Black Books and Borgias and sci-fi, oh my!

I try to keep this blog mainly about movies without adding in a bunch of boring personal crap. Every so often, however, I feel the need to branch out into the small screen and subject you to my tastes in that.

  I just finished watching the most hilarious show I think I've ever seen.  It's a British comedy called Black Books and the first season aired in 2000.  It's most assuredly been cancelled by now but it's available on Netflix and I cannot recommend it enough.  There was one episode where I laughed so hard I fell over and had to rewatch it because I was too incapacitated to hit pause on the remote.  My neighbors probably think there's a feral hyena in my apartment.  

It's about an alcoholic misanthropic book seller named Bernard Black who hates the idea of having to sell books because then he might have to interact with people.  His accountant becomes a fugitive and he hires Manny to do his books.  His neighbor and fellow wino is Fran, who owns a knicknack shop and is constantly searching for love.

It's not on Streaming and there are only six episodes in the first season (or series, if you're British) but each one is a gem.  Rent or buy immediately.

I'm also knee-deep in trying to watch all of the episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) in order.  This is difficult for a number of reasons.

1)  There were 10 seasons of this show that were originally aired on The Comedy Channel and then on The Sci-Fi Channel from 1990 to 2001.

2)  There were two hosts, Joel and then Mike, representing two different eras.

3)  The DVD rights were originally owned by Rhino and then were bought by Shout Factory.
 
4)  They only release collections of 4 discs at a time, one movie to a disc, and not in sequential order. 
 
5)  Some of the episodes are out of print, and some were only released as stand-alone DVDs.  At least one of them (The Amazing Colossal Man) was only released on VHS and copies of that were $130 on Amazon last I checked.  Yep, one hundred thirty dollars for a format that NO ONE USES ANYMORE.

This is how nerdy I am:  I actually went to Wikipedia, copied a list of all the episodes by name along with what collection they were included in, and have been trying to match them to the collections I own.  (I'm up to Volume XVI.  Shout Factory released Vol XX a couple of months ago so, as you can see, I can't even stay current on my obsessions.) 

So, Black Books came to me on DVD and MST3K is a TV show that is technically a movie per episode but I have absolutely no excuse about the next show I'm watching.  I just started The Borgias on Showtime.

I was so excited when I heard they were making this show, you don't even know.  I tend to cherrypick people or places from history and then learn everything I can about them.  I find it's easier to remember important dates or events if I can put them in the context of someone's life. 

The Borgia family is one of those.  It started with a rumor that Lucrezia Borgia was a sorceress that poisoned several lovers and turned one into a dog.  From her, I moved to her brother Cesare, who was the inspiration for Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince.  Finally, I moved up to Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, father of numerous children and one of the most corrupt officials in the history of the Catholic Church.

I only just watched the first episode on Tuesday (I know, I'm like 4 episodes behind) but I think it's going to be pretty good. 

Christy has me watching Game of Thrones as well.  I read the first couple of books by George R. R. Martin and absolutely hated them.  Again, only one episode in, but so far, it seems to be following pretty closely.  Including the incest.  It's been a few years since I read the books but the plot is starting to come back to me so it'll be interesting to see if the show will go there or not.  I was completely taken aback with the adaptation of TrueBlood because I loved those book (except for number 10 which sucked out loud) but I grew to have a appreciation for the differences.  Maybe because I hated these books so much I'll actually enjoy the show.  Who knows?