PBS Masterpiece 2014 Cont. - Downton Abbey & Other PBS programs

[mrssherlock]

 

See the 2014 MASTERPIECE schedule. 

Now Discussing

Watch Season 2 of SELFRIDGE March 30 through May 18.


COMING
This summer (June 15 - September 7) look forward to new and continuing series: THE ESCAPE ARTIST (June 15-22): David Tennant (Doctor Who) and Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) star in a gripping legal thriller; ENDEAVOUR, Season 2 (June 29 to July 20): Shaun Evans returns for a second season with four all-new mysteries as young Endeavour Morse, before his signature red Jaguar...but with his deductive powers already running in high gear; HERCULE POIROT, Season 12 (July 27 to August 3): David Suchet returns as the suave Belgian super-sleuth in two new mysteries; BREATHLESS (August 24 to September 7): In this stylish and compelling new medical drama set in London in 1961, Jack Davenport (Smash, Pirates of the Caribbean) stars as a brilliant surgeon who believes he can make a difference in women’s lives.


ALREADY DISCUSSED
Watch Season 4 of Downton Abbey during January and February 2014.


Sherlock, Season 3, returned, starting January 19, following the 9pm broadcast of Downton Abbey. Benedict Cumberbatch (The Fifth Estate, Star Trek Into Darkness) and Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, The Office UK) returned as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in three new 90-minute episodes of the contemporary reinvention of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic, created by Steven Moffat (Doctor Who) and Mark Gatiss. Watch episodes on TV or online after they air.

Discussion Leaders:  JoanP and marcie

I didn't understand the reference to a "bleeding heart" either.  Let me know if you find an answer.  BTW I found an interesting novel about a midwife in Appalachia.  The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman is based on the author's experience in midwifery, a lay midwife like Patience Murphy. The 30's provide a background of much depth with plot elements such as the Depression, Prohibition, Ku Klux Klan, coal miners' labor woes, etc.  I can hardly put this one down.

[CallieOK]

In addition to being part of Jenny's grief-healing process,  I thought her time in the hospital was a good way to show the viewing audience another side of midwifery at that time.
Good Episode!!

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, Selfridges improves with each episode - have any of you gone on the PBS site for Selfridges - it includes a quiz that tells you which character you are most like - fun. 

[Steph]

Jennies boyfriend died from a fall.. That is why she went away.. I do remember shock therapy.Actually one of the Kennedy daughters had it. Sometimes it worked, but a lot of time, no.. Still is was accepted treatment for a long long time.

[MaryPage]

Yes, that's right.  I was going to post it, and then you did.
Jenny's beau died, and she mourned something fierce.  So they packed her off to a nunnery for a retreat, and Sister Monica Joan recited Leigh Hunt's "Jenny Kissed Me," which has been one of my all time favorite poems since I was a child.
Then she came back, but felt she had to go to London to try something different.  Then she decided that was not the place for her!
I have watched and enjoyed every single episode of Mr. Selfridge, as well.

[Steph]

I think I want to start the Selfridge from beginning, so may do it this summer on Netflix.

[marcie]

Thanks Steph and MaryPage for the info about Jenny's boyfriend.

[MaryPage]

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.

 
James Henry Leigh Hunt

Sister Monica Joan cried like a mother seeing her son off to war or jail as she recited this to Jenny as she was leaving.

[mrssherlock]

I, too, have loved Jenny Kissed Me since first reading it.

[JeanneP]

Steph.

The Kennedy girl. they did more than Shock Therapy. It was a operation they did. I think the name is something like Lobotomy.  Don't think this is allowed anymore.

[mrssherlock]

Back to Midwife: I've scored Jennifer Worthy's first book.  Call the Midwife:  a memoir of birth, joy and hard times.` Much richer than a mere chronology she regards the East End as an anthropologist might.  Her descriptions of labor and delivery are very graphic; I had no idea what was going on down there when my children were born. 

[Steph]

I am hoping to maybe find the trilogy in London.. It is hard to find here. I too always love Jenny Kissed me and wanted to be Jenny when I was young.

[mrssherlock]

Worth's book's fascinating, can hardly put it down.  Descriptions of East End London in the 1950's could also be 1850's so little seems to have changed. Books two and three are on my reserve list.  Jennifer Worth was born in the same year I was!

[BarbStAubrey]

Appears to me that both the Midwife and Selfridges is coming to an end - will they really continue the story of Harry Selfridge for 8 episodes of his dark and out of control days - each season seems to include 8 episodes. - of course it could be a setup after he says everything was done with Rose in mind and when she dies he has no muse or moral compass to focus the direction of the store and so easy seeing why he gambles and womanizes it away but I am not looking forward to seeing that tale played on the screen. the ads show some good ones coming up but our schedule only shows the summer fund drive and repeats of Sherlock - Father Brown is the only one with new shows and with so much repeat and dull I hope I do not miss that series -

[Steph]

Last night was the final episode of Call the Midwife and it acted as if the end of the show.. I loved it. Cried when the Momma died, laughed at the joy  of the doctor and wife. All in all a wonderful ending..

[jeriron]

After the interview with the cast it said watch season 4 next year .

