What are you watching on those long rows?

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webberg
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What are you watching on those long rows?

Post by webberg »

Back in 2004 thru perhaps 2010, when I was addicted to the rower for the first time, I think a lot of listened to music to distract or provide a pace for longer pieces. I recall much debate about burning CDs with carefully constructed playlists.

Since then the advent of streaming platforms has transformed the viewing "experience". It may be that like me, you now watch something on a computer or whatever whilst doing those long pieces?

If so, what are you watching?

For me:

The Last Kingdom - Netflix - TV series of 4(/) seasons - which is based on the Bernard Cornwell books of the same name. Not sure how many seasons but seems to be a roughly historically accurate series set around the time King Alfred was building his Wessex and vision of England. The author freely admits that he mangles history to fit his characters into the narrative, but even so, given my limited knowledge of English history from that time, it seems authentic.

(Call me pedantic, but I find blatantly inaccurate portrayals of historical events an instant "do not watch" signal).

Marco Polo - Netflix - perhaps 2 seasons? - it's a bit slow but seems to be building nicely.

The Jinx - Amazon? I'll give no spoilers here.

Mindhunter - Netflix - a dramatisation of how the FBI profiling unit was formed and performed in the early days. Again, not quite accurate but some of the stories are chilling.

And some to avoid (in my opinion).

Barbarians - Netflix - basically story of an uprising against the Roman Empire by the Germanic tribes. Peopled by impossibly clean "tribes", impossible love interests and inaccurate historical detail. It leads to the battle of the Teutoburg Forest All of that could be forgiven but ...

I think the language used by the actors is German. It has been dubbed into English using the most American accents you can imagine (no offence but hearing Germanic tribes from around 9CE with east coast accents?) If you put the subtitles on, the printed words do not match the spoken words! What!

I'm a complete sucker for historical dramas set from any period up to about the Middle Ages and especially if it's the story of rebellion and the (usually temporary) victory of the "little" people against the oppressing Empire (sound a bit like Star Wars?) and geeky enough to research the facts. Unfortunately the mismatch of lip sync, accents, subtitles and impossible story twists here are a complete turn off.

The BBC is re-running Battlestar Galactica. This brings out another "no-no" for me. Why - in most space based films and TV shows - are space ships shown with their engines always running and noisy? An engine on in space will create acceleration constantly. Noise in space? No air = no noise. Simples.

I get the need to fill the eardrums with what would otherwise become a silent film, but why not use music?

Also Galactica shows battles between single person fighters at close quarters. No. I've read enough science fiction to know that if there are battles in space, they will take place at considerable distances using largely kinetic weapons (i.e. lumps of metal accelerated to a decent fraction of light speed and launched from hundreds of thousands of kms away). This is of course a fault in Star Wars as well (which seems to be have turned into a series of films where the main characters spend 2hours or more, running away).

Anyway - rant over.

Still looking for something to watch as I plough along on the steel rail.
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Wolfmiester
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Re: What are you watching on those long rows?

Post by Wolfmiester »

:lol: :lol: :lol:
I'm currently loving Battlestar Galactica! :P
The whole point, I think Graham, is that its Science Fiction so it doesn't matter if it's not factually accurate :D
Just switch off and get the meters in.

On the other hand I do agree with you on The Last Kingdom. First on the BBC I think. Nice to see some historical time line being interpreted in to the program.

The only 'issue' of erging with the TV on is that the volume has to be really high (no, my old Sony does not support blue tooth headphones)
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webberg
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Re: What are you watching on those long rows?

Post by webberg »

Well call me pedantic, but the "science" part of science fiction sort of indicates that there is a basis in fact?

I do try to let go of the details but any lag in the story line and/or seemingly impossible physical action and I miss the next few minutes of story fretting about them.

My machine is in a separate space outside so I don't have to worry too much about volume. I always have the subtitles on as well, so that's a nice distraction.

Headphones, over ear or bud type, are a disaster for me. Assuming I have charged them (not always the case), I will sweat them out within 5k.
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webberg
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Re: What are you watching on those long rows?

Post by webberg »

Now watching La Revolution on Netflix.

Has its moments (although they do use one little piece of forest to represent EVERY forest).
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