What To Watch On A Boating Evening

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menzies

Guru
Joined
May 11, 2014
Messages
7,233
Location
USA
Vessel Name
SONAS
Vessel Make
Grand Alaskan 53
We just completed our fall cruise.

I am not much of a TV watcher at home. Basically my Manchester United football games is it. When Sian puts on her shows in the evening I disappear into the home office.

We have a KVH TV dome on Sonas, but since we don't watch much TV we have never activated a service. We have an over the air digital panel that gets all of the local stations for news and shows. But we don't watch those much either.

Sian uses Netflix mainly at home, and the TV on Sonas has Netflix so she either uses a marina's WIFI or tethers to her phone for her shows.

I can't really escape from her TV when on the boat. So I sit on my laptop and glance now and then to the TV. One show she watches is Call The Midwife.

And she has me hooked!

Do any of you watch this show? If not you may want to have a look, starting at the beginning. During this three week cruise they have tackled Thalidomide children, female circumcision, mixed marriage in the fifties, lung cancer, electric shock treatment of mental illness, the snow storms of 1962, and a myriad of birthing issues. The acting is very strong, and a full box of tissues is recommended.

If you are sitting on your boat this winter during these short days, you may want to have a look. Good stuff.

[Mods feel free to move to Harbor Chat if you don't think it meets General content].
 
We`ve watched the UK series "Call the Midwife". Extraordinary acting, credible characters, as people who appear to genuinely live the life of their religion and their callings. Challenging subjects, didactic,sometimes heart warming.

If you get English humor, tolerate words that send the TF cuss filter into apoplexy,and sexual innuendo(no,not an Italian suppository),try "8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown". About word anagrams and ingenious maths,a spoof of the real "Countdown". Intelligent panel type show,smutty,and often very funny.
 
On the boat if we are watching TV, it is for movies.
 
Expand your horizons menzies,
Read a book.
I recommend a paperback for fun in between a political or historic or/and sometimes a historical novel.
Try “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon.

All I watch on TV is news and politics. But politics has become way too repetitive.
 
When we ran our boat home from Virginia it took us 45 days. We watched TV on 4 nights. I read 38 books on the trip.
 
I like epic human endurance/spirit stuff.

Meru: One of the hardest high alpine rock walls and the will to overcome all odds - Amazon Prime

Touching the Void: Incomprehensible mountain survival story, with Shakespearean life & death choices and their ramifications - Amazon Prime

The Dawn Wall: The hardest ever free climbing line on El Capitan, with a couple most impressive 'never give up' twists - Netflix

This Mountain Life: Six month winter ski mountaineering trip from southern BC to Alaska through the Coast Mountain Range, by a 60 year old mom and her daughter. A truly audacious, difficult trip - Amazon Prime.

Searching for Sugarman: A lesson in humility, not judging people before you know their stories, and the peace found in purity of spirit/leading an uncomplicated life - not sure where that one can be found.

Think I got where to find them right, but all the answers are but a quick online search engine quest away.
 
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Expand your horizons menzies,
Read a book.
I recommend a paperback for fun in between a political or historic or/and sometimes a historical novel.
Try “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon.

All I watch on TV is news and politics. But politics has become way too repetitive.

We also have Kindles and use Bookbub.
 
I put Direct TV on the boat for my Loop trip. As the wife already had it, I only paid for an additional cable box. Watched it 2 or 3 times in 8 months. Wife changed universities and was able to get Comcast. I didn't think it was worth the price of the extra cable box, and certainly wouldn't pay the actual monthly service cost. I find cruising and anchoring out to be peaceful and mentally stimulating without the excrement of reality TV, news, and commercials. At some point when I'm old, senile, and confined to a wheelchair or bed, TV might be slightly better than staring at a blank wall.

Ted
 
There is no way I am going to reveal my TV/reading preferences except to say the silly work of fiction (Trawler Trash recommended here) I am reading pales to insignificance alongside any well written work of non-fiction. At 20% on my Kindle, I have probably read the last sentence of TT.
 
Good on all of you.

I thought I’d hear noth’in but “I want my football”.
 
Tantalizing tidbits...

