I don't think I am going to continue with it - I like Jason Momoa - he is the only reason I watch it because the supporting characters don't really have much charisma - they are not memorable or sympathetic. I understand it is the time and the place but everybody seems to be out for themselves and don't give a toss about anyone else. I also don't understand why Michael "would die" for Declan - he's only known him five minutes. As you say Clenna is a street thief - she should have more suspicion of old men who treat her nicely - especially as she has been warned about him. I also think that soldiers for the most part tend to feel a certain comradeship and it is difficult to see how Bentons garrison would react to fellow soldiers being starved - kept prisoner in freezing conditions in the hope that they wont survive - and their superior officer being flogged in public. Most of Netflix offerings are designated teen and I don't expect that this age group would even think about the issues we raise.

You're better off quitting the show now. I watched the first episode of season 2. There is a scene where Samuel Grant, the business rival of Lord Benton, is sitting in a bath tub and is being shaved by his man servant Cobbs Pond, while they discuss business strategy. And then we see the compulsory "yuck!" scene when Cobbs Pond turns his head and kisses the top of Samuel Grant's head. So even in this show they have shoehorned in an implied gay couple.

So we will have to find another series to watch.

They just cannot resist the temptation can they? I think that a large percentage of writers must be gay - their determination to include it in every series seems to bolster this belief. It is an industry dominated by gays anyway. I watch a lot of cookery shows because I can't resist the manufactured "rivalry" between the teams . What amuses me (I am a bit of a masochist) is watching them try to figure out how to mention that they are gay - it's not easy when you are making mayonnaise - the favourite is - when a man is asked how they are getting along - "Oh - I'm ok - but I miss my husband" or some variation on that theme. The same with women - "I have loved being on the show but I'll be glad to get back to my beautiful wife". British quiz shows seem to be a magnet for them - I watched one guy struggle with trying to mention that he was gay for three quarters of an hour - he finally made it at the very last gasp when he won the show and when asked what he would do with the money he trilled "Oh - I am getting married soon and we'll spend it on matching suits" !! More and more seriously disabled people are appearing on quiz shows over here - I don't dispute that they shouldn't be excluded if they want to try I just don't understand why they would want to display their disabilities to the world at large. I guess it's a case of "vanity vanity all is vanity". Well, back to the problem at hand - what to watch next? I am going to trawl through Netflix and see what I can find. Oh - just a little nugget of information - it appears that the next adaptation of Jane Austen is going to contain sex scenes - and no doubt we can guess of what nature they will be !!!

See if you can get into Penny Dreadful. Or would you like to try Churchill's Secret Agents the New Recruits? It is docu series which could be interesting.

I think you've already watched the Roman Empire series, right? If not, that would be good.

There is a fantasy show called Tidelands, an Aussie show.

I think we talked about Secret City, that Aussie show. Yes we did talk about it. I remember now because we talked about the ex husband who became a woman working for the intelligence agency who was murdered about 3 episodes into the show. I thought the plot of that show was interesting, but I believe you have already seen it.

What about Longmire? Have you seen it? Can you get that one? It's about a sheriff in a midwestern county in the US. His county borders an American Indian reservation. Ring any bells?

@strangebedfellows said:

They just cannot resist the temptation can they? ... I watched one guy struggle with trying to mention that he was gay for three quarters of an hour - he finally made it at the very last gasp when he won the show and when asked what he would do with the money he trilled "Oh - I am getting married soon and we'll spend it on matching suits" !! More and more seriously disabled people are appearing on quiz shows over here - I don't dispute that they shouldn't be excluded if they want to try I just don't understand why they would want to display their disabilities to the world at large.

LOL, yeah it seems that lots of gay people are driven by some need to publicly profess their orientation, apparently borne of years of feeling the need to hide it. I guess blurting it out on a television show also obviates the need to inform all the people they know one by one. It is kind of funny to watch them struggle with their desire to make this public revelation, and the relief they feel after their gay rite of passage. After they've done that they can chum around with all the fag hags they know, swishy swish. That's fine. I just don't want to watch them kissing or to listen to any baby talk, kissy face romantic cooing. That stuff is bad enough when hetero couples do it in public.

I think the liberal media must want to stack shows with disabled people now as a way to value signal their commitment to 'equality'. The contestants probably get paid something for playing, also, so it helps them out. I am fine with that.

third reply:

also there is a Canadian show called Intelligence about the head of a pot smuggling ring and the head of an Organized Crime Unit who come to an understand of sorts about sharing intelligence with each other. It might be good.

