Every weekday I set aside an hour for lunch. It’s one of the moments of quality I try to give myself in my combined occupation of professional novelist and amateur animal-wrangler. While I’m sitting down having my lunch (read: fighting off various animals as I try to shove the food into my mouth and keep it out of theirs), I like to dip into the televised offerings of Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+.
On Disney+ I’m partway through rewatching (in a ‘dipping in/dipping out’ kind of way) Buffy The Vampire Slayer. On Netflix I’m slowly strolling through Suits. Over on Amazon I’m about halfway through the final season (when did a series become a season?) of Jack Ryan, while cantering at full pace through The Last Ship. This one is a post-apocalyptic tale about an American guided missile destroyer (and her crew, obviously), in the middle of a world being devastated by a killer plague (not too dissimilar in its propagation to C-19).
The Last Ship started off well, though it was slightly uncertain of its direction, a little like a toddler taking first steps. Series/Season two saw it kick into full gear and gain a bitey, gripping edge that Series/Season one lacked. The Last Ship maintained that pace most of the way through Series/Season three, but then came Series/Season four, and an unwelcome return to Series/Season one wobbliness. The Last Ship dipped and dived all over the Mediterranean, not knowing if it was a European/North African travelogue, part of the original project, or a sequel to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
And that, children, is why they didn’t make anything after Series/Season five. But hey, I’m still watching it, even though it has gone completely mad.
Similarly, I take 40 mins for my lunch break. Ten minutes to knock up a sandwich and then half an hour to eat it in front of the telly, watching a comedy show from Netflix or Amazon.
Fawlty Towers, The IT Crowd, Monty Python, etc have all had re-runs during my lunchtime viewing sessions (I have watched all of the IT Crowd episodes several times already). But, it’s also given me a chance to catch up and enjoy some shows that I have never watched before. Seinfeld. I had never watched Sienfield! And, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Brilliant!
This working from home lark has really worked for me. 🙂
And, quite agree about The Ship. These things start intriguing and then often go a bit off the wall, as the execs try to squeeze an extra season out of what has been a successful show. I’m currently watching Manifest and that is exactly the same: started well, but has now gone a bit loopy as they try to tie up all the loose ends for the final season.