WOW. Thanks @MYOS1634! The only reason I said no crime dramas is because we’ve already watched - and thoroughly enjoyed - so many of them including Line of Duty. We thought it was time to expand. All your recommendations very appreciated!
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Some other British comedies we loved (not sure what is on BritBox and what is elsewhere) are:
- Motherland - (with the fabulous Diane Morgan). It’s about moms (and dads) dealing with the “school run” and raising elementary aged kids. The kids are incidental to the show. It’s all about the parents and there are some characters you love to hate and some that you just love.
- Raised By Wolves - raunchy and hilarious comedy about a homeschooling family in Wolverton in the Midlands. This one is about the kids, especially the two oldest. It is written by Caitlin Moran and her sister Caroline and is loosely based on their childhood.
- Here We Go – family pseudo “documentary” filmed by the highschool age son. Stars Jim Howick as the dad, who you might recognize from other things. He gets around. (He plays the character of The Verderer in The Change that I recommended up thread.) Here We Go is a funny and warm look at family life with one college age kid and one high school age kid and extended family. They did one COVID season.
- and I’ll give another plug for The Change – it’s funny, and about menopause and also just about finding yourself. The guys in it are mostly portrayed as bumbling idiots who can’t put the toilet paper on the holder themselves, but they aren’t jerks, just hapless and mostly lovable dudes who don’t know anything about menopause or what women do for them. Here’s the BritBox blurb about it: “Comedy-drama that puts menopausal women center stage as Linda heads to the forest on a journey of self-discovery. After forgetting what a shoe is called, Linda is convinced she has early onset dementia.” I would not call it drama at all. To me it was just comedy with heart, not drama.
Also almost anything with Sarah Lancashire. She’s the lead in Happy Valley and is in Last Tango in Halifax and Black Doves (Netflix).
I think I’m in the minority but I did not like Line of Duty. Seemed formulaic to me, but maybe I need to give it another chance. If you haven’t watched Slow Horses it’s one of the best things on TV (Apple TV, a British spy show with the amazing Gary Oldman).
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Re your list, I didn’t like Line of Duty. We watch a lot of crime shows and it just felt flat so we never pursued it. Maybe I need to give it another chance.
Loved loved Ludwig. I love David Mitchell. I watch him on the game shows. He is a team leader on “Would I Lie To You” and sometimes shows up on QI. He is hilarious and so persnickety!
I think I might get so mad about Mr Bates & the Post Office. I read about that. I do like Toby Jones. He was great in The Detectorists.
We passed on Call The Midwife. Watched an episode or two and I know it’s hugely popular and I thought it was well done, but just not our thing.
Happy Valley was amazing. We also watched Scott & Bailey, which Sally Wainwright wrote too. It was good, but felt so dated for some reason. It felt like a 90s cop show. Not in a bad way, but just stylistically. We also watched Unforgiven which was very good.
I think Riot Women looks great!
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Ditto!
Surprisingly my husband and I both enjoy Call the Midwife. It did take me a while to get used to all the baby-birthing scenes. The aspect we really love, unexpected at the beginning, is watching the change in London over the many years of the story. (Society, cars, music, clothing etc)
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Mad men is one of my top 3 series finales. It was brilliant. I also loved The Americans, great unforeseen ending, at least by me. I had to watch it again. And of course, Bob Newhart.
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H has been away all week on business so I finished watching Never Have I Ever this week. I loved this show and was sad to have it end, but 4 seasons was the right amount of time for the story.
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@showmom858 that’s on my list to watch.
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Ludwig is extremely cute! Warning it still leaves you hanging on some things and it will be a long wait for Season 2!
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To be fair, I didn’t like Line of Duty S1, then I liked S2 because of Keeley Hawes and was hooked; it feels like it really picked up after that. I think they also got bigger budgets for S3 and especially S4-5, when they landed on BBC1, at least it “felt” like it.
Generally speaking I like the idea of an accountable police force but even more so this year.
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It might be one of those shows where we decide to rewatch Season 1 right before arrival of Season 2. Really did like the characters and the banter.
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Consolidation!
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Started Mad Men. I know everyone loves it, and I find the acting, writing, and presentation all so well done. But it is so depressing! Everyone is either a terrible human being (all the men) or a victim of terrible human beings (all the women.) I understand that this was a different time etc, but it seems unrelenting. Will probably give it more time, but it’s tough.
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This wasn’t limited to advertising nor to the 1960s. I worked in consumer lending in the 80s and 90s, and women were still second class citizens. There were 100 VPs in the company and TWO were women, and both of them were sort of insane and that was used as the reason why there weren’t more women VPs. There was a ton of drinking on business trips and bad behavior as a result of that behavior.
To a much lesser extent, my daughter experiences some of that now in her still male dominated company. She had to ask for a new supervisor because of some of the things the old one said.
It’s getting better, but that glass ceiling is still there.
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Yeah, it’s bad and I know was worse then. I guess I thought there’d be a little more nuance–like every single guy seems to attack Peggy. Maybe there were not any decent guys in advertising then–quite possible I guess. But it so depressing to watch! Not just the rampant sexism, but everyone are such unhappy people. I’m going to stick with it for now, but whew! Depressing!
We started watching it, but it was just too depressing and I feel like we are backsliding back to that era.
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It’s been a few years since Good Girls Revolt came out, and was mentioned on this thread. It is based on true circumstances for women working for “News of the Week” and how they were treated. It’s one season on Prime and worth a look.
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They are great characters, but they’re not good people. It takes some getting past.
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That’s true of a lot of shows. Sopranos?? Yikes. Even Nurse Jackie - Jackie could be kind, but overall she was not a nice person. Ozarks, too.
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My first thought was Succession, loved it, but disliked most of the characters.
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This may be why I haven’t watched most of these shows. I’m not a Pollyanna type but have little interest in supposedly complicated jerks. I live in Soprano territory I don’t need to hear how interested and complicated they are.
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