I started Occupied. Three episodes in and I am enjoying it. Interesting theme…especially these crazy days. I am very happy to hear about season 4 of Catastrophe. Great show.
Based on recent rave reviews of Bodyguard, I ended up bingeing and loving it! Great lead actor and plot, kept me wanting more!
I LOVED the Bodyguard and really loved Keeley Hawes in it so I checked her out on IMBD and watched all 3 seasons (6 episodes each) of The Durrells in Corfu via Amazon Prime. I was so incredibly charmed by this great BBC show about a single mom in the UK i the 1930’s who packs up her four kids (ages ranging 19-10) and moves them all to Corfu. This show made me LOL frequently and it was so beautiful and heartwarming, too. Like so many BBC shows, it is so well done. Shot beautifully, amazing writing, perfectly cast actors and super performances. After the Bodyguard, which was so good and tense, it was such a treat to spend time with the Durrell family.
It’s based on a series of memoirs that are well-known in GB, kind of like Little House on the Prairie for the US. The series focuses more on the mother, which the writer-son kind of takes of granted.
Yep @MYOS1634 from what I’ve read, the books (they are a trilogy) are like our Catcher in the Rye for the UK. Must read books for UK folks. I def want to read them now! Especially since I’ll have a long wait for Season 4, which has been confirmed and is filming. Yay!!! While I LOVE some dark shows, funny and heartwarming are very much needed 
“are like our Catcher in the Rye for the UK.”
Catcher in the Rye is a story for disillusioned youth unhappy with society. I don’t think it is, from what I gather, anything at all like or appeal to the same demographic as the Durrell’s in Corfu story.
Totally agree with loving Keeley Hawes in The Bodyguard. I looked her up immediately, too. Also Sophie Rundle. The principal women were first rate. Actually, everyone was first rate. I expect to be noticing those actors for years.
Thanks for the Bodyguard recommendation. Binge watched it over the last few days. Thankfully there are only six episodes. It was driving me crazy where I had seen the actress who played Julia. Finally I looked her up and realized I had seen her in The Durrells In Corfu. I watched it when it first aired on PBS but never finished the whole series. While I enjoyed it, I lost interest after season one or two as the kids were so obnoxious and I couldn’t stand how she allowed them to walk all over her. I did absolutely adore the youngest son, Gerald, who IRL wrote the memoirs on which the series is based.
I discovered Keeley Hawes in Ashes to Ashes. Worth watching. It helps if you’ve seen Life on Mars, but if you haven’t, all you need to know is that she’s interviewed fellow officer Sam Tyler and knows that when he was in his coma, he experienced an alternate, 1970s police station where the DCI was a brusque man named Gene Hunt, and so for the first episodes she thinks the same thing’s happened to her (sorta, it’s different) and she can thus do whatever she wants since she’ll soon wake up, which makes for a funnier series than Life on Mars. Also, because she’s a woman, it makes for a better one in my opinion from a “time contrast” perspective.
Is it just me or does Keeley Hawes appear older than she actually is? I was surprised she is only in her early 40s. She seemed much older than Budd so part of the story line did not quite ring true for me. IRL, she is ten years older than Madden but to me, in both the Durrells and Bodyguard I would’ve said she was at least in her late 40s. Perhaps those characters she portrayed just seemed older to me in the way she dressed and her hairstyles.
@maya54
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/specialfeatures/6-reasons-you-have-to-watch-the-durrells-in-corfu/
“Naturalist Gerald Durrell’s charm-infused autobiographical account of his family’s years in Corfu, My Family and Other Animals, is basically the UK version of The Catcher in the Rye, in that every English person between the ages of 12 and 75 seems to have read it—and loved it.”
Whoever wrote that article seems confused. Catcher in the Rye is in no way charming and it’s not really “loved” by most young readers today. As the NYT reported “Teachers say young readers just don’t like Holden as much as they used to. What once seemed like courageous truth-telling now strikes many of them as “weird,” “whiny” and “immature.”Indeed Holden’s passivity is especially galling and perplexing to many present-day students,” “In general, they do not have much sympathy for alienated antiheroes”
Not just you @4kids4us I thought she was in her 50’s. At least as old as Robin Wright.
Great news if there’s more Catastrophe on the way! We just finished House of Cards and … eh. It wasn’t my favorite series end. I liked the end of The Americans better. Next we are starting Bosch, which seems good so far. But now I want to go look for The Durrells in Corfu.
The third season of The Durrells in Corfu is currently on Masterpiece on PBS Sunday nights. I was charmed by it from the first episode two years ago. I especially love Gerry and his menagerie. I tried to take My Family and Other Animals out of my large library system last year, and I think they only had one copy because I had it on hold for months before it was available.
For new Keeley Hawes fans, try out Upstairs Downstairs on Amazon Prime. Its the updated version - just two seasons starting in 2011 - I guess it had the misfortune of going up against Downton Abbey and it didn’t last. Keeley Hawes is great in it though.
Season 2 of House of Cards was hugely disappointing.
Season 2 of House of Cards was hugely disappointing.>>>>>>>>
If you think Season 2 is bad, just wait for 6. We were left going “Huh???”
Most of these long binge shows have a bad or slow or confusing season. Often followed by a good one, when they change writers. Honestly, sometimes Ifind myself more focused on Claire’s shoes than the dialogue.
I realized I didn’t finish 5, so am catching up before getting back to 6.
I’m halfway through season 6 right now but I don’t know why I keep watching. The writing is just terrible. This was such a great show in its first season. What a disappointment.