Retros_x
Hero
perfect description!
What are you watching in (late 2025 and) 2026?
- Thread starter Umbran
- Start date
The sequel series, Company Retreat, is also really good, IMO.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Ahhhh that explains a lot. I was like "Wow, these guys really know how to make you empathize with someone in local government even though he's kind of annoying", and yeah, years of expertise.
Just started watching myself and yeah it's very good so far.
Marc Radle
Legend
Rooster on HBO is REALLY good.
A perfect blend of funny and heart felt with excellent writing
A perfect blend of funny and heart felt with excellent writing
Retros_x
Hero
I was really positively surprised! The reviews were more lukewarm, but I kinda loved the chill comedy (not a punchline staccato) with the low-stakes drama. Its a truly cozy feel-good show easy to put on after a long work day, I enjoyed it a lot.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Y'all know I'm the princess with the pea re: small but repeated unforced errors in shows/media.
Anyway I've been watching Criminal Record on Apple TV, and it's very weird because it's a mix of like, an ultra-real take on London and a questionable grasp on the Met Police. London, visually, they're really making it look exactly like it looks, right down to the interiors of houses (the house of the female lead is painfully real, particularly), they've clearly done huge amounts of location shooting, including in actual London (specifically, not another town standing in), including interiors. Mostly areas of London where I grew up too, I've recognised the exact positions of like, 90% of the shots. One detective is sitting sadly in her car maybe 50 yards from where my barber is for example lol.
Very unusual very cool to do that. Usually we just get Edinburgh for London or something, with just a few establishing shots actually of London.
Plot seems fine if potentially copaganda-adjacent - but interesting enough to find out if it is, or if it will go a different way, acting/casting good (I mean, Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi rarely miss), generally seems fairly worth watching.
But... why can't they, in the year of our lord 2024, when it was shot, get basic police procedure and terminology right? We're an era when British cop shows have been doing it for like 15 years (cop shows note, not Midsomer Murders or something lol, that's a whole different genre).
The most striking one is "hispanic" which they keep saying re: a victim. No. Virtually nobody in Britain uses that term about primary spanish speakers in the UK unless suffering from "The US president is in charge of Britain" levels of brainrot, especially not someone professional and precise as both the main cops are meant to be. It's a total Americanism. It's not a valid police ethnic ID term (they do have specific terms, less creepy than it sounds, they'd probably say IC2), it's not something on the census, nor the updated self-ID codes, and furthermore, it's not even correct, because the victim is a Portuguese speaker! Which narrows things down wildly more than "hispanic" so seems like the more important thing to say! "Latin American" or even "Latina" (from watching too much TV) might be plausible but also less helpful than "Portuguese speaker". Or even just guessing "Brazilian". It's cool that they're noting there are maybe a couple of hundred thousand Brazilians (specifically) in London now (which wasn't really the case 20-25 years ago, say), but be a little real about it!
I feel like either they used this Americanism specifically to appeal to an American market (which I think is damn silly, Americans watching a UK cop show don't want a US cop show, they want the differences), or the main writer exists in a bubble where he doesn't realize he's using an Americanism (probably this) and the other writers didn't dare say "Uhhh boss...".
It's not just that though, they keep making procedural errors. Not the insane ones some shows make so I guess I will let them off for now, it's not like when Netflix translates Harlen Coben books to the UK and then fails to deal with the fact that our laws are so different they just aren't even viable main plotlines (literally two Harlen Coben shows are completely derailed if you know basic UK law, like if you taser someone in the UK, as a civilian, and the police find out about it and know where you are, SCO19 or the regional equivalent will kick down your front door with assault rifles and immediately bring you into custody. You will then do several years in jail at a minimum for illegal possession of a firearm. It is literally 100% as illegal as having a gun, and using one to assault someone is an extremely serious crime, not like a kinda-funny thing that happened. Sorry I'm getting off-topic, but if you adapt something, you gotta understand the laws and procedures and trainings of where you're adapting it to!
