TV shows you most recently finished watching

We recently watched the first movie in the third season of the French crime TV-series "Les Rivières pourpres" ("The Purple Rivers"); we watched it in the original French.

In this episode a bacteriologist creates a mutation of the pest bacillus that only he has an antidote against and uses it to kill certain cops, and the investigators have to find out who is behind this and why he kills them. The series is pretty dark and a French equivalent to Nordic Noir. 7/10.

American Rust - (Showtime) This is a very slow moving drama that is based around a murder and Jeff Daniels plays an intriguing character that gets way too involved in trying to protect the accused.  There are a lot of scenes that are devoted to character building, but in this case, it's way too much.  The same story could have been told a lot better in 5 episodes making everything a lot tighter.  Yes there are some scenes that remain with you for a long time, some effective, others you would rather forget.  It's dark, depressing and hard to watch, but something keeps you there once you start watching.  It might be the hope that things will happen, and some things do, but a lot of time passes between any sort of payoffs, good or bad.  The show tries to be pensive and provoke thought about the state that lower-class Americans are in, but a lot of the acting is lacking in emotion.  At times I found myself wishing scenes would hurry and get over, and that's not a good thing in this case.  There is good and bad here, but it's mostly pretty blah.  And, there is no real "who-done-it" here because you know fairly early on what happened and who did it.  There are very few bright spots to this real downer of a series.  5/10

Very entertaining although I wanted to be more surprised by the ending. Can't say much more as it would be a spoiler.

This is almost a throw away thing made by Sky. It's sci-fi based comedy starring Daniel Mays as a British 'robo-cop' but he's a bit of an idiot and was actually a bad police officer when he was alive and not much better in his enhanced state. Having been brought back from the dead as an experiment and given enhanced AI abilities, he's drives his partner nuts (played beautifully dead pan style by Stephen Graham) and causes more problems than he solves. Easy to watch fun. 7/10

Starring Robert Carlyle as the Prime Minister , COBRA is the word used for when the Cabinet (UK Government) is urgently reconvened in time of crisis. I found it all a bit flat and lacking any real tension. Watchable mainly thanks to Carlyle and David Haig as a very slimey career politician. Also Neil Stuke is perfect as a far right opportunist trying to cash in on the general disenchantment of voters. Sounds familiar?! 6/10

Also, had recently seen intriguing actress Han So Hee in Nevertheless  and 100 Days My Prince so I jumped into recently released Netflix series My Name. Finished it in two days. Though it was quite violent (great fight scenes if you're into that kind of stuff), the acting of the main cast was incredible--especially the commitment Han So Hee made to the lead role. Simply amazing!

Now watching seson 2 of The Great and loving every minute of it--the cast is so incredible--every one of them--though Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning are so entertaining--their onscreen chemistry is so wonderful.

Yep I'm a big fan of this weird 'biopic' of the young Catherine The Great . Nicolas Hoult is just having the time of his life , not unlike Jeremy Irons in The Borgias, another formidable show.