual killing.
There is a guy in this who has the exact same appearance as Guy Stockwell in the last show.
Cannon has two fights. His second is with David Soul and he tells him:
"That chisel isn't big enough to take a chunk out of me kid."

He also says he doesn't want to scuba dive and be responsible for a tidal wave.
 
Picked up season 1 of Star Trek Picard and binge watched over two days.
Over all I was pleasantly surprised.
There was enough of the "old crew" and other ST alumni to have a familiar feel but enough new for it not to feel like a re-tread. The plot of secret sects pulling apart the status quo was sufficiently old-school ST to feel comfy, but there were added twists and tweaks that worked pretty well.
I did like that characters we had last seen 30+ years were played by the same actors.
 
Lupin season 3. The first 4 episodes. Very good. Omar Sy is a terrific actor.
Loki season 2 ep1. Looking good. Decent script so far, and the visual design is superb.
 
The "extras" for M Squad included four appearances by Lee Marvin, star of the series, from other series of about the same time period.

Wagon Train -- "The Jose Morales Story" (1960) -- Marvin is a Mexican (!) bandit who fought at the Alamo. While robbing the wagon train, he comes across an old enemy (Lon Chaney Jr.!) who fought on the other side. Complicating things are the presence of a pacifist Quaker and a pack of hostile Indians. Violent Western with some philosophical talk about bravery and cowardice.

Checkmate -- "Jungle Castle" (1961) -- Marvin is a Great White Hunter who literally has a castle in the jungle of Malaya and who knows somebody is out to kill him. Combination of jungle adventure and whodunit.

The Virginian -- "It Tolls for Thee" (1962) -- Marvin is an American bandit who kidnaps a judge for ransom. It's a ninety-minute program, with lush production values, so it looks like a movie. There are some subplots as well.

Lee Marvin Presents Lawbreaker-- "Pittsburgh" (1963) -- Marvin narrates this rather odd documentary that uses dramatizations combined with real footage to tell the story of two bank robbers who were pursued by a couple of hundred cops (!) about half an hour after the crime.
 
The Fall of the House of Usher ep1
Thought this might be interesting, but its Poe in name only. Set in modern times, a family curse where the children of Roderick Usher are killed or die one by one.
 
COLUMBO- Any Old Port in A Storm - One of the best episodes I think. Premiered 50 years ago this week.
 
First episode of Dirty Money on Netflix, about the VW emissions test cheating. That's certainly helped narrow down any future car-buying decisions: no VWs, no diesels.
 
NIGHT GALLERY- They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar/The Last Laurel

MCCLOUD - Butch Cassidy Rides Again - A gang dressed like old west bandits is robbing banks and trains in the city and Sam McCloud is caught in the middle--and being hassled by a snooping reporter also named Sam (Stephanie Powers) who thwarts his relationship with a columnist named Geri March (Linda Evans). We assume she is standing in for Chris Caughlin. Lots of amusing sequences in this one.


McCloud: Now, Chief, I think I've got us a breakthrough.
Clifford: Now don't try to change the subject, McCloud. You couldn't get off the hook if you came in here with your own obituary.


And yes, it premiered 50 years ago tonight.
 
Another episode of Dirty Money, this time about the pharmaceutical price-gouger Valeant. This is a very good, if dispiriting, series.
 
There was some interesting dialogue in that McCLOUD episode abut computer technology:

Sam McCloud: (In response to William Daniels' Gillis character touting computers collecting of people's information as the "Policemen of the Future"): Well, does seem to me like you're rubbing up against a few personal freedoms there. You know, spread-eagling a man's life and thoughts across a machine.
Clayton Gillis: The Constitution of the United States was devised to accommodate change. We give up certain freedoms in return for protection. Now, society can protect us from crime and criminals. That in itself is a new freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. We get something. We give up something. That's progress.
Sam McCloud: We've sure had a lot of that.
 
Men Behaving Badly. The episode where Gary discovers Dorothy has a green vinyl 12” that’s apparently worth £200, and he sells it (behind her back) to Tony, who’s working at a record stall with a guy played by the legendary Richard Strange. Dorothy wants to hear her record, so Gary has to get it back, but Tony’s already sold it on, and can only supply him with the normal black vinyl version, which Gary spray paints green hoping to trick Dorothy. Hilarity all the way
 
Kingdom. A conspiracy to resurrect the king of Korea and keep him alive until his heir is born sparks zombie epidemics.

Great Korean Netflix original series. The political conspiracy and the medieval Korean scenario add a lot of flavor to the zombie apocalypse (pun intended). The zombies are as ruthless as Korean zombies can be: they turn instantly after getting bitten, and they just won’t stop until you chop their heads off. Oh, they hide and sleep during the day in this one, so they’re also a little bit like vampires.

It is not perfect though. I don’t have a good sense of time or location, mainly because I don’t recognize the towns or places they mention. Characters travel either really fast or really slowly from one place to another. And that leads to deus ex machina, which is rampant in this series. Characters simply pop out wherever and whenever they are needed.
 
Harpo said:
Men Behaving Badly. The episode where Gary discovers Dorothy has a green vinyl 12” that’s apparently worth £200, and he sells it (behind her back) to Tony, who’s working at a record stall with a guy played by the legendary Richard Strange. Dorothy wants to hear her record, so Gary has to get it back, but Tony’s already sold it on, and can only supply him with the normal black vinyl version, which Gary spray paints green hoping to trick Dorothy. Hilarity all the way
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Great telly!
 
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