You should be watching

[sabotabby]

Things I don't want to talk about right now:
1. ISIS
2. Measles outbreaks and stupid anti-vaxxers and how I would like to shoot them in the head
3. Potential school closures/TDSB corruption

Things I do want to talk about:
1. How I find Yanis Varoufakis weirdly attractive
2. TV!

The first of those things is pretty well covered in one sentence, so let's talk about what you should be watching on TV.


Orphan Black
Have you not seen it? You need to fix that. Any description I give will fail to encompass why it's great; you just need to watch it. Season 3 premieres in April.


Peaky Blinders
This is the best thing on TV other than Orphan Black, and I probably like it just as much or even slightly more? It's on Netflix now so more of my friends have seen it, but as the percentage of my friends who haven't seen it is not yet at 100%, I must ensure that you at least know, so you can make your own choices.

Okay, imagine Boardwalk Empire but really, really good. Oh, you think Boardwalk Empire is already good? It is, but wouldn't it be better if it were set in Birmingham and there were more Marxists and the soundtrack was full of Nick Cave, Tom Waits, and PJ Harvey? And the lead was played by Cillian Murphy, with his dreamy eyes? If your answer to this is not "FUCK YES" I'm not sure I know you.

Oh, what's it about? A youth gang in the 1920s trying to go legit—kind of—while coping with PTSD left over from WWI. They fall afoul of one Winston Churchill, Minister of the Interior, as well as rival gangs and the IRA. Everyone wears excellent suits and/or dresses and the cinematography is gorgeous and gritty and the politics are spot-on.

Also did I mention that the theme song is "Red Right Hand"? Because the theme song is "Red Right Hand."


Strange Empire
You haven't heard of this, have you? I'm genuinely surprised it's not all over Tumblr, as (like Orphan Black) it's essentially a checklist of all the things we want to see in a TV show. It's CBC, so a little spotty in the pacing and plotting, but Our Heroines are a Métis gunslinging sheriff in a black duster and corset, a biracial former prostitute turned kept woman, and an autistic doctor, and I will forgive a lot for that. It's a revisionist Western in the tradition of Deadwood (alas, without my historical crush Al Swearengen and with substantially less use of the word "cocksucker") and most of the men in it are dead or useless, so it's Bechdel-win like you wouldn't believe. Also very pretty cinematography and scathing confrontation with Canada's racist heritage, particularly in regards to the treatment of indigenous and Chinese people. And Betty from Bomb Girls is in it.


The IT Crowd
I'm hopelessly late to the party on this one, but I only have a few episodes left and then there is no more series, and yet I wish I'd started watching it earlier in the year when a regular part of my job literally involved telling people to turn it off and then back on again. But I'm sure that will come in useful at some point later.


Agent Carter
There's no way you're not watching this. If you watch TV, you are watching this.

Comments

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
Is my most useful shibboleth.

[sabotabby]

I just used that on FB. Most people got it. Some people made genuine attempts to talk to me about sports.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Have you seen "Black Books" yet?

*googles*

[sabotabby]

Yes! But I'm going to re-watch it as it's been awhile since I've seen that or Father Ted.

[ironed_orchid]

Right, Peaky Blinders just went to the top of my queue. Your work is done.

[sabotabby]

You will love it. It is the Best. Thing.

[ironed_orchid]

Speaking of best things, you should see the new Ken Loach film, Jimmy's Hall. It's about a small bunch of communists in 1930s Ireland who have a community hall which the church wants to shut down.

[sabotabby]

Everyone except you is on notice—I had no idea there was a new Ken Loach film. I love Ken Loach.

[ironed_orchid]

It's the thing with films that mostly show at festivals, they get such weirdly staggered release dates.

[hano.livejournal.com]

I love the IT crowd. More accurately, I love Katherine Parkinson, the next Mrs Hano. (Although the current Mrs H might object...)
And seconding Black Books if you haven't seen it already

[sabotabby]

She would understand, I'm sure.

I've seen Black Books but it's actually next in my queue for a re-watch, as I don't think I've seen all of it.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Peaky Blinders most def. Set in Birmingham! My dad lives there, and I lived there for a year, so that's gotta be on the list.

I've seen the first few seasons of IT Crowd, generally watching it with my brother when I'm up in Scotland. Richard Ayoade is awesome of course. Sometimes slightly put off by the fairly heavy gender role stereotyping, but I guess this is still fairly normal in most shows.

I already have one Western, Hell on Wheels, but Strange Empire sounds better. Though HoW does have Chief O'Brien as Union Pacific robber baron Thomas 'Doc' Durant in its favour.

[sabotabby]

Peaky Blinders most def. Set in Birmingham! My dad lives there, and I lived there for a year, so that's gotta be on the list.

You would love it. You might cringe at the accents, I dunno, but it's worth it.

I've seen the first few seasons of IT Crowd, generally watching it with my brother when I'm up in Scotland. Richard Ayoade is awesome of course. Sometimes slightly put off by the fairly heavy gender role stereotyping, but I guess this is still fairly normal in most shows.

