What Are You Watching?

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

Actually, I don’t watch much TV, but when I do, it’s often because DIL tells me I NEED to watch something she binges as we tend to like similar themes.

Now it’s the new Dynasty on Netflix. I LOVE it. It’s trashy, campy, with often ridiculous plots, but I’m hooked. I never really watched the original Dynasty because I was busy being 1500% MOM to a newborn and didn’t have time. The star of the reboot is most definitely Fallon Carrington, played by Elizabeth Gillies. The surprise is when she first broke out in song. Her voice is beyond amazing and adds another element to outrageous musical episodes. If I were the writers, I’d figure out any way possible to showcase her voice, too.

And then there’s yummy Grant Show as Blake Carrington; I’ve had a secret crush on him for YEARS, ever since he was Jake on Melrose Place.

On Amazon Prime, I’m warming up to Silks, about the dilemmas and problems that modern day barristers have to face and what it means to become a silk. A Silk or Queen’s Counsel is an eminent lawyer who’s appointed by the Queen to be one of “Her Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law.” . Their gown is made of silk instead of cotton.

Dropping on July 8 is the reboot of one of my all time favorites, Gossip Girl. Based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar, the original show ran from 2007-2012. This extension of the pop culture classic series finds a new generation of entitled New York private school teens introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark. The only sadness for me is that it features all new characters and while I understand, the truth is that NO ONE can replace these originals:

Blake Lively as Serena van der Woodsen, Leighton Meester as Blair Waldorf, the Queen Bee, Penn Badgley as Dan Humphrey, dreamy Chace Crawford as Nate Archibald, Taylor Momsen as Jenny Humphrey, and sexy Ed Westwick as Chuck Bass. Top-notch casting for sure.

Of course, I’m also anticipating the new season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Filming was delayed due to Covid but I think they started up again.

What types of shows do you like or do you not watch anything at all?

Binge-worthy: Scott & Bailey

Posted on July 24, 2019 by Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

While watching Mueller testify and now during a break in the proceedings, I think I’ll finish a post I started last week about a TV show I am SO beyond excited to recommend to you!

And BTW, I think Jimmy Stewart could have portrayed Robert Mueller to perfection, but prolly lots of you don’t even know who the great actor, James Stewart, even is, so my suggestion is to Google him.

I’m not much of a binge watcher; in fact, I don’t watch a lot of TV at all, but I loved The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and that’s about the extent of it. Oh, and Gossip Girl has a special place in my heart. Blair and Chuck forever!

A long time ago, I caught an episode of Scott & Bailey on our local PBS station and it piqued my interest. When I was bored and searching for something to watch on Amazon Prime besides my crush Paul Hollywood on the Great British Bake Off, S&B popped up, and I thought I’d start from the beginning.

I confess that I couldn’t get enough! It’s gritty, it’s real, and I was absolutely HOOKED.

I thought I’d ration myself to one episode a day to make it last longer, but that self control flew out the window almost immediately. Then I said to myself, “Self, you can watch two in a row, but that’s IT, I mean it.”

Well, that didn’t work either. I kept bargaining with myself until I lost all rational thought and binged the entire five seasons, knowing that when it eventually ended, I would suffer REAL pain and feel abandoned by these characters I’d come to identify with and LOVE. Yes, I mean that. I don’t use that word lightly, nor do I take those feelings lightly. I LOVE Rachel and Janet.

They’re two strong women whose lives tended to be screwed up and messy at times, but they PERSEVERED. They ENDURED. They never gave up. You haven’t lived until you study Detective Constable Janet Scott (brilliantly acted by Lesley Sharp) as she interrogates each and every criminal. From her Madonna-like smile to her soft and measured voice, she asks every question with pristine diction and straightforward dedication to solving a crime, often with a full confession. She’s the embodiment of speaking authentically with truth and conviction.(Ha ha, a double entendre.)

