u/Watchhistory

Myself, I call Episode 8 the most outright bonkers of them all! I'd forgotten about this one all together, like it seems I've forgotten everything else despite watching it all before -- other than the cray-crays, which are the only parts of this series this viewer positively dislikes because They Always Come Back. Even if it take years, they come back! Argggggghhhhhhh! The horror! The horror!

I'm not joking concerning the horror.

However, back to New South Mimico -- it was shot almost entirely outdoors in the beautiful grounds of somewhere, in the flaming glory of autumn leaves. It's breathtaking to look at. Particularly now, when almost everything coming into our screens is so flat, dark, monochromatic, plain.

This show is brilliant. I know I said that before.

I really see it though, having this incredible opportunity to watch it all from start to finish, each episode back to back.

In my summer's rewatch from the movies through the entire series, last night I concluded Season 13.

For many of our characters, Season 13 brought back figures and events in their pasts, usually in manners that are not only painful, but dangerous. Perhaps, as a consequence then, It also features many of the characters 'letting things go,' forgiving, via compassion and empathy, providing understanding.

What are let go range from professional errors and mistakes, to personal matters such as hiding information of one's past from one's partners, to potential and real betrayals, as well as legal matters, such as viewing homosexuality, which was a crime at this time, as nobody's business.

There was another crime that got swept under the rug, due to moral and humanity considerations, which is perhaps the most surprising, considering both Murdoch's and Dr. Ogden's suspicions, >!involving Violet Hart's killing of a man who was blackmailing her for her past, trying to force her into giving him substances such as cocaine she uses in the morgue lab, and then attacking her when she refuses. !<>!Brackenreid, with the agreement of Murdoch, decide to let it go and give her another chance. One wonders indeed, if Brackenreid's mixed race daughter helped him along that path with Violent Hart.!<

Beginning season 14 tonight

So much is going on, starting with >!Brackenried's daughter creating a bridge with Margaret!<, whew!

Followed by some solid evidence >!Violet Hart is not exactly as what she appears to be, suspicions of which we've begun sharing with Murdoch and Ogden!< ever since she first appeared in Season 11, episode 3. >!Still, we have no idea why she's being shady, or what her objectives are, beyond, her telling another character that she want to be control. We thought first she wanted both William Murdoch and the morgue for herself, but she's got the morgue and she, like we, can see Murdoch's not going there. !< She's thinking bigger than the morgue, right?

Character continuity conytinues in Ep 14, "Rigid Silence"with Chief Constable Giles,>!still in prison (recall his interactions with Crabtree while he was serving his sentence!<).

Last night my rewatch arrived at Ep.15, airing February 10th, 2020. "The Trial of Terrance Meyers." is the 13th appearance of Meyers on MM. The US state department fanatic, Clegg, returns as well, continuing his schemes for the US to take over Canada. And like so many of the supervillains of MM, >!he's supposedly DEAD. How is this possible?!< :)

I am looking forward particularly to viewing how scenes in season 14 are shot, since March 2020 marks the recognition of global covid pandemic. So many challenges for the writes, the crew and the actors. For one thing, though due to chronology covid wasn't a consideration yet, when "The Trial of Terrance Meyers" was produced, it shows one thing that can be done. They used a format of many cuts from the previous 12 episodes in which Meyers featured, plus the court-like, enclosed set, little action, so the actors were few, didn't need much interaction.

What a brilliant show.

This is a new addition to PBS Passport Walter Presents. I began watching last night. Shot in/around La Grande-Motte,a commune in the Hérault département in Occitanie in southern France, near Montpellier, on the Mediterranean. I am certainly here for the location. This is the same location as another French police series, Candace Renoir, who moves to the city Montpellier at some point. Great location.

The characters are good to look at -- no insta faces here, so they are all individuals. So far the crimes are interesting, but nothing is too deep or gruesome. Excellent escapist crime entertainment in a gorgeous location, with a good cast of regulars. Montpellier is home to astonishing buildings -- it also is home to one of the oldest universities with a school of medicine in the world.

