I Saw This (!!): Hallmarkies Interruptitis

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our [semi-retired] feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty 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.

As mentioned in the "2000th Post (Spectacular)" my "3 Short Paragraphs" (never short) have overtaken the "projects" but primarily because I get a stub-post in such format placed, and eventually fill in the rest of the details. But in this instance, while I have had all the stubs in place (here, look behind the curtain) I doubt I am going to remember enough (because I saturated my brain with Xmas Movies and Hallmarkies) to write... all... three... oh wow, that sounds lame saying it out loud. Anywayz, excuses aside, I am going to resurrect the format for at least this post. And steal whatever I had in the stubs.

Kind of weird to say you are stealing from your own writing.... or is it that you are stealing from me, your other voice?

Amusingly, to me only of course, I believe this was the last time I used the format, which includes a film that is the first in a pair I write up in THIS post.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, 2025, Rian Johnson (Looper) -- Netflix

It irritates me to no end that I thoroughly, almost painfully, enjoyed every moment of this movie, but so little stayed with me. But for key scenes.

Knives Out introduced Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, Logan Lucky), a flamboyant celebrity detective. I wasn't overly impressed by the movie at the time, but in times since, it has both grown in admiration in my mind's eye and in rewatches. Sometimes solid, very solid, production & performances is all you need to be impressed. And again, Johnson delivers.

Set in a small town in upstate NY, Blanc is brought in unravel a locked room murder mystery (literally, by the book) of an infamous local priest, one Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin, The Goonies). His deacon, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor, The Crown), has been accused of murdering him but not even the local police believe he did it, enough so that they allow Jud to follow around Blanc, gathering clues & information from Wicks core group of "followers".

Wicks was a horrible HORRIBLE man, but a man reflecting what we see now, every day, down south. Johnson ignores what is going on around him in America (not really, more he ignores the danger of speaking plainly and with conviction) and it is obvious what he thinks of the current political rabble. This is a movie which speaks openly and loudly about faith and decency, Good and Evil. Blanc is more vocally an atheist, but also very respectful of the people he is working with. Jud is a Man of God, a proper good man who believes in what he is doing and WHY he is doing it.

The movie had some chef's-kiss moments of film making, things like light & colour playing out in a cathedral more appropriate to Europe than NY state, where dialogue and sunshine reflect each other. Like a shifting of tone and mood, mid spoken sentence, when a priest shoves aside the murder mystery he is wrapped up in to tend to one of his flock, a woman in pain, who needs his shoulder, his voice. This is the kind of movie watching I want to do more of, which is made easier by a genre I am attracted to and performances I just chew on.

Kent's.

Tron: Ares, 2025,  Joachim Rønning (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) -- download

People dislike Jared Leto as much as Jared Leto loves his (currently) luscious long hair, and probably himself. It only takes a little bit of research to find numerous examples of him as a sex pervert / douche or him as a toxic method actor who annoys everyone he works with. But he does decently with the roles given him even if many of them just add to Dislike Bucket (i.e. Morbius and his Joker).

After the mediocre draw of the last legasequel (which was 15 years ago!!) I was surprised this was being made, but not all that surprised that it distanced itself from the previous, and I was mildly disappointed they dumped the whole Sam Flynn and Quorra storyline.

Ares is a program made by Dillinger Systems, an ENCOM competitor company. He is a security program (i.e. soldier) and is part of an experiment to bring programs from "the grid" to the Real World. The movie uses the lovely visuals of a 3D printer on a massive scale, and envisions programs being used to create soldiers, support vehicles and weapons for the military industrial complex. Problem is, no one has been able to recreate the indefinite "solid state" of Quorra -- all "printed" programs fall apart after 29 minutes. That is, until Eve Kim, current CEO of ENCOM discovers that "permenance code" on her dead sister's computer in Alaska, which turns out to actually be Kevin Flynn's computer.  The movie is a race for Dillinger to get that code, with the added hiccup that his primary security program Ares has gone rogue, because after countless failed iterations, he has become not only sentient, but bearing morals.

Its a visually stunning movie and along with the soaring soundtrack by NIN, its quite thrilling but probably meant to be seen on a  very very big screen. I was only mildly enthralled despite being objectively thrilled by what I was seeing -- probably because of the lackluster story. 

