Help. Tell what I have not watched on Netflix that I should have.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

96. I'm 69. Not a younger woman. (Long Post)

My essential problem with a lot of TV shows and movies is that they stray so far from the way the real world works that it's maddening. Or they'll get fundamental things wrong. Since I watched the first season of that show when it came out, maybe watched the first episode of the second and then stopped, I'm forgetting too many specifics to say very much, other than the Frankie character is too much of a ditz to be believed, and the Grace character is simply a typical Jane Fonda role that we've seen a lot of times. And the sad thing for me is that both of those women are fine actresses, and so I went into it with high hopes. Not to mention that Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston are like wise amazing actors. And I think, at least in what I watched, that they did a good job of showing that they are in love with each other and had just finally come to the point where they didn't want to live a lie any more. That was well done.

Absurd exaggerations and straying a very long way from the truth/real world is a huge problem in TV and movies.

Another example: "The Americans", which I think I've been watching on Netflix, is for the most part excellent. In case you don't know it, it's about a pair of deep undercover Soviet spies who live and work in Washington DC during the 1980's. They present as a normal American couple with two children and they own a travel agency to earn money. Except that they almost never go in to work, and they are constantly taking off at odd hours to do their spy thing. In the first season their two kids are still pretty young, to the point where the taking off at odd hours would be a huge problem that is just ignored. And then they are using someone who works at (if I'm recalling correctly) a Boeing plant supposedly in the DC area. Huh?

That last is simply unnecessary. They're in DC. Practically everyone works for the government there. Lots and lots of opportunities to do their spy thing. Sticking much closer to the real world of DC would be just as interesting and have plenty of plot possibilities. I'll continue watching that show because I like the characters and find them sufficiently interesting and close enough to people I know (not that I know any spies that I'm aware of, but you get what I mean) that I'll simply roll my eyes and complain a bit at the flaws.

With Grace and Frankie, these women are so far removed from reality that I'm not willing to let them into my life any more.

"Travelers", which I've been enjoying may lose me because of a plot twist at the end of the second season, but I will certainly start watching the third when it's available. That one is about people who are from several hundred years in the future. Their consciousness is sent back and overrides someone else immediately before that person was to die. Nice concept. Once the future people, the travelers are here, they form up in groups of five and carry out various missions intended to fix the future. Excellent. One of the travelers inhabits an intellectually challenged woman named Marcie, and because the traveler isn't intellectually challenged, Marcie rather quickly has normal, indeed well above average intelligence. Nice, because there are lots of things to be dealt with on the personal level for "Marcie". But all of a sudden in the middle of the second season she's an x-ray technician, as if people can walk off the street and get that job. No, you go to school for that. Takes at least six months, maybe a year or more. Oh, and an episode or two later she's apparently a nurse because (for purposes of the plot) she gives someone her vaccinations. Aaargghhh!

The other huge problem with that show is that the travelers keep on having to leave their jobs or normal lives (one is a high school student, another a stay at home mom) to do their missions. Those with jobs would have been fired within a couple of months for taking off the way they do. At least our characters in "The Americans" have a cover job that is reasonably believable in providing them the opportunity to not show up at work for days on end. Although they never take fam trips, familiarization trips which are one of the great perks of the travel agency business. They'd go off for a weekend or longer, stay in different hotels and sample the delights of a particular destination so that they can better serve their clients, that they now know that specific destination personally.

On the other hand, I've watched much of "Two and a half Men" and have no trouble with the silliness and non logical things there simply because the Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer characters are so over the top from the beginning. Oh, and I love Conchetta Ferrell as Berta the housekeeper. She's a hoot. All of the minor characters in that series are well cast and are well written, which helps a lot.

Thank you for hearing me out.