I am to some degree as well, but it gets better. I guess because I grew up watching American sitcoms where Jen would just be the hot fun-suck shrew as opposed to on British TV, where she gets as much humiliation as the guys. I'd have liked it better if the roles were gender-swapped but then I wouldn't be able to crush on Ayoade.

I've heard Hell on Wheels is good. No one told me Chief O'Brien is in it, though.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I fucking love Orphan Black. Can't wait for the new season, although I guess I'll be bittorrenting it because, um, reasons which I haven't posted about yet. The IT crowd is great apart from that one episode full of nasty transphobia. Respect to Graham Linehan though for talking it through with a trans friend of mine who explained how fucked up it was and why; I think they had a pretty good, productive conversation.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, the trans one—I sort of wish someone had told me so I could have skipped it (although it was also the one with the hilarious internet joke). It could have been genuinely funny, too, if they'd kept the punchline on the guy and not her.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

I was genuinely pretty angry by the end of it, I think it's the only time I've said to someone, 'Don't laugh at that, that's fucked up' and meant it.

Street Countdown, though. Oh my days,

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I need such help v much.

[sabotabby]

I'm here for you.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

Peaky Blinders is great. I binge-watched all two seasons last fall.

[sabotabby]

I figured you'd like it.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I love, love, love Agent Carter! It's my favourite TV discovery in recent times. Also quite like Orphan Black but find I am sometimes not up to watching it, because some days it's a little more intense than I want, but I do think it's awesome.

Strange Empire I have not seen yet, but it's been on my iTunes wish list for a while, because it looks great.

I have never heard of Peaky Blinders before, to the best of my recollection, but may have to check it out at some point. Though probably not right away, as I am barely keeping up on the very few shows I already watch.

[kryss-labryn.livejournal.com]

Agent Carter is fabulous and we watch it on my days off (although I still find I'm automatically adding "Stern" instead of "Stark" at the end every time someone mentions just "Howard;" I'm from the generation where if it was "Howard" it was "Howard Stern," I guess lol). We're a bit peeved at the Chief though for being so dumb about evidence. Don't know how caught up you are but the, uh, the one with the boat was particularly egregious with it.

Other than that it's awesome. :D

Hey, you seen Constantine yet? That's the other one we really like.

[sabotabby]

I thought the chief was supposed to be dumb.

I watched the first episode of Constantine and liked it, but I heard it got shitty and racist in later episodes, so I haven't seen the rest of it yet.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

I still need to watch Peaky Blinders and Strange Empire! Also, I'm going to start watching Agent Carter now :D :D

[sabotabby]

You do! Two warnings for Strange Empire:

1) It gets triggery as fuck towards the end. I mean, the whole thing is pretty dark but it takes a turn into the Very Fucking Dark.

2) It's now been cancelled, post-season finale, which means that it ends on a cliffhanger and you will NEVER KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.

But Agent Carter is just fabulous.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

It sucks that it's been cancelled! I'm used to not getting closure on my favourite TV shows, so it's ok.

I don't know what kind of triggers we're talking about here (could you mention the general triggers, maybe behind a spoiler tag or something for people who don't want to know?) but I hope they're not handled douchily?

[sabotabby]

Same. And it's generally without notice, too.

In terms of triggers:

Rapey rape rape. Almost every major female character, and the trans or genderqueer character (since it's an historical setting without the terminology, it's unclear as to how they identify) is threatened with rape at some point. In the case of the trans/genderqueer character, it is a particularly traumatic scene. Overall, I think it's important that they show what a bad place the frontier was for women and it's well-handled (in I think all cases, the victim is rescued from being raped by another woman and the rapist is brutally killed) but it gets somewhat gratuitous in the last few episodes.

Genocide, graphically depicted. I think this is a positive development for Canadian TV, as we tend to shy away from showing how indigenous people are/were treated, but it was still a horrible plotline to watch and there are no discretion cuts.

Domestic violence, again, incredibly extreme. A woman is beaten almost to death by her husband and it's graphic.

Transphobia: On the part of the characters, not the narrative; the trans character is one of the most solidly heroic and sympathetic people on the show, but still heartbreaking to watch.

Racism, more nuanced than the above. In the case of the transphobia and misogyny and genocide stuff, it's on the part of clearly evil characters and we are meant to sympathize with the victims. In one plotline, though, the Chinese characters are scab labour and the white striking miners are racist. It's a brilliantly written plot because our sympathies are on both sides, but yeah.

TL;DR: All of the triggery stuff is justifiable IMO but the problem with the brevity of the show is that it's a trauma conga line.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. So it's not really the writing itself that is all those things, right? I can handle watching a show that features those things for the most part if it's written in a way that is more about what it's like to be that character in that world/time period and the struggles they face, but it's different when it's the writing itself that is just gratuitous or ignorant or generally gross. Does that make sense?

[sabotabby]

Yeah, same. It's not meant to titillate as far as I can tell.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I hear this is quite good. We need more feminist period tee-vee, please. Mad Men is wrapping up.

[sabotabby]

I admit I've been avoiding it, partly because I thought it was a reality show at first, and partly because pregnancy and birth is a major squick for me. Let me know if it's any good.