Franklie Reviews

Cruising with Susan Calman (2022– )

She's just fun....

[9/10 · 29 April 2024]

Susan Calman is a joy. We're not British and first saw her on panel shows a few years ago, usually QI where she and Sandi are having a hilarious go at each other.

We watch her travels shows to hang out with her more than to see where she's going. The beautiful locations are a bonus. And her crew do an amazing job. We love it when she includes them.

Her Christmas show was the first one we watched and we're now doing our best to find all of the others. Sadly they're not all easy to find.

In a world of negativity, she's needed more than ever. We hope she continues taking us on adventures for a long long time.

Granite Harbour (2022– )

Annoying, but would like to see an improved second season.

[6/10 · 31 March 2023]

We really wanted to like this.

We're always rooting for mystery shows to be good, but this one had some of our biggest pet peeves.

One of the biggest being unlikable main characters. We liked the main character okay, but the rest were non-stop annoying. Especially DI Mallick. The police were so bad, we started hoping they were getting everything completely wrong and would be proved idiots at the end. The supposed requirement that the cops be snarky really has to go.

Despite all that, we appreciated that the script went classy rather than crass with the vocabulary and the visuals. Cinematography was great.

Would love to see an attempt at a second season maybe with more stories that are shorter. 90 minute mysteries are perfect.

James Acaster: Repertoire: Recognise (2018) Season 1, Episode 1

smart and hilarious

[9/10 · 24 March 2023]

Cool and edgy and hilarious without being crude and creepy.

We absolutely LOVED and appreciated that James didn't go the gutter route with the easy laughs usually found in using mindless cringe-worthy vocabulary and in mocking people or cultures or .... He went the no crude - no rude, class over crass route. There aren't many comedians / writers / performers / anyone really brave enough to do that these days. He just doesn't need to. Plus, he gets a wider audience. This is clever fresh air observational craziness-of-life hilarity. None of the usual tripe here.

Am eager to watch the rest of the series.

Endeavour (2012–2023)

Season Seven is a huge let down.

[8/10 · 12 November 2021]

Somewhere along the way, you'd think Morse's co-workers would start trusting his intuition, but instead the writers have them telling him more and more adamantly that he's an idiot. THIS GOT OLD AND BORING MANY SEASONS AGO. Quit w the snail's pace melodrama and take us back to the sights and sounds of Oxford with a team that works together.

Home for Christmas (2019–2020)

Beautiful Norway littered with horrible horrible horrible ugly vocabulary...

[3/10 · 21 December 2020]

Voice overs were passable, but still not believable. And the English subtitles don't always match the English words.

This is a bit Bridget Jones and Love Actually w loads more crass language and graphic situations.

There is one point where someone says 'sorry for the imagery' after using a crude word and THAT's what the writers and translators should keep in mind when doing their work. Look on these words with the same disgust the characters view the toilet roll Santas in season two. We have a beautiful language that is being lost and suffocated under visions of excrement and sexual abuse and such. Leave those images behind. Move forward. Give us something actually entertaining. Bare minimum, bring back 'damn' and 'hell' instead! And 'AF', really? SO stupid. Think people!!

Laughed when during the first season she has an anti-men rant and then right afterward gets creeped on by a woman.

First season was better. Enjoyed the mystery of having all of the men/women in play and wondering which one would still be around at the end.

Loved seeing Norway. Loved the people. Hugely disappointed in the vocabulary. Won't be watching it again until a litter-free version is available.

Young Wallander (2020–2022)

Annoyingly slow, inconsistent, and trendy...

[3/10 · 21 December 2020]

Didn't really click... Greeny super hero saving us from 'eye-for-an-eye' mentality. Bad guys not really getting what they deserve. Trendy scenes like cheek swabs. And the camera getting way too close.

One of the biggest turn-off's was the breathy voice used by Kurt. It was distracting. We could not wait for the show to be over so that we didn't have to listen to it anymore.

Most of it was SUPER slow. Slow can be dramatic, but use it sparingly, otherwise it is mind numbing. The intro is way too long, luckily Netflix doesn't make you sit through it every episode. Music put us to sleep.

