Fortunes Of Afterthought.

I was well into the third disc of the Outlander series (thank you Hastings) when I realized I was squarely in the middle of mommy-porn city.  The fact that my mother was sitting next to me only compounded my embarrassment.  Then I realized that a few years ago she lent me the book, and I actually passed some time driving to West Hollywood reading it.  I was actually seen in public reading it.  I nearly fainted at the memory, but managed to walk upstairs and top off my whisky instead.

What the hell is this shit?  I wondered to myself and hopefully just to myself.  This isn't period drama.  This isn't Wolf Hall, hell it isn't even The White Queen.  I mean it isn't as tawdry as Reign, and actually it can have its moments, but the atmospheric shall we say self-conscious sensualness just seems to linger punctuated with failed rape scenes and maimings.  Approach with caution and approach without your parents in the room.

And on a somewhat related note pertaining to period dramas. Downton Abbey has become somewhat of a silly parody of itself.  People didn't discuss the decline of the English aristocracy while it was happening anymore than they called the Great Depression during the Great Depression during the Great Depression.  These people did not read David Cannadine because he had not been born yet so why does everyone in the show sound like they've read him.

A good show I recently binged myself senseless on is the Last Kingdom on BBC America.  Very well done, appears to be well researched, plenty of gratuitous nudity and there's even an appearance from an all grown up Young Sherlock Holmes. Alas, fully clothed.