“Remoted” – Day 393 (Tuesday)

The Hallmark Channel romance movie streak has been severed, temporarily anyway. The nightly viewing of predictable, fluffy movies has been interrupted by crime stories on Netflix. It started with the changing of the clocks a few weeks ago. The clocks were moved ahead by an hour, but the Hallmark Movie schedule stayed put. The movies I had been watching after work started at 5:00, but after the clock change, they began at 4:00. It took me a few evenings of confused head scratching trying to figure out why the after-work movies were suddenly half over. I hate starting a show that is in progress, so I would wander over to Netflix, where it’s possible to watch without an appointment.

The opposite of Hallmark.

The diversion started with “The Serpent,” based on “shocking true events” and a “merciless killer” who preys on travelers in the 1970s, making it pretty much the polar opposite of a Hallmark Channel movie. The story was interesting in a holy crap kind of way, and a little gory and made me wonder about how some people are wired -- both the trusting and the murderous. There were also some cool clothing and eyeglass fashions depicted. 

From the international murder story, the next entertainment was “This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist,” about the unsolved art theft from Boston’s own Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. This intriguing mystery mentions lots of familiar Boston names from news stories. It’s amazing the works were stolen and more amazing they have never been found.

Tonight, it was the start of “Fear City: New York vs The Mafia,” about organized crime in New York City in the 1970s and 80s. It’s a gruesome, yet refreshing change from happy, sappy couples falling in love. An amusing quote from an FBI agent described monitoring a bug placed in a mafia household. She said, “It was a total immersion into the life of a Mafia household. So, I never heard so many creative uses of the F-word in my life.”

It’s a little disappointing there weren’t some specific examples of the creative F-word usage, because my repertoire could use some freshening. It reminded me of feeling let down by the series “Without a Trace,” which ran on CBS from 2002 to 2009. I was excited about that show when it started and watched it for a while, hoping for helpful tips on how to disappear without a trace, but it was just another series featuring FBI cases about missing people and not a single tip on how-to successfully go missing. Talk about a deceptive title.

The Hallmark break hasn’t been all murder and crime. There have been some standup comedy shows between the crime stuff, because sometimes a laugh is needed and balance is necessary. Tom Papa is pretty funny. He looks like he could be anyone’s accountant dad, and he tells some good stories. I keep telling myself that once it gets warmer, I’ll sit on the deck after work and read. We’ll see. At least for now, it’s crime and mayhem.