A Rave For Two Shows...

[Lord Jim]

The first is Justified...

We haven't really followed the programming on FX since The Shield went out of production, so I wasn't even aware of this show until they started touting it on the XFinity Watchathon this past week...

After looking up the IMDB reviews on it, I thought it might be similar to Longmire so we thought we'd check it out...

We wound up binge watching all of Season Five over three nights...(The only way to get seasons 1-4 is to subscribe to Amazon Prime; looks like we're going to have to do that...)

For anyone not familiar with the show, time does not allow for me to go into all the detail here. It's a little bit like Longmire, but much edgier...

It's incredibly well cast and well written...

My personal favorite character is Boyd Crowder, (played brilliantly by Walter Goggins; he was nominated for a Emmy for the role but didn't win it..he certainly deserved to)

It's chock full of unexpected plot twists, (for example, there's one scene where a couple of lowlife, low ranking drug smuggling crew members start quoting knowledgeably from King Lear ...)

If you haven't seen it, it's a must see....

The second show is Orphan Black...

This is a BBC America program built around the unlikely Scifi Boys from Brazil premise that someone has achieved human cloning...for reasons unknown..

I had seen this promoted occasionally, but had never watched it before, but since we were looking for something to replace Justified to watch (and it had an 8.4 IMDB rating) we gave it a shot...

Again, incredibly well written and well cast...

The actress who plays all the clone roles, Tatiana Maslany; (a Canuck, but we won't make too much of that...) turns in an extraordinary set of performances...

[Gob]

We've been enjoying "Whitechapel", nearly finished series two, two more series to go.

[Daisy]

Really enjoyed series one of Orphan Black.

High hopes for series two.

[Lord Jim]

Watched an hilarious episode of Orphan Black last night, (the show's a really good blend of comedy and suspense) where Allison, believing her husband to be her "monitor" beans him with his own driver and then leaves him tied up and gagged in the basement while she hosts a middle-class suburban potluck dinner upstairs...

(He kind of had it coming anyway; the guy's basically a clueless, selfish jerk...and the experience seems to have made him a much more considerate and attentive husband... )

I wonder how many upper-middle class suburban wives with self-absorbed inconsiderate husbands have fantasized about doing much the same thing...

We're going to catch the final three episodes of Season One tonight...

[Lord Jim]

We've been enjoying "Whitechapel", nearly finished series two, two more series to go.

That runs on BBC America, but I hadn't checked it out...

I'll definitely give it a watch...(The new season is due to start here in a couple of months, and when their shows come back on the air, BBC America usually makes all the previous seasons available on Comcast Infinity...They also make all of their new programing available the next day without disabling the ability to fast-forward through the commercials, which makes BBC America a good Corporate Citizen... )

Another series I watched on BBC America recently was Fleming...(there were only four episodes, so really more of a "mini-series")

It follows the real life escapades of Ian Fleming, (no doubt somewhat embellished) the creator of James Bond...I have mixed feelings about that one...

You get a good feel for the period, and I like the lead, Dominic Cooper, (as an aside, if they wanted to make bio-pic about the life of Rowan Atkinson, I think Cooper would make a good choice to play the lead.) but I found the sack time to action ratio not quite to my taste...

He seems to spend a lot more time playing horn dog then saving Britain...

[Joe Guy]

Hey Jim,

After reading your comments on Justified, which I'd never heard of, I decided to check it out. I have Amazon Prime so I started out by watching the pilot last night. I ended up watching 4 episodes and wanted to watch more but after 12:30 am I got tired.

I'll probably watch more tonight and the next night and next night and night after that. Then I'll decide whether I like it or not.

It looks promising...

[Lord Jim]

Yes, it does tend to get addicting...

[Guinevere]

The other weekend, I binge watched Top of the Lake - a BBC/Sundance/CBC project starring the amazing Lizzie Moss. I thought it was terrific, and reminded me of Broadchurch, without the crappy ending.

About to start TURN, AMC's new Revolutionary war serial. I'm quite sure you Brits won't want to watch it. . . .

[Sean]

I did enjoy Orphan Black. I believe Season 2 goes to air in a couple of weeks... as well as the 5th and final series of Warehouse 13.

[Long Run]

I've been touting Justified for 3 or 4 years now: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6030&p=73636&hilit=justified#p73636.
This year is good, but likely would rate it as the fifth best. Season 2 is about as good as tv can get.

With you on Orphan Black and Guin on Top of the Lake, both good watches.

[Joe Guy]

After reading LR's post I'm looking forward to season 2 of Justified now. I should be there by Friday.

Is anybody watching The Following? I can't say it's a great show but I am hooked. If anyone likes to watch a show with a psychopathic serial killer cult leader, an obsessed Kevin Bacon FBI agent, multiple graphic stabbings and throat slicings with a few shootings each episode, this is the show for you.

Whoever wrote it is a very sick person. I recommend it.

[Big RR]

I've been watching The Following and have enjoyed it; but I do hope they'll get off the current religious/new age cult jag the story has taken (those "converts" are tedious and much less entertaining than his original followers). But it does have a lot of good things going for it.

[Lord Jim]

A question for Joe and Long Run, who are familiar with the earlier episodes of Justified....

As I look on IMDB, there have been 66 episodes..

The lead, "Raylan Givens" (Timothy Olyphant) has been in all 66 of the episodes...

"Boyd Crowder" (Walter Goggins) has been in 61...(so the character has been there since pretty much the beginning of the series)

In Season 5, Boyd Crowder has almost as much screen time as Raylan...

Was that true from the beginning of the series, or was it a situation (like Dr. Smith in Lost In Space) where originally the character was not expected to be that important, but he was so popular with the audience that his part in the show became larger?

I haven't seen the early episodes, but I'm guessing it was probably the latter...

Of course I could be wrong...

[Lord Jim]

Boyd and Raylan have a kind of symbiotic, almost Jekyll and Hyde sort of relationship...

[Gob]

As I look on IMDB, there have been 66 episodes..

Obs not a British series then...

[Lord Jim]

As I look on IMDB, there have been 66 episodes..

Obs not a British series then...

No, of course not...

British screenwriters with that level of talent move to Southern California where they can earn a proper living...

[Crackpot]

Or they stay in Michigan their entire life.

RIP Elmore

[Joe Guy]

In Season 5, Boyd Crowder has almost as much screen time as Raylan...

Was that true from the beginning of the series, or was it a situation (like Dr. Smith in Lost In Space) where originally the character was not expected to be that important, but he was so popular with the audience that his part in the show became larger?

I haven't seen the early episodes, but I'm guessing it was probably the latter...

Of course I could be wrong...

Crowder has been a main character since the beginning. He spent time in jail and then developed into a more interesting character with much more screen time near the end of season 1 - which is where I am now.

[Lord Jim]

In Season 5, Boyd and Raylan meet up with The Crowe Family...

A more inbred bunch of Deliverance-type psychos you couldn't hope to meet....

[Long Run]

Yes, Boyd Crowder has been a main character throughout, but LJ is right that they were going to have him killed off in the first episode, but Walton Goggins sold the producers on the character. And great characters is one of the things that sets Justified apart (as well as excellent writing, including the quotable lines).

One of the criticisms of Season 5 is that there have been too many great characters that show up for an episode or two and then are gone, giving a disjointed flow to the overall narrative. (Whoa don't I sound like a tv critic! )