When I want to forget about books and writers and planning and organizing for a while, I try to get involved in a long TV series, especially if it is one people are talking about (or, as if often the case, have talked about in the past). I almost never watch TV programs while they are actually on the television. I don't have the patience or dilligence to tune in at the right time on the right night. I can't imagine how anyone does, in fact. So I almost always download the show or rent it at the videostore.

The last week, I've been watching Mildred Pierce, the mini-series HBO aired last year starring Kate Winslet. I've been really enjoying it. It's very period-feeling, in a way which Mad Men has done though it's set in the 1930s instead of the 1960s.

What I find amazing about this series is the authentic use of language that is very much set in its time and place. From watching old black and white movies, one can occasionally hear a phrase or word or idiom that's no longer used widely and the writers here must have amassed quite a collection of this kind of language because the show positively drips with it.

The relationship between Mildred and her oldest daughter is fascinating as well, like a role reversal where the daughter leads the mother around and defines all the parameters of proper behavior. I've never read the book and, in fact, I know little about the writer, James Cain. I have seen the film version, starring Joan Crawford, which came out just after the book was published in 194`1 but I can hardly remember it.

But this more modern version will definitely stay with me for some time. It's lovely, haunting, frustrating and moving. It's not a perfect series, but in it one finds a real testament to the fact that television is where the most interesting work is being done today and not the movies.