I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching (PT D.4)

Pt. A, B, C, D.1, D.2, D.3 can be found there.

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  Y'know, red horny demon possession, bad.

Just to round out the pile, I am going to shoe horn in a show I am currently watching. So, this edition, we get a completed season (and series), a dropped show (but likely to be binge watched) and a nearly done season.

Meh; four (series) seasons completed.

Preacher, 2016, AMC -- download

When Preacher premiered, we were excited. The trailers showed an obviously different show than the comic, but I am always for a bit of retooling to allow a comic to come to life. Look what they did with Iron Man and it was a great movie -- the core is there, but in no way is it "faithful". And of course, the casting of Joseph Gilgun as Cassidy was brilliant, almost like the role was made for him.

But then we watched the first episode and were entirely underwhelmed. Then we watched the second episode and the underwhelming continued. It was not terrible, but ... but ... I don't know, it just didn't compel me to watch. And in today's age, there are always a half dozen other genre shows on TV for me to download/watch. So, it got dropped.

A month later I downloaded digital copies of the comic series, having release the original comics to the wild years ago. Back in The Day, that comic overwhelmed me. It was post-X-Men for me, and was so entirely different from everything else. It was also entirely different from The Sandman which has already taken me off the road of comics being only about superheroes. But Preacher was irreverent, angry, over the top fun for an angry, irreverent kid. Yeah, I consider 1995 as me-being-a-kid days. That definition is changing a lot these days, since my beard went grey.  I loved this comic. Until even it became old hat.

But even the re-read was underwhelming. Being so profane is a bit stylistically immature these days, but I get why Seth Rogen is still so attached to the story. He is hanging onto that exact sort of immature & profane. I still like the core story, and I still love pathetic Cassidy, but I don't hold as much reverence for it as I once did.

So, that confirmed that it was not (entirely) a Fanboy connection that had me not enjoying the show. Oh sure, I was kind of annoyed that Jesse was a bit of a self-questioning ass in the show, where he was always a Stand Up Guy in the comic. Also, the comic was a bit of a Road Movie while the show focused on establishing Jesse, his town and his "motivations". Gah; TV translations and all that. But still, it wasn't all bad and definitely wasn't a deal breaker. So, what? What stopped me? Was it just a few slow episodes? Why not watch the whole thing and see...

So we did.

And guess what, still entirely underwhelmed. They spend an entire season introducing asshole characters that Jesse cannot, and probably should not even try, to redeem. But guess what, he's just as much an asshole. And so is Tulip. And so is Cassidy, but who cares, because Cassidy is a 200 year old vampire so he's allowed to be an asshole. I get it; asshole is in --- Breaking Bad lost me because everyone was becoming one --- but it doesn't mean I have to subject myself to it. The genre bits were fun, especially the whole piling up of angel bodies, but it wasn't compelling enough to keep me watching. But we did, just to see where this whole thing was going, and to confirm our thoughts n what those occasionally whistling pipes sticking out of the ground were.

But we confirmed, a big fat "Meh!" and a big, fat confirmation that Seth Rogen is always best when being reined in by others. But I will get to that when I do Sausage Party.