Movie and TV Reviews - January 2023

Short reviews of movies and TV shows we watched in January.

Movies

• Avatar 2: The Way of Water. It is an incredible cinematic experience in service of a 1940s pulp magazine plot. I enjoyed it for the wow factor and not much else.
• The Detectorists Movie Special. The Detectorists return five years after the third-season with a made-for-tv movie special. This was one of our favourite shows when it was on and we were glad to see them back, even for a one-off. (Acorn TV)
• Death in Paradise Christmas Special: Nothing new in the episode but it was enjoyable and the Christmas stuff was low-key. (BritBox)

TV Shows

• Slow Horses (season 2): This wasn't quite as good as the first season because it was oriented more toward action and less toward character development. It was still very watchable. (Apple TV+) 
• Farewell Doc Martin: After 1- seasons Doc Martin finally came to a close. This retrospective gives a behind-the-scenes look at the show from the beginning to the final scene. (Acorn TV)_
• Midsomer Murders: 25 Years of Mayhem. Another behind-the-scenes documentary, covering 25 years (and 23 seasons) of Britain's classic whodunnit. (Acorn TV)
• Wednesday: I was never a big fan of the earlier Adams family TV shows, but this was pretty good, probably due to the involvement of Tim Burton. Thing was the highlight of the show. (Netflix)
• Three Pines: This is based on a popular series of detective novels by Louise Penney and set in rural Quebec, just outside of Montreal. It's nice to see a Canadian setting and the use of important Canadian issues (residential schools, for example) in the story. It reminded me of the Australian series, Mystery Road, in that respect. It's not quite as good as the recent series, Cardinal, but still very watchable. (Amazon Prime)
• The Rift: Bad things happen on a North Sea oil rig. It reminded me of 1899 but it's not filmed so darkly that I couldn't watch it. (Amazon Prime)
• Father Brown (season 8): Another cozy mystery, this one featuring a Catholic priest as a detective in 1950s England. Not to be taken seriously. (BritBix)
• Shetland (seasons 5 and 6): A police procedural set in the Shetland islands. This one can get grim but is very well done with complex plots and good characterization. You may need the closed captions.  (BritBox)
• Kaleidoscope: A standard heist series distinguished by the way the story is presented. You can watch the episodes in any order. We wimped out and decided to watch it in chronological order but decided not to continue after the first episode. (Netflix)
• The Recruit: A lawyer joins the CIA and chaos ensues. If you like lighter, somewhat comedic thrillers then this is for you. Not so much for me. I just found it silly and not terribly funny. I guess that I was spoiled by Slow Horses. (Netflix)
• Antiques Road Trips (season 18): This show gets a little cute at times but we like seeing the off-the-beaten-track places they go to in the quest for the perfect antiques. (PBS)