Yes, the main winter drama is this terrible lack of snow. And then in the summer we will get a lot of bugs and I will have to buy another pair of slippers just to kill them. Yes, I kill bugs. I kill spiders too. Sue me.
Age of Feeling is a hit. At least among some
And, right now I'm eating all my previous words and posts, the Table came a long, tedious way to be right here right now. Supposedly Kim Hyun Jung took the acting lessons and it paid off. He can shows emotions now, he can act! Well, he didn't become Shin Hakyun overnight, but in all fairness that my mean heart can afford - I really like watching him here. Our Pinocchio found his soul and became a boy!
If only The Musketeers was as good as Age of Feeling!
I wrote about this series after the first episode aired, which was a complete misunderstanding from the beginning till the very end. But you know, "judge not or ye be judged" and I decided to give this show a second chance, because watching Athos (in every possible popculture avatar) is always a pleasure. The reason being - he's one of the best characters ever created. So yeah, I'm holding on to this show for this one.
But here's the problem: this show is utterly nonsensical. It's spotted with errors even more than Julianne Moore with freckles.
Now I need to relieve the anger bottling up regarding the series.
I know the creators have leather fetish and I came to terms with Richelieu wearing a leather zucchetto, which should be just red, because he is, in fact, a cardinal. OK, leather is really great to accentuate a man's body (shamelessly objectifying, so what?), but as they say - you can die from overeating (OK, I'm sure they say this somewhere). In 17th century France leather wasn't just lying around ready to be picked up by anyone in case they needed something to wear. They killed me showing in (in)famous episode 3 a leather hat.
Episode 3 was a disgrace, a complete and utter failure in everything: story, characters, humor. It was all bullshit. I know, show tries so hard to be correct and empower everyone who needs to be empowered. But then, why they didn't make a modern version of Musketeers story and the problem would be solved? They could change everything (as they did) retaining only names (as they did), but I wouldn't have anything to fight with. Now, I do have. A bludgeon in one hand and wine in other.
So yes, OK, leather, it took me 3 eps to get used to it (and mistaken fashion, but let's not be too bitchy), but then in ep 3 we got to know that Porthos is in fact a slave's kid and his mother was on a slave ship, so naturally, it gets personal when he discovers very, very evil plans of one envoy to build a slave ship and sail off to Carribean. And in ep 5 (next week) we'll get to know that he was raised up among thieves and whores. Actually, I'm starting to develop some kind of immunity to all this nonsense.
Ep 3 also shoved right into our face the story of Athos and Milady. And here was my another facepalm: she, then called Anne (not her real name anyway) while being the wife of Comte de la Fère, she called him... Athos. Well, that was the fucking point of this man calling himself "Athos" - to cut the ties between his old, noble life and the new one as a musketeers. Anne couldn't call him that because even he himself didn't call him that. He says (in books and normal adaptations) that "Milady doesn't know Athos exists, so he's safe".
Before all those memories could take place, our bunch of musketeers captured the captain and were on their way back to Paris, few ambushes on the road and in a mysterious way - they managed to get to Athos domain.
I even made a map. From the "20 Years Later" we know that Athos resigned from being a musketeer and went back to his domain around Blois. Granted, in the first part, it is mentioned that the executioner who supposedly hanged Anne de Breuil was from Lille, but maybe Athos' estate was a bit here and a bit there. It doesn't make any difference though. Here is why:
This is the route when you want to have a walk. Distance: 264 km, time: 54 hours. Using modern highways: 384 km, because you go via Le Mans. They were riding slowly, something between usual walk and trot. The average speed of trot is 13km/h. Simple math and we'll get 20h to ride non-stop from Le Havre to the vicinity of Blois. But they were there after few hours. OK.
And mind you, this is the shortest version. In the books, two different places of Athos' are provided - vicinity of Lille (318 km from Le Havre and I'm inclined to take this place as the real one) and Berry (429km). You do the math.
Next awesome error? The tricolore French flag that our Louis the XIII was putting on his ship model.
You don't need to be a genius to figure out how those three colours were combined and why. That's right, 15 February 1794. That is over 150 years after musketeers' time. Before that, France was using golden/yellow fleur-de-lis as an ensign in few combinations.
I know I don't watch a documentary, but for fuck's sake, did the creators even bother to read, at least, Wikipedia about the 30's in 17th century? (OK, not even 30's, La Rochelle siege ended in 1628). I highly doubt that. In episode 4, Aramis used the nice word "vigilante". Something was not sitting right with me regarding this word. Simple check in the dictionary: word "vigilante" comes from Spanish vigilante which in turns stems from Latin vigilans. First use: 1856.
This is called anachronism and it's a very, very bad mistake.
In Ripper Street they were using word tart for a whore, being close to the era, place and people. It only takes a bit of a research.
At least in ep 4 Athos went back to being his normal, intelligent and composed self. Sigh of relief. Oh, and Peter Capaldi finally started to act.
I know, some people like it, it's quirky and fun, not overwhelming with swashbuckling, the characters finally start to unfold, Athos has not been (much) insulted and d'Artagnan is a cute boy. But those errors!
Enough of mopping the floor with the series which I watch for the sake of one character. I will persevere and I will point out the errors still! Or I will enjoy, dunno.
There was a first episode of a... kind of some omnibus series: Inside no 9. The stories are short, this one, called Sardines, was 30 minutes long. It is described as dark comedy, crime and it's done by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.
Trailer:
The first episode was about the group of people invited to celebrate the engagement of one woman. To pass the time they play the game "sardines" that is: to get as many people in one place as possible to not be discovered. OK, I know how it sounds, but there is a twist in the last minute of it. Worth of watching, in my opinion.
There was also the first episode of The After, but it didn't convince me, maybe the second one will do the charm.
