A Review of Netflix

I have had less exposure to television than most people I think. We didn't own a television until I was nine years old and it was a black and white that received one channel: the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Even as a teenager we still only had three channels and they went off the air at midnight. I left home at eighteen and never owned a television until I married at age forty. So, apart from a few visits home at Christmas when I saw A Christmas Carol every year, I didn't see much television! At age fifty I canceled my cable and gave my television to my maid.

This doesn't mean I am completely unaware of television. Along the way I ended up watching a few series with interest, among them Homicide: Life on the Street, a gritty police show set in Baltimore, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and, oddly enough, Buffy the Vampire-Slayer. As movies seem to have gotten a whole lot less interesting (I can think of few things more boring than interminable fight scenes between "superheroes" larded over with gratuitous special effects and CGI), television seems to have gotten more interesting with good writing and intriguing characters. Most of the characters in the blockbuster films seem two-dimensional. Shows like The Sopranos (which I never got into) and Game of Thrones (which I did) are quite compelling viewing.

But I still resist broadcast television as I find it simply unwatchable. The commercials, especially for the networks themselves, and the plodding, repetitive news shows, are unbearable. Netflix is a different animal however. Visiting a relative a year or so ago we ended up watching a couple of seasons of The Last Kingdom on Netflix. The story of the conflict between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons in Dark Ages Britain was not bad at all. When I was staying at an AirBNB apartment in Montreal in September I noticed that there was an active Netflix account so I started watching. No Game of Thrones, of course, because that is on HBO, but a wealth of other stuff, including all the Star Trek spinoffs. After a couple of days the account expired, but by that time I was hooked so I took the plunge and signed up. Back in Mexico I am still watching.

Much of what is on Netflix is mediocre or not to my taste, but that still leaves a lot of interesting stuff. The movie selection I don't find too interesting as it is skewed towards current movies. Netflix' idea of a "classic" is something filmed in 1995! There are some popular series like Friends and Breaking Bad (which I also never got interested in) and some Netflix originals like Jessica Jones which I did get into. The whole Marvel Cinematic Universe of which it forms a part is on Netflix and I watched most of the movies which are ok if not really great. Some of the TV shows like Arrow and Daredevil are probably more interesting. I often wonder if they don't have to be more creative on television because they don't have the huge special effects budgets. Nothing ruins a film more than excessive special effects: case in point, the Matrix sequels.

Some of the most interesting discoveries are television series that are not American. There is an interesting series called Crossing Lines with Donald Sutherland and a cast of European actors that chronicles the story of a (fictional) investigative team working for the International Criminal Court at The Hague that is well done and refreshingly different from a typical police procedural. I also just discovered a fascinating series called El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Ministry of Time, in Spanish with English subtitles) set in Spain that is a fascinating blend of science fiction and history. Think Warehouse 13 but more interesting and with better acting. In an abandoned building in Madrid there are the offices of a secret government ministry whose task is to safeguard the history of Spain. Deep below ground are hundreds of doors, each of which offers access to a different place and time--restricted to the current territory of Spain. The primary team of three investigators consist of a 21st century Madrid paramedic, a late-nineteenth century woman university student and a 16th century soldier from Seville. You have to suspend your disbelief in the fact that they can Skype between different eras (in exchange you get to enjoy the 16th century soldier asking "what's Skype?") but the characters are interesting and likable and how can you not love a police department whose sketch artist is Diego Velázquez! There is a scene where he goes to Barcelona in 1899 to get Pablo Picasso's signature which they need to forge a receipt for La Guernica. It is fun to watch him lure Picasso into praising Velázquez' painting Las Meninas as a work of genius. Honestly, where else on television would you have two characters discussing a 17th century painting at some length?

Velázquez' Las Meninas (the painter is depicted on the left)

I don't know how much Netflix skews its offerings according to where you are, perhaps the Canadian ones are different from the Mexican ones, but if you can find El Ministerio del Tiempo in your region, it is worth a watch. You learn a bit about Spanish history and literature as well in the series though no musicians are mentioned so far. Don't get on the wrong side of the Ministry as their incarceration cells are in an 11th century dungeon!