EDIT: This weirdly rebalances in later episodes as the police procedure gets better, but he geography more ridiculous/fictional. Like, why set it in Hackney Downs and carefully shoot so many scenes in Hackney, Islingon, Stokie, if you're just going to make up a massive park that isn't Hackney Downs Park, a real place which could have served the same function, (they call it "Rowntree Park", which isn't a place in London), and which doesn't look like anywhere in Hackney, because the buildings are all wrong, and then why include multiple shots that very prominently have one of the most recognisable buildings in London, possibly Britain, One Canada Square (aka "The Canary Wharf building") showing that this park is fairly close to it, and thus necessarily somewhere near Docklands. And so I used Google Street view and the fact that the HSBC building was to the left of One Canada Square, meaning we're looking from the north to south to work out that it's in fact Bartlett Park (which has distinctive buildings). Honestly they could have fixed this whole thing just by using different angles, and I would have been like "Huh, weird, I don't remember that park, but I don't know every inch of London, moving on". I'll let them off the SE London street they used at one point because maybe that could have fit with what was going on, but again if it was intended to be North London, why include the street sign with a big SE post code? Just remove it in post!
On a positive note it seems like they're avoiding copaganda though I'm not sure I believe the female lead would be quite so naive re: the Met, who have a somewhat chequered history re: corruption and fit-ups.
(St Luke's Hospital and HMP Whitecross are fictional too but pretty obviously meant to Royal London - except they're using London Bridge Hospital for the exteriors, I know because I've been there - which has no emergency dept. but still fine I guess and HMP Pentonville or less likely HMP Brixton respectively (I have no idea what building they're using as a stand-in - it doesn't really look like either exactly). These make a bit more sense in a drama to make up, so people can't say "Wow you portrayed X really unfairly!". Hackney Downs Police Station is fictional too, for the same reason - also way larger from the exterior shots than a police station like that would be - the real one nearest would be the I think now shut down one on Lower Clapton Road/Dalston Lane, which was still operating like a decade ago, and about 1/4 the size.)
Why yes it is 88F in my house and too hot to even play a videogame and maybe my brain is melting, why do you ask lol?
Anyway I've been watching Criminal Record on Apple TV, and it's very weird because it's a mix of like, an ultra-real take on London and a questionable grasp on the Met Police. London, visually, they're really making it look exactly like it looks, right down to the interiors of houses (the house of the female lead is painfully real, particularly), they've clearly done huge amounts of location shooting, including in actual London (specifically, not another town standing in), including interiors. Mostly areas of London where I grew up too, I've recognised the exact positions of like, 90% of the shots. One detective is sitting sadly in her car maybe 50 yards from where my barber is for example lol.
Very unusual very cool to do that. Usually we just get Edinburgh for London or something, with just a few establishing shots actually of London.
Plot seems fine if potentially copaganda-adjacent - but interesting enough to find out if it is, or if it will go a different way, acting/casting good (I mean, Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi rarely miss), generally seems fairly worth watching.
But... why can't they, in the year of our lord 2024, when it was shot, get basic police procedure and terminology right? We're an era when British cop shows have been doing it for like 15 years (cop shows note, not Midsomer Murders or something lol, that's a whole different genre).
The most striking one is "hispanic" which they keep saying re: a victim. No. Virtually nobody in Britain uses that term about primary spanish speakers in the UK unless suffering from "The US president is in charge of Britain" levels of brainrot, especially not someone professional and precise as both the main cops are meant to be. It's a total Americanism. It's not a valid police ethnic ID term (they do have specific terms, less creepy than it sounds, they'd probably say IC2), it's not something on the census, nor the updated self-ID codes, and furthermore, it's not even correct, because the victim is a Portuguese speaker! Which narrows things down wildly more than "hispanic" so seems like the more important thing to say! "Latin American" or even "Latina" (from watching too much TV) might be plausible but also less helpful than "Portuguese speaker". Or even just guessing "Brazilian". It's cool that they're noting there are maybe a couple of hundred thousand Brazilians (specifically) in London now (which wasn't really the case 20-25 years ago, say), but be a little real about it!
I feel like either they used this Americanism specifically to appeal to an American market (which I think is damn silly, Americans watching a UK cop show don't want a US cop show, they want the differences), or the main writer exists in a bubble where he doesn't realize he's using an Americanism (probably this) and the other writers didn't dare say "Uhhh boss...".