Cinematography was dark and sometimes tries to be cool but ends up annoying, example is having the business end of a gun in our faces. There were a few beautiful shots of the forest though.

Crass vocabulary, especially in the workplace, was extremely off-putting.

Police force not as smart or wise as expected given their supposed training and experience.

Seems to have not much to do with Mankell's Wallander. The timing and location and story line are off. Would have been better and received less criticism under its own name.

Yes, it should probably be in Swedish, but as English-speakers who are often doing other things while watching, we're grateful to have it in English so that we don't have to focus on subtitles. But having it first in Swedish, then voiced-over (hopefully by proper actors) would be good and solve a lot of the accent problems.

We haven't seen the original Swedish Wallander series, but have watched and re-watched the Kenneth Branagh version, mostly because it's in English and despite the subject matter being dark, the cinematography is beautiful and we get to enjoy Sweden for a bit.

And there's the biggest test of whether a show is good or not. Would we re-watch this version or recommend it to a friend? No.

Agatha and the Truth of Murder (2018 TV Movie)

Missed opportunity...

[3/10 · 21 December 2020]

After two attempts, we finally made it through the whole show.

The character of Agatha is wooden and cold and unpleasant, absolutely nothing that would make us care about her. Other characters aren't much better. She could have used some Miss Fisher type spark.

The scenery and pace are a bit dreary. Would have appreciated an escape to beautiful England.

It's a run-of-the-mill mystery that has nothing to do with Agatha or her disappearance and could have been solved by her or anyone at any time.

Crude vocabulary not cool for today or correct for then.

We're HUGE fans of British mysteries and appreciate it when they portray characters, real or imaginary, as they were in real life or in the original books.

Biggest disappointment was Agatha's boring personality.

Over Christmas (2020)

Unique Christmas fare....

[8/10 · 20 December 2020]

Echoes of 'Dan In Real Life', 'What We Did On Our Holidays', and 'Home For The Holidays', all of which are practically perfect love.

Voice overs done fairly well, but the translators have GOT to return to using 'damn' and 'hell' rather than vocab that is disgusting, especially at Christmas. We just don't need that imagery.

The relationships and situations are tough to watch and grandma's crudeness was overdone, so didn't come off as funny.

The one and only Black character was stereotypical. Sad.

BUT... We loved being in a beautiful German village for a few hours. Loved the multi-episode form. Loved the messages. Loved the imagined scenarios.

Breaking the Bank (2014)

Missing the mark a bit...

[7/10 · 20 December 2020]

Fun mix of sentiment, comedy, and social commentary.

Very fun actors.

Sadly went with trendy overly-obvious innuendo rather than being classy. Definitely not PG.

Beautiful views of London.

Great one-liners.

French Toast (2015)

Good romcom...

[9/10 · 20 December 2020]

Once you get past the fact that the main character is a manipulative busy body and that the dad could have saved himself the grief of the lie by tossing the diary, then you're good to go.

Beautiful scenery.

Extremely grateful for all attempts to be clever rather than crude.

Pottersville (2017)

Almost perfect comic drama.....

[8/10 · 20 December 2020]

Think mistaken identity meets 'It's A Wonderful Life' and 'Home For The Holidays'.

Perfect level of silliness and redemption.

Loved seeing Judy Greer and Ian McShane, two of our favorites.

Edit out the few bits of crude rather than clever vocabulary and you've got a 10 that's accessible to more people.

3 Days to Kill (2014)

Bad in so many ways...

[2/10 · 20 December 2020]

Reminded us of why we don't watch many action films or read many action books. They're so stupid and even more stupid when they're trying to make violence funny.

Vivi was an enigma that should have done the job quietly and quickly by herself.

There is nothing heroic about people who kill and maim indiscriminately. It's idiocy over ingenuity. No sense of care for humanity. Extremely unattractive.

Most of the characters were unlikable and laughable, especially the main three. Ethan wasn't even very smart.

The song choice for the father/daughter dance was downright CREEPY.

Going with crude rather than classic vocabulary added to the 'ew' factor.

It had some clever ideas, but films like these make us grateful for fast-forwarding and even more grateful for shows that put care and cleverness ahead of foolish tantrums and violence.

Huge in France (2019)

Rework the cringeworthy bits and you've got a 10.

