Great TV Series

[Frank Zito]

The Regime looks good. Loved Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown.

[bluelionman]

JUSTIFIED: CITY PRIMEVAL (2023) - 4/10 (If You Have Nothing Better To Do)

SEASONS - 1 / EPISODES - 8

Premise: Raylan Givens is sent to Detroit where he collides with a sociopath and a formidable attorney.

What can I say, I was so excited to not only hear Justified was coming back it was moving to my favourite US city - Detroit baby!
How would this southern cowboy fair in this slick bad ass Northern city. Alas what used to make Justified great - at least for me - was the excellent and charismatic villains along with witty repartee dialogue between Raylan and said antagonists, with some good action and plot twists sprinkled in. This series has a far less compelling villain who is quite obvious in his machinations and struts around in his white briefs far too often for my taste. He's hardly ever on screen with Raylan so the dialogue is minimal.

We also get some side characters who are inserted for little reason storywise like his supposedly 15-year-old daughter Willa, played by Timothy Olyphant's real life daughter who is 20 and it shows. She can raise her voice an octave but we still have eyes. Are their no true child actors and actresses anymore? The writers do her no favors, she just plays the usual bratty and disobedient teen girl trope that is seemingly in every show now, and doesn't move the plot forward in any way whatsoever but rather acts as a drag on it with distracting annoyance.

The love interest for Raylan is so far off from Ava Crowder or Winona Hawkins that it just doesn't come across as believable. Raylan is probably out of almost every woman's league but in this case it's really a bridge too far. From his taste in the original Justified being skinny white southern bells to this one hooking up with a lot to say for herself elite sassy assed chubby black woman who's a judge to boot.

Neither the plot nor the dialogue are all that clever. Raylan gets in a few quips but it just seems like they stole the lines from the original Justified and repurposed them here. It's great to see Raylan on screen again and Sweety (Vondie Curtis-Hall) is also a lot of fun to watch so I still give this series overall a 4, as it's worth watching still but it is not a patch on the original series imo and that's a great shame. Hope this world is left off here and not brought back to be downgraded even more with further lightweight seasons.


Trailer:

[Bob Newhart]

PRIMEVAL?

Wasn't that some British kids TV show about dinosaurs coming through time warps or something?

[bluelionman]

PRIMEVAL?

Wasn't that some British kids TV show about dinosaurs coming through time warps or something?

Yep it was, not sure if was spelled slightly differently but yeah I used to watch that show.

[bluelionman]

*MAFIOSA (2006–2014) - 5/10 (Worth Watching)

Seasons - 5 / Episodes - 40

*in French (with English subtitles)

Plot: By the will of her murdered uncle, the Corsican mafia boss François Paoli, the clan's lawyer, Sandra Paoli (Hélène Fillières), suddenly finds herself the head of the clan. Backed up by her brother, Jean-Michel Paoli, she learns how to assert herself in a very violent world and becomes a respected, but also hated, woman in a world of men, murder and criminality.

It's taken me a long time to finish this show - so long it was taken off of Walter Presents (All 4's foreign language World Drama area) that I had to get a friend to Torrent it for me with English subtitles to be able to finish it off (thanks Wayne). Forgive me for digressing there. So this French drama follows Sandra Paoli, a Corsican lawyer who finds herself appointed head of the Paoli crime family following the murder of her uncle. At first it isn't a position she really wants but quickly grows into it as she learns the ropes while the family is split between those who support her and those who believe her brother Jean-Michel should lead the family. It certainly isn't a safe job as she has run-ins with rival families, Corsican Nationalists, the police and even people she considers friends. As her position strengthens the body count rises, both among those close to her and her enemies.

This series for me did not have the same panache as Black Widow (Dutch series about a female drug dealer) or craft of The Sopranos (American mafia series) nor the edginess of Gomorrah (Italian mafia series) but nonetheless is still an enjoyable enough watch even more so if mafia crime drama is your thing. As the final episode approached I was unsure which, if any, of the main characters would survive. While some events were expected there were quite a few surprises and even a couple of NOOOOO moments when certain characters die. The Corsican setting is great; it is somewhere I haven't seen portrayed on TV before and it provided great scenery and a feeling of somewhere rather different to mainland France. The cast does a fine job; most notably Hélène Fillières, who plays Sandra; Thierry Neuvic, who plays Jean-Michel; Eric Fraticelli, who plays Sandra's associate Tony; Phareelle Onoyan, who plays her niece Carmen and Frédéric Graziani and Philippe Corti, who play Tony's friend Manu; the latter taking the role in the final season. Overall I'd certainly recommend this series to fans of the genre.

