"Victoria" (2016-2019)

Binged this aborted series in a week.  Ends, abruptly, after three seasons and on a cliff-hanger.  It wasn't the best-of-the-best, but it wasn't bad.  Has all those nice historical moments woven into the tale of a young Queen and the struggles inside the royal household.  It was watchable.

The challenge I had with it was that it was trying to do too much.  With limited episodes (8 in the first and third seasons, 9 nine in the second season) it tried to be both "The Crown" and "Upstairs, Downstairs".  By cramming all the storylines in, "the" critical element, that of Victoria becoming that Queen we all know, was weakened.

She was an extremely complicated woman.  Movies and books have tried to capture her over and over, usually focusing on a singular point in time.  Her relationships after Albert's death are one, somewhat purient, interest.  But otherwise, we just see her as a monarch with a ~lot~ of children.

Starting at the beginning, when she becomes Queen, we see what she went through as a monarch in a male dominated nation, as a wife and mother.  But these scenes are snapshots.  Here she is childlike, then willful, a moment of anger, etc.  We don't really see *her* as much as we see the actor playing her (Jenna Coleman) swing from one wild caricature to another.  In other words, we are seeing her through the descriptions of others rather than seeing her internal development and growth.  It might have been the fault of writing, direction or acting, but I can't help but feel that Ms. Coleman looks weak in constrast to great actors she shares scenes with like Diana Rigg and Rufus Sewell.  Those two actors can communicate a half-dozen feelings in a look.  Coleman "flitters" about.

I get that the 18 year-old girl was not the epic matriarch who made history, but I was very curious as to how she became who she became.  I didn't get that.  Yes, the character matured throughout and I appreciated her more in the later episodes than the early ones, but there was little which pointed to the why.  Which made the show good, but not overly interesting.  Worth a summer binge but I spent a good amount of time Googling, "did that really happen?" (Hint, when it comes to the downstairs staff, the answer is "no").

"Game of Thrones"

An injury allowed me to catch up on a lot of shows I had been setting aside to stream.  Okay, this one for six years.

"Game of Thrones" surprised me in many ways.  I had heard it was exceedingly violent, expected dragons and thought it was set in some mythical never-never time.  It is actually set heavily into a medieval period, although with mythical elements here and there.  The dragons don't show up in an impactful way until nearly the end of the series and the violence is ... somewhat silly.  More like what you see on "Xena" rather than anything realistic.  

What it is really about is politics, male vs female power and who has control in a society filled with nobles of interrelated bloodlines.  As one friend mentioned, it is a bunch of British people talking in back rooms who have very similar names.  You mostly tell them apart by hair color and tattoos (inside joke).  

A complex tale, there are so many characters and threads I had to download and repeatedly refer to a chart of the family relations (accidently finding out about one character whose parenthood hadn't been revealed early on).  All of which is to say, I had to really watch it, not check my email while it was on in the background.  It was built for streaming and I pushed into the next episode (and the next, and the next) to see the wrap-up of a storyline -- sometimes staying up later at night to do so.  

No, I did not find Jon Snow all that hot, but I did appreciate how he grew up over the seasons, and the real benefit of watching it all in a matter of weeks (and, sadly, not reading the books) is that I was in no way disappointed or shocked about the ending, which many (many many) fans were upset about.  Viewing it all at once gave me a through-line I don't think the original viewers had.  One where I totally could see all the seeds being dropped and where they led to.  In many ways, I felt the ending was one I saw coming and the only ending which it could've been.  Something which many may disagree with.  My biggest negative concern was the degree to which the women were sexualized -- and very rarely for the purpose of the story.  It was just purient window-dressing.

In any case.  Peter Dinklage's character was my favorite -- he gave an arch overview of the whole grand tale with a good dose of morose humor.  The series was enjoyable.  Dense.  Engaging.  Worth it.  But I do wish there were more dragons.  On to "House of the Dragon" (have already watched season one of "Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" -- also drew me in -- but also without dragons ...)