As soon as the Sox game ends here in a few minutes I am going to watch episode 2 of the only show I have decided to watch this summer---
Zen which is airing as a Masterpiece Mystery presentation on PBS. It's from the same production company that did
Sherlock. It's not nearly as brilliant as
Sherlock (natch!) but it's still pretty good. Apparently the book series it's based on was by some Brit mystery writer named Michael Dibdin. Never heard of the books but I like the premise at least for a TV series which is about a Rome police officer named Aurelio Zen who is trying to (mostly) ethically navigate his way through the notoriously corrupt and bureaucracy-fueled Italian police force all the while having a shit personal life that has him returning to live with his momma. It's got a whole 60's/70's slick Italian crime film vibe about it right down to the badass soundtrack. Very slick looking. BEAUTIFULLY shot on location in Italy! Hell, the location shooting alone is enough for me to tune in for, lol. Nevermind that half the characters who are supposed to be Italian speak with British accents---you're just supposed to accept it and move the **** on (like the
Wallander series where all the Swedes are Brits filmed on location in Sweden, lol).
As the cherry on the top, the actor playing Zen is Rufus Sewell---he of
Dark City fame (though I loved him long before that because of
Cold Comfort Farm and
Middlemarch, heh). He is an absolute FAVE of mine and appears in projects only during cycles of intermittent popularity---too often being cast in period roles. The fact that he's a stone-cold motherfucking fox doesn't hurt either---the man looks DAMN good in the impeccable Italian suits, Italian leather shoes, with requisite Italian sunglasses, and driving around in Italian cars!
http://www.pbs.org/w.../zen/index.html
