Watched quite a lot of stuff recently. The Sister was excellent, as was the next thing I tried, Secret Bridesmaids' Business, Australian thriller about a stalker (male) who tries to ruin every woman who dumps him. Raven was my first Polish drama, was bloody excellent, though bleak as hell, quelle surprise! Box 21 was also bleak but really really good.
Time stood up well, both Bean and Graham gave excellent performances, though in some ways if you've seen The Night Of there's not all that much more to say. Good prison drama, unexpected ending.
But if you want bleak, miserable and hopeless, try Hausen; my god it was so dark and disturbing and grim that I gave it up after four episodes. Had some nice supernatural ideas, but too dark for me. I mean, I liked the premise, even though it got mighty weird, but the trouble was, like Millennium, there wasn't a shred of light in it. Even when the kid went to school they showed a cloud-choked sky with a very weak sun struggling to shine through (and failing). Everyone was dour, everyone was miserable, everything was deadly serious. No comic relief, no rest, nothing to even push the darkness away slightly. Just unremittingly dark. And I felt it was going to have a seriously dark conclusion, like the complex was going to eat them all, run credits, or it would be Hell, or something. I can watch bleak TV, but god damn it I need a little respite.
Next moved on to some old stuff recorded but not watched for literally years: season 2 of The Returned (which I recorded, wait for it, six years ago!) was well worth it, ended really well, then I hit season 3 of Westworld. It was enjoyable on one level but I was like Homer...
Tried The Undoing but hated it immediately (come on, it had Hugh Grant in it; what chance did it have?) then checked out Guilt and loved it from minute one. Superb four-part dark humour drama with the incomparable Mark Bonnar.
Finally got the last season of Game of Thrones done (yeah yeah I know). Lots of complaints about that, as I'm sure you all know. Glad I finally watched it but kinda, meh. Came across Hunters (another one recorded years ago, five in this case - 2016) based on the Whitley Streiber book Alien Hunter. It's a bit silly so far - quite gory, often unnecessarily so (don't watch with your dinner) but decent fun. I think it only got the one season, but interested to see where it goes. Seems like they were building a fairly complicated arc. Basic idea seems to be aliens who have come to Earth to do something unspecified, but which ain't good for humanity, against whom they seem to have a grudge, and the FBI Black Ops team who track them - the ETU would you believe? Exo Terrorist Unit.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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