I watch the Americans but have to admit I’m a little confused. I usually try to watch the last season to review before the new one but I didn’t realize it was coming on this season.
@mathmom: I loved Person of interest. And while it was a lightly scifi program, it turned out rather prescient, more science than fiction for it’s AI elements. When I read how China is using facial recognition software (exactly like The Machine did, but for a police state’s purpose) it’sends chills down my spine. For anyone who enjoys suspense, there’s a weekly mystery, and if you know nothing about AI you won’t realize you’re learning tons of stuff while you watch.
“No question Stranger Things was a boy oriented show, but Max and Eleven aren’t just namby pamby girls most of the time and the Moms are interesting and well-rounded. I think it does pretty well on the Bechtel test.”
I think it fails pretty miserably. Max and Eleven’s interactions fail. The Moms don’t talk to each other really. There is that one capsule episode that sort of passes but in our main story nope. I really hope they fix this next season.
I enjoyed the one season of The Great Interior Design Challenge. A group of 4 amateur British designers are given 3 days and £1,000 to redesign the same type of room at 4 different homes in same neighborhood. One gets knocked out until one is left and they go head to head with the winner of the next group of 4 designers. The fun part is seeing all the different towns and villages around England. My favorite was when they were in Bath. Now I want to go visit!
Another Americans fan here! I can’t wait to see how it all plays out. I’m so sad it’s ending. @CALSmom , is that on netflix?
@conmama yes, Netflix!
NPR 1A did a fun segment on ‘The Americans’ yesterday:
https://the1a.org/shows/2018-04-24/stranger-than-fiction-reality-catches-up-to-the-americans
Finished the last season of The Killing. Great show. I highly recommend it. (Not sure what I thought about the very last episode–still mulling it over.) Does any have a recommendation foran other Netflix series that’s similar to this one?
A Handmaids Tale is back. I plan to binge it when i can this week (I have Hulu).
Anyone watch Borderliner? Norwegian. Of all my Euro and Nordic Noir, don’t think I’ve hit Norway. (Or am I forgetting?)
Apparently two episodes of A Handmaid’s Tale will be available today, and then one episode every Wednesday. So no binge watching…
I believe I was the one who raised the question of Stranger Things and the Bechdel test – named for its creator, Alison Bechdel, a cartoonist and author of Fun Home, among others, not Bechtel the engineering firm / defense contractor.
I love Stranger Things, but @mathmom is wrong. Except for the one episode in Season 2 where Eleven goes to Chicago and meets Eight, it’s very hard to find an episode that passes the test.
Is there more than one female character whose name you remember? Unquestionably yes. At a bare minimum, Eleven, Nancy, Barb, Joyce, Max.
Do they ever talk with one another? Ummm, not very much, except for Nancy and Barb. In all of Season 2, I think Eleven and Max exchanged at most two sentences. Nancy and Joyce may have shot some stray words in Eleven’s direction at the end of Season 1, but I don’t remember Eleven saying anything back. The mothers (whose names I don’t remember, except for Joyce) are never show talking directly on one another, although they occasionally talk on the phone.
About something other than men? Nope, not much. Barb and Nancy only talked about who liked Nancy and what Nancy was going to do about it, and would Barb come with her. Whatever communication Max and Eleven had, it was only about Mike. The moms talk about their (male) kids. Even the few sentences that passed between Nancy and the admin at the Police Department were about Nancy’s relationship with Jonathan
If you desperately want to claim that Stranger Things actually passes the Bechdel test, other than just the one episode, you have to resort to the brief interactions between Joyce and Eleven’s aunt (sorry, can’t remember her name), or the unspoken communication between Eleven and her mother (which is really part of the one test-passing episode anyway, although I think it happens at the end of the previous episode)…
Pretty paltry for a show that has accumulated 13+ hours of running time and does, indeed, have strong, central female characters. The thing is, the strong, central female characters are 100% boy-oriented. They only talk to, and hang out with, and care about, boys. (That goes double or triple for Joyce.) I attribute that to the show being the artistic creation of two barely-legal ex-boys. It’s not that they don’t pay attention to women and respect them. They clearly do. But they see women in relation to themselves, not to each other.
What’s funny is that someone went to great lengths to publicize the BFF friendship that supposedly arose between Millie Bobby Brown and Sadie Sink. They knew the prospect of the girls sharing screen time, and having their own relationship to counterbalance the tightness of the boys, would energize viewers and entice them to the show. Which then didn’t deliver on that at all. Brown and Sink spent considerably more time posing for publicity photographs together than they spent acting together.
@lookingforward Borderliner sounds like my next series! Have you watched Bordertown yet? It’s Finnish on Netflix.
JHS, I’m going to have to concede the point. I was forgetting all the Bechdel rules. I was remembering reasonably complex women characters, especially the two girls, but it’s true they rarely talk to each other. They’ll just have to do another season and fix it! 
@twoinanddone we found The Americans when it was on for two years, we caught up by renting at the library and now we’re watching once a week in the final season. Great show and cast but I feel like I miss details. Last year I found a site that summarizes episodes. Vulture.com, it’s a great help! I read the summary after th episode. Another one of our favorites is Billions on Showtime and one of the actors was Pastor Tim, very different characters.
I just binge watched The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. Only 6 episodes but I really really liked it. It’s an amazon prime original
I’m going to start watching The Let Down on Netflix as soon as I’m done watching what I have on DVR from when I was away. We are not going out tonight do planning on getting through most tonight.
The Get Down @emilybee ?
No, The Let Down.
@amom2girls Liking Bordertown. I think I’ve gotten a few super suggestions from you, thsnks!