TV you've just watched

[vol.2]

This is what the Mandalorian lacks, a bad guy that can also kick some ass.

Okay, I see what you mean. I haven't seen it yet. Yes, I think there should be death and tragedy in Star Wars. Seems maybe Disney have got their family-oriented claws too deeply embedded.

That's not to say that I want them to return to the neo-Campbellian story structure of the first six movies. My vote is for something more like an early John Carpenter vibe ala Escape From New York; I'd like something grittier.

The one thing though that really frustrates me about the recent movies (and I guess the TV so far) is that there is a wealth of great Star Wars storytelling that has happened since the 90s to draw from. Sure, people would have a source to know what is going to happen, but that didn't stop the Harry Potter books from making blockbusters. They could also tweak storylines to create twists, etc.

For me, I think it's especially tragic that Vector Prime hasn't been made into a movie, or at least a game. It's too fucking bad that they waited until all the original actors were too old or too dead to follow through on something like that.

[emphatic]

True Blood - Vampires have come out of the dark to live amongst us. They never have to kill another human because a synthetic blood they can drink has been invented. I really loved this back when. Its one of those shows where the sex, action and bizarre is all ramped up to 11. 9/10. I'm up to S2 right now.

You have so much great stuff to look forward to. They keep turning up the crazy meter.

I am rewatching Banshee with a friend, never gets old. The most OTT TV show since Spartacus, just totally worth all your time.

Love that show. In my Bluray collection alongside Justified and Battlestar Galactica.

[emphatic]

Just finished Reprisal. Sadly, there won't be more seasons. Abigail Spencer is very dynamic in it, and the cast overall was great, IMHO.

[lilmanjs]

Been watching Trick. Darn silly show, but I like how well done the stories are and how they figure out the tricks of all the fakes.

[Sumez]

The first two episodes of Wandavision came out yesterday, what an embarassment.

After the first episode I figured that's why they had two episodes at once, but then the second one is just more of the same. Look, I have nothing against corny parodies of this style of cheesy 50s TV and americana/suburbia. I liked when Tim Burton did it in his old movies, and I even have an irrational affection for Pleasantville, but this stuff is just incredibly tired.

I guess that still has the potential to be good once it eventually starts to introduce some amount of drama. So I guess I shouldn't write off the series quite yet. But the first two episodes rely 100% on the humor, and the humor is awful. I didn't laugh once. I doubt they are going to veer too far from that, but if the rest of the show is gonna be "lol remember TV cliches?", count me out. It's no different from the bad comedies it's trying to poke fun at.

TLDR; It's basically Flintstones with worse humor.

[Mortificator]

Sounds dire. As far as drama's concerned, the Vision & Scarlet Witch comics are mediocre at best, but I like how for the Thanksgiving issue Wanda invites her father, the mutant-supremacist terrorist, and the Avengers / Defenders guests stew about all the times he tried to kill them while Magneto calmly drinks his tea.

[Sumez]

I don't know much about the comics, but people have been talking for a while now how the show is supposed to allude to the "House of M" storyline where scarlet witch breaks down mentally and creates pretty much her own reality as a result (or alters actual reality?).

I think that sounds really out there and super interesting, and it's pretty clear that's kind of what they are going for. But so far it's just been an inconsequential thing going on in the background merely used as an excuse for doing their weird TV show mockery.

I'm pretty casual about the whole thing, but I've generally been able to enjoy even some of the worse Marvel movies well enough simply due to how well the characters are handled. Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany are both very likable in their roles, which probably the only reason I'm even giving this show the time of day

[Mischief Maker]

I just binged The Expanse Season 5 (Amazon Prime) up to the second-to-last show, then discovered to my displeasure that it's also doing the weekly episode release format. Like I'm stuck in the Cretaceous era of the 1990s.

Goddamnit, Bezos, you're already cementing your dystopian monopoly to levels never thought possible on the back of our quarantine misery. Just give us our goddamn bread and circuses!

Good season, very character-centric. This show does not get enough love.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The wife and I just finished the first season of The Expanse. Great stuff, I love the social realism, the attention to physics, the gritty aesthetics and the way characters are portrayed.

[GaijinPunch]

I just binged The Expanse Season 5 (Amazon Prime) up to the second-to-last show, then discovered to my displeasure that it's also doing the weekly episode release format. Like I'm stuck in the Cretaceous era of the 1990s.

I welcome this... on all levels. I'm curious how Lynch's new series on Netflix is going to play out... he doesn't strike me as an "okay, here it is... binge the whole fucking thing" kinda guy.

[GaijinPunch]

On that note, I tried to watch The Expanse when it first came out and couldn't get over the hump -- I quite like Thom Jane as well. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

[vol.2]

On that note, I tried to watch The Expanse when it first came out and couldn't get over the hump -- I quite like Thom Jane as well. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

I like the show. It's not perfect, but I like how it incorporates long-time sci-fi novel tropes that were too obscure or gritty to make it into TV in the past. It also clearly (to me) gives a nod to things the plot line of Mass Effect and such.



