The TV thread

Fucking HBO and Amazon need to get their shit together.

Doom Patrol is pretty darn good.

 

That first season is one of the best of any show I've seen in ages.

 

Quiz on AMC is a fun watch. If all you know about Matthew MacFadyen is Succession - you should check out Quiz, and especially MI-5/Spooks and he played a really creepy husband in a season of Criminal Justice on BBC.

 

The first season is gold. Outrageously good.

 

Finally getting to the latest season of Ozark - I'm amazed at how well the female characters are written - Linney, Garner, McTeer, even the shrink, Darlene and the FBI agent all shine - I give a lot of credit to Bateman who could have turned the show into an ego-fest and made it all about him and his character.

 

Try "The Repair Shop" on Netflix. English show, with expert conservators fixing old broken family heirloom items. It's a gentle show, full of competence and kindness.

It beats watching yet another police procedural or something with violence. It's calming. Nice.

The only gripe I have about the show is that there are only two seasons, so ration yourself. The world needs a season three.

 

We've watched this show. It is interesting, especially when they fix the mechanical stuff -- old record players and radios. But the stuffed toys are ridiculous. The time and effort to repair an old stuffed dog is a waste. A kid would love a new stuffed dog probably more than the old rag you grew up with.

 

Last night, as I was stumbling through programming with the remote, I fell upon a sing-along version of “Grease” on CBS. They seemed to have worked fairly hard to make that movie worse than it already is.

 

They aired that in lieu of the 2020 Tony Awards.

I guess it could have been worse. They could have aired last year's Cats movie.

My friends and I are having a Hamilton watch party for the 4th of July since all the events are canceled here.

 

I can't imagine how much it sucks to be a Broadway performer with this.There were musicals ready to premiere, actors lined up for limited engagement plays and the ensemble people on stage and in the pits don't have a huge bankroll to tide them over. I'm guessing the musicians can still do track work in recording studios - but the chorus people? Hosed. At least film and TV had a backlog - though I imagine some film production is going to be altered due to people's availabilities being all messed up due to COVID.

 

My friends and colleagues are really hurting. The Stratford Festival cancelled it's entire season as have the opera companies. The day the shut down was announced they lost at minimum 40% of their income for the year. It's also the business that is coming back last. They're looking at extending the CERB (Covid Emergency Relief Benefit) for people in the sectors that are still going to be shut down here in Canada (fingers crossed).

 

“Be Water” Bruce Lee
Man it’s hard to imagine life without him as a role model. It was a wasteland for a Chinese kid growing up in America then. This was so accurate, and glad my kids got to see it from someone else’s eyes.