We have been glued to the TV since the COVID-19 crisis started. To be honest, we binge watch. You do, too. Don’t lie.
While I am by no means an Anglophile, I have become a huge fan of British series on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I am starting to compare them with their American counterparts, trying to figure out why the British series are so compelling and some of ours so meh. Yeah, yeah, meh to me. I never claimed to speak for anyone else.
I am a woman of a certain age so I am biased, but I am thrilled that the young and older women actors are so—- normal. They look like us. Or at least those of us who aren’t Barbie sizes with looong straight or wavy hair or years of botox and fillers and facelifts and liposuction.
And their male counterparts are human as well- they have double chins and fleshy waistlines, bags under their eyes and not beautiful hair or not much or any hair. Their skin has – oh my god- warts and moles and back up- so do the women!!!!
The music is not upbeat and always incessantly there. Occasionally there isn’t any music at all and the camera takes its time. How refreshing! You are sitting there enjoying dialog, well written stories, and facial expressions, and seeing slices of life that happen to be part of a drama. Dull perhaps to younger folks but anyone with older children and grandchildren can identify.
They also seem refreshingly slower. Very few explosions, gunshots, bleeding bodies. Can I say entertainment that is not written for teens? Sorry teens. Plots seem real-life based. Actors don’t seem to screech at each other as much. The f word is there sometimes, but not overwhelming. Maybe I am being too complimentary to foreign TV. Of course, there is a place for the series that is based on cartoons and on car chases that last forever. But I could drive to Starbucks and return with my cappuccino and the chase would still be on.
I admit I put on closed captioning because I cannot understand the British / Scottish / Irish dialect sometime. Well much of the time. Well our hearing isn’t what it used to be. So we watch, then try to read the closed captioning before the scene changes. Then we hit the pause button so we can read the closed captioning.
I once turned on an audio function by mistake that had a voice describing the scene. Weird. “He exits the car, closes the door and makes his way across the yard where birds are singing and the victim is hanging clothes.” Yada. Yada.
Tonight I watched 2 episodes of a car show with my husband. I have trouble bonding with mechanical equipment though. It’s like purgatory, but then again he suffers through some of my period dramas (period meaning eras in time not related to female cycles though some of them have the same hyper emotional levels).
It’s a compromise. I cook, he cleans up. We watch the news until we want to scream and then it’s a toss-up between watching Netflix or Amazon prime.
One thing that is interesting is that we both fast forward the explicit bedroom scenes. Although I think there should be a special cinematography award for best scenes that avoid pertinent body parts while dragging on five minutes of moaning.
I just re-read this blog and wonder if it needs an adult rating. Should I worry about my grandkids? Nah- they are totally absorbed in their social media cocoons.
