General Impressions of Acorn TV

My latest excursion into Acorn TV is the British series, Detectorists. And don’t call them "guys with metal detectors" or anything else. They are “detectorists.”

Toby Charles and Mackenzie Crook play a pair of metal detector nerds who go about the English countryside looking for whatever they can find. Their big hope is to find the fabled burial site of a great Saxon king said to have been buried in the area.

I’m only two episodes into this, but so far so good. This is not the kind of series for everyone. No f-bombs. No sex. No car crashes. Just a story of simple, quirky people. But so far the story is told in a gentle, interesting way.

This is the kind os series that allows you to take a breather. Although some of the characters are quirky, they don’t come at you at 100 mph or too much larger than life. You are coaxed into the story, not bashed over the head with strangeness (as quirky stories and characters can sometimes do).

One reviewer writes “A gentle and brilliantly written show.” Whether it remains brilliantly written is yet to be seen. But “gentle” is a good word to describe it. Also, “rarely laugh out loud funny, but so well acted and so many chuckles.” For instance, there’s this guy who is just a little bit mad. He owns the farm that the two detectorists have gotten permission to search. He has pet dogs that no one else can see. And he’s constantly imploring his unseen dogs not to jump on his guests.

So far the detectorists have uncovered nothing more profound than buried Matchbox cars. And they wonder how in heck they could have ever ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere. Roman coins, yes. That would make sense. But Matchbox cars?

They are an organized bunch and belong to a society of detectorists. At their latest meeting there is a presentation about buttons (which are even more abundantly buried than aluminium pull-tabs) which puts even these enthusiasts to sleep.

Perhaps strangest of all is that Andy (Mackenzie Crook) has a beautiful girlfriend. The guy is so ragged-looking that when he was standing across from the school waiting for his girlfriend (a teacher) to get off work, he made the other waiting parents so nervous that a cop came to question what he was doing there. He later asks his girlfriend “Do I really look like a paedophile?” His girlfriend reassures him, “No, they probably just thought you were a drug dealer.” Andy is satisfied and relieved at this answer.

I’ll see if this series has any legs. But it makes me want to run out and buy a metal detector.

The metal detecting is, at this point, a convenient excuse to weave some characters together, although the plot does thicken in this regard as the series goes on.

I’m very much inspired to buy a metal detector and have a go. I’m still thinking about it. It looks like wonderful fun.

Much of the show is based on subtle humor. For example, Andy was caught in a compromising situation and his girlfriend left him. He begs her to come back because, he says, he can’t turn on the TV without her. He mentions the setup requires manipulating 3 remotes.

I’ve encountered such setups and I indeed never did learn how to turn on my brother’s TV. It’s a nightmare. That wasn’t the only reason he wanted her back, but it was a big one. She knew how to turn the TV on.

Three is indeed excessive but not that unusual. Mine takes only two.

Remote Control: Why is Turning On the TV Still So Hard?

The article mentions Logitech’s Harmony One universal remote as the best.

I have three Sony Blu-ray players. I bought them for less than $50.00 as refurbished units on Amazon. I use two of them to run my fish tanks. I’ve got some really cool DVDs that are of someone sticking an HD camera in front of a very nice fish tank and recording it for an hour or so.

One of the Blu-ray players is hooked up to the main TV to play Blu-ray movies and such. The other two are connected to a couple 32” 720p screens I also picked up cheap through the years. The problem is, when I have my fish tanks going, the remote I use to play and pause the Blue-Ray movies I may be watching also effects the other two Sony Blu-ray players.

So what I need is less universality regarding remotes, not more. If I pause the movie, the fish tanks pause as well, Sony using the same signals for all its remotes, I guess. Whatever realism that exists with a virtual fish tank is ruined when the fish are paused in mid-motion.

Apple announced their new streaming service a few days ago: Apple TV+. That will start November 1, offer a free 7-day trial, and be $4.99 per month. I find it hard to believe that in a rush to produce content that it won’t be full of cookie cut-out series of little or no creative value. I may try the trial but I’m not champing at the bit to do so.

Disney is coming out with a new streaming service (Disney+) that will have loads of content from the get-go for $6.99 per month or $69.00 annually. That may be the best deal in terms of sheer entertainment value. Apple seems to intend to have more family-friendly content like Disney but I doubt they can compete, if only in perception. Their plain-vanilla (I’m guessing) stuff will be stuck between the family-friendly content of Disney and the rabidly raunchy Vulgarian fare of Netflix.

