Masterpiece Theater

[Greg]

I hope they mentioned Black Scorpions coming this spring from Casemate!

[Drunk Monk]

Annika 
Premiere ep. 
The lead from Unforgotten (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...9#pid48719) plays a single mom DI in Glasgow with a new team and an angsty teen daughter. HP 1 Cho Chang. 
Annika breaks the 4th wall with sardonic comments, which work mostly on her power as an actress. There’s a sense of black humor, gallows humor, because like so many Masterpiece Theaters, it’s murder. 
Enjoyable. Didn’t solve the crime but I wasn’t working at it, just enjoying the lovely setting and accents. I’ll probably watch more.

[Drunk Monk]

Magpie Murders e2: This show is getting fun with its wry parody of the murder mystery genre whilst being yet another murder mystery. 

The two storylines - that of the final mystery novel with the missing chapter and that of the dead writer of said novel - bleed into each other with quick dynamic changes as all the actors take on dual roles. It’s quite amusing, almost meta.

And this ep opens with a sword decapitation. Yay swords! That leads to a funny cadaver outline where the head was its own separate oval. 

There’s also good parody in the flashbacks of the writer writing - most of which is cliched murder mystery drivel that he tosses away with a wince - not sure why that amuses me so. Maybe it just strikes me as an amusing, yet hackneyed, depiction of the writing process. It’s also kinda meta because the dual mysteries are riddled with hackneyed cliches, and that makes it work.

One of the dual roles had me completely duped. I was like ‘where’s the editor in the novel mystery?’ to which Stacy pointed out the obvious (it’s the wife) duh

Still enjoying this.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlet e2 a middling caper involving a stolen butterfly drawing by Darwin. I should’ve solved this and I had an inkling but I wasn’t quite paying attention. The new assistants to Scarlet & the Duke are amusing. There’s an opium den scene. The female empowerment themes are heavy handed but so much to make this unwatchable. It has a sense of humor about itself - that and the charisma to the two leads carry it.

Annika e2 this is quickly becoming my fav masterpiece. It’s black gallows humor is quick, snarky fun. Nicola nails Annika, and her new tribulations with her daughter’s drinking were quite entertaining. The team has great chemistry, and Cho is killing it in this role. This ep had a Viking theme - it was so much about Valkyrie. And I nearly solved it except that they threw in a new character towards the end who was the murdered (I was fingering the person she lived with - close enough). 

I confess I had to turn on the captions because the accents were to challenging. But I do love the accents. That’s my favorite part, that and the scenery.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlet - Didn’t see the beginning of this ep so didn’t quite know what was going on. Still was amused.

Magpie Murder - this show continues to develop in complexity as the two storylines intertwine leaving us with two murders to solve - the book and the author - but now that the pacing and back and forth between story arcs is clear, it’s much easier to follow.

Annika - by far my fav of the current threesome. The cast has great chemistry and the gallows humor is deliciously deadpan. I confess I need the subtitles on to get through the Scottish accents sometimes.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlet - I was into the ep (a rival detective with a sniffly stache into blackmail) but I fell asleep. Two nights of edm on top of the time change will do that to me know. I’m bailing - I should crash soon. Tomorrow is yet another trip to SF.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlet rewind - I still didn’t quite get it. I stayed awake and rewound to where I thought I fell asleep but I got distracted by my liephone and sorta missed the solve. Meh, I don’t really care. I’m only moderately into this show because I like the two main characters. Moving on.

Magpie - a big twist reveal, a few actually. I still can’t finger a suspect in either murder. There are a fair amount of characters and with everyone playing dual roles that are parallel, there’s so much room for red herrings. It’s still entertaining in its story and style. I like the cast. 

Annika - solved as soon as the murderer was introduced. That one was obvs. What I’m enjoying most about this is it’s humor. The squad makes these hilarious offhand comments with a dry Irish wit, often at the outro of a scene. Also, Annika and her daughter start some relationships that they hide from each other, which is humorous in a dysfunctional way. There’s also a lot of random trivia dispensed throughout - odd facts about bridges in this ep. Not sure if they’re true but they are entertaining.