Been watching the 3rd season of Disenchanted. I am thoroughly enjoying it, but I hesitate to call it a great show because I think I'm biased. I grew up reading the Life in Hell comics in the City Paper even before The Simpsons was on Tracy Ulman Show, so watching anything Matt Groening produces resonates with that part of me.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

On that note, I tried to watch The Expanse when it first came out and couldn't get over the hump -- I quite like Thom Jane as well. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

Keep at it. After the first episode I found the show ok, after the second one I liked it, and after the third I was hooked.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The Boys episodes 1-4/ season one 7/10
Not as good as the comic, but adequate. Good casting (Simon Pegg is Hughie's dad?!), Karl Urban was an amazing Judge Dredd and he's cool here as well, but I'm missing all the Irish stuff from the comic.

[GaijinPunch]

Scams

Watching through a lens that is quite tainted by Japanese TV, this was enjoyable. Not super ground breaking, but a decent, semi-mindless watch with a little bit of violence here and there. I could have used some more debauchery / grit, but waddya gonna do. There's some cultural stuff around the scam which is the premise of the show that may not translate well. My guess is most westerns that watch it would assume that it's some weird bullshit, but rest assured, it is a real phenomenon... to the point the that most Japanese banks had to lower their daily xfer/withdrawal limit.

[BIL]

The Sopranos s6e12 "Kaisha." A suitably sepulchral place to stomp a severed head down a storm drain, complete with telephone pole crosses and a water tank headstone to mark the lousy prick's final resting place.



How I love this show's cinematography. Actually sorta looking forward to the movie. Even if it's not conventionally good, maybe it'll at least be weird and beautiful.

[KennyMan666]

Finished up She-Ra and the Princesses of Power this week, having started it back in October.

It was really, really good. I love how such an unapologetically queer cartoon can just be a thing these days, with the majority of the principal cast being gay or bi. And it never feels like it's being forced, or like pandering. A strongly recommended watch, 52 episodes in total.

Entrapta best character.

[vol.2]

It was really, really good. I love how such an unapologetically queer cartoon can just be a thing these days, with the majority of the principal cast being gay or bi. And it never feels like it's being forced, or like pandering.

It's a brave new world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32FB-gY ... andomStuff

Also, just randomly realized that Slackcircus actually released a new song a couple months ago and it's pretty funny. Very Bowie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR4-RK0qKqw

[GaijinPunch]

Actually finally got to watch something. Started and finished Search Party Season 4 yesterday. Just as excellent as the other 3 seasons.

[vol.2]

Watched the first episode of the live action 1970s Lone Wolf and Cub TV show. Brutal stuff, awesome swordplay. Very high quality for Japanese domestic TV (comparatively speaking).



It's like watching little vignettes in shape of a samurai film as a serial. I think it's great fun. Recommended.




It can be streamed on HIDIVE outside of Japan. I watched that through VRV, which offers HIDIVE as a channel for premium content. They will give you a month for free, which is plenty of time to watch it or maybe something else. Or I guess just DL.


Also watching Time Team, a British archeology show hosted by the guy who played Baldrick in the Black Adder series. If watching a team of scientists investigate early human activity and unearth castle ruins in the UK is sounds interesting to you, give it shot. It's fully available for free on the BBC Timeline youtube station.

[neorichieb1971]

My friend told me to watch the Expanse. I watched S1 when it came out, but lost interest as I preferred the less serious "Dark Matter" instead. Dark Matter hit a dead end due to HBO not continuing it.

So here we are a few years later. I'm watching Expanse S3 now.

I don't get what all the praise is about. Sure the presentation is top notch, but some of the battle fights you need to have 100% concentration otherwise you don't have a clue whats going on. I don't really care about any of the characters. It just seems very stoic.

But that said, something keeps me watching. I'm up to the point where the speed racer enters the blue circle.

I really prefer movies and TV shows, where if battles and such are part of the story, I like the introduction of bad guys first. Star Wars introduces Darth Vadar first, Game of Thrones introduces the white walkers first. When you know the reason for the fight and you know what the good guys are up against its easy to follow. With the Expanse, everything is a long secret and I lose my interest on the smaller characters.

Another thing about the Expanse, if you guess something will happen it usually does.

Personally I would love the Expanse to be a bit more sci fi than it is, its reality x1.5. Also, I have no idea what the title "Expanse" is related to.

10/10 for presentation, but about a 4/10 for carrying a meaningful gripping story.

[vol.2]

I watch the Expanse. Haven't tackled the newest season yet, but I like it so far.

