TV Watch! - Weeds and The Line of Beuaty

1) Weeds (2005) - This show is freaking hilarious. Mary-Louise Parker as Nancy Botwin, the pot-dealing soccer mom, is somehow touching. After her husband dies of a heart attack, Nancy is alone with her two sons and her maid in the upscale drudgery of a golf course community in Agrestic, California. Dealing pot to maintain her lifestyle is a tricky business, and you'll certainly fall in love with her twisted and endearing ways. 8/10

2) The Line of Beauty (2006) - This BBC miniseries is based off lan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel. Set in 1980s London, Nick Grant (played by the incredibly gorgeous Dan Stevens) is a fresh graduate from Oxford, working to get his PhD following the literature of Henry James. Nick is homosexual and working-class, but he becomes a lodger in his straight best college friend Tobias Fedden's family home in perfectly lovely Notting Hill. Gerald Fedden is a member of Parliament for the conservative party, but the family appears to be fine with Nick's homosexuality as long as it isn't mentioned. Basically, the story connects politics and sexuality in a way I've never seen before, both intense and intriguing in its realism. The 1980s were filled with coke, anonymous cruising, unprotected sex, the AIDS crisis, stalling middle-class social services, higher taxes for the poor, absurd prosperity for the rich, all the like. It was as glamorous as it was hideous, and this look back is absolutely fascinating. 8.5/10

3) Liesl Schillinger from Slate makes an interesting comparison between all the versions of The Office:

"If you are fond of the British Office, you will feel warmly about Dawn and Tim, the doughy-faced, out-of-shape pair who pine for one another. In the American show, Pam and Jim are the equivalents, but, having been raised on a healthier diet than Ribena and crisps, they are far more appetizing and their love affair progresses with more conviction. In the French version, Laeti and Paul are played by gorgeous, dark-haired, full-lipped young actors who could be the incestuous brother and sister in Bertolucci's The Dreamers."

Absolutely awesome.