Penny Dreadful is not available on Netflix - I did look for it. Roman Empire - yes, I watched that - I found it very interesting. Tidelands - yes - watched that. Secret City - I think I watched it but don't recall much about it. Longmire - is not available on Netflix Intelligence - is on Netflix - looks Ok - I shall give it a go. I think Netflix is going downhill rapidly - or maybe there aren't many good shows being made any more. I haven't seen a decent Scandinavian series for a long while now - there was a good Finnish? series called "Easy Living" which I quite enjoyed but it's not on Netflix any more - there is one on Netflix called "Unauthorised Living" which I have seen which was OK - although I don't recall it in detail now. I watch so much it is hard to keep track of them all.

Intelligence it is.

By the way, I added a few others to my list. There are a couple histories of Roosevelt, one about both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and one just about FDR.

And I found one called Bolivar about Simon Bolivar, a hero of South America. I only know that he helped liberate many countries in S. America from Spanish rule. The country of Bolivia was named in his honor. I hope it is well done. I love history. My education is lacking in much of the classical subjects. I will likely read up on Bolivar from online sources in order to check what the Netflix series has to say.

My education was dire. I live in South Wales and the Welsh do not consider that anything that takes place outside Wales is worth educating people about. They are the most insular people on earth with the most ugly language in the universe. It was my greatest misfortune to be born here. All Welsh people who have achieved some degree of fame trumpet about how proud they are to be Welsh and talk in Welsh accents when they visit - VISIT - because none of them live here. Take Richard Burton - the man who would be Dylan Thomas - he called his home Paye de Galle - which is French for Wales - but his house was in Switzerland. I consider myself a Briton. Anyway - rant over - I intended to say that I like documentaries because my education was so lacking. I don't mind any history - European or American - as long as it is factual and warts and all. I am partial to royal history because it's more personal than explorers and such but I am hungry for knowledge of most kinds.

I've started watching Intelligence. I like the show so far. It's funny how I feel sympathy for the drug dealer in this show. He seems to have some common sense and a fair sense of doing things. I would never be involved in the drug business or any organized crime business. But I think that if I were running a business like that, I would have to get rid of any drug addicts working for me. They are just too big of a liability.

I sometimes think I would make a good detective. I can read people fairly well and am intuitive about some things. But the work involves some really dark people. That might begin to affect my outlook after a while. And a detective told me that he has to deal with a lot of political nonsense on the job, and it keeps getting worse.

I will start watching it tonight. I think being a detective today would be a thankless task. In Britain there are so many hoops to jump through just to arrest a person - you have to have reasonable cause - you can only hold them for 24 hours I think, before either charging them or letting them go. If they ask for a lawyer you can't question them any more until one arrives. Your level of proof has to be very high before the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) will even consider charging them and if they do get to court then the sentences are stupidly lenient unless the crime is really bad. Our judges are virtually immune from prosecution and have no set age for compulsory retirement. One judge - many years ago - Christmas Humphreys - was notorious for sleeping through capital cases. He was extremely old and had little idea of why he was sentencing anyone to death but he was allowed to continue. Another judge about ten years ago - found an army private guilty of rape - but said he wasn't going to impose a custodial sentence because it might impact on his army career !! He was cashiered anyway. So - a detective can work his butt off - take life threatening risks and for what? Drug addicts don't really work for anybody except themselves - they will sell you down the river for their next fix - I don't see how anybody with any sense could trust them or employ them. I think the whole justice system is riddled with corruption from top to bottom - it's not what you know it's who you know - I don't think I could work like that.

Update - I am watching "Intelligence" and it is not bad as this type of show goes. It doesn't seem too PC at the moment (apart from the empowered black female cop) and I am four episodes in. I think we kind of root for the villain because he is humanised - he is not ultra violent - he has wife problems - and he loves his daughter and his difficult brother. Besides which these cops are so corrupt and unlikeable that you have no sympathy with them - you actually want Jimmy to win !! I am not sure why the female cops husband was included - it seemed completely pointless unless he crops up again later in the show. I also wondered how they planted a bug when Jimmy's offices were swept for bugs every couple of weeks. The machinations of the cops with their power struggles gets a bit repetitive and slows down the story. But those are minor complaints considering how picky I can be. !! There are only two seasons and I was surprised to see how old this was - 2006. Before I go I have to mention a phrase in "Frontier" because I thought "What!!" when it was said. Two people talking about Lord Benton and one says "We have to validate his paranoia" Was paranoia even coined in those days - I would have thought that originated with Freud somewhere in the late 19th century and Frontier was set in the mid 18th century. What do you think? How are you getting on with "Intelligence" ?

