oh, look. something dreadful.

okay!!! here is some aimless stuff about some TV shows. this has sat in draft form for too long because it feel so unstructured and unimportant so I'm just gonna send it out. it's my blog and I do what I want.

I never thought I'd be saying this at the start of the season but I actually kind of ship Mervin and Naomi after the second most recent episode of Death in Paradise. I don't actually know if that's where they're going (so soon after Neville and Florence AND that brief Naomi and Marlon thing?) and I think Mervin has more character development to go through before it could actually but I wouldn't object too much if they went there. I always distrust TV writers to do justice to a ship by default so it feels dangerous to even low-key like something that might actually happen!

this post was a WIP that I got lazy about (so much so that another DiP episode came out in the meantime) and since then I have seen someone on Tumblr (unprompted, directly in the tag) saying that Naomi/Mervin is bad due to the age gap. booo. it's a stupid criticism anyway but somehow it didn't even occur to me that it was an age gap ship even though the actors are pretty far apart in age. if we're going to go that route, I would have thought him being her boss might be more of a problem although the DiP universe historically doesn't care about that. with that said, I really do think he needs to learn a few more life lessons before he is worthy of her. luckily, Darlene is training Mervin quite well. she is always so great when she politely but forcefully puts her foot down and I loved that she enforced her boundaries with the Commissioner's new replacement without hesitation in this most recent ep too. Darlene is one of my all-time faves AND she is so stunning. somehow this paragraph got away from me but it's worth it for Darlene.

I also want to ramble about the Bergerac 'reboot'. I'm not sure why because I would classify it as extremely okay. like yeah, that sure was a thing I watched.

as a disclaimer, I've only watched a bit of the original Bergerac. I do like John Nettles but I've just never gotten around to watching more than some random eps that happened to be on plus a few chosen specifically for a guest star (e.g. Peter Woodward!).

Hal was one of my faves in Being Human so I am immediately sympathetic to new!Bergerac's face and manner. (seeing him resurrected some shipping memories too!) I also saw that the the writer/creator is the same guy who created Being Human too (Toby Whithouse). I am also very pleased to see Philip Glenister AND Zoe Wanamaker in just about anything.

this is a six part series with a continuous story rather than the original ~10 standalone episodes per season. I wasn't sure how they were going to stretch the case out this long at the start but it does have twists and turns and plenty of interpersonal drama.

they made an interesting choice here to give new!Bergerac a recently deceased wife, whose death was the cause (?) of his alcoholism. old!Bergerac is instead a divorced alcoholic who recently injured himself due to his alcoholism and constantly let his ex-wife down when they were together. I don't feel great about fridging the wife to make him more sympathetic (presumably), especially because she's a character that appears multiple times in the original. with that said, they've replaced his ex wife's wealthy father with a wealthy mother (Zoe Wanamaker) and she sort of fulfills both the role of in-law and disappointed ex-wife in some ways. there's also a big focus on Bergerac's daughter Kim and his relationship with her. he's still not dad of the year but it seems like he's trying a lot harder than old!Bergerac.

anyway, they somehow did stretch the plot out and the resolution was fine. it was more about the journey, I suppose. said journey was mediocre but at least filled with faced I like looking at.

I also started Severance with my partner and we are now caught up. I might write a separate thoughts post some time because there are MANY. I'll just say that it is a very good mix of dark humour, interesting sci-fi concepts, and feels in addition to being visually interesting. I am very much looking forward to the rest of this season!