Thing I Am Watching
Feb. 18th, 2024 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaSo Wife and I went looking for a show to watch together that isn't HGTV :whistles innocently:, and found The Brokenwood Mysteries - which is available streaming, but my local library has most of it on DVD, so we've been watching that way. And. Well. You know how publicists frequently love to describe TV series as 'exactly like OTHER SERIES (but different)'? The back cover copy on BROKENWOOD is 'Midsomer Murders combined with Columbo, set in New Zealand.' The lovely part is they aren't lying.
The framework of the series is episodic - you can (and I have!) watch an episode from the third season, followed by an episode from the sixth season, with almost no confusion. Not that there's no connection from episode to episode, and there's absolutely bits that make more sense if you've watched in chronological order, but you don't have to have watched all previous episodes to understand what's going on. If you're the sort of person who wants an Overarching Story, well, there's tiny bits of that? But mostly it's just Here's A Murder, and How They Solve It. Which is absolutely Midsomer Murders to a T.
Where does Columbo come in? Well, the main character is a middle-aged cop who refuses to take the easy accusation and always has 'just one more question.' Also he drives around in a classic car and loves country music, as in home-grown New Zealand country music, which is not a sub-genre I previously knew existed - but I also am Not An Expert in country music as a genre. He does not, sadly, have a dog.
(The one sad part: it's not nearly as LOOK ISN'T NEW ZEALAND PRETTY as I could wish, but that's just me wanting to go visit New Zealand. Ah well.)
I have a very long list of Series I'm Totally Going To Try At Some Point, or Series I'm Going To Finish I Swear (OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH being an example of the former and THE SANDMAN being an example of the latter). But sometimes, you just want a series that demands nothing from you - a series where the good end happily and the bad unhappily ("because that is what fiction means" - 10 points if you recognize the quotation). And this series fills that desire for me. 10/10, do recommend.
The framework of the series is episodic - you can (and I have!) watch an episode from the third season, followed by an episode from the sixth season, with almost no confusion. Not that there's no connection from episode to episode, and there's absolutely bits that make more sense if you've watched in chronological order, but you don't have to have watched all previous episodes to understand what's going on. If you're the sort of person who wants an Overarching Story, well, there's tiny bits of that? But mostly it's just Here's A Murder, and How They Solve It. Which is absolutely Midsomer Murders to a T.
Where does Columbo come in? Well, the main character is a middle-aged cop who refuses to take the easy accusation and always has 'just one more question.' Also he drives around in a classic car and loves country music, as in home-grown New Zealand country music, which is not a sub-genre I previously knew existed - but I also am Not An Expert in country music as a genre. He does not, sadly, have a dog.
(The one sad part: it's not nearly as LOOK ISN'T NEW ZEALAND PRETTY as I could wish, but that's just me wanting to go visit New Zealand. Ah well.)
I have a very long list of Series I'm Totally Going To Try At Some Point, or Series I'm Going To Finish I Swear (OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH being an example of the former and THE SANDMAN being an example of the latter). But sometimes, you just want a series that demands nothing from you - a series where the good end happily and the bad unhappily ("because that is what fiction means" - 10 points if you recognize the quotation). And this series fills that desire for me. 10/10, do recommend.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-02-19 08:21 pm (UTC)Sounds like either Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain...
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-03 10:54 pm (UTC)