Series · Prime Video · 1989

Wallace & Gromit

Making, kindness, and a dog who is the adult. A treasure.

Wallace is generous and unwise. Gromit is patient and competent. Together they are a moral about tools: a gadget that saves effort can cost the house, and someone has to notice. The films are short, funny, and made by hand. Put them on whenever the row is otherwise loud.

The eight

Industry
8/10
Invention is the joy and the joke. Cheese, rockets, trousers.
Household
6/10
A man and a dog who are a household. Gromit keeps it from burning down.
Piety
3/10
No creed but decency.
Courage
5/10
Gromit faces the trouble Wallace invented.
Republic
4/10
A village, a neighbor, a museum.
Temperance
8/10
Short films. Complete ideas.
Truth
8/10
The machines tell the truth about the maker.
Stewardship
7/10
Handmade, and handed down. You can see the fingerprints.

Live historicallyMake something slightly useless and give it to someone in the house. Gromit would supervise.

Series · Prime Video · 2007

Heartland

Land, animals, and a family that stays. Longer than it needs to be, and aimed the right way.

Amy's gift with horses is a picture of attention, which is a moral skill: you watch the animal until you understand what it is afraid of. The family is bruised and does not dissolve. There are many seasons. You may not need them. You do need, once, a show where the work of a place and the repair of a family are the same hour.

The eight

Industry
8/10
The ranch work is the show. Horses, bills, seasons.
Household
8/10
Grandfather, sisters, a father. The household is the plot.
Piety
4/10
Grief and forgiveness, in a practical key.
Courage
5/10
They keep the ranch when selling would be easier.
Republic
5/10
A valley, a neighbor, a school.
Temperance
6/10
Gentle to a fault, and the fault is only length.
Truth
6/10
It believes care is a skill, not a mood.
Stewardship
7/10
Stewardship of animals and of a place is the literal story.

Live historicallyGive something in your care your full attention for one hour. A child, an animal, a tool.