First of all, before the weather turned wintry again, I watched the pear blossom coming out fully. I’m hoping the dearth of insects due to the cold spell won’t affect our crop too much. I love our pears: raw, poached, pickled or baked. A pear version of tarte tatin is wonderful.
But the weather drove me indoors so I watched TV instead.
The excellent:
Dogs behaving very badly***** We watched in awe as Graham politely and efficiently trained the owners…
Line of Duty***** I loved it, despite a lot of critical reviews of this season. I love the filming, the direction, and the main actors. It was fascinating, in the same week as the finale, to watch a programme (the name escapes me) about the very real corruption investigation in the Met. I suspect this was the last season, but some of the issues have been left open for another.
The Looming Tower ***** A very well executed (and acted) account of the events leading up to 9/11 and the lack of trust and co-operation between the CIA and the FBI which probably contributed to the general chaos.
The Truth about Franco: Spain’s forgotten dictatorship **** We saw most of episodes 1 – 4 (in the wrong order). It was interesting and it was good to see Paul Preston, author of The Spanish Holocaust, taking us beyond the end of that book to what came after.
And the abandoned.
BlacKkKlansman – This was a sad and unintended abandonment. I saw half then needed to stop (I think it was bedtime) and it wasn’t on a catch-up service. I will definitely watch the second half if it comes round again. The basic plot centres round the true story of an ethnic minority journalist who manages to infiltrate the KKK online then has to persuade his (Jewish) friend and colleague to do the in-person stuff.
Luther – I sort of abandoned this but as husband binge watched it I inevitably saw a number of episodes. I like Idris Elba but I don’t like the amount of bloodshed involved in the very convoluted crimes, and nor do I like frequent episodes where people stand on the edge of roof tops, etc.
Ice Cold Murders – Italian noir. We watched one episode but won’t bother with more. It tried to be Montalbano without the scenic attraction and the crime was not particularly interesting.
Jay's World 
I have The Spanish Holocaust on the way to my library branch at the moment (following your recommendation last year).
It’s a brilliant account though it can be horrifying in parts. It certainly starts to explain a lot of current thinking in that part of Europe. I can thoroughly recommend it. Although I think most people have heard of Franco, and of the International Brigade, the issues are never completely clear because of course the news simply never reached us at the time or even later during Franco’s reign.
Line of Duty: loved the series but felt the ending was a bit of a let-down, not because of who it was, but because of how the team arrived at the solution. Nowhere near as sparkling as the last couple of series imho. And I’ve never been able to cope with Luther – we switched off after about 20 minutes of the first ever episode! Far too violent and too silly.
I was happy with Line of Duty – really, I’m happy with anything with lots of interrogation scenes! I agree about Luther but I watched a couple of eps out of one eye because I didn’t want to leave the lounge and it was on…