[5/10 · 20 December 2020]

Simultaneously painful, awful, and amazing.

Dramedy filled with loads of between-the-lines social commentary.. international perceptions, estranged fathers, show business, parenting, greed, values, peer pressure, mental health, communication skills, ...

Would have loved to see this without the vulgarity. It gets in the way and creates an unappealing atmosphere for a huge swath of the public, reducing the number of people willing to watch.

The characters, which are almost all horrid, become more sympathetic as the show progresses, but there's still a constant urge to slap most of them upside the head. Loved how the downcast assistant kept saving the day. And the actor who played Jason was amazing.

A few truly hilarious bits, as well as tragic, annoying, tense, suspenseful, funny,... Yes, there were a lot of inconsistencies, but they didn't bug us as much as the vocabulary and the leave-nothing-to-the-imagination sex scenes.

Class up the cringe-worthy bits and you've got a 10. We'd watch Gad and Brian through more adventures. As it is though, there's no one to whom we can recommend it. The smart bits are just covered with too much 'ew'.

Unicorn Store (2017)

Glad we finally watched it.......

[8/10 · 13 December 2020]

Not being fans of unicorns or glitter or pastels, this did NOT look like our kind of movie. We're cancelling Netflix in the near future though, so thought we'd better see it while we can.

We almost turned it off during Samuel L. Jackson's first scenes, he was so off putting, but stuck with it and had a fun ride. Yes it's silly and full of inside jokes and occasional needlessly crude vocab, but it was fun.

LOVED seeing Joan Cusack and Hamish Linklater. And loved being introduced to Mamoudou Athie. All of the characters seemed spot on and covered so many bases. We even liked the vacuum cleaner ad idea. Wouldn't that be great?

Growing up and taking responsibility can be tricky even when you have a great support system. Wouldn't mind seeing more of Kit and Virgil's adventures, especially if Joan is part of the mix.

Good Sam (I) (2019)

Exactly what it is meant to be...

[9/10 · 9 December 2020]

Practically perfect light clean small-screen feel-good romance.

A chance to turn off our usual nitpicking snarkiness and just enjoy.

Falling Inn Love (2019)

Perfect light romance.... 10 million stars....

[10/10 · 29 November 2020]

Yes, this was formulaic, but it was done with fun and beauty and not nearly as sappy as most others.

If we could, we'd give it 10 MILLION stars for daring to be clean in an industry that thinks it needs to be vulgar to be cool, not realizing that when you're clean AND clever, you become marketable to a wider audience, plus you make the world a better place. You add to the fresh air that's so rare and needed these days.

Yes, it had a few inconsistencies and quirks, esp on the subject of sustainability, but stick with it and a few of them work themselves out.

Mostly though, we just wanted to say THANK YOU to the producers/writers/... Thank you for being wise and giving us something we can recommend to anyone and something we'd watch again.

Well done!!

Dash & Lily (2020)

Almost really good...

[7/10 · 24 November 2020]

Fun actors. Fun premise. Fun locations. Fun timeline.

but ...

Drama over reality... For example, several times a cellphone would have solved a predicament.

Check list of PC situations... gets old and obvious.

And the writers couldn't seem to move past using vapid vocabulary here and there. Our language has SO many great words. Stop using the ones that gross us out, well those of us who still see the imagery of words and feel cheated when a clever one could have been used instead. There's already too much ugly in the world, don't add to it. I realize this goes against my "drama over reality" complaint since in real life the language would have been gobs worse, but this film had a chance to give us a romp w/o patties and it chose not to.

Another pet peeve... Surprises. If you think about it, they're more for the giver than the receiver. If you care about someone, you don't leave them worrying, you let them in on what's what. There are other ways to produce suspense.

B Positive (2020–2022)

Audience laughter will return once social distancing is over, right?....

[8/10 · 7 November 2020]

Love the actors/characters. LOVED seeing Bernie Kopell.

Love the premise.

Definitely not a fan of the crass vocab choices.

And absolutely hated the intro visuals.

But we're HUGE fans of Lorre shows (at least we think this is a Lorre show, he's not on the IMDb credits) and hope this one stays around for a good long while. Hopefully choosing clever rather than cheap crude vocab and gags.

