What was the last TV show you watched?

"Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn" on TCM

I was surprised to learn from this solid documentary that most people know Howard from his role playing Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With the Wind," but if you are not an old movie fan, then, I guess, that is his most famous role. For me, "The Petrified Forest" and a jumble of smart pre-code movies whose titles and plots I can't always keep straight are what come to mind when I think of Howard. He's usually the morally confused and being-tested boyfriend, husband, businessman, artist, etc., juggling women, friendships and loyalty with honesty, concern for others and earnestness.

But apparently, in his day, he was most famous as a stage actor in England and then, on Broadway. Knowing that, I can see that it took Howard of few years to drop the "stage acting" from his movie acting (which I can't stand in general - see Norma Shearer for a textbook example). What I enjoy about Howard is his just-shy-of awkward sincerity and that he is too slight, too pale and has too reedy a voice to be a leading man, but he is anyway. His presence and on-screen integrity somehow power through all those not-leading-man features.

But while his on-screen persona reads character, he was a rapscallion in his personal life as he carried on many affairs with actresses despite having a wife and two children at home - who, apparently, pretty much knew about and accommodated those peccadilloes of the heart. At least presented here, he seems to have pulled it off without alienating the love of his children and, even, his wife. Since there seems to have been 360 degrees of consent, there's no early #MeToo moment here, but Holy Jesus living with your girlfriend during the week and wife and kids on the weekend has to make life quite complicated.

Regardless of his questionable morality in the romance department, he - as opposed some other British stars - gave up meaningful contractual money, security and a successful career in the US to return to England when it went to war as a matter of principal where he made propaganda films and appearances. Which serves to prove once again that humans rarely fit into neat boxes or accommodate easy moral judgements.

Most know what happened then - during a WWII promotional trip, his plane was shot down by the Germans giving rise to many theories (the Germans thought Churchill was on board, or a famous general was or they wanted Howard dead owning to his anti-nazi propaganda films). Regardless of why, he was a casualty of war, which we also learn cut short an aborning and promising career as a director.

The documentary has a bit of an old - but not boring - style that mainly follows his life's timeline (with the obligatory opening teaser), is anchored by interviews with family and friends (a few, surprisingly, still alive when filmed in 2015) and includes clips from his films and, better still, a decent amount of home movies. Like Howard overall, the documentary is substance over flash.

I recently watched it and liked it too. My initial thought was how can a doc on Leslie Howard be worth more than an hour (it's a 1:45 timeslot)? But it definitely held my interest.

One thing I hadn't realized was that his performance as Ashley Wilkes - which I always felt was too restrained, distant, and underplayed vs. the bravura acting by everyone else in GWTW - was due to his not really wanting the role, not really getting along with the cast and crew, and feeling trapped when he desperately wanted to get back to imminently-at-war England.

Chef! with Lenny Henry, series two, all seven episodes.

"Escape Into Black," a Season Two entry for The Fugitive. Injured in a stove explosion in a diner, Kimble undergoes that old soap opera chestnut, amnesia. He doesn't know he's on the run from the law, but we do. We tense as the local law take what fingerprints they can from his singed hands in an attempt to find out who he is. Then Fred Johnson, THE one-armed man, literally drops a dime and informs relentless Lt. Gerard. And Kimble, thinking he actually may have killed his wife, calls Gerard and says, "I'm coming -- I'm going to turn myself in to you"!

Like all the episodes I've seen where Gerard appears, it's exciting and well done, and feeds some information to the new viewer about the death of Kimble's wife. Betty Garrett is featured as a welfare worker, and Ivan Dixon as a neuropsychiatrist.

"Jeeves and Wooster", series two, episodes one and two. The cow creamer and a plan for Gussie.

My favourite series of them all by far, in part because it was the first one I watched (also because of the actors being the best of the bunch, among those who were exchanged for Gussie, Madeline, etc.). We signed out the VHS tapes from our library, 1999 - 2000 time frame.

Ernest P Shackleton said:

Patrick Melrose. Showtime series. This one is really impressing me. Good characters. Funny situations. Good dialogue. Dark and disturbing. I see audiences are giving it low reviews. I don't get it.

Click to expand...

I just finished watching Patrick Melrose last night. Excellent... but rough and unsettling, with parts that were difficult viewing (though it's balanced with laugh-out-loud moments). An outstanding production with a great top-to-bottom cast. No doubt Cumberbatch will get an Emmy nom, he's really outstanding - even for him - as the title character. Definitely the best dramatic miniseries I've seen since Alias Grace.

And why pay attention to audience reviews? Drama this dark and personal is a hard sell, especially to today's audiences, who are mostly used to lighter/dumber fare; the vast majority of viewers don't have the patience, smarts, or empathy to appreciate a story this intense.

Schitt's Creek. Another show about nothing. It has a few funny lines amid every contrived stereotype of wealthy people who have lost their money.
It was too hot this afternoon to spend much time outside so we gave this a try. Questionable if I will ever return.

