The TV Series Thread

[Morden]

"De Dag"--Belgian crime series (so subtitles). I think they only have one season, but it's really good. One episode is from the police perspective, and then the next goes over the same ground from other perspectives. Interesting cliff hangers to keep you guessing.

[mamselle]

French or Flemish? (Title looks like the latter, but with Belgium, one never knows!)

M.

ETA: Never mind, I looked it up. Can't find the English subtitles and (my family being Wallonnais) I have a bit of a reluctance to try to figure out Flemish! (Unless I'm missing something somewhere....) - M.

[Morden]

It was Flemish (though with a number of French phrases thrown in), but the version I saw (CBC Gem) came with English subtitles.

[mamselle]

Ah, ok, I'll look for that.

See, since 1538, the Flemish (Dutch, really) were supposed to leave Belgium to the Belgians, sooo...

(I try to be ecumenical in such matters, but it's hard...oh--hope you're not Flemish!)

M.

[Morden]

since 1538, the Flemish (Dutch, really) were supposed to leave Belgium to the Belgians, sooo..

I hadn't realized that. It does make for a very interesting linguistic mix. I don't know Dutch, but know a bit of German, so could recognize some bits from that along with the French phrases. Plus the English swear words, of course.

[mamselle]

Yeah, I started out thinking inclusively, but attended a Belgian holiday party once where it was very clear that the Flammands were in charge and they looked down their noses at anyone speaking French--comme moi--and then ran into issues where my cousin lives in which the upscale decisions in the north were hurting the southern folk who'd been done out of jobs in the coal pits (usual issues, as here in the US and in the UK), and the Flammands were behind that, and....ummm....

I'm usually very open to options and collegiality and all, but I've become a bit politicized when it comes to things Belgian!

And I, also speak a tiny bit of German, and started thinking I could hear and understand things on the trains, and in the newspapers, and then decided I didn't feel like trying anymore--it wasn't their country to begin with!!

Sorry....

OK, back to your regularly-scheduled TV program discussions...

M.

[jimbogumbo]

Yeah, I started out thinking inclusively, but attended a Belgian holiday party once where it was very clear that the Flammands were in charge and they looked down their noses at anyone speaking French--comme moi--and then ran into issues where my cousin lives in which the upscale decisions in the north were hurting the southern folk who'd been done out of jobs in the coal pits (usual issues, as here in the US and in the UK), and the Flammands were behind that, and....ummm....

I'm usually very open to options and collegiality and all, but I've become a bit politicized when it comes to things Belgian!

And I, also speak a tiny bit of German, and started thinking I could hear and understand things on the trains, and in the newspapers, and then decided I didn't feel like trying anymore--it wasn't their country to begin with!!

Sorry....

OK, back to your regularly-scheduled TV program discussions...

M.

It is related to Monty Python's Flying Circus. After all, they are Belgian!

[secundem_artem]

"De Dag"--Belgian crime series (so subtitles). I think they only have one season, but it's really good. One episode is from the police perspective, and then the next goes over the same ground from other perspectives. Interesting cliff hangers to keep you guessing.

It's Dutch (Vlaams) for The Day. (I've lost most of it, but my first language was Dutch.)

My Mother in Law was Flemish and never did forgive Monty Python for their "Dirty Fat Belgian Bastards" routine.

[Sun_Worshiper]

We watched the first few episodes of Nine Perfect Strangers over the last couple of nights. Not brilliant, but it is a fun watch and the cast is great.

[cathwen]

My husband and I have been watching The Kominsky Method (Netflix) and highly recommend it!  Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin are the two main characters—an acting teacher (MD) and his agent (AA) who are also best friends.  It is sharp, funny, sad, quirky, and thoroughly enjoyable. 

[ergative]

Absolutive and I watched the first two episodes of The Chair last night. It was okay, I guess, but it gives me hives to watch the hot mess professor be such a hot mess in front of his class. Aside from the excessive grandeur of the faculty offices (one professor complains about being moved to a shithole office in the basement of the gym, which is larger and better lit than my office), which is a universal constant in academia on screen, it rings mostly true. I've definitely had some of the conversations that they have.

[secundem_artem]

Absolutive and I watched the first two episodes of The Chair last night. It was okay, I guess, but it gives me hives to watch the hot mess professor be such a hot mess in front of his class. Aside from the excessive grandeur of the faculty offices (one professor complains about being moved to a shithole office in the basement of the gym, which is larger and better lit than my office), which is a universal constant in academia on screen, it rings mostly true. I've definitely had some of the conversations that they have.

As someone trained in healthcare, I simply cannot watch medical shows.  The first year of any such program is about patient care.  But by the 2nd season, they are usually about who is boning who in the linen closet and any healthcare as is shown is usually some fascinoma that any clinician may see once in a career.  Boring.

So I went into watching The Chair expecting it to be completely unrealistic.  And it wasn't.  Yeah, some parts are over the top in order to drive the plot, but some of it rang true.