These comments are based on watching the series in French with English subtitles.

Trailer:

[bluelionman]

Why do bloody image addresses keep changing breaking the displaying of a picture - if only one could copy and paste an image on the FISO forum then it wont dissapear!

[unc.si.]

Lately watched:

Slow Horses (Apple) - 7/10

Just got through the 3 series of Slow Horses. One of my favourite tv shows of the last few years. Gary Oldman is magnificent as Jackson Lamb

[Dr. Giggles]

I'd reccommend The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. It does tend to go ...chat a little... fire some rockets... chat some more... fire some rockets... weird phenomena sighted... fire some rockets... drill a bit... fire some rockets... credits - and it's hard to tell how much is staged (some for sure), but I find it oddly compelling.

It has a sequel of sorts as well, entitled Beyond Skinwalker Ranch in which a lot fewer rockets are fired.

[Dr. Giggles]

Also meant to mention, there's an interesting show about Paranormal stuff fronted by a Welsh lass. So far she's done a haunted house and a UFO sighting.

It's a bit amateurish at times, but definitely has something about it.

[forestfan]

I'd reccommend The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. It does tend to go ...chat a little... fire some rockets... chat some more... fire some rockets... weird phenomena sighted... fire some rockets... drill a bit... fire some rockets... credits - and it's hard to tell how much is staged (some for sure), but I find it oddly compelling.

It has a sequel of sorts as well, entitled Beyond Skinwalker Ranch in which a lot fewer rockets are fired.

Owned by Luke Skinwalker?

[jacksosi]

On a good run for a change….

The Brawn F1 story, 4 episodes, 8/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22297946/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

What a little gem, a proper underdog story, & you don’t need to be into F1 to enjoy it. Amazing what they achieved with the odds against them.


Dark Matter, 10 episodes, 8/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19231492/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

A very bingeable sci-fi series


Slow Horses, 4 series, & yep you guessed it, 8/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5875444/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Excellent secret service series, would have scored even higher but in each series there was a least one jarring ‘they wouldn’t have done that!’ moment , but it’s still up there….

[happyhoppy]

The penguin 10/10. Not my genre generally but this is basically a gangster series set in Gotham. The story telling and acting is top notch. Binged it all in a few days.

[jacksosi]

The penguin 10/10. Not my genre generally but this is basically a gangster series set in Gotham. The story telling and acting is top notch. Binged it all in a few days.

Oh yeah, watched that too, v good 9/10

[happyhoppy]

I’ve started S3 of Slow Horses had a break after everything got wrapped up after S2. Gary Oldman is in indeed superb in this and really elevates it to another level. Without him I think it would be a 7/10 but thankfully he is so it’s a solid 8.

[Dr. Giggles]

Quite enjoying The Day of the Jackal, moreso than I'd expected. Can't stand the female lead (I felt the ruined the Bond movie she was in), but Eddie Redman is excellent as the slippery killer.

Should've been called The Days of the Jackal, though.

[Dr. Giggles]

Tried watching Dune: Prophecy - I'm a huge fan of both the Lynch and Villeneuve movies - but quit after an episode.

This might be more me, than it, though...

[happyhoppy]

Quite enjoying The Day of the Jackal, moreso than I'd expected. Can't stand the female lead (I felt the ruined the Bond movie she was in), but Eddie Redman is excellent as the slippery killer.

Should've been called The Days of the Jackal, though.

Totally this. The female lead is awful. But still watchable especially the killers Spanish wife . 7/10

[itslikebrandnew]

Best 3 tv series i've watched this year in no particular order..... Dark Horses, From and currently watching Silo which i've been looking forward to for ages.

[Guppings]

I'm assuming Yellowstone are on this thread somewhere

Been back on Paramount for few weeks, the plot certainly took a twist 1st episode

[hancockjr]

Watching Landman at the moment, I think same creator (writer?) as Yellowstone. It's good though somewhat demeaning on its portrayal of women. Luckily we counterbalance that with Lioness (series 2) which is excellent.

[Al Davis]

Quite enjoying The Day of the Jackal, moreso than I'd expected. Can't stand the female lead (I felt the ruined the Bond movie she was in), but Eddie Redman is excellent as the slippery killer.

Should've been called The Days of the Jackal, though.

Totally this. The female lead is awful. But still watchable especially the killers Spanish wife . 7/10

I do really completely agree with both of these posts.

I like the 9 episodes I have seen so far a lot and I'm really looking forward to the last one next week.

But as this post will probably be disapproved as well for whatever inexplicable reason the last one I posted saying this was, no one will ever know.