The Nature of Things

I am really angry and disgusted! There are plenty of things in the world to be angry and disgusted about, you may well think. Which one has set me off? Nothing so portentous as ISIL/ISIS or Russia/Ukraine or any one of a dozen other seemingly intransigent problems. No, I am upset because I have wasted five-and-a-half hours of my life that I will never get back watching dreck on television. I am generally pretty picky about what I watch on TV, but recently, I read about a new series that was starting on Masterpiece Theatre on PBS and the reviewer liked it, so I told hubby about it and we made plans to watch it. It was called "Breathless" and it started with two episodes back-to-back on Sunday of last week on our local PBS station. Fifteen minutes into the first episode, I was thoroughly confused and wondered what that reviewer had seen that I wasn't seeing. Still, it was Masterpiece Theatre which has provided me with a lot of quality entertainment and viewing pleasure over...

After the second season of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" ended last year, I wrote here about how disappointed I was in the confusing, unfocused course the series had taken and I wondered whether I would bother to watch the third season. The third season ended last night and I admit that, yes, I did watch it. But I'm not especially proud of the fact. "Boardwalk Empire" has, for me, become "Boredwalk Empire." If anything, the third season was even more scattered than the second. There seemed to be no coherent thrust to the story . It just kind of wandered off in different directions and "Nucky" Thompson, its main character grew more enigmatic - and less lovable - as the weeks went by. The most sympathetic character for me throughout the series has been the mutilated ex-soldier Richard Harrow. He has shown a loyalty to those who gain his respect or affection that has been mostly missing from the other characters, including Nucky, in this series....

The agonizing, confusing, infuriating second season of  HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" came to an end last night. Finally, I won't be wasting an hour of my life each Sunday night on a show which seemed to have no focus and no clear purpose. It was just kind of all over the place. Of course, no one was forcing me to watch it. But I had watched the first season last year so I had something invested in the characters and the story and I wanted to see where it all was headed. The answer seemed to change from week to week. It was as if the writers really had no clear idea of what they wanted to do with the characters. It felt like each week's story was created on the fly and didn't necessarily relate to the previous weeks or to the future. By the time this season was halfway through, I had frankly lost all interest. There were really no characters that I cared about except the poor little children and they were just ciphers, props for the adults. Still, I kept watching, ...