Also, did people speak of "validating" someone's emotion or thoughts back then? That seems such a modern psycho-babble turn of phrase.

I agree with your take on Intelligence, all you said. Mary Spalding's husband seems to be there to establish her as a career dedicated cop, and it is well known how frequently their marriages bite the dust. I think it is meant to make her a sympathetic character, just as James Reardon's addict brother, addict ex-wife, and sweet daughter humanize him. They are set up as the two reasonable characters, one on either side of the story. But I feel like they carry it a little too far with James in how he treats his screw up, addict, brother Michael. Michael has an inferiority complex, he knows that he is viewed a screw up, but he fights against that image, even though he probably knows he deserves that label. He consistently lies to his brother, and lies to him about lying to him.
And this is where they carry the good guy set up too far; James continues to give his brother the benefit of the doubt, and fails to check up on him enough. He ought to have sent his brother away, if possible. I know how brothers can be sometimes, how they overlook and forgive behavior in them that they wouldn't tolerate from others. But I am sorry, James should know that dumbass better than to trust him.

You're right about the way they wrote those cops characters. They are not just dirty in the way they treat the criminals they are after. For that at least you could rationalize their behavior a little, since the criminals are causing death and other damage to society. But they are back-biting, back stabbing each other. If the cops were really like those guys, then we would all be in big trouble.

I think it was ridiculous that Ronnie told Michael to clean up the puke in the toilet - his brother is co-owner of the club - it would have been an insult to him as well - anyway - can't they afford cleaning staff? One minute Jimmy has had three crops destroyed and is broke - the next minute he has so much cash he can't launder it . Francine - is Jimmy taken in by her? Would she dare to tell a lawyer everything she knew about him? Even if she was granted immunity (because if she sat at the same table as the crimes were being planned then she was an accessory before and after the fact - even joint enterprise - so she would have been as guilty as he was) that wouldn't mean immunity from Jimmy. I don't think they quite know where they are going with Francine - is she still in love with him and wants them to be a family again - or does she mean to destroy him? I agree with you about Jimmy's attitude towards his brother - he is simply too stupid and too dangerous to be around them - at the very least he should set him up in a different city - as you say - he is completely untrustworthy and Jimmy knows it. If his actions result in harm to Jimmy's associates then they would take him out anyway. I think they should have found an actor more suited to that part - he looks like he was adopted as he has absolutely no physical resemblance to Jimmy at all. Oh by the way - message to Jimmy - WASH YOUR DAMNED HAIR !!!

FRANCINE!...oh my God, what a basket case. And Jimmy keeps telling his partner and others they don't have to worry about Francine, that she would never talk to the cops, that he has it handled. That scene has been repeated so many times now it's like they are telegraphing to us the eventual betrayal by the scorned woman, angry addict, seeking to hurt Jimmy just to show him how bad she feels! That's what she is doing, trying to hurt him because of her own infantile emotional instability. I feel bad, so I'll throw coffee on you! And Jimmy can't see what is coming?

Famous last words, Jimmy. Quit saying she would never talk. Maybe I am wrong, but it just seems like the writers are sending us a message; Francine is a ticking time bomb, and Jimmy keeps saying "oh, those things never explode".

Michael is ripe for killing. He is a despicable person. His word is worthless. I can't see how someone like Jimmy could fail to raise hell over being lied to, continually, about very important issues which threaten the whole organization.

Michael has shown he is a danger to everyone, including his family and friends. I wonder if someone in his own organization will go behind Jimmy's back and have Michael whacked, or if he will send word to Dante that Michael was behind his nephew's death, and Dante will kill him. It just doesn't seem right that Michael should live very much longer. I hope they don't drag this out. I'm ready to see him gone.

I wonder if Francine is going to be whacked also. Jimmy wouldn't agree to that; he wouldn't even have her sent to prison so his daughter could be free of her. Jimmy is smart to seek peaceful resolution wherever possible, but he lets Francine and Michael get away with far too much.