Last week, I came across a video that caught my attention for what seemed to be its amusing oddity, and it turns out that the fellow has made a whole series out of it, and they’re extensive.  And (for my taste) great fun.  They’re called “European Reacts.”  He’s a guy from Portugal, named André, who absolutely loves America and posts videos of his first reaction to things about the country.  But all the better is that he has a friend named Sara (also from Portugal) who he often has on as a guest for her reactions.  And those especially are a total joy.  (In fact, he mentions in one how viewers love when he has her on.)  Moreover, I should add that in some of the most-recent videos, he refers to her as his wife. 

Their accents are very thick.  Sometimes putting on Closed Captioning might help, but a lot of the fun is just listening to them as they are.  And overall, one of the treats of the videos are that, when seeing the country through the eyes of people being introduced to it, bring a reminder of appreciation that, living here, we tend to take for granted.

They all aren't consistently wonderful, so I'll try to only post the ones that are most fun.  And this first is my favorite of them all so far.  As it happens, it's also the first one that I found.  And it's with Sara.
 
The point of the video is André showing her maps of European country and how small they are compared to American states.  And it’s so fun.  And she’s often disbelieving and in total awe.  A phrase you hear him say a lot throughout the video is, “Really, I am not joking.  This is true.”  (By the way, the video they’re watching is extremely well-done.)  Great fun, too, is when they deal with pronouncing the states.  In fact, the funniest point in the video is when they get to “Massachusetts.”  He makes a bet with her, insistent that he knows he’s right – and he’s not, her guess is pretty close.  And in the Comments section below (which is fun on its own, especially here since so many people chimed in to say that Sara was right), the very first comment is from Sara herself, who writes -- “Sara here.  Thanks, everyone.  André’s gotta pay up!” Followed by a smiley face. 😂
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If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night, his Main Story -- well, he initially said it was about "Israel," but it turned out to actually be about Benjamin Netanyahu, which is a whole different matter.  It's an excellent, detailed and deservedly scathing report that they also manage to make very funny though a good part of it.

I only have one quibble.  A couple of times, Oliver mentions that Netanyahu is unpopular in Israel -- which is very important fact, critical in differentiating the story from being about Israel or Netanyahu.  But he never explains how unpopular.  Many months ago, I read about a poll in Israel that showed his unpopularity being around 80%, which is massive and significant.  (Whether it's still that -- higher or lower -- I don't know.)  Oliver does give poll numbers for Netanyahu's unpopularity in the U.S.  But for some reason, the show chose not to give Israeli numbers.  And they have video of a massive protest against Netanyahu -- but no details on what his unpopularity actually is.  That's a shame, since it's a meaningful fact.  Other than that, it's an excellent report -- pointed and funny.

The other day, Donald Trump Jr. went to Greenland, trying to build support for his dad's lunatic desire to buy the Danish territory.  “The other day” is the proper phrase because, once there,  he found out how wildly unpopular the lamebrain idea is and scurried home after one day! But not before he, of course, felt compelled put out a video slamming Denmark, our democratic ally, for "fake news" about the near-total lack of support.
 
Making this story all the better is that his dad, Trump himself posted a video on Trump Social of a Greenland man imploring him to buy the Danish property. The problem is that neither Trump nor his crackerjack staff didn't vet the guy.  And it turns out that Danish press DR News and B.T did what the press do – and they both did what any reasonable person would do, which one would think would be, if not Trump (since “reasonable” is the operative term here), then at least his top-notch advisers…or at least the intern kid who could search Google – and that’s find out who the guy, Timothy Zeeb, was.    

For my taste, the PBS Masterpiece mini-series, "Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office" (based on a true national scandal) is every bit as great as its reputation and huge success that it had in England. An ensemble cast, but starring Toby Jones.  Usually he plays offbeat, quirky characters, sometimes villains, but here he's quiet, low-key, down-to-earth.  That's much the way the series is -- but very personal, involving and often-deeply moving.  Crushing at times as you witness deeply-decent and innocent people being rolled, many with lives ruined, some wrongly imprisoned, all for reasons they don't understand by a government behemoth.  Yet, appalling and tragic as much of the story is -- it's also about the fight back and is very much uplifting, as well.

The story is about small-town sub-postmasters (sort of like a step-up from people who run Mailbox Etc. stores) who are prosecuted for major theft, each told they were the only one with the problem they were claiming, when it turns out it was a systemwide computer error.  That simple description only because to do justice to the building emotion of everything.  Though the series does a great job in focusing the story in a manageable tightness, it actually is still somewhat going on after 20 years, and 160 million pounds in restitution have (so far...) been paid.

Two episodes down, two to go.  If you subscribe to PBS, you can catch up on the series on PBS Passport.  In fact, all four episodes are available there, including a short follow-up featurette on the true story.

Here's the short trailer from when it aired in England. It only touches the surface. As it says, "The largest miscarriage of justice in British history."

If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night, his Main Story was about Brazil and its far-right president Jair Bolsonaro who is running for re-election using many strategies similar to Trump -- with some added "twists" of his own.  There's a lot of good humor in the piece, as well, though (for my taste) I thought several of the joke fell flat, though the studio audience seemed to like them.  (Though I think that's more because they sounded like they should be really funny.  They just seemed off to me.)  Still, it was a very good report