Like the older Candace Renoir, Coastal Unit is in French with English subtitles. In everyday French, À priori,means "at first glance", "presumably", or a personal bias/preconception.

In other regions such as Greece and Moldava, it is a white wine, it's a red one in California. But evidently the drink of choice in the local cop shop of the show is Pastis,

>

This is a new addition to PBS Passport Walter Presents. I began watching last night. Shot in/around La Grande-Motte,a commune in the Hérault département in Occitanie in southern France, near Montpellier, on the Mediterranean. I am certainly here for the location. This is the same location as another French police series, Candace Renoir, who moves to the city Montpellier at some point. Great location.

The characters are good to look at -- no insta faces here, so they are all individuals. So far the crimes are interesting, but nothing is too deep or gruesome. Excellent escapist crime entertainment in a gorgeous location, with a good cast of regulars. Monpellier is home to astonishing buildings -- it also is home to one of the oldest universities with a school of medicine in the world.

Like the older Candace Renoir, Coastal Unit is in French with English subtitles. In everyday French, À priori,means "at first glance", "presumably", or a personal bias/preconception.

In other regions such as Greece and Moldava, it is a white wine, it's a red one in California. But evidently the drink of choice in the local cop shop of the show is Pastis,

>"... a spirit and apéritif traditionally from France, typically containing less than 100 g/L sugar and 40–45% ABV..."

https://preview.redd.it/kqyjftb3m1hh1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=3fef580e38c9b87e28f7c515a9cf1fe583d12c5a

This series went up March, 2025, but I bumped into it only last night.

What was I doing back then? Hmmmm. Thiefinchief just got sworn in, making this series feel really not the thing, I am guessing. And now, well, with the entire complex turned into a junkyard trailer park, and we've gotten hardened to insanity, maybe now now now. I dunno.

The series possesses very high, expensive production values and cast. Al Franken plays a senate hearings chairman that is investigating the murder investigation! All the more something we couldn't harden our inauguration feelings into suspension of disbelief in March 2025?-K

The Residence is a Benoit Blanc-Knives Out type murder mystery comedy set in the White House in a nebulous era, political parties are never invoked, much less by label. Shondaland production, she can't quite quit Scandal, can she?

Who is writing, who can write the Murdoch-Ogden Police Detection Handbook, runs throughout these episodes. This arc* provides the lighter material alongside the murders that take place. However the murders and the quest to provide the proper and correct Police Detection Handbook are connected in terms of, well, who is providing the story. Everybody is writing a book, telling a story, >!including o yes! Ruth Newsome! A book Ruth of course has forgotten she wrote, just as she forgot the pen name under which it was published, but!< a book Julian and the doctors have all read when younger - it is a hot read!

Murdoch is impossible as a writer. He has no sense of structure and pacing, or how to make his innovations readable. Julia takes hints from >!Ruth!<, >!then turns the work over to George Crabtree, who of course, is the expert published writer. One does wonder though, just how expert he could be with a single sensationalist book to his name. But he does give really good advice. His ability to give good writing advice has advanced greatly since his novel, but he hasn't written anything else since. Which is the case with many who have written a first book... they just don't ever get around to writing another one.!<

Then there is the writer who is a journalist, Louise Newsome. And she, like George, are killer typists. That electric typewriter prototypes are now being developed, so many decry the degradation of the art of writing -- it makes it too easy! Just as other journalists decry the sort of journalism that Louise Newsome performs as degrading the great profession of journalism.

Then comes the eternal question and controversy that is still comes up in our times: "How much credit should the ghostwriter and the line editors receive for a published work? Should their names be included as authors?

The writers of Murdoch Mysteries have surely over the years the series has been running discussed all these matters frequently and in depth -- including, of course the perennial issue that every writer ends up having to deal with which is the readers demanding to take over the work they have created. In this case it is the show's writers who are lambasted, scolded and told what they should write instead of what they have written, right down to being told characters shouldn't exist, should be different, should be killed, etc. This by the way by viewers who have never written anything themselves. And yes, Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Watson are invoked in the course of the arc.

