For amc2 and other Downton fans, ITV have commissioned a sixth series. The current series ends on Sunday, and the trailers suggest a number of loose ends will be tied up, but of course new threads will be left for the Christmas special and the next series. I was going to put a newspaper link, but it would probably be a spoiler... I did think from last Sunday's episode that they were leading to an end for Downton Abbey, but how wrong I am!
For amc2 and other Downton fans, ITV have commissioned a sixth series. The current series ends on Sunday, and the trailers suggest a number of loose ends will be tied up, but of course new threads will be left for the Christmas special and the next series. I was going to put a newspaper link, but it would probably be a spoiler... I did think from last Sunday's episode that they were leading to an end for Downton Abbey, but how wrong I am!
All I want to know is whether they brought in troops to take out the dog "Isis."
Not quite! But there has been a discussion in some of the British (tabloid) press about whether they deliberately got rid of it to make a point! amc - I'll give you my thoughts on the series in a few months when you have seen it all
Chromecast - Any users, any thoughts? Was looking at it in a store today and almost bought it. We are cable-free, and increasingly stream stuff on Netflix, PBS and even YouTube sometimes. Have any number of devices to connect to the TV, but the Chromecast seems like it might be easier and funner (and perhaps help in browsing and finding good things to watch). It is so cheap as to be risk free, but thought I'd ask around a little to see if people find it useful.
We watched and enjoyed the first episode of Worricker w/ Bill Nighy - I now see there have been 2 more, both streaming at PBS for the moment.
Target has it on sale for $24.99 next week for black Friday - I thought about getting it, too, for the mirroring feature. Except the mirroring only works with Android devices, not my iphone. Maybe I'll see if hubby will let us use his device. Lots of times we need to look at web pages together, and seeing the pages on a larger TV screen would be handier than crowding around the PC.
We have one, and have hardly ever used it, but I'm still happy with the purchase. The thing I'd like to do most with it is have it show things from Safari or Google Chrome; maybe that's the mirror feature? Because sometimes there are things on websites that aren't on YouTube. I think you can make it work from a computer but you have to disable silver light or something like that. So that pretty much leaves YouTube and Netflix; YouTube I don't use very much, and netflix I already have the roku. (We're cable free too). Also leaving it plugged in all the time seems to tax an already slow wifi network, so it's a matter of getting it out and hooking it up too. I'm curious if I can get it to work in a hotel to watch netflix with hotel wifi, but haven't tried it yet. But I have used it a little with YouTube. I guess my thing is if I didn't have such a backlog of roku stuff to watch I'd use it more. Amazon has it's own new one too; that maybe has more features? I think my wife said she got one, but I haven't seen it so maybe it's going to be a gift?
While it costs more (and may be updated soonish) an Apple TV will do most of this stuff and if you have a newish Mac, you can do mirroring. There is a free PBS channel and some other free channels and many not free channels. We use it mostly to stream netflix and sometimes to mirror laptops.
@ choice: Yeah, Apple TV is still $99. @amclark: Yes, the mirroring is showing browser screens (basically anything on your Android smart phone) on your TV.
Amazon Fire TV Stick is $39 and says iOS coming soon. They call it "fling your favorite apps to your TV".
Roku LT is $39 on sale. They call it screen casting.
The following is from the BBC Enertainment pages. I know there are several Luther fans here
Prepare to get excited, Luther fans. Filming has begun on a new two-part special, set for screens this autumn.
Idris Elba posed for this snap while on set in London, where he said: "It's great we've been able to do this Luther special. John is so close to my heart, he's part of me.
"The fans won't be disappointed with his return - it's explosive and definitely goes up a gear!"
Producers have promised this will be "the biggest, scariest story yet" - though there is no mention of Ruth Wilson, so memorable as the psychopathic Alice Morgan, in its cast list.
Anyone else been watching the Breaking Bad spinoff/prequel "Better Call Saul?" It was a little slow, but has quickly start to give some colorful background for how Saul became Saul Goodman and his long history of talking his way out of tight spots.
That's been on TV here. I ought to get my hands on it. Most likely, I'll wait for it to be on netflix as I'm also binge watching Farscape and the original Star Trek (to be followed by the good ones of the other serieses) at the moment.
I've been watching Star Trek TNG in sequence, and am almost through season 2. That means I've watched a lot of the very, very bad ones, some bad enough to shake my resolve. But it is pretty interesting in a meta way to see both the script writers and the actors gradually figure out what to do with a particular set of characters.
It's Netflix's fault for dropping Battlestar Galactica (just when I was half-way through a double episode with a cliffhanger too).
Gp, TNG s1-2 are notoriously bad. HOWEVER, s3-5 are great. So stopping now would seriously be the worst of all worlds. Please note that the s2 finale is the worst of the worst, so I beg you, please drink heavily during it. But then strap in for s3, the writing quality increases drastically. "The Survivors" will demonstrate that.
Yes, that's what I gather. Measure of a Man was good in season 2. But there's some real dreck in 1 and 2. Getting to season 3 will be like a prize for endurance. I am kind of morbidly fascinated though by how hard TV drama is to pull off effectively even with a high profile show. I've been enjoying reading the Tor.com rewatch write-up for each episode as I go, some of them are quite nicely done.
