The TV and the Drama

I remember one time (and I am unlikely to forget the incident ever) when a student (year 6) in my school in London asked me if I had seen some TV series on Amazon Prime and I responded that I don’t subscribe to Amazon Prime and so I haven’t. They then asked me which platform I watch my TV on? Netflix maybe? I responded in negative saying that since I pay my TV license I stick to good old BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Channel 5 etc. for my entertainment. A few students who were listening in on the conversation looked at me in horror and this student commented that I live a very sad life. I burst out laughing and told them that I am happy with my free views and they are welcome to enjoy their various paid subscriptions (although is it a free view if I am paying for the TV license? that is a thought for another day…not that it makes any difference to me now mind…).

I knew that in India, it is not possible to watch any TV in prominent cities (at least it was 5/6 years ago) unless you get a DTH service and that is why when I was in Bangalore I had to subscribe to either Sun DTH or a local DTH provider based on what language programmes you are likely to watch more. Now it seems that Netflix, Amazon Prime, Airtel XStream, and Tata Sky are the key players (anyone else I missed?). My siblings have both Netflix and Amazon Prime and my nepotes are bored when they come to my home because we have so far refused to subscribe to any of these. I know that I don’t have much time left because just like paying for a TV license in the UK, I have to subscribe to one or more of these services to get my normal TV too, which is very sad indeed. But it is what it is. Now the problem is though, these providers are so smart that we can never find what we need in one of them. We end up subscribing to at least two or even more to switch between the stuff we might end up watching. In this day and age, that seems to be a smart business move but hurts the consumers badly and we are not up for it. I am forever trying to find ways to circumvent the problem. For now, we watch our news and other stuff through the free channels available from Roku (Al Jazeera, Sky News, Wion, Plex etc.)

When I finally decided that it is time to watch Ponniyin Selvan Part 1, it was already out of theatres. It took me a long time to even convince myself that it is ok if they mess up the book which is my absolute favourite one (the first name of my pseudonym is a strong female character from that book…) and just watch it as another grand movie. But it was now available only with Amazon Prime. I have to get a 30-day Free Trial to watch this movie. Whenever my siblings and their children come home, they strongly suggest that I get Netflix. We had already done a free trial of it while we were in the UK, but we didn’t find many programmes that we would watch and it was very American, which Mr M wasn’t very keen on 😀 If we are to get this free trial for Amazon Prime, it would help us check out its contents and see if we would watch any programmes in it at all apart from the odd movies now and then.

Oh! Why does it have to be this hard and so much drama (and money to shell) to watch some good TV heh?

Learning a few words via TV

I have started on Duolingo again more to encourage my nephew and challenge him too. We have agreed to do Spanish (which I learned a bit a good few years ago) and Japanese (because he is into his Anime and fancies learning the language). It is still early days for Japanese and I find that most of the words I had learned in Spanish are helping me ace it now 🙂 We have also been watched quite a few European TV series (with English subtitles of course) which is also helping me learn some more languages or at least a few words here and there. But it definitely is helping me get a hang of these European languages better.

You already know how I feel about Inspector Montalbano (if you haven’t watched it, you should) but we are also big fans of Channel 4’s list. We completed watching Inspector Borowski, which was our first entry into the German language and their humour (it takes some getting used to and then you find it endearing once you get the hang of it). We totally loved it and were quite surprised by the topics that they handle, even though Mr M finds psychological thrillers a bit tedious to sit through but I love them 🙂 Once we finished with Montalbano, we wanted to continue with Italian TV series, we kind of like the portrayal of characters which are refreshing in some ways, so we started watching Ice Cold Murders by Rocco Schiavone, which is based in a place near Turin (and a totally different landscape to Rome) and very different characteristics too. The main character is similar to Montalbano but rougher. We were sad when they had only series 1 up and running on Channel 4 and the story was kind of incomplete. But then we started watching Non-Uccidere (Thou Shall Not Kill), this time with a female lead and it is very good just like the others. We are on Series 2 of this one and hoping to finish watching all episodes before we move (not sure if we will be able to see them in India). Because we were watching more Italian, (I can spout a few Italian words, especially the curses 😀 ) we decided to select a German one to watch in parallel. We found Inspector Falke. Another brilliant series set in a different area of Germany. And I have definitely picked up a few curse words from this for sure!!! I only hope I don’t say them out loud because I find it easier to curse in a European language as people around me might not know it and I may get away with it 😀

Recently we watched Series 2 Episode 3 of Inspector Falke and that was one of the best episodes of a TV series we have watched in the detective genre in a long time. It was like a full-blown thriller movie. It was awesome. The screenplay, the writing, the execution was very good. There is this one thing though with the German series that we have seen so far. They have this serious storyline and dark and sombre execution and then the credits start rolling with disco-like music which totally ruins it. I can’t tell you how funny it is when the credits start to roll. This happened with the Series 2 of Borowski and we were surprised by it and now with Falke, it’s there from the start. Wonder what that is all about. Any ideas? Also with the Italian ones, I find their music amazing. Non-Uccidere’s title music is my favourite.

If I am not able to see Channel4 in India I might be a tad upset and disappointed. I hope there is some kind of subscription that allows me to keep watching these amazing TV box sets that they have in their collection.

If you fancy watching any European TV series, especially of the detective and crime-drama genre, the ones mentioned above from Channel4 are good.

Downton Funk

This Saturday, I had planned on cleaning up my place, but guess what ‘Downton Abbey’ happened. Yes. I was binge-watching Downton Abbey. I was watching the episodes slow and steady over the weeks, but this Friday (since my internet was disrupted for the whole day) and Saturday got totally lost because of this series. And I completed 4 seasons. Yay!!! I don’t watch much TV or series as such, but when I start I can’t seem to stop. I like period drama and this one has too much drama in it and I kinda love it 😳

There is a song by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson, called Uptown Funk. You might have heard it. It’s been on the charts frequently and well, what is there not to like about that song. It is very catchy and a frequent in my playlist. Recently, my friend did the Zumba choreo for that song and we even dance to it now in our Zumba class. It is real fun to dance to that 🙂

Now imagine my surprise when I found this video which combines both. Its hilarious. There are some spoilers about the series, but nothing in detail. And it is done pretty well too 😀 Wonder how they come up with such ideas. Damn!!!