Here are some shows that I have watched on Netflix that I enjoyed and am happy to recommend to other people. I have attempted to make my comments as spoiler free as possible but still make them informative. I have included trailers for the shows, which will give you a sense of the look and feel of the show but might contain some spoilers. The trailers are all for season 1 of the show. They are in no particular order. There are many shows on Netflix that I want to explore but the ones below are those that I have watched. Other recommendations welcome in the comments.
Travellers
An excellent time travel show. Only three seasons but with a satisfying conclusion.
The Umbrella Academy
An interesting and quirky look at time travel and dystopia. I am looking forward to the next season
Sense8
Eight people across the world have a connection. Unusual Sci-Fi with a satisfying resolution. It has strong and positive LGBTIQ themes.
Series complete.
The Last Kingdom
Set at the same time as the show Vikings with English Kingdoms battling Viking invasions. I found it more interesting and satisfying than the Vikings TV show. So far with four seasons with I think more to come
Van Helsing
The Vampire apocalypse. Avoid if you don’t like horror shows, but this one has a very interesting story line and a satisfying resolution. Series complete
Shadow and Bone
Fantasy – chosen one / good vs evil, but done well.
Covers the first book in the series very well. The introduction of very interesting characters from the follow-up series “Six of Crows” was a masterstroke. I am looking forward to the next season.
Outlander
Time travel / historical drama, based on the best selling series by Diana Gabaldon.
So far 5 seasons. I am looking forward to season 6.
Anne with an E
An interesting adaption of Anne of Green Gables. I have one friend who hated it because she loved the book so much, but I enjoyed the show. Show completed with a satisfying conclusion
Gotham
Set in the Batman universe this tells the story of Commissioner Gordon from when he was a rookie detective. Back stories include Batman, The Penguin, Catwoman, The Riddler, The Joker, Bane, Poison Ivy and Scarecrow. Show completed satisfactorily with 100 episodes
Bridgerton
The loves, loves and rivalries of upper class families in Regency England (1813).
Looking forward to the second season.
The Cook of Castamar
Set in Spain in 1720 a story of family rivalries and politics but with the central theme of the relationship between the Duke and his cook.
A Spanish production. We watched it dubbed in English which was very well done, but there is the option to watch it in the original Spanish with English subtitles.
Series completed with a satisfying conclusion.
Longmire
A modern day police procedural set in contempory Wyoming, USA. Six satisfactorily completed seasons.
The Witcher
A fantasy series based on the stories by Andrzej Sapkowski. I really enjoyed the first season and am looking forward to season 2. Note there are multiple timelines in the story.
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
An excellent one off animated prequel to the Witcher.
Godless
Set in the American west. This is an excellent limited series with 7 episodes
Blindspot
A FBI crime show with an interesting twist. There are currently 5 seasons and we have watched the first two. We will continue on with series 3 soon.
Love, Death & Robots
A collection of animated short stories spans several genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror and comedy. I have watched the first four of the shows and will come back to it later. The animation is excellent.
Lucifer
Based on characters created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg, this is a redemption story for the original villain - the Devil. Six seasons with a satisfying conclusion.
Line of Duty
A great contemporary police drama with 5 seasons.
The Crown
A series following the life of Queen Elizabeth II. Excellent show currently with four seasons with season 5 coming next year.
Knightfall
An excellent series on the Knights Templar. Currently two seasons with no plans for a season 3.
Rake
This great Australian show is on Netflix if you haven’t already seen it on the ABC.
Peaky Blinders
A notorious crime gang in 1919 Birmingham UK. An excellent show but I find it hard to find anyone in this show to barrack for as there are so many villains.
Marcella
A contemporary British Police procedural, made interesting by the personal, psychological struggles of its main character. Complete after three series.
Jack Irish
A great contemporary Australian crime series. Netflix has two seasons of the TV show and three movies.
Babylon Berlin
A German series set in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. A great story and highly atmospheric, made doubly so because we know what is coming in 1933. The dubbing was excellent so we watched it that way. Currently three seasons. The German Production company is filming the fourth season, so hopefully that season will appear on Netflix next year.
The Alienist
A psychological thriller set in New York in the late 19th Century. Two seasons. A third season has not been confirmed but no announcement for cancellation.