[Drunk Monk]

Magpie - I think this was the penultimate ep and all will be revealed next week. There's a good twist with the editor's lover, the Greek teacher hoping to go back to Greece and open a hotel. I'm beginning to think that this murder may have been a complex suicide. Meanwhile, in the 'book with no final chapter' the stolen artifacts are found in the lake. Pund knows, or at least he claims to know, who the murderer is. 

I am ready for the reveal. This has been too convuluted to track and I'm not confident that we've been given all the clues...

[Drunk Monk]

Aw man. It looks like all three of my current Masterpiece shows will end next week. They're all sixers and this is week 5.

Miss Scarlet - It's a story about a murder mystery writer and some murders that are pulled from his stories. Kinda Magpie. But then this show is kinda Enola Holmes. Or maybe it's the other way around because the fictional detective in Magpie is in Enola. Man, so confusing. These Brit actors all look alike. I solved the murder right away, as soon as that character was introduced. It was obvs. 

Annika - Still my fav of this run. The black humor is spot on and Scotland looks lush and wet. The cast has great chemistry and the awkward moments from their real lives interfering with their case work are gold. This one was themed on Agamemnon. I was suspicious of the murderer but fell for a red herring. There was a funny dude on shrooms. Well, kinda funny. Coulda been funnier.

[Drunk Monk]

Magpie finale - Stacy got the murderer in the 'real' world. She actually called it out a few eps ago. Neither of us guessed the fiction murderer. All in all, a nicely woven murder mystery that bordered on self parody of the genre, and still managed to work well. I doubt there will be a season 2 because it's based on a book that took the author 5 years to write, and it concludes with closure on all the characters. 

Miss Scarlet S2 finale - It ended happily. The major story arcs all came to satisfying conclusions. No cliffhanger. Things are reset to the way they were at the start of the season with only minor changes. Still an amusing show, but not astoundingly so, almost like a comfort masterpiece theater show (All Creatures is the indulgent comfort MT show).

[Drunk Monk]

Annika s1 finale - a well paced ep involving the 2nd in command’s brother being a suspect and some genuinely tense moments. A lot comes together for the team. And what a bomb is dropped in the last line. Good finish. Stuck the landing. Thoroughly enjoyed this show and D00M rec it for anyone into Scotland police procedurals. I’m down for s2.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlett & the Duke s3e1: This one had a novel twist involving a magician’s trick as well as the first Asian I can remember in the show, a magician’s assistant (minor red herring role). They all began getting their mugshots taken (explaining the opening credit flash) but I don’t remember how they got there. It wasn’t that relevant anyway.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlett s3e2: a peak into Eliza’s past as she suspects a childhood rival. It reveals more about her relationship with her housekeeper, and her vulnerability shows. 

E3: a very different ep. She’s in France without the Duke. Instead her male foil is her detective agent rival. They are both pursuing the same con man, and in a Christie-like style, they are trapped in a snowbound hotel with many suspects and a lot of intrigue. Despite its numerous red herrings, I solved it more or less. I miss the Duke though.

[Drunk Monk]

Miss Scarlet s3 done
E4: another without the Duke until the very end setting up the rivalry with Arabella. Fitzroy begins to shine and there’s a nice twist on greek monsters and dirty cops. 
E5: the jealousy ep and a twisty heir. A fair ep that budged the overarching story just enough. 
E6: season finale - bomb threats force Eliza, William, Moses and Nash to work together outside the law. Arabella is resolved but we knew it was going that way. An unexpected cliffhanger for next season with the potential exit of Moses & Nash, both would be missed.

There’s a tab for s4 on IMDb, but wiki claims that there are only 2 seasons (s3 doesn’t drop until next year but we have passport so we watched it early). 

Kate Phillips (Eliza) has a set of facial expressions that she relies on that all hinges on her amazing smile. The Duke continues to remind me of my friend and accomplice Chris but it’s not something I could explain to him or anyone else for that matter. Moses Jamaican accent continues to amuse me - not sure it’s genuine - it’s almost too clear to be real. 

Still finding this as a good comfort watch. Not D00M recommended though because it’s too masterpiece as is now. Nevertheless I’m down for s4.

[Drunk Monk]

All Creatures Great and Small
S3e1
The long awaited marriage of James & Helen goes through the stereotypical hiccups - the wild bachelor party, the misplaced ring, the rush to make it to the altar in time. And the war is looking. I just enjoy the pastoral scenery.