Both Rachel (Suranne Jones) and Janet are Detective Constables in the Major Incident Team of the Manchester Metropolitan Police Service, with the team headed by DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore), whose character is loosely based on Diane Taylor, a former Detective Inspector from Greater Manchester Police. Yes, it’s a Briit show.

Scott & Bailey was an original idea by Suranne Jones and Sally Lindsay. Jones felt that there needed to be more roles for women “that weren’t wife-of, sidekick-to, mother-of, mistress-to, etc.”^[4] Jones remarked, “We were just chatting away over a bottle of wine in a pub” when the idea came to fruition. [Sidebar: see how much can be accomplished with enough vino??]

The creators paired up with Diane Taylor to create the program. The involvement of Diane Taylor as a consultant producer is credited with maintaining Scott & Bailey‘s “rigorous authenticity”. From Taylor’s perspective, television police procedures were often filled with not only technical inaccuracies, but what she felt were inaccuracies of how officers behaved, saying: “that’s what really irritates me in other dramas – detectives crying over dead bodies and getting drunk senseless. You’d last about two weeks”.She said, of her time as a police officer in comparison to portrayals on television, that “reality is much more interesting. I could pull a thousand cases out of my head people would say would never happen. People need drama because they would not believe the reality”. (Background curated from Wiki)

I’ve shared my obsesh with all my friends and a few are as captivated as I was and totally binged. But now it’s over and I went through cold turkey withdrawals, I need something else, cos I’m jonesin’ for a fix.

For me, the only downside of this amazing show was the outrageous number of smokers. At times, the smoke was so heavy, it almost gave me a virtual asthma attack. I only hope for their health’s sake that there’s a lot less lung damage in the real Manchester Police Department.

Watch it and let me know if you love Scott & Bailey as much as I do! And also share some of your fave binge-worthy TV shows.

Now I have ants, gotta get out of the house

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

This is the purest definition of irony. I am a fervent animal rights proponent. I am a vegetarian (mostly pescatarian) and I have been one since high school. I am being tested with one moral dilemma after another. First with the damn squirrels. One was OK; their apparent 19 Kids and Counting-style voracious breeding in combination with our hill crumbling from their relentless tunneling was another thing entirely. I was at the point of going all Okie hillbilly on their asses when I came to my senses and had them enter the humane relocation program, but even that did not sit well with me. $400 later, yes, really, that’s how much that whole ordeal cost before the captain put his foot down and said, “No more! This is a potential nightmare. I am not going out to sea to support the critter control company!” Well, geez, tell me how you really feel.

And just this morning, I saw another one gaily strolling through the yard, bushy tail high and glossy in the sunlight, almost as if he was waving at me, “Thanks lady, more food for me! I’ll be moving in now, ciao!”

And if that wasn’t compelling enough to cause me to pause and think a bit, I have been infiltrated by ants. Ants in every room. Random ants. Ants in the upstairs bathroom. Ants in the hallway, ants in the kitchen, ants on the sofa. Ants in the freakin’ oven who somehow found the hidden brownies. Little soldiers marching on. I have taken all the pots and pans out of the cabinets. I have removed all the furniture in the family room. I moved the washer and dryer out from the walls to search behind them. I cannot for the life of me find an ingress, locate the breach, determine their origin. There is no clearcut path to follow with the ant spray, these are just random sightings that are driving me cray cray. I can’t rest for a minute. I am on high alert with the spray in one hand and my camping headlamp firmly affixed to my head like a Blair Waldorf headband (Gossip Girl random reference) in the other– in stealth mode, on my hands and knees, hugging the walls, carefully examining every inch of floor and wall. And what of karma? Me, the animal lover, gleefully murdering these creatures? Am I a hypocrite? Are the ants sending me a message?

I got the message. It’s time for some retail therapy. That’s the best solution for me. I need to take myself completely away from the situation. And maybe pick up a six-pack of Raid while I’m out…