Tuesday TV Touchbase: Gentleman Jack

 Yes, I know it's Election Day in the good ol' US of A but dammit, I'm trying to contain my anxiety by maintaining some sense of normalcy on this blog. 

It is Tuesday. Which means it's time for the Tuesday TV Touchbase! 

Let's go! 

Gentleman Jack

Gentleman Jack is a series I've been intrigued by since I came across clips for it on You Tube, such as this one: 

Set in the year 1832, Gentleman Jack stars Suranne Jones as landowner and industrialist Anne Lister. Series creator Sally Wainwright bases her story on the collected diaries of Lister  documenting a lifetime of lesbian relationships.

Sadly, Gentleman Jack is not available on any cable channel that I receive or any of the streaming services I subscribe to. The series is a co-production of the BBC and HBO so I imagine it can be found on HBO Max which I still have not sprung for.

However, I did stumble across that episode one is available as a free offering through my cable's on demand features. 

In 1832, Anne Lister returns to Halifax, West Yorkshire. She had been in Hastings with Vere Hobart, her female lover who decides she's going to marry a man. Heartbroken, Anne returns home to her estate at Shibden Hall where Anne finds there is a lot of work to be done: 

• the estate itself has been neglected
• rent from surrounding tenants has not been collected
• there is a crap ton of potentially very valuable coal on her land that nobody is doing nothing with. 

With a full head of steam, Anne Lister marches in, takes charge and starts getting things done.

And she meets Ann Walker, a beautiful and shy (and very wealthy) heiress that Anne Lister immediately takes a liking to and decides to pursue Ms. Walker for purposes of making Ann her wife. 

Some solidly progressive goals for a woman in 1832 England. 

Anne Lister, dressed in black with a top hat and a cane, purposefully strides everywhere, standing tall and straight. There is little if any typical feminine bearing in the way Anne Lister carries herself. 

Here is a montage of Anne Lister marching everywhere, her long black coat flapping about her. 

The "All British TV Connects To Doctor Who" Dept: 

• The music is by former Doctor Who composer Murray Gold. 
• Suranne Jones played Idris, the human personification of the TARDIS in "The Doctor's Wife". 
• Ann Walker's uncle is played by Peter Davison who was the 5th Doctor on Doctor Who. 

I've really enjoyed the clips of the show that I've seen so far and the one episode I got to watch was a complete and total delight that fully met my expectations for this show. 

To see the rest of the series, I may have to pay some actual money to make that happen. 

That is that for today's Tuesday TV Touchbase. 

Today is election day here in America and right now, I am on edge about the outcome. Seriously, we have got to get rid of Donald Trump! 

A post mortem on Election Day will likely appear in a post on the blog tomorrow.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another.