So 'writing' is the arc of a series of episodes of Murdoch Mysteries in season 12. It's concluding screen shows us George Crabtree at a typewriter, typing out a title which is ... >!Murdoch Mysteries.!<

Of course. I love this arc so much. This conclusion is in form and mode so what the Murdoch Mysteries writers do! Which has helped keep this series running so successfully for so long. They never just leave things sitting, just be, or unchanged, they freshen things up.

* To be clear, "arch" is an engineering structural element employed in building material edifices, from gates to roofs to bridges. An arch is a curve that spans empty space while being supremely load bearing.

In storytelling, the correct term is narrative "arc." This a construction throughout the time and space that a thematic line, a storytelling line exists within a plot. A storytelling arc can run across not only several episodes but continue as characters move into new plots in successive works.

In

The 1984 Woman of Substance has been put up, it looks like, on Britbox today, along with the new one.

I haven't watched either one, and probably won't. But recalling that viewers have posted how much they like the 1984 version, thought I would pass the information along.

There are 3 episodes of the 1984 adaptation. I have no idea if that is the number of episodes or there are more. But probably, as each episode is marked as being 97 minutes.

It was, of course, a Halloween Special, so I say "silliest" with the best intentions!

>

>>!William and Julia take a scientific interest in a phenomenal occurrence of meteorites around Toronto, while the the cops worry about strange reports and even weirder absence of reported mischief of crime. Crabtree assists Murdoch examining a caldera (impact crate in a barn) were arthropods emerge. Crabtree worries ever more as both strangers and people he knows start behaving strange, absentminded, distant, obsessed with some strange plants with edible leaves and alleged orange pekoe tea. Crabtree sadly finds increasing evidence from his spontaneous alien theory, observing affected people congregating and communicating in a click and finger snapping code. Yet despite discovering alcohol acts as antidote and tricking a few into a cell, he's no match for the Murdochs, after Julia shot William only to be infected as he rose!<

It was as well a fun turn around for Crabtree's character! being the first and final resistance.

I literally laffed out loud at the very last scene with all our dear friends clicking and snapping away with mouth and hands, and trying so hard not to crack up on camera, and, um, not entirely succeeding.

And that's all I'll say, for those who may not yet have watched it. It is fun.

Stephen Tompkinson, who played DCI Banks all those seasons, here is DCI Chalmers, the supervisor of the police region for the latest of Ellis's sensitive cases which need her particular expertise. It took a moment to recognize him -- so very thin. And older, of course. As are we all.

DCI Banks was one of my top favorite series, though I like the book Banks character much more than the television series Banks character.

With an actor this recognizable in this pivotal role, I hope his Chalmers is a good 'un. He's being most hospitable, which, as commented on by his character even, seems not the usual course of matters when Ellis and wing man, DS Harper, roll in.

Snow and Pierogi! Toronto continues its trajectory to having one of the largest varieties of populations from different places in the later 20th, and into the 21st centuries. I love how this series has been running this continuity throughout.

Season 19 is finished. What will I watch on Monday nights now? Sigh.

What did you all think? One of the things I thought, is this was a huge improvement on last week's episode.

Did other viewers notice the continuity throughout the season of the Brackenried mode of interrogation being presented by him putting a black leather glove on one of his hands? In the first seasons we occasionally see him briefly employing his method. Throughout we also see his 'style' as we may say, for rousting suspects in the streets or elsewhere as quite physical and always threatening brutality. He's entirely a foil to the Murdoch style and method. Yet the two of them seem to operate as a team fairly seamlessly and successfully.

I only bring this up because I did not notice, register, this until my (still on-going, up to the second half of season 11 now) re-watch, from beginning to the end. And it will be the end for there is only one more episode left, I think of season 19 to drop on Acorn here in the US.

There is so much I never saw or noticed, from the git go. Of course, we can't, going from one episode a week, with a year in between seasons. You all must be getting tired of me repeating this, but here I go again: the more rewatch I do, the more impressed I am with this series.

