🧵 Thursday Thread: Let's Talk About TV! Share your favorites, please!
Hi! Let's talk about shows we're watching right now, or shows we've watched recently or want to watch soon or think everyone should binge!
I love talking about stories in all their many forms, and I love it when we talk about stories here.
All the stories, all the time!
I loved our movie thread several months back, and our book thread before that, and now, I’m here for your TV insights!
I’ll go first. I somehow convinced Jon to watch an older show called The Americans. That’s a small miracle, because he doesn’t all that much like watching TV and he’s very squeamish about violence. I, on the other hand, really enjoy some good TV, both for the entertainment and escape and because it teaches me about story. Anyway, The Americans is way outside of my usual (I’m pretty squeamish about violence, too!). I’m usually more the family drama type than the action thriller type. Turns out, The Americans is an unusual combination of both.
The Americans is well written and well acted (I chose it based solely on the excellent critical reviews even though I do have to cover my eyes about once an episode). And, since it was a popular and critically acclaimed show, there’s a lot of good writing about it online, which I also enjoy (when I’m watching a show, I like to get deep into the weeds of it—that’s part of the experience for me! I used to love those post-show interviews with the cast and directors of Succession and White Lotus!).
Anyway, here’s an example of writing about The Americans from a Roger Ebert review years ago:
I noted last year how remarkably this show was willing to play with pace, allowing some scenes and subplots to go on past typical-for-TV breaking points while major events would happen unexpectedly. In that sense, “The Americans” plays more like literature than traditional television, and it’s a novel that’s getting richer and more rewarding with every season. It’s a program willing to take its time, which is still rare in the attention-grabbing medium of TV.
We just finished season three (of six) of The Americans, and—since it’s a spy show set in the Reagan-era ’80s—I’m learning a bunch of history I never studied in school and mostly failed to notice or understand as I lived through it in high school, while I was coming of age in foster care.
For sure one of the things I appreciate most about The Americans is how the writers continually complicate the narrative around morals. Everyone in the show (except the kids) is doing reprehensible things all the time, but they all profess to be doing—and much of the time seem to believe they are doing—those things in the name of a cause they believe is good and protective of the life and liberty of others. That complexity makes for interesting storytelling. I’m also learning a lot about the use of memory in the long arc of a story, and just how satisfying that can be—which, btw, we talked about and practiced during last winter’s Story Challenge in Week Ten/Horizon & Memory.
So, what are you watching? Or what do you want to watch? Or what should the rest of us be watching, and why?
I love hearing people’s thoughts about TV! Let’s go! Oh, and if you watched The Americans, please do share your thoughts, even if you hated it! Just no plot spoilers, please!!
Love,
Jeannine
PS Threads/comments are a fun, safe and intellectually vibrant literary space for paid members to convene. Upgrade/manage your membership any time to join the conversation, or give the gift of WITD to someone who needs it. Thank you for Writing in the Dark together!