It could be a bit more Sci-Fi in a traditional sense, but it's not really trying to do that. It's part of a more recent trend to kind of "close the gap" between traditional Sci-Fi and the possible technology of the near future. It's still fantasy and features plenty of speculative technology, but it makes a great effort to anchor that technology in a world the makes as much sense as possible.

The title is fairly prosaic, and plainly refers to the "frontier" of space. The backstory of human expansion into mining asteroids and colonizing other planets is a kind of general and vague outline of the story, driven by it's concocted historical events.

I agree that the story drags sometimes, and the political intrigue is a bit cringey, but I rate it a bit higher than you. I'd probably alter your 10/10 to maybe a 7.5/10 and raise your 4/10 to a 6.5/10.

[Mischief Maker]

The reason the Expanse takes a while to get good is the same reason the Dragonlance novels took so long to get up to speed. The start of the first season is a dramatization of a PnP roleplaying session the writers did before adapting it into a character-driven narrative.

The main plot is about a 3-way no-good-guys cold war between Earth, Mars, and the Belt, based on the cold war between the USA, USSR, and the Third World. The protomolecule is not the "big bad," it's an inciting macguffin, the major theme is human conflict and how society reacts to protomolecule throwing the balance of power out of whack.

I liked Dark Matter too, but they really had a hard time covering up the fact that they were making it all up as they went along, although I respected that once the writers decided they didn't have any more use for a character, they didn't fuck around and ejected them post-haste, main cast member or not. I laughed in the final season where the bodyguard of the team's fixer has this zoomed-in monologue scene about how she has some deep backstory that the show's gonna really explore... and within an episode or so she's gone!

You know, when I think about it, Dark Matter has a really interesting core cast but a vaguely defined world, while the Expanse has a merely okay cast (aside from Amos and Avasarala), but in a richly fleshed-out world.

[rapoon]

The Expanse

season 4 pivots from the socio-political elements of the three factions that dominate the first 3 seasons to a standard fare sci-fi.

[NYN]

Following my own pace, I had my first watch of Fargo Season 1. I don't care for hype.

Super. Yah. Real good. It's easy to see all the fine parts and to appreciate them. The Art of Malvo is ever exalting: No. I don't play your game, I only play mine. You come into my abode, about ready to bust by balls? I won't argue with you, I just turn around, let down my pants, and sit down on the toilet seat, releasing myself. And I read the autobiography of your boss while at it. You get the message. In another scene, I end it with the magic words "I'm rolling up my window." Thus, done.

Just one thing that ticked me off. The link to the movie.

Spoiler

The ransom money burried in ice and snow.

Unnecessary. Worse, it seems insecure. Like it has to be there, people would expect it. An unpleasent surprise, really. Dude creator, relax. You got the brothers producing. I'm sure they didn't want you to. Whatever.

And a minor observation. The occasional quoting in lines and visual cue from the Coen canon. Real nerdy, yah. Grateful for everone I would miss, because I don't know every Coen movie. Yet.

[BIL]

Is this what you want, Lester? God damn.

Loved season 1, and season 2 even more - while nailing all the stylistic tenets of Coen Bros neo-noir, it feels entirely its own animal. Won't say anything, it's the kind of work best enjoyed blind as possible.

3 is very weird, even compared to the sometimes strange prior two, but I thought it worked brilliantly in context. Reminds me I have to get on with s4, probably this summer.

[NYN]

Glad to function as a reminder. I'm about to cue Season 2 up next. As you said, blind works best. But I'm excited seeing that Patrick Wilson plays the younger Lou Solverson. Such a pleasant presence in S1, Keith Carradine being a dream for such a small grandaddy roll. That's one fella who doesn't seem ticked that his only child is not a boy, while he's shown in the habit to be even proud of his daughter without getting misty-eyed. Ah, fiction, eh?

[GaijinPunch]

3 is very weird, even compared to the sometimes strange prior two, but I thought it worked brilliantly in context. Reminds me I have to get on with s4, probably this summer.

I loved Season 3:




Fun fact -- Carrie Coon lives about a mile from my hood in Chicago. Yet not once have I bumped into her to remind her she married the wrong man and I had been waiting. I also saw a girl wearing that hideous and amazing fur coat above this past winter (also Chicago) and had a nerd moment but they were walking the other way and a bit too fast.

[BIL]

God damn, you know I had to remind myself both of those characters were from the same season? What a batshit storyline, I loved it. And yes, Ms. Winstead will always be forgiven for starring in that crumby Thing prequel!

[GaijinPunch]

God damn, you know I had to remind myself both of those characters were from the same season? What a batshit storyline, I loved it. And yes, Ms. Winstead will always be forgiven for starring in that crumby Thing prequel!

If you're a fan of Carrie Coon put The Leftovers on your list. Put it on it even if you're not!