For those complaining about the laugh track... This is being produced in the time of social distancing. There is no audience. As we understand it, the natural laughs of the folks on set are being augmented by laugh tracks. As with other Lorre shows, there would be that awesome audience laughter if it were possible. It will return one day.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: The Late Show's Showtime Election Night Special (2020) Season 6, Episode 32

sad

[1/10 · 7 November 2020]

Admittedly, we didn't get far.

It seemed to be non-stop foul negativity.

Not what we needed or wanted so we switched it off.

Queens of Mystery (2019– )

Not quite clicking yet ... Hopefully it gets better and stays around for a long time...

[5/10 · 24 October 2020]

Beautiful, but boring.

LOVE the light and sunshine and clean vocabulary and sense of fun, but sadly not much happens and it's super slow and gags seem forced.

Cons: -opening credits are fantastic but too long -repetitiveness of inspector telling aunts to butt out, just work w them!

-the love interest has ZERO personality, might as well be a mannequin, each of the set-ups was much more interesting -writers seem to be trying to do too many things .. YES, there are loads of great ways to throw in gags, but too many end up detracting, not so much when they're in the background, more when they're in the lines -characters not as smart as we'd expect them to be ... police procedure/options ... aunts and their fingerprints everywhere -Is this Scooby Doo or quirky 'reality'? Playing for laughs or story?

-Aunt Cat using the term 'Kid' got old very fast.

-social commentary too obvious -SO slow ... fill the time w characters that move and do -ACORN TV streaming/website isn't as user-friendly as it should be

Pros: -beautiful to look at -clever rather than crude vocabulary -Aunt Jane -enjoyed when the culprits get a visit from the dead -bit of sunshine in this dreary world -great actors .. fun to see some favorites as well as new faces

We enjoyed Pushing Daisies, which has the same feel, so we're not sure why we aren't connecting with this show. Will root for the creators and hope they figure it out and the Queens can be around for a long time.

Hidden (2018–2022)

Intriguing seeing the story from both sides.... pros and cons...

[4/10 · 23 October 2020]

We just finished binge-watching both seasons and should have started with the Season 1 behind-the-scenes episode first. (Behind-the-scenes S2, sadly didn't have much info besides music composition.) Knowing what the storytellers were going for and hearing from the actors made everything even more interesting. Along w mystery, the whole show has tragic social commentary that is subtle, not preached. And they do an AMAZING job of keeping the mystery alive even though you think you know who the bad guys are and why.

Yes, it's slow. Even a nanosecond being cut from each scene would do wonders. The intro is WAY too long. Unfortunately ACORN TV (at least in our part of the world) hasn't added a fast-forward or rewind option, we could have used them several times. Some of the looks the actors give are worth repeating. ACORN TV is missing several helpful features and could use a double check on its closed captioning.

Not sure the Welsh tourist board is happy about another dreary show. Would have loved to have seen some sunshine and inspiring architecture despite it being winter. Wallander manages it.

Great to see the Welsh language being supported even if it did make it more difficult to watch esp for those who can't see the TV well. We'd equally applaud any future efforts to clean up the polluted vocabulary, esp by the professionals in the workplaces. No reason to perpetuate some of these idiotic words. Classy cleverness instead of mundane crudeness would be wonderful.

There is sex and violence, but it's not overdone. Yay!! Even better when it's implied and not shown unnecessarily. And, not in the same category, but still a weird thing to watch is people get swabbed, hopefully it's just a phase, a trend that filmmaking will soon outgrow.

Loved that the detective team works together. Not sure where they're going with the new pathologist, but it's not clicking. Hopefully they'll not create drama there. A quirky pathologist is a great place to put some needed humor in these stories.

A bit annoyed by the detectives' family relationships. Often too soap opera-like. Almost every family scene was negative, esp Cadi's nagging whiny sisters and her not holding her ground. Every time she said "Sorry" to one of them... Arg!

First noticed the music during the chase scene near the end of S1 because those three notes over and over and over and over got to be super cloying.

Anyway... Intense, creepy stories w lots of tension and fabulous actors. For a minute, we thought Mia was Nia and that we were seeing a repeat of characters esp when we saw the house from S1 revisited in S2. Would be interesting to have cameos from past characters.