[MaryPage]

Yes it did!  Steph, it will start again next spring!  Or so they have promised.

I was very pleased with how Call The Midwife ended this season.

And very, very pleased with how Mr. Selfridge ended.  I understand that was, indeed, the end.  I do love my writers to tidy everything up and make life come out seeming worthwhile!

[marcie]

It's interesting. I thought that the endings of both Mr. Selfridge and Call the Midwife were series finales (not just for the season). They seemed to me to be wrapping things up for most of the characters. I guess I was wrong.

I just read that "A third Christmas special will be broadcast in December 2014. The day after the final episode of series 3 was broadcast [in the UK], it was announced that although Jessica Raine will not return as Jenny Lee, Vanessa Redgrave will narrate the Christmas Special (and will narrate all future series) as "mature" Jenny. On 28 February 2014, BBC confirmed that Call the Midwife had been commissioned for a fourth series, set to air in early 2015."

On February 21, 2014 It was announced that a third series of Mr. Selfridge was commissioned to begin production in April 2014.

[CallieOK]

My t v guide said "Season Finale" for both series.   It reads "Series Finale" when there will be no more episodes filmed or shown.

The guide has not had a "dot" by Father Brown episodes for several weeks so I thought it was in re-runs.

Last night's episode of "Doc Martin" was the first one in Season 6, the most recent one to be filmed.   On the OKC PBS station, there is a repeat on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. CDT.
As I understand it, a new season is only made every other year and there are usually 8 episodes. 

[Steph]

Iam so glad, I do love Call the Midwife.. It has a realism that our tv shows only do for murder and mayhem.. English actors have a basic underplaying that I love.

[MaryPage]

Callie, have they been using a dot out there where you live to show that an episode is a new one being shown for the first time on that particular channel?
Here, they have always used an N.  For new.  Always.  You could absolutely count upon it.
But I have noticed just recently that they seem to either have stopped doing this, or missed doing it with some shows.  Frankly, it has been driving me crazy.
My son Chip always replies:  "That's a short drive, Mother!"

[CallieOK]

MaryPage,  Yes, the TV guide in the newspaper has a dot - on all channels.  The guide on my TV says "New".  If a movie is being shown for the first time on any channel, the newspaper guide will say "Premiere".   

LOL at your son's comment.  Mine usually look at each other and ask,  "Time to call The Home?"   

[bluebird24]

Where is downton abbey?

[salan]

I was very satisfied with the season's finale of both Call the Midwife and Selfridge.  My PBS guide says a new Last Tango starts in June.  I am looking forward to it.  I think we have a new Doc Martin this Sunday.
Sally

[mrssherlock]

Pioneers of Television's treatment of 'Late Night' had me laughing out loud.  Steve Allen,what wouldn't I give to have his genius on TV today. Much of today's humor and its actors are targeted to a younger audience; our generation has passed its prime, we've become the old fogeys who talk too often about good it was way back when.  PBS' series on Vs pioneers is a lovely walk down Nostalgia Lane.

Its hard to get back in the mood for Doc Martin.  I was glued to the set for the first years but it no longer charms me.  Selfridge and the Midwife are gritty, more realistic.  Martin seems shallow and silly.  Don't you hate it when you outgrow shows?

[MaryPage]

I do!  I do!
But I have to tell you that after dragging for several seasons, Season 6 of Doc Martin is the very best.  Not entirely the way I would have written it for the way I want things to go, but still and all, it is a great set of episodes.  I bought the set of DVDs for the 6th season by pre-order and have already seen them all.

[Steph]

I don't think I have Doc Martin on my pbs channel. At least I keep looking. Will it be on Sunday in place of Call the Midwife??

[CallieOK]

Doc Martin is shown here on Sunday night at 11:00 p.m. (CDT).  There's a repeat at 9:00 p.m. on Thursday night.  Our PBS station has been showing the entire series.  Season 6 began last Sunday night.

[mrssherlock]

I'll give Doc Martin a few showings to see if it will grab me.  Missed the Jeremy Piven Live six am is early. 

[CallieOK]

Yes, please do give it a few episodes.  Doc Martin has a form of Asperger's (am I right, MaryPage?) and takes a bit of getting used to. He always solves the medical problems brought to him - but has absolutely no "bedside manner".
 Part of the humor is in his blunt reaction to the residents of "Port Wenn"  (some of which is deserved, IMO) and their ignoring his brusque ways.

[MaryPage]

CALLIE, I think he has something on the autism spectrum, and most probably Asperger's syndrome.  Once, in one of the episodes fairly early on, a neighbor who was also, as I recall, supposed to be a professor of psychology or something like, actually accused him of having Asperger's.  In the show.  So I thought my guess as to what the writers were trying to portray him as was right.  But I have read bits and pieces here and there arguing the point, so I don't try to be pushy about it.  Bottom line, I just don't know what they are meaning to say.
I see a doctor in whose hands I would gladly and instantly put my own life or that of any of those I love.  A man who is thoroughly disliked, but deeply loved and trusted.  And who is totally at sea as to why people misperceive his intentions.
Here in the Baltimore/Washington DC megalopolis we have THREE (3) PBS channels!  They all 3 show Doc Martin every week, and at differing times on different days.  They do a lot of repeats.  Doc Martin is extremely popular in this area.  We like that tongue in cheek sort of humor.

