What’s On Your Netflix Queue?
What I loved, what I didn’t, what I swear I’ll get back to someday.
This is the very late midweek what-to-watch edition of Snarky Senior — the newsletter from Erica Manfred, which you can read about here. If you like it and don’t want to miss an issue, you can get it in your inbox by subscribing.
If you’re a TV obsessive like me you’ve got a few lists—on Netflix, Amazon. Hulu, HBO Max, Disney + with shows you really want to get to one of these days. On my queue, movies and series I’ve already watched are still on there because I’m too lazy to take them off, or I’m waiting for another season and don’t want to miss it.
I’m an indecisive, wishy washy viewer who can never make up her mind whether to commit to a show or delete it. I’ve got shows on there I watched a few episodes of, kind of liked, deemed worthy of attention, but they didn’t call to me to keep watching. I swear I’ll get back to them someday. Meanwhile I scroll past them to the latest water cooler show (social media being today’s water cooler) so I can dish about Bridgerton with my fellow snarkies on Facebook or wherever.
Here’s a random selection from my endless Netflix list.
Death at a Funeral Be prepared to ROFL. Starring Chris Rock and Peter Dinklage, two of my all-time faves, this is an old fashioned madcap comedy, the kind they rarely make anymore because madcap is a lost art, along with dry martinis, smoking jackets and dinner at eight. It was spit-up-your-drink funny. Watch quick. I made sure to see it because I read that it’s cycling off Netflix the end of January.
The Borgias. Totally trashy and addictive. 3 seasons. Jeremy Irons chews the scenery big time in this bloody, soft core porny, swashbuckling, murderous account of the famously womanizing, corrupt pope and his scheming brood. It got me hooked even though I disliked all of the Borgias and couldn’t care less what happened to any of them. You have to wonder when your favorite character on a show is the assassin. Not an ounce of redeeming social value in the lot of them, but the trashiness was so unrepentant, the gore was so over the top, the scheming so devious and the corruption so Trumpian, that I couldn’t turn it off. Favorite macabre tableau: Taxidermied corpses. Best gay assassin: Micheletto. Deadliest poison: Cantarella.
The Last Kingdom. I tried, I really tried to get into this. The acting was good, the scenery was great, the history was exotic but in the end there were too many guys with beards trying to seize power from each other for reasons that were totally opaque to me. In the end manly men with names like Untred and Ragnar failed to intrigue, and who the hell is Alfred the Great anyway?
Lost in Space. A whole lot of fun. 2 seasons so far. I never watched the famous original of this fan favorite so am not nostalgic about it. I had no idea what to expect. I love sci fi but am not a “hard” sci fi fan, which means I’m not into the nuts and bolts of space tech. But the relationships on this show won me over. The adorable Robinson family is literally lost in space and has to use their own ingenuity to get themselves out of impossible, deadly, situations. The mom and kids are the McGuyverish heroes, putting together rescue vehicles with everything from crazy glue to candle wax, but it’s not really a kid show. There’s lots of dysfunctional family drama, a mysterious robot, a scheming stowaway, and much interplanetary derring-do. I’m waiting impatiently for Season 3
Broadchurch. Don’t miss it. I’m a sucker for brooding Brits and both David Tennant and Olivia Colman fill the bill in this mystery series. Tennant is up there with Benedict Cumberbatch in the sexy, suffering intensity department, the kind of man I can’t resist. Olivia Colman is the Meryl Streep of Britain. Is there anything she can’t do? Her range goes from icy Queen Elizabeth in the Crown to wacko Queen Anne in the Favorite, to a dogged detective in Broadchurch. The scenery is a character of its own with dramatic cliffs and rocky beaches. Broadchurch will get you hooked and not let go, which is all you can ask these days from your Netflix queue.
Imposters. On the fence. I have no idea what to say about this one. I do know I watched two episodes and kind of liked it but can’t remember why. It’s on my list and I was meaning to keep watching but at my age you have to binge watch to have a clue. I WILL give it another chance, but I’m afraid I’ll have to start all over which I hate. It’s like wasting time that you’ve already wasted.
Ratched. Thumbs down. I actually watched 4 ½ episodes because it was so highly recommended and seemed to check all the boxes of shows that I usually like until it didn’t. Black comedy—check. Judy Davis—check. Fabulous art direction—check. Gory lobotomies—check. Great script—no. Makes sense—no. Relatable characters—no. Apologies to all the snarkies who loved this, but it was a slog IMHO. I found I had no reason to continue watching because I couldn’t care less about what happened.
Last Tango in Halifax Netflix, you have made my day dropping the 2020 season of this all-time favorite. Last Tango is the reason why I never delete a great series, just in case another season pops up. I’d been hoping against hope for more episodes of this complex, funny, moving story about lovers who find each other very late in life and their quirky children and grandchildren. Last Tango is one of those shows where you feel invested in all the characters’ stories. God bless the Brits. They’re not afraid of old age. How often do you see stars like Anne Reid, in her eighties, who actually looks her age, playing against the great Shakespearean actor, Derek Jacobi, also in his eighties. Fun fact: Jacobi starred in the first addictive TV drama series, I Claudius. The pandemic may have suspended my social calendar, but my Netflix queue has not deserted me.
….to be continued
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