Certainly enrollment issues and tenure concerns are pretty universal.  The crisis in the humanities seemed accurate.  The tension between how Moby Dick could be taught in a traditional fashion or how it could be taught a la Hamilton could be real.  A dept chair catching hell from both above and below seems accurate.  That meeting student demands for a socially just campus will never happen fast enough for those students to appreciate just how slow change occurs or to appreciate that things may be better than they were - that rang true.

Less accurate - a single faculty member in control of a colleague's tenure decision.  No way.  A faculty member conspiring with IT to find out who has been posting nasty reviews on RMP - preposterous. That the IT department is actually helpful in any way shape or fashion - pure fiction That one poorly timed and failed joke is enough to launch dismissal proceedings against a tenured prof - unlikely.  A suspension maybe, getting canned, I doubt it.

Not at my place but maybe at yours - some aged old codger of a professor constantly asleep and passing gas.  Never seen one.  The charming, mid-career, man-child professor who leaves chaos in his wake and thinks others will clean up his mess.  Not in my dept, but maybe in yours.  WAAAY too many parties, dinners, fundraisers, cocktail hours.

What I thought was good - there is no real "bad guy" in the show.  The complaints of students, faculty, administrators were all taken seriously.  The budget obsessed Dean was not a boogie man, but just another mid level number cruncher trying to keep the lights on.  The old and venerable faculty still had passion for their work - although that passion did not trickle down to the undergraduate level and their sense that perhaps their time has passed.

Overall, the show is enough "inside baseball" to get the attention of the professoriate, but not so abstruse as to be ignored by the general public.  I give it a solid B.

[ergative]

Less accurate - a single faculty member in control of a colleague's tenure decision.  No way.  A faculty member conspiring with IT to find out who has been posting nasty reviews on RMP - preposterous. That the IT department is actually helpful in any way shape or fashion - pure fiction That one poorly timed and failed joke is enough to launch dismissal proceedings against a tenured prof - unlikely.  A suspension maybe, getting canned, I doubt it.

Yeah, the whole RMP thing was funny but ridiculous. Although my IT department is really superb, and in one case helped me determine that an administrater had genuinely falsified an email, which had severe consequences for a student, and led directly to that admin person 'resigning'.

As for the poorly timed joke--this hot mess professor did not just make a poorly timed joke. He'd been not showing up to class and neglecting his students as well. He'd been eating up all his professional capital for a while, and he strikes me as the type of professor who is popular with some students, but may well have generated complaints with others. I myself would not like being accused of being high on the first day of class and disbelieved when I say I did the reading, and it looks like this is the sort of thing he does regularly. Some students think it's cool and all, but others may well have been submitting complaints for years. If you do that on top of an offensive joke that goes viral, I could see it getting as far as a dismissal proceedings. (Yes, I recognize that his previous offenses were not shown onscreen, but maybe they're all there in the paperwork brought to the meeting that never gets read onscreen.)

Not at my place but maybe at yours - some aged old codger of a professor constantly asleep and passing gas.  Never seen one.

I didn't hear the gas, but we definitely had an old codger falling asleep during talks.

What I thought was good - there is no real "bad guy" in the show.  The complaints of students, faculty, administrators were all taken seriously.  The budget obsessed Dean was not a boogie man, but just another mid level number cruncher trying to keep the lights on.  The old and venerable faculty still had passion for their work - although that passion did not trickle down to the undergraduate level and their sense that perhaps their time has passed.

Yes, I agree here. It would have been too easy to make a joke about cancel culture, and it didn't, really. I admit I laughed a lot as the students seized on the boneheaded things Prof Hot Mess kept saying ('I wouldn't use the stories of Jewish refugees here, if I were you' was a great line), but they weren't wrong to seize on them. He did a terrible job. For someone as hip and with it as he is, he should know that 'I'm sorry you feel . . .' is an offensively bad apology, and it was good that the students called him out on it--especially because they did give him a chance. They listened, they thought about it, they engaged with him thoughtfully and then they decided that he still sucked and hadn't made it right.

Overall, the show is enough "inside baseball" to get the attention of the professoriate, but not so abstruse as to be ignored by the general public.  I give it a solid B.

I'd put it at B+/A-. Don't forget that the hilarious kid was genuinely hilarious in that weird-ass creepy way that smart kids have.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I also watched The Chair and enjoyed it a lot. The writers obviously did their homework about university life, while also taking some liberties and exaggerating quite a bit. Putting aside accuracy, the show had good performance and managed to be both funny and emotionally effective. I agree with ergative that B+/A- is about right

[mamselle]

Just happened across a very interesting (albeit older) series on British comics, interviewed by Dawn French (late 2000s).

This one is of John Cleese:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDryok7xeTo

There are several more, of both male and female comedy performers, very insightful, engaging, and of course, at times, funny, too.

M.