[CallieOK]

I see a doctor in whose hands I would gladly and instantly put my own life or that of any of those I love.  A man who is thoroughly disliked, but deeply loved and trusted.  And who is totally at sea as to why people misperceive his intentions

Very well put, MaryPage...and very true.   

As you probably saw in the first episode of Season Six, he is very protective of Louisa - now that she is his wife.

I also saw compassion in the way he handled Mrs. Tishell in the last episode of Season Five.   Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing her in this week's episode.  Does she return for Season Six?

[BarbStAubrey]

My take on the Doctor is - he was unloved and an ignored little boy so that for self-protection he became disengaged from people and turned to something he could control - his achieving through the application of his education - because of his years of detachment he has no clue how to show or speak to someone in a loving caring manner - he is polite and reserved as taught to a British schoolboy sent away to school. I think his heart was broken so many years ago he buried the pain behind his stoic responsible solution to life. I think he is basically a kind man with again, no clue how to express his feelings to the point he probably buried his feelings as a boy when he realized he was not loved. I think feelings he never owned are stirring with the birth of his child that he is struggling with his own identity.

For Louisa his responsible nature is a lighthouse for her having grown up with an irresponsible father who she learned she could not trust or respect however, I think she is baffled over the Doc's inability to tell her in small ways he loves her or their baby - he has no people skills and I bet she thought she could love that part of him away. I do not think she fully comprehends what Martin's mother did to him when he was a boy.

Most of the cast act out in character some sort of dysfunction but done in a way that makes it all seem normal which in truth is close to reality for most of us.

[Steph]

I have been trying to find him locally, but no luck..When I get back, I will be going to North Carolina,, their PBS is not easy to get. Where I live there is closer to Georgia and South Carolina than anywhere.

[MaryPage]

Two more things about the show Doc Martin:
The setting is beyond divine.  And it is a REAL place.  The real name is Port Isaac, Cornwall, and the Doc Martin bunch own the town for about half the year now, while filming.
The acting is superb;  none better.
Yes, CALLIE, Mrs. Tishell comes home.

[ANNIE]

Well, you all have gone over the guard rail of my boat!  We are just now hearing from Doc Martin telling her he loves her.  No wedding or baby has been revealed yet.  Thanks a lot, folks!!   Hahaha!

I am in  complete agreement with Mary Page and BarbStAubrey concerning the Doc's handling of patients and citizens of the area, but we didn't not hear about his next door neighbor asking him or accusing him of having Asburger's.  So, let's see      Should we watch on Sunday or not!  But of course, we will, because are enamored of/by this wonderful presentation.

[MaryPage]

Annie, I am really sorry to have spoiled it for you.  Doc Martin has been on here for years and years and years, and is doing repeats over and over again.  I forget that some people are watching for the first time.
Well, here's hoping you enjoy to the fullest ANYway!

[mrssherlock]

Last Tango in Halifax is new to me; it's quirky as so many British programs are.  I'm always surprised by the offbeat plot twist and turns.  Love watching Ann Reid again.  She has become a favorite of mine since Ladies of Letters.She has been memorable in other favorites of mine: Midsomer Murders and New Tricks.  Reading her bio in Wikipedia I see many others I will seek out. 

[ANNIE]

MaryPage,
You didn't ruin it for us!  We love the program so much that we will watch Thursday's program over tonight.  At least for the first 20 minutes, since we missed that much on Thursday night.  Then we will watch another one tomorrow night.
  
Let me tell you that tonight we will be seeing program about Louisa's father coming to town and his ADD friend kidnapping the Doc, Louisa, Mrs. Tinsea?? and Martin's aunt. In this part of the story, the Add friend decides to let them go to save the baker who has fallen off the rocks that, the guy, who owned the shotgun that was involved in Martin's aunt being shot, is having an upset because the injured man has been nest robbing on the cliffs.  The shotgun owner thinks that he owns those cliffs and doesn't want the nests disturbed  'Member that one???   So what we are watching is series six?  and if not, which series is it?

One thing I do know, is I now watch the Doc for signs of Asburger's(not sure of that diagnosis) of how cold he seems at odd times and how long it took him to tell Louisa that he loved her.  I even read over Barb's post about Martin and see that the way he was treated as a child is what makes him cold(maybe suspicious) of the people around him.  
Asberger's  doesn't come to mind at all.  I have a teen aged great nephew who has that problem.  But, of course, he was born the way he is and he is just a delightful young man. Much credit goes to wonderful parents who are also raising 4 other children in that household.   Isaiah is the their youngest.
  

Jackie,I also love Midsomer Murders but haven't seen Ladies of Letters or New Tricks.  I will be looking at my library for the DVD's or on Netflix for those titles.  I thought that Last Tango in Halifax was over.  Are you just now watching it?  I'm pretty sure we've seen the end of it.  I liked it but it did seem to jump around a lot.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ann you have lots to enjoy - do not remember exactly what episode but you are still early in the story line.