Meru:
 
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Teared up at least four times during this one, but had to avert my eyes during news footage of machete killings:

Mully:
 
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When we bought the boat it was set up for cable, satellite and broadcast TV. We removed all those, although we do have smart TV's installed now in the forward and master berths and the salon, with DVD players. That gives us the ability to be very selective about what we watch, or what's displayed. We have a big collection of DVD's but all boat-related one way or another, from multiple versions of Moby Dick to Mystic Pizza. White Squall. Finest Hours. In the Heart of the Sea. Master and Commander. Of course when we're not in a marina we can't surf web-tv offerings (unless I use my cell data), but that's just as well. When we do have wifi we usually keep it to boaty stuff, even a marine weather forecast, or sailing documentaries (Volvo Ocean Race!) or nautical history (Joshua Slocum!). I won't go into a lecture about detaching from civilization and TV, to each his own, but at least this arrangement keeps our boating experience distinct and separate from "regular life."
 
Do you think you're well informed, or are you well managed by algorithms?

The Great Hack:
 
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We just completed our fall cruise.

I am not much of a TV watcher at home. Basically my Manchester United football games is it. When Sian puts on her shows in the evening I disappear into the home office.

We have a KVH TV dome on Sonas, but since we don't watch much TV we have never activated a service. We have an over the air digital panel that gets all of the local stations for news and shows. But we don't watch those much either.

Sian uses Netflix mainly at home, and the TV on Sonas has Netflix so she either uses a marina's WIFI or tethers to her phone for her shows.

I can't really escape from her TV when on the boat. So I sit on my laptop and glance now and then to the TV. One show she watches is Call The Midwife.

And she has me hooked!

Do any of you watch this show? If not you may want to have a look, starting at the beginning. During this three week cruise they have tackled Thalidomide children, female circumcision, mixed marriage in the fifties, lung cancer, electric shock treatment of mental illness, the snow storms of 1962, and a myriad of birthing issues. The acting is very strong, and a full box of tissues is recommended.

If you are sitting on your boat this winter during these short days, you may want to have a look. Good stuff.

[Mods feel free to move to Harbor Chat if you don't think it meets General content].

My wife loves this show :eek: I also enjoy British productions, though my tastes tend to run towards period police drama/procedurals and mysteries.

That said, a reboot of All Creatures Great and Small from UK Channel 5 is coming soon to PBS and presumably to a streaming service like Netflix :noel:
 
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Watch the sun set. Then go to bed. :angel:
 
For me, at least, being on the boat means at last, at last free from the TV. My wife is a news junkie and I get so tired of the SOS (Same Old S--t). On the boat, I am free of it, too much to do, sorry honey, no TV on the boat.
 
I love to read on the boat, can go through a book in a couple days. I like to read when home, but rarely find the time. We have a TV but it probably doesn't get used more than once or twice a season unless there is something special happening like the Kentucky Derby.
 
When I bought a TV for my boat, I wanted small, light and basic but with a DVD player as part of the TV. I paid something like $120 for a 28 inch TV with DVD player. I didn't bother getting a smart TV as where I boat reception isn't available about 98 % of the time.

Instead I go to Salvation Army type stores and purchase used TV series that have gone on for a number of years, like MI5, Suits, Downton Abby, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Mad Men, etc. If you watch all of the episodes in all of these series I've listed and assuming you watch DVD's 45 days of the year and 2 episodes a day, you'll be watching for the next ten years easy with the list above.
 
British and Australian (Wanted, A Place Called Home) dramas are far superior, in general. Consider Father Brown, Midsomer Murders, The Crown, Peaky Blinders, Downtown Abbey, The Man in the High Castle, Doc Martin, Broadhurst, Bodyguard, Poldark, Victoria, The Tunnel, for example. There are more depending on your taste. Find them on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Current episodes of some of these are on PBS.
We just completed our fall cruise.

I am not much of a TV watcher at home. Basically my Manchester United football games is it. When Sian puts on her shows in the evening I disappear into the home office.

We have a KVH TV dome on Sonas, but since we don't watch much TV we have never activated a service. We have an over the air digital panel that gets all of the local stations for news and shows. But we don't watch those much either.

Sian uses Netflix mainly at home, and the TV on Sonas has Netflix so she either uses a marina's WIFI or tethers to her phone for her shows.

I can't really escape from her TV when on the boat. So I sit on my laptop and glance now and then to the TV. One show she watches is Call The Midwife.

And she has me hooked!

Do any of you watch this show? If not you may want to have a look, starting at the beginning. During this three week cruise they have tackled Thalidomide children, female circumcision, mixed marriage in the fifties, lung cancer, electric shock treatment of mental illness, the snow storms of 1962, and a myriad of birthing issues. The acting is very strong, and a full box of tissues is recommended.

If you are sitting on your boat this winter during these short days, you may want to have a look. Good stuff.

[Mods feel free to move to Harbor Chat if you don't think it meets General content].
 
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