What Was the Last Television Episode You Watched?

[JunkMonkey]

The first two episodes of Split (2023) - French lesbian romance / drama with, as you would expect, a overtly feminist agenda, and some everso interesting use of splitscreen. One shot early in the first episode started out as a vertical split screen of simultanoius events obviously shot on two cameras, before becoming, as the characters in the individual shots met, a single full-screen shot - which, now I'm thinking about it, I will have to watch again to see just how they did it.

Turns out I was wrong. The vertical split screen remains throughout even at the end. The camera in both shots starts in exactly the same position - in fact the camera just makes two 90 degree pans once from from the left and once from the right so the character end up facing where each other would be.

Then they cut to the opening credits - after which the final, locked off shot of the characters facing each other is repeated but with with both actresses in the room and without the central black bar leaving the idea in the memory that they had seamlessly segued from a split shot to a single. Once you break it down it's very simple but still impressive though. A neat bit of film making.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

We're currently watching Unforgotten - high intensity but absorbing cold case dramas. Can be gruelling, but 100% recommend.

 

[Matteo]

Just finished watching The Listeners on BBC1. I wish I'd stopped after the second episode. But, no...I thought maybe it will go "somewhere". It didn't and just ended up being about a cult and how people can be mentally affected by a situation. Very disappointing.

On a personal note, the "hook" for me was that I hear a very low frequency, low volume hum. Not all the time and anywhere; only in the house and when it's very still and quiet (late at night or early morning). My wife and son cannot. I've ruled out the boiler, fridge, air pump, fish aquarium pump. I did entertain the notion that it could be the wind turbines that are a few kms away - and in open countryside - but only for a moment. Perhaps it's my neighbour's heat pump? But why can only I hear it?

I've also been tested for hearing difficulties - result being that my hearing is good for my age.

I'm used to it but it can be frustrating not knowing what it is.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Woman of Stone this year's Ghost Story for Christmas

Very nicely presented, and well thought out and acted. The only problem is that it was all style and no substance.

No build up of tension, no threat and ultimately it was more a series of events than an actual story. Whatever anyone would have done, the story pans out the same way.

I don't know why the series has veered away from the master ghost story writer, but I wish it would veer back.

 

[KGeo777]

IRONSIDE - The Macabre Mr Micawber --A chauffeur (Burgess Meredith) is suspected of killing his boss, but the real killer is after his minah bird who knows some secret. They take the bird back to the office to try to decipher it. A cute baby raccoon appears in a pet store scene.

COLUMBO-- Death Lends a Hand --Seen it before. I had forgotten Ray Milland was in it--not as a killer. He appears in another episode as one.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Finished Split - five reletively short episodes which could easily have been edited down to half the length without losing anything. After an initial interesting start it became a bit of a chore. The split screen gimmic that worked so well in the opening episode was overused and never as inventively. The characters worked out all their inner conflicts by walking out of a scene unable to cope and then returned next episode having come to terms with them in the meantime. All very dull really. Very pretty though. Some nice visuals but far too many long shots of people watching someone else sleeping as we were supposed to try and work out what they were thinking.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

SHOGUN - Have you noticed how much crying there is in media, nowadays? In Doctor Who's last episode the Doc cried 3 times or something like that. People seem to have their emotions set to stun all the time,

This cannot be said for the final two episodes of Shogun. Blimey, those tears were earned and all the more effective because the characters are doing their absolute best NOT to cry. What a gutpunch those last two episodes were. And what an absolute badass Mariko was. We need more media like this - people acting like actual people in extraordinary situations. I cannot express how much I love this series. Amazing.

They've already renewed it for two seasons. Not sure how I feel about that, unless they're dramatising the Asian Saga where the books are all set in different time periods. The story was pretty much finished with all characters have completed their arcs. I'm not sure modern authors could best Clavell's story.

CARNIVALE - something like The Omen meets Freaks by way of The Grapes of Wrath. The battle between good and evil takes place in a travelling freakshow during the American dustbowl. Great to see The Man from Another Place on TV again.

I caught this when it first came out in 2003 and enjoyed it then. Rewatching now and I'm surprised just how contemporary the direction feels. Considering its twenty one years old the title sequence alone could have been a HBO series this year.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

POLICE SQUAD! -A Substantial Gift-The Broken Promise --special guest star Lorne Greene and Rex Harrison as Abraham Lincoln. It's a shame this show only lasted 6 episodes because it seems to me this was the perfect format for the humor--more so than Airplane! and the Naked Gun provided. The sequence where they talk about shooting Twice and Jim Fell is amazing--most of it is one take with no cutaway.
Det. Frank Drebin: Wait a minute, let me get this straight: Twice came in and shot the teller and Jim Fell.
Sally Decker: No, he only shot the teller, Jim Johnson. Fell is ill.
Det. Frank Drebin: Okay, then after he shot the teller, you shot Twice.
Sally Decker: No, I only shot once.
Capt. Ed Hocken: Twice is the hold up man.
Sally Decker: Then I guess I did shoot Twice.
Det. Frank Drebin: Oh, so now you're changing your story.
Sally Decker: No, I shot Twice after Jim fell.
Det. Frank Drebin: You shot twice and Jim Fell?
Sally Decker: No, Jim fell first and then I shot Twice once.
Det. Frank Drebin: Well, who fired twice?
Sally Decker: Once!
Capt. Ed Hocken: He's the owner of the tire company, Frank.
Det. Frank Drebin: [pauses] Okay. Once is the owner of the tire company and he fired Twice. Then Twice shot the teller once.
Sally Decker: Twice.
Det. Frank Drebin: ...and Jim fell and then you fired Twice.
Sally Decker: Once!
Det. Frank Drebin: Okay. All right, that will be all for now, Ms. Decker.
Capt. Ed Hocken: We'll need you to make a formal statement down at the station.
Sally Decker: Oh, of course!
Det. Frank Drebin: You've been very helpful. We think we know how he did it.
Sally Decker: Oh, Howie couldn't have done it. He hasn't been in for weeks.
Det. Frank Drebin: Well.
Thank you again, Ms. Decker.
[to Ed]
Weeks?
Capt. Ed Hocken: Saul Weeks. He's the comptroller, Frank.

Absolutely criminal it only got six episodes. I remembered it vividly from my childhood and rewatched it a few years back and it is just as funny now as it ever was. From Kentucky Fried Movie to Naked Gun - those Zucker boys were on fire in that period.

 

[KGeo777]

Absolutely criminal it only got six episodes.

and it didn't have or need a laugh track like sitcoms did.

It was perfect for tv as a weekly series idea because it could spoof a lot of tv tropes--much more so than an Airline movie could offer. So much potential.

"Let's talk in the Japanese garden."

Garden of Japanese people standing frozen in pots.

 

[Randy M.]

Absolutely criminal it only got six episodes. I remembered it vividly from my childhood and rewatched it a few years back and it is just as funny now as it ever was. From Kentucky Fried Movie to Naked Gun - those Zucker boys were on fire in that period.

See also, When Things Were Rotten.

 

[Rodders]

I've been filling most of my time with YouTube over the last couple of years. Amusing and interesting enough, but i'm finding it quite propagandised and some of the things i've been watching don't chime with my experience. What it it they call it? An "echo chamber". One of my goals for 2024 is to try and watch a bit more TV as i've hardly watched anything recently.

This Christmas, i saw a few episodes of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and am up to season 12, i think.

Once that's done, i need to binge Babylon 5.