I’ve got one ep to go on Nadie Nos Vio Partir (Nobody Saw Us Leave) on Netflix. Valeria and Leonardo are a Jewish couple in Mexico City in 1964, couple of young kids. Their families are great friends in the local Jewish community. Valeria starts an affair with her brother-in-law doctor, Carlos, and Leo’s father chucks her out, and gets Leo to take the kids and skedaddle, to apartheid-era South Africa. Valeria’s family hires an ex-Mossad agent to find the kids. Tessa Ia, star of De Brutas, Nada, on Prime a couple of years ago.
Nero the Assassin is a French series set in about 1500. Nero discovers that he’s fathered a girl, who’s allegedly the last descendant of the devil. Bit of skulduggery from the Consul of Lamartine, whose daughter is betrothed to the Prince of Segur (she was the cuckolded lawyer in Conviction on SBS). Bit of religious bullshit but it’s pretty tongue-in-cheek.
Diary of a Ditched Girl - Netflix - Swedish series set in Malmö - about a young woman who’s repeatedly ditched after the first date. Stars Carla Sehn who plays the cop returning to her hometown in The Åre Murders. Not too shabby. Not too hesitant in dropping trou.
Good Morning, Veronica. Brazilian series set in Sao Paolo about a police clerk who gets involved in a serial killer and investigates herself despite the rest of the police not being interested. There’s a Sexual Assault warning at the end of every episode. Needed a break after series 1, will be back to it soon.
I’m about to dump the Colombian series, My Mother’s Killer.
A couple of others I haven’t got past episode one.
Started a new one The Crystal Cuckoo last night, mainly because it starred a few actors I enjoy. Itziar Ituṉo (the female cop in Money Heist), Alex Garcia (leading star of a number of films on Netflix) and Catalina Sopelana (El Vecino, Sky Rojo, La Fortuna, Wrong Side of the Tracks).
Catalina is a young doctor who has a heart transplant, and gets invited to visit her donor’s family. Ituṉo is the donor’s mother. There seems to be quite a bit behind the donor’s village. Quite enjoying it so far.
And @em2009, new series of Envious starting this week. I got into Series 2 but Vicky’s self-destructive behaviour gets a bit wearing. Argentinian series.
Spy thriller that covers all the usual bases. Agents flitting around European capitals, computer hacking on a grand scale, people being double/triple crossed, politicians/corporates behaving badly, a high body count.
The acting is actually quite good, especially the main leads. It’s clear quite a bit of money has been spent. The narrative probably doesn’t bear too much scrutiny but is a decent watch if you don’t think about it too deeply.
Went back to Bom Dia, Verônica (Netflix), Brazilian series set in Sao Paulo. Veronica is a police clerk who is present when a woman comes in to report domestic violence and it all goes there.
She takes it on herself, and it cascades. It’s one of those orphanage things where an evil man, Monsignor, decides who lives and dies. First series covers a military policeman who is using his wife as a decoy to find and murder women coming to the city.
Second series goes further into a cult led by a fake leader (aren’t they all). Third series (only 3 eps) goes to the very top.
It amazes me that production houses spend so much on actors, settings, FX, etc etc but leave gaping holes in the plot/scripting.
I couldn’t even last the first episode of this one.
Dead right. I’ve lost count of the number of shows where I’ve pressed Play on Season 1, Episode 1, got halfway through that episode and something’s happened and I have thought, They have GOT to be kidding, and turned off.
Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but when the main character, time and again, makes the most stupid decision possible, I just can’t be bothered.
I preface this rant knowing this is the wrong thread being an english languaged show, but I had to add onto what Shel and Albert had to say.
Wayward being the latest that fits this category. Started off strong, by episode 3, things were a little off (the spidy scenes of this is gonna be ■■■■), and by episode 5-6 you start looking up the creator of the show to confirm the suspicions you’re starting to have.
Another passion project by an individual with a very narrow world view, whom just so happened to write and create this derivative piece of shlock. (The Acolyte sound familiar?)
Oh and gave “himself” the leading role, even though they can’t act.
By the end, the story was just stupid I wondered how in the hell they convinced Toni Collette sign onto this. Because without her, this show would have gotten the publicity it deserved, very little.
Last Samurai Standing on Netflix has been quite good. Reviewers down score it marginally as being a Japanese version of Squid Game, but having never watched that show, I have enjoyed the first season.
Have also been enjoying and older series from Korea, Kingdom. It is a zombie themed series. I am only three episodes in so far but am away from home at the moment and can’t watch the rest until I get back to Perth.
This show just scrapes in to qualify for this thread. I am posting it here as readers of this thread may appreciate it more than would the general streaming crew
The show is set in Edinburgh so you may need subtitles, and it does have some French dialogue. (Hence qualifying for here).
But the reasons I recommend it is that it is the best scripted police show I have seen in years.
(Note: not the most realistic - that title is still owned by the Phoenix/Janus ABC series from the '80s).
Also it is very philosophical. Plato (~2400 years ago) wrote stories where individual sentences could be pored over by thinkers for millennia afterwards.
While not on the same plane, this show likewise provides similar moments. (But alas will not be considered further by most viewres).
The writer was the bloke who wrote Trainspotting, and there are references and parallels to that movie.