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November TV shows
Nov. 30th, 2022 07:20 pmThis month has been a bumper one for TV viewing, with some really excellent shows in a variety of genres. And, given the shows I've got on the go currently, this looks set to continue in December. The shows we finished this month are as follows:
Trøm, a Scandi noir set in the Faroe islands, partially in Faroese. The mystery centres on the murder of a young anti-whaling activist, and draws heavily on local tensions between industry and activists, as well as on tensions within and between various families. It's a pretty conventional crime drama, and the characters verge on stock characters — the appeal here is the setting and the language, rather than anything groundbreaking in terms of the story.
Industry, a drama which Matthias describes as a blend between Skins and Billions: beautiful young people doing terrible things as they attempt to succeed in London's financial services industry. There's constant backstabbing and double crossing, everyone uses each other, and everyone handles eye-watering amounts of money while slowly dying inside. This is not a show to watch if you want a story about good and kind-hearted people.
Babylon Berlin, the fourth season of an amazing German noir show set in the dying years of the Weimar Republic. This is at this point a candidate for my show of the year, and I was so impressed by the latest season that I wrote a longer review over at![[wordpress.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/1225b00cee13/-/s.wordpress.org/about/images/wpmini-blue.png)
dolorosa12, my longform reviews blog.
Trainwreck, a three-part documentary on the ill-fated Woodstock '99 festival. I was dimly aware of the existence of the festival after the fact, but although I was a teenager in 1999, I had no idea of its existence at the time it was happening. The story of the festival is a familiar mixture of ineptitude, hubris, arrogance, and sheer destructive selfishness and — much like Dashcon or Fyre Festival — the sort of slow-motion car crash you watch in horror from between your fingers.
Andor, the latest Disney+ Star Wars show, impressed me immensely. It's an impeccably cast, impeccably shot, impeccably written blend of spy thriller and political drama — the story of how small actions of individuals and groups can both inadvertently and deliberately create an anti-fascist resistance movement, while at the same time showing how slowly and easily authoritarian oppression can take hold and worm its way into everything until the point that it's impossible to stop without violent, organised resistance. I thought it was fantastic.
The English is a western set in the late 19th century, in which an English woman mourning the death of her son and a Native tracker finished with an adult lifetime spent as a tracker for the US army join forces on their respective revenge quests, which end up being interwoven. What it reminded me most of was, weirdly, medieval chivalric literature, especially Malory — the characters wander through landscapes charged with meaning, encountering a variety of strange figures (many of whom pop in and out of the story) who require their help, or bring violence to them. The show was gorgeous to look at, made some clever points (mainly — as is to be expected — about colonisation), and had a deep sense of grief and melancholy.
And those are the shows I've completed this month.
Trøm, a Scandi noir set in the Faroe islands, partially in Faroese. The mystery centres on the murder of a young anti-whaling activist, and draws heavily on local tensions between industry and activists, as well as on tensions within and between various families. It's a pretty conventional crime drama, and the characters verge on stock characters — the appeal here is the setting and the language, rather than anything groundbreaking in terms of the story.
Industry, a drama which Matthias describes as a blend between Skins and Billions: beautiful young people doing terrible things as they attempt to succeed in London's financial services industry. There's constant backstabbing and double crossing, everyone uses each other, and everyone handles eye-watering amounts of money while slowly dying inside. This is not a show to watch if you want a story about good and kind-hearted people.
Babylon Berlin, the fourth season of an amazing German noir show set in the dying years of the Weimar Republic. This is at this point a candidate for my show of the year, and I was so impressed by the latest season that I wrote a longer review over at
dolorosa12, my longform reviews blog.Trainwreck, a three-part documentary on the ill-fated Woodstock '99 festival. I was dimly aware of the existence of the festival after the fact, but although I was a teenager in 1999, I had no idea of its existence at the time it was happening. The story of the festival is a familiar mixture of ineptitude, hubris, arrogance, and sheer destructive selfishness and — much like Dashcon or Fyre Festival — the sort of slow-motion car crash you watch in horror from between your fingers.
Andor, the latest Disney+ Star Wars show, impressed me immensely. It's an impeccably cast, impeccably shot, impeccably written blend of spy thriller and political drama — the story of how small actions of individuals and groups can both inadvertently and deliberately create an anti-fascist resistance movement, while at the same time showing how slowly and easily authoritarian oppression can take hold and worm its way into everything until the point that it's impossible to stop without violent, organised resistance. I thought it was fantastic.
The English is a western set in the late 19th century, in which an English woman mourning the death of her son and a Native tracker finished with an adult lifetime spent as a tracker for the US army join forces on their respective revenge quests, which end up being interwoven. What it reminded me most of was, weirdly, medieval chivalric literature, especially Malory — the characters wander through landscapes charged with meaning, encountering a variety of strange figures (many of whom pop in and out of the story) who require their help, or bring violence to them. The show was gorgeous to look at, made some clever points (mainly — as is to be expected — about colonisation), and had a deep sense of grief and melancholy.
And those are the shows I've completed this month.