"The Cage," a Season Two entry for The Fugitive. When a local at a fishing village dies of the plague, Kimble is forced into a difficult position: Should he report it and risk getting caught, or ensure his safety by leaving town and ignoring a potential epidemic? On top of that, his tuna-boat boss (Joe de Santis) has a nubile 15-year-old daughter (Brenda Scott) who thinks Kimble, who must be close to 40 now, is the best thing since no-mix peanut butter!

This entry, written by veteran scribe Sheldon Stark, is the first Fugitive I've seen which feels incomplete, as though it needed another rewrite. We're told only that the victim died of bubonic plague; nothing at all about its symptoms, its virulent effect on history, or how it's possible to contract the disease, or why the Public Health doctor thinks 7 days is quarantine enough. We see Kimble spraying what we presume is insecticide, but no mention is made of fleas or the rats they ride in on. A "vaccine" is mentioned, but not why it's thought to cause more complications. (I'd have thought that massive doses of penicillin or other antibiotics would have been indicated, but nobody brings that up, either.) Deflecting the main thrust of the story from the possible epidemic into the young-girl-yearns-for-attractive-older-man channel waters the episode down from its strong potential as a "Kimble, as a doctor and a fugitive, has a decision to make" tale.

My mother the nurse, who loved the show, must have been shaking her head over this one.

3fingers said:

Schitt's Creek. Another show about nothing. It has a few funny lines amid every contrived stereotype of wealthy people who have lost their money.
It was too hot this afternoon to spend much time outside so we gave this a try. Questionable if I will ever return.

Click to expand...

The second season is better, but as you note, it is a contrived and grossly stereotyped show (in one of the allowed ways - against rich white people and, also, hick white people - Hollywood still stereotypes). That said, it has a quirky appeal. I'm not proud that I like it, but I do. Stevie is the one, overall, character that I like and feel is not two dimensional.

I have been watching a rerun of an old TV show called the Invisible Man. It was made in the late 1950s and appears to take on many of the political events of the Cold War period. One show saw the Invisible Man, the scientist Dr. Peter Brady, help a soviet writer escape the Soviet frontier border with an un-named Northern country (probably Norway or Finland), another show featured two USO entertainers being kidnapped in England while the third show I saw was about neo-Nazis in France.

The effects are comical but fine for the time, as the Invisible Man drives cars or shoots guns and such like. He is shown whole when wearing clothing, with a bandaged face and gloves. However, it isn't explained as far as I've seen what happens when he is fully invisible. Is he running around butt naked!??!!

My favorite bits so far are the outdoor action shots, like when he is following some bad guy through the real streets of London while 'invisible'. Here a hand held camera was used to give the effect of seeing what he saw as he went down the streets. What is so funny are the real people on the street looking straight at the camera as it pans along the busy streets and onto buses, etc. Kinda ruins the effect they were trying to achieve, or perhaps he wasn't as invisible as he thought! Still, the show is good fun and no smutty nude jokes please!

HanauMan said:

I have been watching a rerun of an old TV show called the Invisible Man...The effects are comical but fine for the time, as the Invisible Man drives cars or shoots guns and such like. He is shown whole when wearing clothing, with a bandaged face and gloves. However, it isn't explained as far as I've seen what happens when he is fully invisible. Is he running around butt naked!??!!

Click to expand...

In a word, yes. That's generally how these invisible man/woman/whatever movies and television shows work simply because whatever plot device they use to render the person invisible rarely extends to their clothing. Even as far back as The Invisible Man from 1933: "Put a warm rug in the car. It's cold outside when you have to go about naked."

Bad news for those of us here who enjoyed Timeless:

http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/nbc-cancels-timeless-but-might-make-time-for-a-movie.html

Godless - overly serious Western series in the manner of Deadwood but without the charm or charasmatic cast. Well done in it's own way, but a bit turgid and earnest for my taste.

Seb Lucas said:

Godless - overly serious Western series in the manner of Deadwood but without the charm or charasmatic cast. Well done in it's own way, but a bit turgid and earnest for my taste.

Click to expand...

I enjoyed Godless, but you can't really compare it to Deadwood. The writing isn't there. Few can write like Milch.

I agree Earnest P.

I'm nearly halfway through the second season of Luke Cage on Netflix.

So far, I think it's actually better than the first season, which is a trick that neither of the other Marvel Netflix series that have had two seasons (Daredevil and Jessica Jones) managed yet. I mean, it's got the usual Netflix problem - 10 episodes worth of story dragged out over 13 episodes - but so far, it's surprisingly good at finding the universal human concerns within its fantastical superhero story. The writing and acting are very good, including some tremendous work by Marvel Netflix series MVP Rosario Dawson.

"The Ranch" whatever the current season is that just dropped on Netflix.

The show is loosing what little harmony and focus it had. Each episode seems to be trying to out scream the last one with several life changing events blasting into every episode.

The fun of mindless sitcoms is sometimes just relaxing with the characters having some normal mix-ups and contretemps - one doesn't watch sitcoms for death-defying leaps every episode.

Also, Sam Elliot's always angry and always one word away from exploding character is wearing me down.

I have finally been able to finish The Terror.

Man oh man, I thought Taboo was a weird show! This was awesome!

Really interesting, considering we have now located the Terror and the Erebus. A fun way to look back fictionally on a real tragedy.

https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/how-trust-led-to-hms-terror/