Happy
“Nick Sax is a corrupt, intoxicated, ex-cop turned hit man who is adrift in a twilight world of casual murder, soulless sex, and betrayal.” It is dark, violent and with plenty of graphic language but there are wonderfully comic and uplifting elements as well. Nick ends up with the most interesting sidekick! Only two seasons unfortunately.
Altered Carbon
A great Cyberpunk detective show unfortunately cancelled after two seasons. The first series follows fairly closely the first book, but the second series is completely different. I am a sucker for Cyberpunk and if you are too then you will really enjoy this show. Warning it is quite violent.
Russian Doll
“Russian Doll” is spiky, funny, devastating, and downright bizarre. It follows simmering New York City misanthrope Nadia through the most horrific, life-changing, revelatory night of her life.
Sweet Tooth
“Sweet Tooth is part fantasy, part sci-fi, part whimsy, part cold-eyed realism and most points in between. It is either warmly eccentric or hysterically crazy, perfect entertainment or a horrifying attempt to parlay the pandemic into a commercially palatable mashup.” The Guardian.
But I liked it.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
“As a freewheeling comedy-thriller, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is agreeably daft entertainment even if it doesn't crib heavily from Douglas Adams' novels, serving as an incredibly loose adaptation. Quirky sci-fi comedy is fun but can be violent.”
I loved it. Unfortunately cancelled after two seasons.
Friday, October 8, 2021
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Cloud Atlas - the Book
Introduction
The author of Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell.
I first became aware of Mitchell in a YouTube interiew/conversation at this link.
Book Structure
During the interview Mitchell described whis writing style in the video excerpt below.
In the video Mitchell states that his natural style is as a novella writer. He assembles a group of novellas connected together by "footbridges and worm holes" so it looks like that he has "handed in a Sir Christopher Wren sized thing but it is actually just leggo blocks".
Cloud Atlas is written in this style. It consists of six nested stories (of novella length); each is read or observed by a main character of the next story, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each interrupted at a pivotal moment. After the sixth story, the others are resolved in reverse chronological order.
The diagram below graphically displays the structure of the novel. Source: https://albrooke.com/2016/01/19/cloud-atlas/
In the second story Robert Frobisher the musician is writing a musical composition - Cloud Atlas Sextet. His description of the structure of the piece is reminiscent of the structure of the book. His comment "Revolutionary of gimmicky" is maybe the author asking the same question about the book. “Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late.”
Here is the music from the film adaption. It is not like the description in the book but is still very pleasant to listen tol
Major Themes
Reincarnation of souls is an important theme in the book. Zachry, the protagonist in the sixth story, makes it an explicit claim and even uses the name of the book in his argument.
“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.”
Mitchell does guard the secular hypothesis when he has Meronym reply that she does not believe in souls.
Each of the main characters has a comet birth mark and Mitchell does think that this signifies reincarnation. Unfortunately two of the characters with this birth mark Luise Rey and Timothy Cavenish have overlapping lives. When asked about this Mitchell admits that it was a mistake but goes on to give a "rationalisation" which includes that "...things are more interesting when they are fuzzy and don't quite fit ..." which can work in a novel and goes on to describe such probolems using the wonderful phrase "portable textual temples of inexactitude" and "its kind of OK for novels to not make complete sense, this is ofcause a ratioisation but its kind of a true rationalisation as well."
See his full response to the issue in the video below:
Dystopia
Each of the main characters in the stories were trying to improve their world.
Adam Ewing decides to join the anti-slavery movement.
Robert Frobisher composes a musical masteriece.
Luisa Rey stops the construction of a dangeroug nuclear power station.
Timothy Cavendish writes a film script of his comic adventures. The film is produced as it is watched by Somni-451 in the next story.
Sonmi-451 publishes her declarations which are revered in by later generations.
Zachry assists Meronym and resists the temptation to attack her.
But the attempts by individuals to improve the workd are ineffective as the two stories in the future are very dystopic.
