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There is something about period TV shows that interests me. The one I am hooked to recently is “Downton Abbey”. This is a British TV Drama whose story starts around 1912 in a village near York, Britain, with the fiancée to the elder daughter of the house and legal heir being dead in Titanic shipwreck. The story revolves around the family of Earl and Countess of Grantham, and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family. What makes the story more interesting is the focus on what happens in the servants quarters of Downton Abbey. The lifestyle of the owners of the house and the people who work for them can’t be more different but the show brings it all together in a common storyline. Every character seems to be given equal importance with no protagonist as such but still makes it easier to feel for the characters. What I feel is the success to the show is the selection of the casts – they are perfect and appear to be made for the characters they play. Great work by the Director in the casting and the actors.
Season 1 was all about the love life of the daughters of Lord Grantham & life in Downton Abbey, Season 2 was all about the World War 1 and its effects on every day life in Britain. Though it was dramatized for TV still you could get a feel of how life was during the Great War, the sacrifices people made for their country. Season 2 ended with story as on New Year 1920, War was behind, the puzzle on who will be the suitor to Elder daughter getting resolved – all this increasing the expectation on what’s coming next. I can’t wait for the upcoming Season 3 around September 2012.
I am not aware why this award winning show is not shown in any of the channels in India. Doesn’t Indian audience enjoy this genre like the American and British?. I bought the series from iTunes, for Season 1 the SD version. I liked so much the series that paid more and got the HD version for Season 2. I can’t believe the clarity of the screens in HD it was awesome.
Having watched him in “Friends” and then in short lived “Joey” I will say I enjoy seeing Matt LeBlanc on screen. On learning in iTunes about his new show “Episodes”, I wanted to see it and did that this long weekend.
The show’s plot was quite interesting, it is about a British writer-producer couple who have a wonderful marriage and a hit TV series in UK. They get an offer from a Hollywood big network producer to do a remake of the show for American audience. After a lucrative offer, the couple pack up and ship out to LA. Next few weeks they learn that Hollywood is a place where deals are made and broken in the same breath. The cultural difference between the two countries and their celebrities are all shown very nicely. Tamsin Greig who acts as Beverly Lincoln, has done a good performance of enacting a Writer who is forced by Hollywood to include changes in her story, and who is personally going through a tough time of being a simple wife surrounded by Hollywood’s glamor all around. A must watch for a good laugh.
Unfortunate the series won’t be having a sequel or a next season to it.
I just finished watching the British TV Series – Come fly with me. I like few of the British Comedy for they are good in bringing out a realistic portrayal of the society, especially they are very good in spoof & satires. As a frequently traveller I was looking forward to the series after watching the Pilot which described the story to be about what’s happening in a British airport. Overall I enjoyed the Series but it didn’t cut out to be my favourite. All episodes seem to be from the same cookie cutter, characters were getting stereo-typed. No new fresh story line in any of the episode, though there was much to be talked about in an airport. Almost all the characters were enacted by the same pair of actors (Matt Lucas, David Walliams), though they each character well, they playing even the female roles is making it monotonous. Having said it, many of the individual scenes had good humour in them which made the series overall enjoyable.
For last few months I have been watching this American TV Serial “Outsourced” online. "Outsourced" is NBC’s comedy series about a catalog-based company (Mid America Novelties), that sells novelty goods and whose call center has suddenly been moved to Mumbai (India). The TV Series is based on a movie by the same name (which I haven’t watched yet). The title is a misnomer as the company is outsourcing the work, but just moved work to its own captive unit in India.
Season 1 was quite enjoyable with Ben Rappaport & Pippa Black playing lead roles. Rizwan Manji plays very well the rude, heartless assistant manager to Ben in India. Rebecca Hazlewood comes as “Asha”, Ben’s Indian sweetheart and she is gorgeous. I believe the shooting happened in entirely in LA, USA which you can easily guess with the canned portrait of Mumbai streets. In few places the story is stereo-typed portrait of India, it doesn’t tend to be demeaning anywhere. Overall it is an enjoyable office place comedy. I am sad to see NBC not renewing this for a second season, hence this post to pay obituary to it.
Yes, Prime Minister, is a British TV Serial by BBC which ran in late 80′s and was a sequel to Yes Minister. This was shown in Doordharshan during my school days and I have heard great comments about them. Though I watched few of the episodes I couldn’t appreciate it then.
Few weeks back, while shopping in Landmark I saw the VCD version of Yes, Prime Minister Series 1 and 2 at Rs.350 per series. Over this weekend I watched the 8 episodes of Series 1. I had 4 hours of non-stop laugher and I had to marvel at the brilliance of the writers who have portrayed what life could be inside 10, Downing street in the most humorous way. This is a must see for anyone remotely interested with politics in general.
Yes, Prime Minister is now second in my list of favourite political satires of all time, First in the list is Cho’s Muhammad Bin Thuglak.
I had a good laugh now by watching this video clip of a recent CSI episode that carried a dialog “create a GUI Interface in Visual Basic to track the IP address”. I love “Visual Basic” and it was good to hear it getting prime time media attention!
Today in HBO I saw a good comedy movie “Vice Versa“. Simple story line on how a father and son get switched between their bodies through a magic. It was hilarious to see a 8 year old brain for a 30+ Year successful manager and vice-versa. When I searched Internet I was surprised to find the movie was 20 years old taken in 1988, and around the same time about 5 other movies and TV Serials had come with similar story lines.
While watching the movie, the boy actor was very familiar. When I searched on the Internet, I learned his name as “Fred Savage“. Going through his movies/serials I recollected having seen him in his very popular serial of 1980-90s – Wonder Years and enjoying it a lot in my high-school days. I should have seen the entire serial, the serial had the boy speak out his feelings to the audience in an adult voice. Every boy in adolescent age could relate to this serial, an all time classic.
I also learned the boy seen above has now grown up (obviously of course), married and have a kid!
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