Enemy at the Door

[dbskyler]

I just binge-watched the first series of "Enemy at the Door," which is partly because I found it on Youtube, and also thisbluespirit's fault for talking about that show and making me curious to try it.

It's about the occupation of the Channel Islands during WWII, and the overall anxiety and greyness about everything is perfectly hitting my mental state right now. Although I should probably be seeking out more uplifting fare as I'm also struggling a lot with depression. On the other hand, I do get the occasional laugh from random guest British actors playing Nazi officers with incredibly upper-crust British accents. It's probably not as jarring to a British audience, but to me, it sounds about as out-of-place as if David Tennant dropped in to play a Nazi with a broad Scottish accent just for kicks.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

and the overall anxiety and greyness about everything is perfectly hitting my mental state right now.

Aww, I'm sorry you're feeling that way now, but I was kind of in a very similar place for other reasons when I first watched it & it really helped its in weird depressing way of everyone stoically enduring stuff without even a proper cup of tea to hand.

As to the accents, once you reach Martin Jarvis's turn in S2, you'll realise everyone else was fine! (I think their decision generally not to do accents, just a difference in formality and tone or awkwardness/abruptness, depending on what language people are speaking was better than cod-German attempts by Brits!!)

I wish you, er, joy of the second depressing season!!

[dbskyler]

No, the accent decision overall makes sense, especially since everything has to be in English including the parts where they would obviously be speaking German to each other. It's just that every once in awhile there'd be a guest actor who sounded like he just dropped in from Downton Abbey's ballroom. I guess it was an attempt to convey a very aristocratic German, but I swear they were about to say "cheerio" or something. To me, it was "Are you sure you're in the right show? Perhaps you want next door, where they're doing a Victorian period drama?"

Probably just jarring to me as an American, though. But some of the "Germans" sounded more "English" to me than some of the islanders!

Anyway, at least it's given me some small bits of unintended amusement.

[thisbluespirit]

Perhaps you want next door, where they're doing a Victorian period drama?"

To be fair, they might just have stepped out of Upstairs Downstairs! It would be understandable if they got confused.

But, honestly, once you've survived Martin Jarvis's attempts at a Swedish accent, you'll wish he'd done the Downton thing as well. XD

Anyway, at least it's given me some small bits of unintended amusement.

I had much the same thing with The Onedin Line, which was an early 70s BBC effort I watched a couple of years ago - it was supposed to be set in 1870s Liverpool, following the fortunes of a shipping line and it went all over the world (Spain, Argentina, Australia, the US). But they filmed it somewhere off the south coast of Devon, which was hilarious, because it didn't look remotely like Liverpool let alone the Amazon basin. (When we got to that bit, they just stuck some exotic plants in front of the camera. It was great. Someone managed to get eaten by an alligator anyway.) But it's amazing how much the entire world looks like Devon. I thoroughly enjoyed every time we went to a new country and, gosh, it looked like Devon again!

(I mean, I get it: they had authentic sailing ships and did a lot of filming on them, so they needed somewhere they could do that, but it was still priceless. Although also educational about sailing ships. XD)

[dbskyler]

But it's amazing how much the entire world looks like Devon.

Just like all alien planets look like quarries! :D

But yes, I get that with old American shows, too. No matter where they're supposed to be, the terrain always looks like southern California. Sometimes you even recognize it: "I know we're watching 'Man from U.N.C.L.E., but aren't those the cliffs that were in that one 'Star Trek' episode?"

[thisbluespirit]

Ah, yes, rather like me in B7 - "I'm sure we were in this quarry last week in Doctor Who!"

[dbskyler]

You have to wonder if they ran into each other at some point! It might be worth scanning old B7 episodes for unintentional Daleks turning up in the background.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, I meant to say! I don't know if you already know this, but one note of warning - it was unfortunately cancelled so they never got to finish it. (I'm just saying because I wish someone had told me that.)

[dbskyler]

I did find out that the show ends with the islands still occupied. Wasn't sure if that was deliberate or not. Is there a cliffhanger at the end?

[thisbluespirit]

Not a cliffhanger as such, no; not like S1 anyway. But it is a shame, as they'd been building up some really interesting character arcs in a quiet way & I'd love to see how it would have progressed with everybody, especially as things got so much worse. (As far as I can tell, it seems to have been the expensive location filming on Jersey that caused them to cancel it.)

[eve11]

I am getting enough gray with the weather. Though it's nice today. It is not a good time to be dealing with depression (I mean, it's never a good time, but now more than most). ((hugs))

I just watched Jojo Rabbit which was of course in English, but everyone had German accents except the two little kids who spoke in (I guess) their normal British accents. But all of the letters and writing are in German. And then at the end you have one tiny instance of people speaking English at the "Germans" who can't understand them, and it's a small enough scrap of dialogue that I literally didn't understand it and it might have just been English-sounding gibberish (I'd have to go back and watch to be sure).

[dbskyler]

It's hard for everyone. I am prone to depression, so at least I am able to recognize it, plus I already have some strategies for dealing with it.

Not familiar with JoJo Rabbit but that's funny that you're not sure if it was actually English or not. Although I do sometimes have that problem with British TV.

[thisbluespirit]

I have no idea if you are around enough to see this, but a fuller version of that Seventh Doc comic strip with him & Sarah hugging (& in colour!) passed my dash, so of course I thought of you: https://karma-and-flares.tumblr.com/post/63374765919/and-now-in-colour-doctor-who-classics-issue

If you do see this, I hope you are well! ♥

[dbskyler]

Yes, I am still lurking! Thanks so much for passing that on -- it's lovely.

I am doing okay. Struggling with Pandemic, like all of us, but overall I'm pretty fortunate, as my job has been stable and no immediate members of my family have gotten too ill.

I hope you're doing okay, too!

[thisbluespirit]

I'm glad to know you're still around and more or less okay(ish)! ♥

You saw my last post, so I'm pretty much as usual, having ups and downs with the ME, not yet magically cured (drat it!), still distracting myself when fandom whenever I can.

And, aw, glad to know I could share that with you. I remembered finding the second panel somewhere & linking you ages ago, so I thought of you and your Doctor + Sarah + hugs policy immediately!