In An Orison of Sonmi~451 set in the year 2144, in a country called Nea So Copros: " ... a savage consumer-driven society gone amok. Each citizen has a spending quota; all-seeing eyes watch from the street corners; and each citizen has a "soul" or a computer chip implanted in his finger, without which travel and other basic freedoms are impossible. Several stratas of society exist, ranging from Xecutives (who appear to run Nea So Copros as part of the "Juche") to Fabricants, mass-produced slave clones treated as nothing more than property." Source of quote at this link
Somni described Nea So Copros as follows: "Nea So Copros is poisoning itself to death. Its soil is polluted, its rivers lifeless,its air tosloaded, its food supplies riddled with rogue genes. the downstrata can't buy the drugs necessary to couonter these privations. Melanoma and maleria belts advance northwards at forty kilometers per year." People escape the surrounding coutryside around NeoSeoul because of: ".. malaria, flooding, drought, rogue crop-genomes, parasites, encroaching deadlands...".
“I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.” "Human hunger birthed the Civ’lize, but human hunger killed it too." —Meronym
The author of Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell.
I first became aware of Mitchell in a YouTube interiew/conversation at this link.
Book Structure
During the interview Mitchell described whis writing style in the video excerpt below.
In the video Mitchell states that his natural style is as a novella writer. He assembles a group of novellas connected together by "footbridges and worm holes" so it looks like that he has "handed in a Sir Christopher Wren sized thing but it is actually just leggo blocks".
Cloud Atlas is written in this style. It consists of six nested stories (of novella length); each is read or observed by a main character of the next story, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each interrupted at a pivotal moment. After the sixth story, the others are resolved in reverse chronological order.
The diagram below graphically displays the structure of the novel. Source: https://albrooke.com/2016/01/19/cloud-atlas/
In the second story Robert Frobisher the musician is writing a musical composition - Cloud Atlas Sextet. His description of the structure of the piece is reminiscent of the structure of the book. His comment "Revolutionary of gimmicky" is maybe the author asking the same question about the book. “Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late.”
Here is the music from the film adaption. It is not like the description in the book but is still very pleasant to listen tol
Major Themes
Reincarnation of souls is an important theme in the book. Zachry, the protagonist in the sixth story, makes it an explicit claim and even uses the name of the book in his argument.
“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.”
Mitchell does guard the secular hypothesis when he has Meronym reply that she does not believe in souls.
Each of the main characters has a comet birth mark and Mitchell does think that this signifies reincarnation. Unfortunately two of the characters with this birth mark Luise Rey and Timothy Cavenish have overlapping lives. When asked about this Mitchell admits that it was a mistake but goes on to give a "rationalisation" which includes that "...things are more interesting when they are fuzzy and don't quite fit ..." which can work in a novel and goes on to describe such probolems using the wonderful phrase "portable textual temples of inexactitude" and "its kind of OK for novels to not make complete sense, this is ofcause a ratioisation but its kind of a true rationalisation as well."
See his full response to the issue in the video below:
Dystopia
Each of the main characters in the stories were trying to improve their world.
Adam Ewing decides to join the anti-slavery movement.
Robert Frobisher composes a musical masteriece.
Luisa Rey stops the construction of a dangeroug nuclear power station.
Timothy Cavendish writes a film script of his comic adventures. The film is produced as it is watched by Somni-451 in the next story.
Sonmi-451 publishes her declarations which are revered in by later generations.
Zachry assists Meronym and resists the temptation to attack her.
But the attempts by individuals to improve the workd are ineffective as the two stories in the future are very dystopic.
In An Orison of Sonmi~451 set in the year 2144, in a country called Nea So Copros: " ... a savage consumer-driven society gone amok. Each citizen has a spending quota; all-seeing eyes watch from the street corners; and each citizen has a "soul" or a computer chip implanted in his finger, without which travel and other basic freedoms are impossible. Several stratas of society exist, ranging from Xecutives (who appear to run Nea So Copros as part of the "Juche") to Fabricants, mass-produced slave clones treated as nothing more than property." Source of quote at this link
Somni described Nea So Copros as follows: "Nea So Copros is poisoning itself to death. Its soil is polluted, its rivers lifeless,its air tosloaded, its food supplies riddled with rogue genes. the downstrata can't buy the drugs necessary to couonter these privations. Melanoma and maleria belts advance northwards at forty kilometers per year." People escape the surrounding coutryside around NeoSeoul because of: ".. malaria, flooding, drought, rogue crop-genomes, parasites, encroaching deadlands...".
“I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.” "Human hunger birthed the Civ’lize, but human hunger killed it too." —Meronym
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)