I said many times recently that I am not currently writing about TV. As my brain is powered on whim, I decided to write "watching" post, but not in the adopted Kent Method (1-1-1) but just my old catchup kind of post where I write a paragraph or two on shows I recently watched, or I am currently watching. Its a blather-on kind of post. It will skip ones from way back when.
Dropping stubs; to be filled out.
We used to download this show as it came up, but eventually our dedication to the show waned, so we now just wait for it to appear on Disney+, where they are actually dropping weekly episodes. They just finished off Season 8.
Given I am not using the 1-1-1 format, I will just blather on a bit.
This was the season they killed off not just a main character, but the main character -- Captain Bobby Nash. In a two part episode about a crazy epidemiologist who releases a mutant virus, and infects some members of the team, Bobby sacrifices himself to save one -- Chimney. There's no fake out, no walk back with a miraculous cure. He dies, horribly, quickly. And it tears apart the people present. This show has always been good at trauma, less the people they are supposed to be saving, and more the members of the 118 Station House. I mean, this year, 911 Operator Maddie Han had her throat slashed by a serial killer who had kidnapped her. But she survived, unlike every other throat slashing on TV which is played out as insta-death. But the show is silly and melodramatic and over the top and near-deaths are the norm. Real Death is not and it was really really tragic.
Also, on a less traumatic note, the hunky hunk Buck came out as Bi; oh wait, that was last season. Also, yes there was a season opening episode about bees.
Likely the best thing I watched in the past year. Definitely the opposite of the last show given it is smart, well written and deftly paced. Never has there been a show which successfully had me rooting for the Bad Guy, and not in an ironic way, but growing to actually like them. Begrudgingly, grumpily so. Not entirely, and not for the usual quippy Buffy-Spike reasons, but because they are played as such strong characters with strong motivations. But they remain the Bad Guy. And I commend the show for having them remain a Bad Guy until the very end, not shoe-horning in some redemption arc, despite giving us openings. Such. Good. Writing.
The tailoring of this season through 3 episode arcs that cover one year's period, counting down to Cassian Andor leaving the rebel base, to begin the movie Rogue One, was brilliant. Utterly brilliant. It allowed build up, in degrees, and also resolution, in degrees. It also allowed us to fill in some details, build out the characters, establish some utterly engrossing moral dilemmas and sum up some things that just had to be summed up. More precisely: the establishment of Yavin as the Rebel Base, the rise and fall of "necessary evil" Luthen Rael, the rise and fall of aforementioned Bad Guys Syril Karn & Edra Meero,
I am still kind of annoyed at the rebranding of this as a new series (i.e. the 'season 2' component) and also somewhat disappointed that Ruby Sunday only truly lasted one season as the main companion. While I really like Belinda Chandra as a companion, I just haven't really warmed to the season. Just nothing stands out, at all. I watch, I mildly enjoy and then I burp, and its gone.
The show definitely continues the "piss off the anti-woke folks" being more gay, more brash statements than any other series, which is kind of gleeful unto itself. The episodes which were blatant send-up's on incel rhetoric were a hoot. And, they have been having some fun extending the pantheon related storyline from "first" season, but I am just ... not invested.
I wanted to watch this for two reasons: I have an odd fascination with alternative cruise ships, i.e. the more akin to classic, smaller ships than they mega-ships run by companies (ironically) like Disney -- see Death and Other Details. And because it seemed it would be in the vein of 9-1-1 with a "situation of the week" wherein the mains have to deal with something dramatic and tense. Alas, it more devolved into personal politics, which I am not adverse to in theory, but the whole love-triangle (full blown, let's have a threesome triangle stuff, between a "boss" and co-workers) between the mains just had me rolling my eyes.
I have just stopped watching.
Based on a scifi book series I just started reading ("just started" at my snail pace and attention span means I read the first book over a year ago) and enjoyed. But for some reason, they have positioned the TV show as a straight up comedy, something I did not attach to how the free-willed cyborg behaved in the books.
A Security Unit, a cyborg that is more weapon/tool than person, is assigned to a hippy-dippy group of scientists. Unbeknownst to them, this SecUnit has devised a way to break their "governor module", the device that keeps them from thinking for themselves. But it, and it most definitely identifies as "it", doesn't want to be found out, so it has to play the part. Exceeeept, its doing weird, more human things.
Two thoughts, as not much has happened two episodes (30 minute-r type episodes) in, but: since "it" is played by Alexander Skarsgård, it will soon, inadvertently become "he". And when reading the books, I somehow identified it as she. And I really like that they "let" David Dastmalchian display his vitiligo. Not overtly, but at least its not all covered up.