Our litmus test for a show is whether or not we'd want to watch it again and despite the pet-peeves of the litter language and the slow pace, this is definitely one to watch again esp now that we know who did what and can think along w the characters.

Hopefully this series goes on for years. We'd love to see more Hinterland too. W pollution-free vocab and a bit of sunshine, of course.

Baptiste (2019–2021)

Good, but w several downsides...

[6/10 · 8 August 2020]

We haven't watched The Missing, but will do so now. We REALLY enjoyed the main character many of the other characters. Others were difficult to care about. The story left us either cringing or laughing though. We cringed at characters who weren't as smart or professional as they seemingly should have been and at several crude rather than clever vocabulary words. And we laughed as each new horrible thing happened. It became a bit like a Catherine Cookson novel. "What horrible thing is next?" The lecturing at the end was a bit much too. BUT we're VERY glad it was made because it gave us a few hours of escapism. Hopefully there will be more Baptiste, but with stories and dialogue and people and locations that are a bit more real rather than stereo typical.

Murder Mystery (2019)

Fun romp undercut by "ew" vocabulary..

[5/10 · 18 July 2020]

Loved... The Spitzs relationship and that it wasn't constant yelling. The locations, direction, cinematography, ... The concept. All of the actors, most of the characters. That they didn't go rated R. The diversity. Anything that was smart and clever and made you think.

Not a fan of... Language that is crude rather than clever. Obligatory high speed chases through pedestrian areas. The mystery not being up to par w 90% of TV crime dramas. Not connecting w locals.

Overall, better than we thought it was going to be. Other than the mystery being a bit "meh" and a few uncool vocabulary words, everything else was great!!

Stonemouth (2015)

Narration done well...

[9/10 · 12 May 2020]

Putting a crime fiction novel onto the screen can be difficult and this one was done mindfully. It didn't drag. The locations were great. The sex and violence and soapiness and rude vocab weren't overdone. The narration was used really well. We liked it.

Agatha Raisin (2014– )

Truly hope that it gets better and that there are many seasons ahead...

[6/10 · 11 May 2020]

We SO wanted to like this show 100%. It has many of our favorite features... gorgeous locations, fun actors, intriguing mysteries, clean vocabulary, MC Beaton, ....

We've watched the first three seasons and it seems to be a mash-up of Psych and Midsomer Murders (two shows we love), but it lacks their mindfulness esp during the silly bits....

...The characters aren't as wise as they should be given their occupations and stations in life. Agatha shows zero PR skills or smarts when it comes to anything but high-profile PR scenarios, instead she's a ditz and an annoying bully. And most of the supporting cast seems to be pushovers who do nothing but sit around all day waiting to be bullied, which makes them often very boring. The story when James goes missing all hinged on characters saying "I've got something to say" rather than saying what they have to say w the few seconds they have. Hugely annoying and boring story tactic.

...Gemma disappeared! She was hilarious and always seemed to have the insight that Agatha lacked and gave it in such a understated way that was, again, hilarious and made us want to shout "You Go, Girl!". Maybe her level of comedy was too clever for this show. At least they've kept DCI Wilkes. He is truly smart funny rather than clown funny.

...It's uncomfortably and unnecessarily raunchy which again makes the characters seem more stupid and childish and makes the viewers squirm depending on who their viewing mates are. And what's with all the casual sleeping around and getting drunk? Again, difficult to care about characters who lack a bit of humanity and self-care even if the show is supposed to be silly and camp. It was extremely difficult to care about James after he treated Agatha so poorly at the end of Season 1. And Sir Fraith just keeps getting more and more attractive the more honorable and healthy he becomes.

Anyway... This wonderful show isn't yet quite as clever as MM or Death In Paradise or Shakespeare And Hathaway or Father Brown, but we're hoping it gets better and better. It's meant to be an alternative to today's myriad dark mystery dramas. Ironically, it leaves us wanting to watch Vera or Lewis or Endeavour (not super dark, but not silly either), to wash away the grade-school humor. It does differ a LOT from the books, which is sad for those would love to see Beaton's Agatha on screen, but okay for those who now have the books to look forward to.