Kerry Godliman as Pearl Nolan in Whitstable Pearl
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a fan of mysteries, both to read and to watch on TV. Now that I subscribe to the Acorn channel, which showcases television primarily from the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but also from other EU countries, as well, I’m just about as happy as a pig in mud. There’s always something good on!
Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page star in “Bridgerton.” Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix
I wanted to get 2021 off to a good start, so I binge watched Bridgerton over New Year’s Eve and Day. I had been so excited to learn that Shonda Rhimes would be producing this mini-series that I subscribed to Netflix streaming several months ago just so I could see it.
[Spoilers start now] I had high hopes for this production, and in many ways I wasn’t disappointed. The costumes! The settings! The characters! Those dance sequences! When a development company hurls money at a production like this, it really pays off. The series is spectacular to look at, a visual treat of the highest order.
However, Bridgerton isn’t flawless. I was unenthusiastic about some of the things the producers added to the source material—the angsty overtone, and interpreting Anthony as a jerk, which was a huge mistake in my view. And they left out Julia Quinn’s original witty dialogue, which was a sad loss. However, overall I was thrilled that the story really was a romance—a story in which the principal plot is the courtship between Hastings and Daphne, which I thought was fizzy and delightful. And they didn’t back off from the menstrual blood. Continue reading
Peter Falk—wearing his own raincoat, a $15 thrift store find—as Columbo
Lately I’ve been mostly unable to read or watch new fiction. I’m not sure why this is happening now, although lots of people have mentioned that between the U.S. elections and the pandemic, all they can read is books they know the ending to and all they can watch is reruns of The Great British Baking Show.
One of the TV programs I’ve been catching up on is Columbo, starring Peter Falk. It’s showing up at my house on a rerun channel on antenna TV, although I’m sure it’s available from fine streaming platforms everywhere. Even though every episode is constructed exactly the same way (the murder is shown on screen at the beginning of the show, so it’s more of an affable “police procedural” than a “mystery”), so far, I haven’t tired of it. I never thought to wonder why until I read this wonderful cartoon in The New Yorker.
For those of you who don’t want to click the link, the cartoon’s author, Joe Dator, says he’s been thinking about why he’s watching Columbo reruns. His analysis is pretty good, I think. He points to how Columbo is a relaxing kind of hero: he’s not a fancy dresser—far from it!—and his partner is a rescue beagle. He doesn’t carry a gun, much less shoot one. There are no car chases or foot races. Columbo’s success is due to his work ethic, and he’s not cowed or awed by the wealthy and privileged suspects he interviews, who live in exclusive enclaves and consider themselves untouchable by law enforcement.
“Let’s just say,” Dator, the author, concludes, “that there’s a bit of comfort and wish fulfillment in seeing this humble public servant walk into sumptuous mansions and make arrogant jerks who think they’re above the law finally face the consequences of their crimes.”
The final frame is the back of a head sitting at a desk in the Oval Office of the White House. “Oh, if only,” Dator writes.
Isn’t that the truth? Where’s a Columbo when you really need him?
Well, right now he’s on COZI TV, and, yes, I’ll be tuning in.
Advertising poster for the Chinese television series, “The Legend of Fuyao”
I read a lot, but I also like to watch TV. However, finding something engaging is hard. There’s a lot out there, but most of it seems not to be written for me. The dramas are too grim (“ripped from the headlines,” thank you, no), and the comedies often don’t hit my funny bone. I dislike a lot of the casting and story structure: almost everybody is white, and men get all/most of the good parts. Women are often sexualized, or they’re plot points. (I know: there’s always Shonda Rhimes. Too much soap opera.) To further limit my choices, I’m in the 10 percent of the U.S. population that doesn’t subscribe to “paid television services.” No cable or dish for me: I stick to “antenna TV.”
But I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I have more choice here—including programming in foreign languages—than if I lived in a rural area. A while back, as I channel surfed past the Chinese station, I saw that the broadcast, a scripted drama, had subtitles in English and another Asian language I didn’t recognize. Curious, I stayed to watch for a bit.
And got hooked.
The Legend of Fuyao, starring Yang Mi and Ethan Juan, is a 2018 Chinese television series based on the novel Empress Fuyao by Tianxia Guiyuan. The first year has 66 episodes, putting American TV production schedules to shame, and it moves at a dizzying pace. Here, roughly speaking, is the plot:
I see . . . I see . . . I see Humphrey Bogart in your future! “Here’s looking at you, kid.” (Slumps over.) Image via Wikipedia Commons
Yesterday, we took a look at our influences from the past with the “Who are Your Literary Parents” game. Today, let’s move our past into the future with a new game from Bitter Script Reader, who says: “Good news! Your next pilot’s been ordered to series before you’ve written it.
“The catch: it’s pre-cast with your celebrity crushes when you were 13. So how are you building a show around that?”
I said:
“OMG! They got Robin Williams! OK, it’s going to be a Continue reading
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