Now I really want to go through TNG. I love bad Trek. Really want to go through Farscape at some point because I never finished it (only finished Eureka last year). Currently going through The X-Files. While Mulder had some great episodes, Scully was truly one of the best TV characters of the 90s.
Anybody watch the end of Parks & Rec? Sorry to see that show go. I always enjoyed it. Especially the Ron & April characters.
The season finale of Downton Abbey was excellent, too. The Anna getting arrested stuff was boring, but I replayed the scenes of Rose saving her jerk father-in-law, and Violet's story of almost eloping, a few times.
We were on board with Parks and Rec from the beginning. Always fun, sometimes brilliant. The finale was inspired silliness. I'll particularly miss John Ralphio and Mona Lisa.
I thought the Downton finale was kind of dopey, especially but not limited to the Bates and Anna stuff. At this point, I want it to be discovered that these sainted martyrs have been killing and eating local babies all along. OK, Carson's proposal was pretty good!
At some point we drifted away from Parks and Rec. My wife lost interest, and I'm more or less done with anything that I have to schedule time for and sit through commercials. (Except for Survivor
Ok; that would be my fault - I tried to use an embarrassed emoticon about survivor. #^_^#
So in short: Have to Netflix Parks. Fell behind on Downton- Netflix it. Recently finished Twin Peaks; love David Lynch episodes. Like X- Files but can't binge on it. Next up maybe Sopranos season 6 from amazon Prime.
Watched "Peak Performance", last night, second last episode of TNG season 2, so the end of the slough of despond is in sight. That one was actually a pretty good episode, spoiled by the appallingly glaring logical inconsistency that was used to conveniently resolve the plot in the last couple of minutes
Tiptoeing close to a spoiler:
(Whorf needing to know security codes to pull something off on his own ship that he can then do to an alien ship at will).
What are you seeing exactly? The word limit is set to 25k characters so there should not be any issue with post length. Maybe it's a phone thing?
I pasted in an emoticon, and everything after that was blank.
Oh and my wife and I are still watching House. We're on the final season, which is not great. But I'm still kinda hooked. Oh well, you can't quit in the last season.
Just been catching up on Wolf Hall, the new BBC drama based on the book by Hilary Mantel. It features the life of Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry the Eighth.
A brilliant cast and a real slow burner, one of the best things on the BBC for ages
We watched the first two episodes and felt a bit disappointed by it, having seen both the two plays on the stage in London last Autumn we felt it did not match up to them. We've still got them recorded on Sky Plus (Lowlife will understand!!) so perhaps we ought to go back to it soon?
Comments
We watched and enjoyed the first episode of Worricker w/ Bill Nighy - I now see there have been 2 more, both streaming at PBS for the moment.
@amclark: Yes, the mirroring is showing browser screens (basically anything on your Android smart phone) on your TV.
Amazon Fire TV Stick is $39 and says iOS coming soon. They call it "fling your favorite apps to your TV".
Roku LT is $39 on sale. They call it screen casting.
The following is from the BBC Enertainment pages. I know there are several Luther fans here
Prepare to get excited, Luther fans. Filming has begun on a new two-part
special, set for screens this autumn.
Idris Elba posed for this snap while on set in London, where he said: "It's
great we've been able to do this Luther special. John is so close to my heart,
he's part of me.
"The fans won't be disappointed with his return - it's explosive and
definitely goes up a gear!"
Producers have promised this will be "the biggest, scariest story yet" -
though there is no mention of Ruth Wilson, so memorable as the psychopathic
Alice Morgan, in its cast list.
Anybody watch the end of Parks & Rec? Sorry to see that show go. I always enjoyed it. Especially the Ron & April characters.
The season finale of Downton Abbey was excellent, too.
The Anna getting arrested stuff was boring, but I replayed the scenes of Rose saving her jerk father-in-law, and Violet's story of almost eloping, a few times.
So in short: Have to Netflix Parks. Fell behind on Downton- Netflix it. Recently finished Twin Peaks; love David Lynch episodes. Like X- Files but can't binge on it. Next up maybe Sopranos season 6 from amazon Prime.
Oh and my wife and I are still watching House. We're on the final season, which is not great. But I'm still kinda hooked. Oh well, you can't quit in the last season.
Craig
Yes, you can give it up! I stopped watching House in season 5.
@Doofy, yes, John Ralphio and Mona Lisa! They were awesome in the short doses we saw them in.
Also Tammy & Jam.
The 1st season of The Wire needs to go back to the library, so I'll start watching it tonight.
Oh, and I am watching The Following again. It's horrible, but I can't stop. Apparently I have a crush on Kevin Bacon.
Just been catching up on Wolf Hall, the new BBC drama based on the book by Hilary Mantel. It features the life of Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry the Eighth.
A brilliant cast and a real slow burner, one of the best things on the BBC for ages
Craig
We watched the first two episodes and felt a bit disappointed by it, having seen both the two plays on the stage in London last Autumn we felt it did not match up to them. We've still got them recorded on Sky Plus (Lowlife will understand!!) so perhaps we ought to go back to it soon?