TV Series - Love and Anarchy

Watched on Netflix
Premiered: 11/4/2020
Season 1

Number of Episodes: 8
Length of Episode: 25 - 33 minutes

IMBd: 7.4/10
RT Critic's Consensus: 100
RT Audience Score: 90
cag:   I loved it.  6

Filmed in Swedish, dubbed in English.

Set in contemporary Stockholm

 
My comments:  Sophie, a mom with two kids, takes on a consulting job for a publishing company that needs help.  The IT guy, a young man named Max, becomes smitten and they egg each other on by creating more and more bold dares for each other.  I loved it.

Storyline from Wikipedia: Sofie is an ambitious consultant and married mother of two children. When Sofie receives the order to restructure an old-established publishing house, her extremely orderly life begins to fall apart at the seams. She meets the young IT expert Max and begins an unexpected and daring flirtation with him. In the process, both challenge each other to do things that contradict established social norms. The harmless games soon turn into bitter seriousness as the challenges and the resulting consequences become bigger and more uncontrollable.

TV Show: Sweet Magnolias

Premiered: 5/19/2020
Season 1
Number of Episodes: 10
Length of Episode: 45 minutes?
IMBd: 7.4
RT Critic's Consensus: none as of 5/26/20
RT Audience Score:   67 / 69
cag: 5
Produced by: Netflix

Characters: Three friends
     Maddie (ex husband, Dr. cheated on her) and her three kids: Tyler, Kyle, and young girl
          Coach, love interest for Maddie, hunk
     Dana Sue (chef, daughter Annie)
     Helen (single lawyer who wants a baby)

My comments:  Quite delightful, not too heavy, which is much needed right now.  A little slow moving, but the romcom kind o show that has been tickling my fancy lately.  The only porblem is that it ended on a horrible note, a car wreck where the younger son, Kyle was pulled out unconscious and put on a stretcher and the second passenger was unknown.  His brother, Ty?  Dana Sue's daughter, Annie?  Frustrating because it'll be a t least a year IF it's renewed.  o surprises, but enjoyable.  Great cast.  The lead, Maddie, looks so much like Amy Adams that they could be twins.

Storyline from IMBd: Centers on three South Carolina women, best friends since high school, as they shepherd each other through the complexities of romance, career, and family.

TV Show - Upload

Watched on Prime Video
Season 1
Number of Episodes: 10
Length of Episode:
IMBd:  8.1
RT Critic's Consensus:  Though Upload at times suffers from tonal overload, witty writing and a winsome cast make it an afterlife worth living.
RT Audience Score: 87 / 88
cag: 3/liked it

My comments:  If you have lots of money, then when you die yoyu can have your consiousness uploaded into a virtual reality into an avatar of your likeness.  You even get to email and talke to your loved ones, and even tough them when they are all geared up in virtual reality gear.  So when Nathan dies in a freak car accident they discover it was murder - his rich, weirdo girlfriend pays for his uploads into a very fancy virtual reality.  There he meets his "angel," Nora, whose job it is to make sure he's cared for and nothing goes wrong.  They fall for each other, , he had, after all, had a pretty tentative lack-of-feeling for the girlfriend.  Series one ends with him breaking up with the girlfriend, being now poor so he had to start living in the cheap-o basement of the Upload facility,and girlfriend walks in with a huge smile and tells him she's had herself uploaded to be with him.

Storyliline:           By the year 2033, humans have developed the ability to upload themselves into their preferred choice of Artificial Afterlife. In Los Angeles, software engineer Nathan (Robbie Amell) is fatally injured in a self-driving car accident. His shallow girlfriend pressures him into agreeing to be uploaded to her family’s luxurious virtual heaven, Lakeview. Once there, he is greeted by Nora (Andy Allo), his customer service representative (or "Angel"), who appears as a holographic avatar while actually working in an office in Queens alongside other "Angels".  
          The series follows the two as Nathan grows accustomed to his imperfect afterlife with Nora's help, while the still-living Nora struggles to stay afloat.

