While my posts back in September noted things other than books in the mystery genre, I haven’t really written much about movies, TV shows, and games since then. Being that I am quite obsessed with mysteries in any shape or form, I do also watch a lot of mysteries. Therefore, I wanted one set of my regular monthly posts to reflect on that.
Starting with today’s post, my Monday posts that fall roughly mid-month will focus on reflecting on the mystery viewing I had done over the past 4 or 5 weeks.
Disclosure: The DVD cover pictures below contain Amazon affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click on them and make a purchase.
MONK
Having seen all 8 episodes of the first season of The Good Cop on Netflix in September, I began feeling nostalgic for MONK since both series have the same creator (Andy Breckman) and therefore both evoke similar moods.
Over the last month or so, I watched through the first nine episodes of the first season of MONK with my husband, who hadn’t seen the series before. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it, and my husband also came to like the series and suggest that we watch an episode or two each evening.
If you like the puzzle aspect of mysteries, then I’d recommend this series to you. Before 2002 (when the series first began airing), one of the series writers, Hy Conrad, used to write see-and-solve mysteries on a now-defunct website called MysteryNet.com. Some of the episodes were indeed based on the puzzles presented in those see-and-solves.
One for the Money
Having re-read the first book in the Stephanie Plum series last month, I decided it would also be good to re-watch the 2012 movie adaptation starring Katherine Heigl since I wanted to make sure that the book was fresh in my mind so that I could compare it to the movie.
I won’t go into too many details here because I plan to post a more detailed review of the differences between the book and the movie next week. However, I will briefly say that while the movie is enjoyable as a romantic comedy (and I’d recommend it for that reason only), it is not truly reflective of the book.
Lamplight City
This is not a movie or TV show, but I’m including it here since playing computer games is a type of “viewing”. Last time I wrote about Lamplight City, a new independent point-and-click role-playing/adventure computer game, I hadn’t started playing it yet. I’ve now had a chance to try the game out and it’s quite enjoyable for fans of this kind of genre. I’m only through about 70% of the game now, but here’s what I think so far:
(1) The game is very much ingrained in the steampunk genre. And while I’m not a fan of steam-punk — I’m more of a fan of history than rewritten history — the game executes the steampunk themes well and lets the player decide whether to have the protagonist believe in the fantasy elements or not.
(2) The best characteristic of the game can also be its most annoying characteristic. Basically, while a lot of other adventure games railroad the player such that whatever choices they make in-game always lead to the same outcome, in this game you as the player can go wrong in your choices and thus limit the possible outcomes available to you. In the three cases I played so far, I could play the game such that I had three possible solutions available to me. However, if you make a wrong move in your conversations with witnesses and suspects, it’s possible to have one of those doors close in your face. This can be annoying if you have a sense of what the solution should be, but you’re no longer able to get all the clues necessary to make that particular accusation. My advice: save frequently.
Magnum, P.I.
I am too young to have watched Magnum, P.I. when it was first on TV, and it wasn’t really on reruns when I was growing up. However, several years ago I started watching the series from the beginning, and over the past month, I finished watching season 7 and started watching season 8 for the first time.
I mentioned in an earlier post that the more I think about the show the more I realize that many of the episodes aren’t mysteries in the true sense of the word (often they’re more like action thrillers, and sometimes they’re more like cerebral dramas), but what happens at the end of series 7 is truly mind-bending… to the point where I’m not even sure whether what’s happening in series 8 is even real!
Murder, She Wrote
For those who follow my blog, it’s probably not worth mentioning that I’ve also been watching Murder, She Wrote. I’ll just briefly comment here to say that this month I also took part in another Murder She Drank Twitter event. They do one almost every month, and while they’re taking a break from it over December, they will be picking it up again in January.
Murder, She Watched 