"La Grande Chaumière Violette" (紫色大稻埕) is a 22 episode, single season Taiwanese TV series I recently finished watching on Netflix.
Set in the historical background of Taiwan between the early 1920's and the end of 1940's, it's a coming-of-age story between two young men, one from a well-to-do tea merchant family the other from poverty, of their mutual love of painting, friends and families, intertwined with the cultural and political upheavals of colonial Taiwan when it was under Japanese rule and shortly after World War II when it was reverted back to Nationalist China.
What hooked me on watching this "epochal soap opera" for weeks on end may sound silly, but I think it's the nicety of people and the genteel atmosphere of the historical period it portrays that I feel very much akin to, most likely because they were people of my kind, places I came from, and times I can relate to–times my mom and dad grew up in, that a "double nostalgia" came on me to miss both them and the classy, serene times of theirs, even if only in my imaginations.
"Merlin" is another Netflix series I watched while watching "La Grande Chaumière Violette". It is a 5 season, 65 episode long series that also took me weeks to finish (I refrain from binge watching when I can).
It's based on the legendary King Arthur/Camelot epic with particular angles: First off,
King Arthur was not the center of the story, Merlin was; Secondly, an evil queen-wannabe and a ruthless king-that-be made up most of the story's backdrop; Finally, in the end, King Arthur did not ride triumphantly
with Merlin
into the sunset, nor rule Camelot with his kind and wise queen happily ever after...
Each 50 minute episode was a short tale of love and betrayal, fate and destiny, magic and sorcery, a simple plot with enough drama to keep you amused and not feeling cheated, sword-and-buckler fighting and peck-on-the-lips romances with no gory blood shed or lurid sexual encounters. A G-rated entertainment you can feel comfortable watching alone or with company, anytime of the day, with a bowl of popcorn at your hand perhaps.
With pandemic virus running rampant
out on the streets, I suspect we all do a little more comfy
at-home
video watching than usual. What movies or series have you watched lately, that you might like to share with me about? 