TV Show: Normal People

Just finished watching Season 1 on the day it premiered on HULU
Premiered: 4/29/2020
Season: 1
Number of Episodes: 12
Length of Episode: 30 minutes
IMBd: 8.8
RT Critic's Consensus:  Anchored by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal vulnerable performances, Normal People is at once intimate and illuminating, beautifully translating the nuances of its source material.
RT Audience Score:  100%
cag: 3
from the book by Sally Rooney and produced by HULU

Characters:  Marianne & Connell

My comments:  What did I just watch?  Why?  Many conflicting feelings.  Although extremely depressing at times and without a happily every after ending, I couldn't stop watching.  Four and a half years in the lives of two Irish young adults, from the end of high school through four years at Trinity College.  Okay, the two protagonists had an incredible amount of chemistry and the steaminess of their connection was quite something.  But it was very inconsistent.  She went from a don't-tread-on-me-I-don't-give-a-shit person to a dump anything-on-me-I'll-take-it-because-I'm-worthless person.  WHAT?  from an introvert to an extrovert-of-sorts overnight  I'm sorry it's over, I needed more resolution, and it definitely left me feeling deflated, sad, depressed and somewhat empty.  I feel like slapping them both in the face and saying, "Snap out of it."  GREAT ACTING.

Storyline from IMBd:  Follows Marianne and Connell, from different backgrounds but the same small town in Ireland, as they weave in and out of each other's romantic lives.

TV Show - The Stranger

Just finished watching Season 1, which wrapped up the story completely, I don't think there'll be another season
Premiered:  1/30/2020
Season: 1 (and only)
Number of Episodes: 8
Length of Episode: 42 minutes
IMBd: 7.4
RT Critic's Consensus: If not quite as addicting as its source material, The Stranger has a strong cast and enough tension to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
RT Audience Score:  83%
cag: Liked it a lot, binge watched in one day....
Produced by: Netflix

Characters: The Price family:  Father Adam, Mother Corinne, Sons Thomas and Brian
The cops:  Johanna Griffin and her inept (for the most part) sidekick, Wesley Ross
The bad guy:  Cop & father, John Katz
The neighbors:  Tripp and his son, Michael
The ex-cop who wouldn't sell or leave his condemned property:  Martin Killaine (Stephen Rea)
Adam Price's unscrupulous father
Johanna Griffin's best friend and first to be murdered, Heidi

My comments:  Harlan Coben never disappoints!  This interesting story, with a multitude of side-events and happenings, kept me interested and enthralled.  A few of the premises didn't quite work (why was Corinne so reluctant to inform Adam of what was going on, and her intense reaction didn't fit) and (why would Adam go so willingly with Tripp at the end AND why would Tripp tell all with Adam standing there with a gun) to mention just a couple. It's certainly the type of show that I enjoy, and I look forward to more of Coben's work, this one set in England.

Storyline from IMBd:  Based on Harlan Coben's novel of the same name, the series will follow Adam Price, who seems to be living the perfect life - two great sons, a watertight marriage - until a stranger approaches him at a bar and reveals a shocking secret about Price's wife, Corinne.

TV Show - Unorthodox

Just finished watching Season 1
Premiered:  Today!!! March 26, 2020
Seasons:  This is brand new, and may only be this one season
Number of Episodes: 4 long episodes, watched in one sittinga
Length of Episode:  about an hour?
IMBd:  7.9/10
RT Critic's Consensus:  none yet
RT Audience Score:  note yet
cag:  5

Characters:  Esty, 19 year-old protagonist; Yanky, her hustband; Moishe, Yanky's cousin, who leads the twosome to Berlin to bring Esty home.
    NOTE:  Israeli actor Amit Rahav is someone to watch!

My comments:  I loved every minute of this series.  I LOVE the way it seamlessly goes from the present in Berlin and back to the roots of the story in Brooklyn a year or so previously.  The actors were superb and believable, you're rooting for all of them all the way.  Apparently the Brooklyn part is based on Deborah Feldman's memoir, but the Berlin part was totally rewritten.

Netflix Official Site
NY Times Review and summary

  

Storyline from IMBd:  Story of a young ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman who flees her arranged marriage and religious community to start a new life abroad.