Another thing caught my attention, in that much of the cast were the odd-ducks from other movies/series. Of course, we have Ares (Jared Leto, Blade Runner 2049), and then there's ENCOM CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee, Russian Doll), Dillinger's CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters, Monster), and Kim's assistant Seth Flores (Arturo Castro, Road House). I am not entirely sure where my brain was going, considering other casting choices (e.g. Jodie Turner-Smith, Gillian Anderson) but the others seemed... interesting cast choices.

Kent's. And yes, I should have posted something during my recent-ish rewatch of the second.

Troll 2, 2025, Raur Uthaug (The Wave) -- Netflix

In hindsight, I was not convinced I really enjoyed the first one, Troll. Sure, I remember enjoying the over-the-top American action click approach (I called it "Michael Bay Norway Method" totally missing calling it  the "Michael Fjord Method") but I seem to feel I should have been more... annoyed with it? Maybe its just my perpetually cranky state of late, but this one... well, the sequel annoyed me in the way the most recent Godzilla vs Kong movie did -- of note, I recently rewatched that and yes, I softened on my dislike for it.

Anywayz, I think I literally nodded off three times during this one, so write-up may be spotty.

Good thing we lifted & dropped it into this collection, where all is forgiven.

So, in the first one, they killed the troll they woke up by using giant ultraviolet lights despite the ecologist main character Nora Tideman's (Ine Marie Wilmann, Furia) cries of, "Its not evil, its just following its nature!!" This movie follows up with her being introduced to a SECOND troll, one the government did not tell her about. They accidentally wake it up so it can, insert comedic element, walk through the newly re-built house of a random rural farmer on its way to purposely stomp on Oslo. Meanwhile Nora had her own secret, in that hidden in a deep abandoned mine shaft, she had discovered a "child" troll which she has made some sort of connection with. She tries to get Baby Troll, who is also kaiju sized, to convince Angry Troll to not stomp Oslo but all that does is get Baby Troll murdered. All that is left is the military intervention, once again in grand Michael Fjord style.

In said style, the American style of overbearing military types, bleeding heart liberals and stupid people making stupid choices, they end up choosing the most ludicrous, annoying, but dramatic (!!!) way to end the Angry Troll -- by sacrificing a lovable supporting character, even when there were so many other ways they could have handled it, such as, "You know you can try original plan again; there is nothing stopping you from TRYING AGAIN LATER !" Anyhoo, was... fun?

Deathstalker, 2025, Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman) -- download

Oh my. They did it, they actually re-made a terrrrrrible fantasy action movie from the 80s, one of those Conan rip-off's about a bare chested barbarian warrior doing fetch-quests for a witch, and starred the most ludicrous sword in all the terrible sword & sorcery movies made at the time. But, of course as a child of the D&D playing metal-music listening era, I saw this movie and probably... liked it at the time? Maybe not so much, as I have never felt the urge to rewatch. But other such now grown children must have had fonder memories as it was remade. And no, its not a requel, its pretty much the a full remake, but with ... 21st century sensibilities?

Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt, John Wick) is an ex-knight from a country losing a war against an evil sorceror named Necronemnon and his magical red armoured soldiers called Dreadites. We find him picking the carcasss of his own ex-army when he is attacked by Dreadites, but he makes quick work of them. The fallen prince is amazed at his survival and expects Deathstalker to help him; instead the man just picks him of valuables including a strange disk/medallion.

The rest of the movie has Deathstalker, who does have a real name but few call him by it, mainly people from his old life, trying to get rid of the magic medallion which, when the plot remembers, will return to him automatically if tossed away. He consults a witch, ends up in a cave where bandits have died but left behind a tiny imp-like minor wizard, with a complicated name but who Deathstalker calls "Doodad". Doodad (voiced by Patton Oswalt, The Sandman) knows that the medallion is coveted by Necro-dude, but thinks Deathstalker should try and return it to the remaining member of the royal family. Meh whatever, is DS's point of view.

