Kevin's Watch

Cail wrote:Netflix has it, I'm sending Disc 1 back this morning.

yep, after i got off wow last night and went to netflix i looked it up. they have it, just not on streaming instant play. so i'll have to get the disc as soon as i send Indian Runner (which i haven't watched yet) and Desperation back. (btw, Desperation really sucked eggs!!)


so addressing everyone that's listed things like Castle, and Bones, and Warehouse 13 and the like...i'm not so big on the humorous ones. tho i have watched more Warehouse 13 episodes than any of the others combined. i looked at some Bored to Death info and it looks good but just not my cup of tea right now. honestly the last time i enjoyed a cop or detective show that was humorous was Moonlighting! (it really does depend on my frame of mind for the most part and right now i'm into the more serious, noir-ish kind of stuff like The Killing)

and that's sort of why i was skeptical of Life on Mars for the first couple of episodes, but they had a couple of serious ones. last night i watched eps 6 and 7 and part of 8 and it looks like it's sort of going back to the humor stuff and not doing that great a job of it. thats why i only watched part of ep 8, cause i can only take so much of that kind of sitcom-ish humor.
(and god please do something with gretchen mol's 70's hairdo!! UGH)

so cail, what i'm wondering...is watching the american Life on Mars going to spoil the british one for me? are they using the same storylines? does the american one end the same way the british one does? cause if it has the same endgame as the american one i'd just as soon skip it and get the british one on dvd. is the brit one the same hapless character? (honestly i don't think i can take a full 17 episodes of jason o'mara doe-eyed crying scenes.)


so i'll list some of my favorites, including old timers:

of the brits i loved

Cracker (robbie coltrane's eddie "fitz" fitzgerald)
Prime Suspect (helen mirren's jane tennison)
Inspector Morse (played by the awesome John Thaw, honestly has there ever been a better cast actor to play a book detective?)
Rebus (played by John Hannah, who was good, but not as good as john thaw as morse)
Wire in the Blood (Dr. Tony Hill, played by Robson Green - these are six short 3 and 4 episode series and pretty dark)

of the american shows i grew up watching things like:

Burke's Law (the 1960's one, not the 90's remake)
Honey West (played by Ann Francis and was a spin-off of Burke's Law)
Mannix (mike connors)
Cannon ( played by william conrad, who my dad used to call "detective fats")
The FBI (yes, i loved ephram zimbalist jr!!!)
Banacek (george peppard)
Barretta (robert blake)
The Fugitive (david janssen)
Streets of San Francisco (karl malden and michael douglas)
and yes, i did watch
Moonlighting (bruce willis and cybil shepard)
and
Miami Vice (don johnson and phillip michael thomas)


and looking some of these up i find that Quinn/Martin productions were all over television in the 70's and a LOT of the shows i watched were Quinn/Martin productions.

i took a pretty long hiatus from tv cop and detective shows and basically started reading detective and crime fiction instead. i think it's because i really liked darker stuff than what was playing on tv in the mid 70's to mid 80's. also because most of the time when i was growing up i didn't really read crime and detective fiction, i read sci-fi and fantasy.
i think things like Hill Street blues i may have watched one full season, same with Moonlighting and Miami Vice.

it was probably NYPD Blue and Law and Order that got me back into tv crime and detective shows.

I've only seen 2 episodes of the Brit LoM, so I really can't comment on whether or not the whole story arc is the same. It's certainly similar so far.