Horror/Comedy show about a hillbilly bail-bondsman who is murdered by his ex-wife's new criminal boyfriend, and then is kicked out of Hell to act as a demon-related bounty hunter, for Hell. Its a long line in ?killing demons for Hell" shows we have watched, and weirdly enough, they are almost comedic in tone.
Kevin Bacon, who plays main Hub Halloran, is ten years older than me!! Jeezus the guy looks good for over 60. And he just moves well, considering its an action role and he's likely playing a guy in his 40s.
The show itself unfortunately dials down some of the stock elements of these shows. He has a handler, who helps him "identify" the types of demons he is hunting, but really, other than it presenting some flair for the demons, it doesn't play much into his interactions with them. Most of the drama of the show plays up his dysfunctional family situation, and the reasons he went to Hell in the first place.
It was not bad, but I doubt it will get renewed.
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This is another Guy Ritchie series, right? Its very dialogue heavy violence heavy in the Richie-an style. It covers an Irish mob family syndicate in London who get broiled in a war with another family syndicate after their shit grandson murders another shit grandson. Tom Hardy tags along as the unflappable fixer for the main family.
But alas, no, it's not direct Guy Ritchie, just has him in to direct an episode or two.
It has just started and horrible people are doing horrible things to each other, but I am convinced that the matron of the Harrigan family, Maeve played by Helen Mirren, is plotting to bring down her own family just for the spite of it.
Yay! Charlie's back!
When season one ended, she had finally met up with her nemesis, mob boss Sterling Foster Sr, who had had his mook Cliff chasing her all season, pretty much a year's worth of bad hotels, bad food and near misses. But he finally caught her and sat her down in front of Foster. But the year had softened him to the ideal Charlie represented. What got her in trouble in the first place was the cluster-fucked deal Foster's son tried to strong-arm her into, using her lie-detecting ability to con high-roller gamblers. Foster Sr offers Charlie the same deal; except Cliff has turned on his boss, likely due to the shit job he had been on for a year, and kills Foster. Cliff tries to frame Charlie for it, but fails.
Season Two starts with Charlie being offered the same deal by Beatrix Hasp, a boss of one of the "five families", but Charlie turns her down, and is on the run again. The first few episodes play out like a speedy version of season one, with Charlie solving a murder, and then running from mob goons with guns. BUT pulling an Andor out of their butt, they end that chase quickly having Hasp turn informant on the mob. Now Charlie, having become used to the idea of stopping in town to town on her windy-bendy trip around the US, solving murders, continues the ideal.
They have changed showrunner for this season, and the quick opener sum-up was a surprise. Time will tell whether we enjoy this season as much as the first.
The popular, critically acclaimed mushroom-zombie series based on a video game returns and actually does the shocking thing that the sequel game, that the season is based on, did -- killing its main character! Well, one of them. I was shocked that they took the second game, which pissed off the fan-base for the first game to the n-th degree, and are following it pretty much verbatim. Not having finished the second game, it will eventually diverge from my memory, but having played out the primary element, with heart-wrenching results, they seem just as invested in legitimacy.
Ellie has aged, Ellie has come out, Ellie is very very VERY angry. With the murder of Joel, the season quickly shifts from her being an annoying teenager with daddy issues to a Quest for Vengeance. It leads them west to a Seattle where a war is being waged, a war into which Ellie and Dina blunder.
This season is going to be all about the moral dilemma of violent response. Joel killed each and every Firefly because he couldn't sacrifice Ellie for the "greater good". After the death of his daughter he devolved into Not a Good Man, and during his travels with Ellie, he gained some of his pre-apocalypse viewpoint back. But the ruthless murders come with their own consequences. Not only does Ellie, when she eventually finds out, find it hard to forgive him, to believe he was that man, but also the children of those Firefly leaders he killed finally, many years later, put two and two together, and lay the blame squarely on his shoulders. And they track him down, and they most brutally kill him in front of Ellie. They leave Ellie and Dina alive with that memory.
Ellie understands what they have done, and why they have done it. But in a mirroring of Joel's choices, she sets out with Dina, against the wishes of all in their community, to find and murder Joel's killers. The same kind of vengeance for the same kind of reasons. The daughter becomes the father.
Just like the game's release itself, the season is pissing off, or at least it is fueling the unhinged rage that anti-woke Internet has for.... well, pretty much anyone who is not a straight, white male. I know the Angry Internet has awoken significantly in the past decade or so, when they used to hide in the 4Chan holes to only share with each other, but part of me still wonders/hopes is the online rage is fabricated (to a degree) by foreign/local parties that just want to foment disruption. An unstable world is easier to control, and we do know how much this utter clusterfuck of a situation down south (of Canada) is about controlling the utterly stupid masses. I am just so fucking tired of it all. Can't we just enjoy something good because it is well done, instead of finding ways to bring it down? If anything, the review bombing will not stop the people who enjoy it from being the people who enjoy it.
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