Its a silly, over the top, badly acted, badly scripted movie with badly done (OK, decently done) practical effects but amusing because its very very self aware. It knows what nostalgia its drawing upon and the tone & style is akin to the source, which is not neccessarily a good thing but... appropriate? It was very popular with the D&D playing celebrity crew, so I guess it knows its primary audience.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, 2016, Michael Bay (Transformers) -- Netflix

Was in the mood for a soldiers movie; didn't recall it was a bay-splosion movie until the credits rolled. But should have guessed, while watching, due a good amount of a) American flags and b) bay-splosions. The funny thing is that its not much of an American rah-rah, given that the government did not provide any support to this compound, and its staff, when shit hit the fan in Libya.

So, "true story" movie. In 2012, an American CIA compound in Benghazi, something not publicly disclosed, was attacked by Libyan forces, just after they destroyed another American compound where an Ambassador was staying. This was all part of the chaos going on in the region after the 2011 Libyan civil war and interventions by NATO forces. The US did not officially have any CIA presence there, but a handful of contracted soldiers were assigned to the compound as protection. After the walled home where Ambassador Christopher Stevens was staying, with minimal protection as he was generally seen as a "friend of Libya", was burned out, the attacking forces moved onto the supposedly secret CIA compound - they lost the ambassador. The American soldiers defended the place until Libyan government forces showed at dawn and escorted the survivors to the airport.

This is rough & tough men being all tough and rough. Given that each is working a job, not fighting a war, there is lots of regret and emotional turmoil bandied about. Still, as in all Bay films, the actioned is well done and the characters are admirable.

Neighborhood Watch, 2025, Duncan Skiles (The Clovehitch Killer) -- download

Small movie with a deceptive title and accompanying trailer -- it is not about a neighbourhood watch at all, just a small movie about Simon, a young man recently released from a hospital, but still suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and Ed, his asshole neighbor, a retired campus security superintendent. Simon sees a girl get slapped around and then abducted by a man in a white van. But does he? The police don't believe him, or if they do, they don't care. So, Simon goes to Ed.

Ed decides to help Simon, but more because it plays on his ego to do some real detecting. He may be retired but he cannot help but hang around the college he once worked at, looking for criminals, and the security staff left behind hate him. Like, loathe him. He's alone, lonely, refusing to acknowledge he has any number of over-50 health issues and is losing money to online poker sites. So, Simon and his assumed-hallucination is at the very least, a distraction. Meanwhile, Simon is taking this very very VERY seriously needing to prove the voice in his head (his dead father) wrong. They begin asking around about the girl, the van, the guy.

Things don't go well, eventually leading to violence and deaths, with the cops chasing them as much as seeking out any bad guys. Since the police didn't believe him, Simon is the only one seen as a Bad Guy. But despite these odds, he pursues what he thinks he has to do. And Ed finally sees something admirable in the fucked up kid. As you know, I like small performances, focused and narrow on what is happening as much as the characters themselves.

That is a great poster.

I Saw This!! Cleaning House

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent or Toasty 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.  Which is weird, considering I need to clean house, so I can have a brief hiatus, so I can just watch, and not with the intent, I have to write about it.

Also, I have Cleaned the Slate, and Cleaned out the Cupboards, but have I ever Cleaned House?

The other weird thing is that I gathered these all into a I Saw This!! post as it is usually used to write short bits about a bunch of stuff I am forgetting. But I wrote enough for each, to warrant their each own original post. Why? Who knows. But as you know, this blog, for me, is as much writing about writing the blog as it is about the movies, TV and other pop culture sources we watch to feed the blog. Just not after midnight.

See How They Run, 2022, Tom George (This Country) -- Disney+

Loved the trailers, chuckled out loud at a few quips and pratfallish jokes, was expecting a movie full of fun, whit, those kind of movies that I am waxing nostalgic on these days, the kind rented from Video Stores on Friday night for the entire family to watch. I guess I got much of that, but not a whole lot of the humour hit home for me. More puns were needed, I guess.

The elevator pitch for this movie must have been fun. It's a WhoDunnit based around one of the most famouse (wow, Freudian 'e') WhoDunnits, "The Mouse Trap". For those who don't know, this famous play has been running in London's west end, from 1952 until The Pause ... paused it. The movie has a murder take place during the celebrations of its 100th performance. That brings in Inspector Stoppard (I assume he's a Tom; Sam Rockwell, Moon) and the incredibly eager fledgling Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan, Hanna; ten bonus points for spelling her first name correctly the first time!). The humour comes from the interactions between the two police folk, and a few of suspects, especially once every one starts comparing the act of investigating a murder against the tropes and trappings of the WhoDunnit they are all so intimate with.

