Monday, March 31, 2008

Anyone Seen This?

I’ve been watching the HBO miniseries “John Adams” for the past few weeks. If you haven’t seen it and you have the slightest interest in history, I definitely recommend it. I’m not gonna do a full fledged review here, but the acting is superb and the production values are incredible. This is one of the best period pieces I’ve ever seen.

It’s based on the David McCullough biography of the same name, which I haven’t read yet. I just got around to starting 1776, which came free with my Sony Reader well over a year ago.

Anyway, Part Four premiered last night and I missed the early showing so I had to stay up till midnight to catch the next one. I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it. I remember the Previously on John Adams… part and the opening credits, but the rest is a little fuzzy. I know my eyelids were heavy and I was exerting great amounts of effort to keep them open while I was watching, and I thought I was following along, I could see and hear what was going on, but then every few minutes I realized my eyes were actually closed. So then I’d open them and try to catch up with what was really going on, and that was difficult because what I had thought was going on was really a half dream I’d been having. And being somewhat groggy, it took a couple minutes to determine that no, Thomas Jefferson hadn’t floated away in a hot air balloon on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan only to have a xenomorph pop out of his stomach at the last second and ruin everything. And by the time I figured that out, everyone was in England and my eyes were closed again. So I’m gonna have to watch the rerun tonight, just to make sure Mr. McCullough didn’t start smoking crack halfway through his book. If anyone can confirm there were no xenomorphs in last night’s episode, I would greatly appreciate it.

7 comments:

Sarah Laurenson said...

TIVO or DVR, BT. It does wonders for us old folks.

No xenomorphs here, but I did have miniature flying cows with stomach worms. Maybe those worms were xenomorphs.

I did accidentally catch a glimpse of it the other night and it looked fantastic. I love period pieces.

PJD said...

Sometimes I hate that I'm too cheap to pay for HBO. I'll have to wait until its available through netflix. This is exactly the type of series I would skip a hot date for. I am a real colonial history nut (OK, not a nut but an "enthusiast" perhaps).

I'm hoping you were half dreaming and the thing about xenomorphs isn't actually a spoiler.

Robin S. said...

Love the 'sacred and undeniable' dial-stop on your truth-o-meter, BT.

I've said it before and I'll say it again- your sense of humor is good, good stuff.

Anyway - we don't have HBO - we lean toward The Golf Channel in our household. I'm wishing we did have HBO- sounds like they're better than most network stuff. Big shock there. I hate network 'reality' TV with a passion. First, because it's about as real as silicone titties, and second, I would neevr want most people on those shows to ever be near me or anyone I loved. Or even liked. So why would I give a rolling hoo-hah what they do or why they do it?

I love history. I'd love this show (although I do think the Timothy Leary stuff going on with our founding father in your head last night might've been a dream sequence kinda thingie. Hope so, anyway.)

Blogless Troll said...

Used to have DVR, Sarah, but we recently switched to DirectTV from cable (which is also why we have HBO, because it was free for the first 3 mos). The reason we didn't get the DVR with the sat is long and complicated, but we're gonna get a TIVO soon I think. Sorry to hear about the stomach worms.

Pete, I'll be using Netflix for the last three episodes because the 3 free months is about up and I'm not paying an extra $30/mo so I can stay up till 3AM watching movies I've already seen or own on DVD. Except for this miniseries, the movie packages aren't worth it to me.

Robin, I don't know anyone who likes the reality shows, but I guess lots of people watch em. I'd rather stand outside my neighbors' window and watch them watching reality TV.

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Damn it I forgot it was on, I've been so busy. But I have On Demand! Thank goodness! I will definitely be checking it out!

Sarah Laurenson said...

I love reality shows. The fodder for characters for my books is enormous. You guys are missing out on a wonderful resource for strange character development.

Blogless Troll said...

That's a great point, Sarah. I have watched them in the past for that very reason.