• Hey All! Lately there has been more and more scammers on the forum board. They register and replies to members requests for guns and/or parts or other things. The reply contains a gmail or hotmail address or similar ”anonymous” email addresses which they want you to reply to. DO NOT ANSWER ANY STRANGE MESSAGES! They often state something like this: ”Hello! Saw your post about purchasing a stock for a Safari. KnuckleheadBob has one. Email him at: [email protected]” If you receive any strange messages: Check the status of whoever message you. If they have no posts and signed up the same day or very recently, stay away. Same goes for other members they might refer to. Check them too and if they are long standing members, PM them and ask if the message is legit. Most likely it’s not. Then use the report function in each message or post so I can kick them out! Beware of anything that might seem fishy! And again, for all of you who registered your personal name as username, please contact me so I can change it to a more anonymous username. You’d be surprised of how much one can find out about a person from just a username on a forum such ad our! All the best! And be safe! Jim

Off Topic: Some worthwhile TV

Sako Collectors Club Discussion Forum

icebear

Sako-addicted
OK, we don't normally review TV shows. But since a lot of us live in the desert Southwest, I'm going to plug an upcoming episode of the PBS mini-series "Green Planet." This is a newly released series with the great David Attenborough. This week's episode, airing Wednesday night, focuses on deserts and has a segment on the Sonoran desert featuring experts from Tucson. The Sonoran desert is unique in that it is the only desert in the world with two rainy seasons - the usual one in the winter, plus a summer monsoon. That's why we have the tremendous diversity of cactus, desert trees, and assorted shrubs and succulents that are unique to the Sonoran desert.

And while I'm plugging TV set in the southwestern desert, I'll also mention "Dark Winds," a mini-series on AMC. Based on a series of murder mystery novels by Tony Hillerman, it's set on the Navajo reservation in northern New Mexico. The main characters are Joe Leaphorn, a senior tribal police officer, and Jim Chee, a rookie officer under Leaphorn's supervision. The cool thing about it is that all the Indian characters are played by actual Indians and the script was largely written by Indians. There's some serious authenticity about it, and the acting is superb. The show's six-week run on scheduled TV is finished, but it can be streamed on AMC, AMC+, and Amazon Prime. At least I think so; I'm not the most adept at navigating the jungle of TV streaming. Also, AMC does plan a second season but I don't know when that will air.

Apologies for the off-topic, but I think at least some of us will want to see one or both of these shows.
 
Love the Sonoran desert especially early and late day and at night. As far as "Dark Winds": IMHO has some good episodes and characters but also has some really weak ones. Seems a little choppy and rushed with predictable plot. Could have benefited from more episodes with better character development. That said I will give next season a try.
 
Check out “Peaky Blinders” on Netflix..season 6 is up now.
Also .. it’s an older flick on Netflix called “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
 
Love the Sonoran desert especially early and late day and at night. As far as "Dark Winds": IMHO has some good episodes and characters but also has some really weak ones. Seems a little choppy and rushed with predictable plot. Could have benefited from more episodes with better character development. That said I will give next season a try.
I agree, partly. The plot was overly convoluted and implausible. The ending was contrived. The bad guys were in some ways comic-book villains. What made the show for me was the interaction of the three tribal officers - at once dependent on each other as a team, and very much alone without hope of backup when driving along a long, lonely highway in a run-down Impala. And the way the cops interact with the tribal members, many of whom they grew up with. Manuelito in particular is a fascinating character - beautiful, elegant, aloof, self-contained and more than a bit scary - but also human. (She reminds me of a couple of my ex-girlfriends, but that's another story.) And, of course, there is the setting. Endless roads to the horizon, mountains in the background, villages, hogans, horse corrals - the show places the Navajo in their context. And the scenery is beautiful.

I've read a few of the original Hillerman books and I think the producers would benefit from sticking a bit closer to Hillerman's plotting. My girlfriend agrees. She's a retired cop who has read all of Hillerman's Leaphorn/Chee books and most of his daughter Anne Hillerman's continuation of the series. She absolutely loves the TV version, even with its flaws, and is looking forward to Season 2. So am I.

The Indians have gotten a pretty lousy deal from the rest of us. If this show can generate some empathy on the part of Americans who have hardly ever had a conversation with a real Indian, it will be doing some genuine good.
 
Back
Top