The variety of characters. Their unabashed choices to just change-up identities, s>!uch as when we first meet Watts he is not gay -- indeed he falls very hard for a young lady who is bicycling across Canada in the middle of season 11! Is this a repetition of the first morgue assistant's romantic trajectory, who begins with a series of boyfriends, goes steady with Crabtree, before falling for a woman?!<

>!The formula by the middle of the series that inventor Pendrick is always betrayed by someone brilliant he cares about very much? That Crabtree's lady loves always leave him? And what I don't care for at all, some psycho fixates upon one and another the principals throughout, returning again and again?!<

Btw, when I discovered Murdoch Mysteries it was via dvds mailed from Netflix. It turns out that the full seasons weren't on those dvds either, at least the first seasons. I have watched episodes I never saw before.

Currently available on Hulu here in the US. High Country is an Australian, 8 episode, mystery drama series:

>A detective transferred to Victorian High Country investigates 5 missing persons. She uncovers a complex web of murder, deceit and revenge.

The location is gorgeous. Though the narrative is perhaps overly complicated and populated, the tale and the actors - characters are engaging enough to keep viewers watching through all 8 of the episodes. Particularly in our own regional weather mess of heat and Air Quality Index of Hazardous - Dangerous smoke conditions from Canadian wildfires.

Plus++++! Horses!

History abounds in delicious ironies. One of my favorites is in the 13 colonies' war, during the first land battle between French and British forces, the Siege of Savannah (1779), the Brits yelled, "King George!" and the French yelled "Vive le roi!" This, in a war, that was being fought so the 13 colonies could be free and independent of any monarchy.

IN the meantime, throughout this war, I remain impressed at how poorly the commanders performed, making one goof ball wrong call after another, on land and at sea, of all the forces involved: British, Patriots, French, Spain, were, and what messes they all got themselves into, so often, 'just because', not because they were outgunned. Can we say, nobody was out-generaled, generally?

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>... IndieWire editor-at-large Anne Thompson called the film the best picture contender to beat, and added that Matt Damon “could win best actor”. “My high expectations were met,” she added, calling the film “stunningly mounted”.

>Multiple pundits described the film as “flawless” and “breathtaking”, with others singling out Robert Pattinson’s villainous Antinous for particular praise.

>Erik Davis called the film “an absolute triumph and a crowning cinematic achievement from one of the great film-makers of our time. It feels like everything Nolan has been working toward with Imax has culminated here.” The film was shot entirely using large-format Imax film cameras, although it will also be screened in non-Imax cinemas.

>“The production design is incredible,” continued Davis, “the action is breathtaking, and the scale is unlike anything he’s done before. What really surprised me is how much he embraces horror. Some of the film’s biggest moments are genuinely unsettling, adding a whole new dimension to his film-making while never losing sight of the humanity at the story’s core.” ...

And etc.

>... The classical historian Tom Holland, meanwhile – no relation to one of the film’s stars – defended the movie on X, saying: “I’ve now watched it twice, and it is by some way the best cinematic adaptation of a Greek myth I have ever seen. It honours Homer while simultaneously making something new of him.” ....

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/07/christopher-nolan-odyssey-critic-reactions-damon-pattinson-holland-hathaway

An entire group of young men and women entered my local TJ's this afternoon right ahead of me. Where are the bags? they asked, pointing to the TJ bag hanging on my shoulder.

There were no more TJ's bags in this location. They'd long been sold out, except for a few lonely insulated bags. Saturday afternoon a small group of young women were in the purchase line; all they were buying were several of the miniature TJ bags that come in pastels.

Today the check out person said it's just been crazy for about a week. They have no more. Somebody started to calculate there may be more TJ bags in circulation now than there are people on the planet. That may be ... mmmm ... a slight over estimation, perhaps?

They are getting reports this is going on in all the US cities that host World Cup matches. And there is genuine shock there are TJ's in every location in the US.

I felt guilty that there are five TJ bags in our house, plus one of the insulated bags. It came in very handy in the bursts of pouring rain yesterday.