With Netflix obviously thriving (but still self-destructing in terms of it unimaginative and vile content), one wonders who will be left standing. Certainly they could all be left standing and/or drive down the price of over-priced competitors. Netflix is definitely over-priced now compared to Apple+ and Disney+. YouTube TV is $49.99 per month which is insane. Hulu+ Live TV is also over-priced at $44.99 per month. FuboTV is a ridiculous $54.99 per month. Even HBO Now at $14.99 per month is at least twice the price of what it should be. Philo at $20.00 per month is also over-priced.

Sling TV at $25.00 per month hopefully also will come down in price. I found it actually to be a pretty good service when I subscribed for a while. But given that for $25.00 you could get Disney+ ($6.99), Apple TV+ ($4.99), a couple others —such as BritBox ($6.99) and Acorn TV ($5.99) — even the $25.00 per month services don’t look like much of a bargain. (Prices taken from this 2019 roundup.)

At $5.99 per month, I’m finding Acorn TV to certainly be worth it, at least regarding what I like to watch.

Here’s a crime drama worth checking out on Acorn TV: Mystery Road.

Set in the outback of Australia, two friends go missing. The head of the local police, Emma James (Judy Davis), calls in outside help if only because her own connections to all the people involved leave her anything but impartial.

Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) is the decidedly non-girly-man speak-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick kind of detective. In fact, he has a reputation for being a little rough. Directly in his past was a case that we hear about only secondhand in which he shot dead six people. And it’s made it difficult for his wife and daughter, who live in that small town, to get along.

But that is in another small town that he is in now. And (eyeroll) one of the weak points is that Swan’s daughter (marginally acted) and estranged wife (fully annoying) eventually seek him out in the town he is temporarily assigned to. He is developing an interesting (good/bad) rapport with policewoman, Emma James. The daughter/wife thing interferes and is a distraction, probably thrown in for mere demographic reasons (aka, the wife is the token woman, the daugher is the token yute).

Both Pedersen (Swan) and Davis (Emma James) put in tight and gritty performances. They are believable as real people. The cinematography in this series is outstanding. The plot is certainly half-good and the cinematography is enough to fill in the gaps here and there.

Actually, the plot is three-quarters good through the first four episodes of the six-episode series. Episode five has “stretching it out” written all over it. And episode six has such a stupid ending, you wonder if the kids were left unsupervised for this one. But overall, it’s still a quality production.

Wayne Blair is solid as Larry Dime, convicted pedophile who has just been released from prison and has come back to town….just as his nephew goes missing. (He was one of the two kids who has gone missing.) This is suspicious. And as it is, you eventually learn more and more about the two missing guys and you could care less if they both end up in a meat grinder. Alas, I’m not necessarily satisfied in this regard, but I won’t say more.

Tasia Zalar is good (too good) as Shevorne Shields, the annoying (very annoying) girl who claimed that Larry Dime had raped her. But did he? The plot thickens. She’s so annoying I was really hoping this would be an Agatha-Christie-style crime drama where the body count added up and she was one of the bodies. I won’t let on too much, but suffice it to say I was again disappointed.

This is one of those shows where there is no emotional attachment to any of these people except for the Clint-Eastwood-style Detective Jay Swan. The rest of them you could really care less if they are the next victim or not. They’re all despicable.

And it’s probably not kind to say, but it will be centuries, if ever, before an aborigine wins a Miss Universe contest….or Mr. Universe for that matter. But it is what it is. But this short series itself is a relative thing of beauty.

Her and maybe a couple others. Where is Agatha Christie when you need her? She could usually explode the body count.

One thing I especially like about Witness for the Prosecution is that the title character is careful never to commit perjury.  Her initial testimony is quite true.  When the defense lawyer impeaches her, she truthfully says that she knows no such person as the lover she supposedly wrote to, and when he quotes from a key letter, she says, "Damn you!" without ever saying that the letter is real (which it isn't, but she wants the jury to believe) or false (which it is, but she doesn't want the jury to think realize).

Evidently he's too new to be listed in wikipedia, and only had a very minor role in the TV series (if that is indeed the recent one listed there).