It's not just that though, they keep making procedural errors. Not the insane ones some shows make so I guess I will let them off for now, it's not like when Netflix translates Harlen Coben books to the UK and then fails to deal with the fact that our laws are so different they just aren't even viable main plotlines (literally two Harlen Coben shows are completely derailed if you know basic UK law, like if you taser someone in the UK, as a civilian, and the police find out about it and know where you are, SCO19 or the regional equivalent will kick down your front door with assault rifles and immediately bring you into custody. You will then do several years in jail at a minimum for illegal possession of a firearm. It is literally 100% as illegal as having a gun, and using one to assault someone is an extremely serious crime, not like a kinda-funny thing that happened. Sorry I'm getting off-topic, but if you adapt something, you gotta understand the laws and procedures and trainings of where you're adapting it to!
EDIT: This weirdly rebalances in later episodes as the police procedure gets better, but he geography more ridiculous/fictional. Like, why set it in Hackney Downs and carefully shoot so many scenes in Hackney, Islingon, Stokie, if you're just going to make up a massive park that isn't Hackney Downs Park, a real place which could have served the same function, (they call it "Rowntree Park", which isn't a place in London), and which doesn't look like anywhere in Hackney, because the buildings are all wrong, and then why include multiple shots that very prominently have one of the most recognisable buildings in London, possibly Britain, One Canada Square (aka "The Canary Wharf building") showing that this park is fairly close to it, and thus necessarily somewhere near Docklands. And so I used Google Street view and the fact that the HSBC building was to the left of One Canada Square, meaning we're looking from the north to south to work out that it's in fact Bartlett Park (which has distinctive buildings). Honestly they could have fixed this whole thing just by using different angles, and I would have been like "Huh, weird, I don't remember that park, but I don't know every inch of London, moving on". I'll let them off the SE London street they used at one point because maybe that could have fit with what was going on, but again if it was intended to be North London, why include the street sign with a big SE post code? Just remove it in post!
On a positive note it seems like they're avoiding copaganda though I'm not sure I believe the female lead would be quite so naive re: the Met, who have a somewhat chequered history re: corruption and fit-ups.
(St Luke's Hospital and HMP Whitecross are fictional too but pretty obviously meant to Royal London - except they're using London Bridge Hospital for the exteriors, I know because I've been there - which has no emergency dept. but still fine I guess and HMP Pentonville or less likely HMP Brixton respectively (I have no idea what building they're using as a stand-in - it doesn't really look like either exactly). These make a bit more sense in a drama to make up, so people can't say "Wow you portrayed X really unfairly!". Hackney Downs Police Station is fictional too, for the same reason - also way larger from the exterior shots than a police station like that would be - the real one nearest would be the I think now shut down one on Lower Clapton Road/Dalston Lane, which was still operating like a decade ago, and about 1/4 the size.)
Why yes it is 88F in my house and too hot to even play a videogame and maybe my brain is melting, why do you ask lol?
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For yesterday's weekly "pizza and a show," my nephew decided we should watch a Chainsaw Man anime movie that had just come out, that takes place between the first season and the upcoming second season. And then next week we start the first two seasons of Invincible on DVD, a superhero show based on a comic book series I haven't read (which has the added bonus of me not griping about any changes made for the show).
And maybe once those are done, we'll jump into Better Call Saul, which had been our original plan now that we've completed Breaking Bad and El Camino.
Johnathan
And maybe once those are done, we'll jump into Better Call Saul, which had been our original plan now that we've completed Breaking Bad and El Camino.
Johnathan
Coming to the end of High Class, a Korean drama from 2021 which is about a private school on Jeju Island. I’ll post more about it in my Korean drama thread, but my God does this drama love Konglish.
Absolutely everyone bursts into heavily accented English for no reason at all times of day, clearly thinking this makes them sound cosmopolitan and international when it just makes them sound like idiots - the actors clearly don’t speak English and have learned their lines phonetically without the benefit of language coaches. This is particularly bad for the character who’s meant to be Korean-Australian but clearly isn’t.
Absolutely everyone bursts into heavily accented English for no reason at all times of day, clearly thinking this makes them sound cosmopolitan and international when it just makes them sound like idiots - the actors clearly don’t speak English and have learned their lines phonetically without the benefit of language coaches. This is particularly bad for the character who’s meant to be Korean-Australian but clearly isn’t.
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