Unfortunately, "not cheeky enough" is also my determination, to quote Kent's post. I just wished that every joke fell as charmingly and disarmingly as Stalker's observation, "It's all downhill from there," after describing the victim being hit in the face with a ski. You see, the character cannot help herself from jumping to conclusions (the running gag which mostly loses steam) but also quipping about every thing. To be honest, more quips! That said, the underlying stories (Stalker trying to break through the glass ceiling, Stoppard's familial woes) are interesting, but just not interesting... enough.

Troll, 2022, Roar Uthaug (The Wave) -- Netflix

OMG I loved this, but more for the campy, tongue firmly in cheek manner in which he chose to direct the movie, than the actual plot. You see, its a rather intentional by-the-numbers plot but its the Michael Bay Norway Method he chose to execute the movie that makes it so much fun. Oh, and the fact that we get to see a troll kaiju stomping through Oslo.

That said, I cannot help but compare it to the earlier flick with pretty much the same premise, Troll Hunter, in that real life & giant trolls make themselves known to the world. In much the way most kaiju movies begin, circumstances awaken a troll, in shadowy and unclear visuals, which forces The Government (of Norway) to reach out to a panel of experts, including paleontologist Nora Tidemann, whose father is a disgraced scientist who was convinced trolls were real. Not sure why a paleontologist is of use to this investigation, but of course, she's the only one to notice the big arm in the blurry protestor footage (they were digging a tunnel through protected mountains) so they bring her along when they follow the path of destruction and big ol footprints. 

Its on its way to Oslo! Call in military! Find a way to defeat it! Smashy smashy helicopters who get closer than they should! All the familiar kaiju fight maneuvers and failures are dragged out, as the big thing galumphs his way towards the city, which they, of course, are able to miraculously empty out before the big guy stomps his way through. There is a back story as to why he is on his way to Oslo, and a redemptive arc for her father, who was right all along. And some tragedy. And lots of Baysplosions. 

Uthaug has a LOT of fun.

Bullet Train, 2022, David Leitch (Dead Pool 2) -- download/Amazon

Speaking of having a lot of fun, Brad Pitt (Fury) tries his hand at being John Wick, but without all  the angst and dead puppies, but with all the violent, colourful characters and massive body count.

Pitt is Ladybug, another aging, angsty hitman attempting to hang his guns up. His handler tasks him with retrieving a mcguffin from a bullet train leaving Tokyo, which ends up full of other colourfully named assassins, and yakuza thugs, in a plot/conspiracy all tied together in a confusing, often frustrating knot. This is Leith wanting to do what Tarantino has done in the past, albeit with even more glitz and confetti, but more often just leaves us as confused as Ladybug spends most the movie.

To be honest, despite the morass of badly convoluted plot points, which leave me not even attempting to recap, the movie is a whole lot of fun. Well, fun scene by scene. Veteran Pitt is able to carry the movie along, ever convincing as a reluctant killer on a streak of incredibly bad luck, and even worse luck which he transfers to others around him, which... well, strangely benefits him. But yeah, all colour and action and reserved quipping. But it does not succeed in what it is attempting to be, which is to become a new cultural phenom generating sequels, which considering the Japanese novel source material, is readily available. 

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching -- Wot? No Movies P3

 I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(him) or Toasty 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.  That dog in the fiery house bad.

What I Am/Have Been Watching is the self-admitted state of typically Toast (not him), spending too much time in front of the TV. Sure, the Great Pause is winding down (culturally if not virally) but habits have been formed, doors have been locked and going outside is soooo pre-2019. The weird thing of late is not committing to movies. Sure, we add them to Watch List, we Download them, we say, "Let's watch xxx instead of TV tonight," but then we just either re-watch something classic or I find something else to download. 

One Episode is a segment in which we talk about shows we have watched one episode of (and sometimes more). We would like to watch less volume and more quality Television but that involves wading through a bevvy of meh to get to the good stuff. Sometimes we find gems which, for one reason or another, we don't (or haven't yet) watched another episode of.

P1 is here. P2 there.

The Boys, S3, 2022 - Amazon

(Wot? I never wrote about S1 or 2 ?!?!)

Has The Boys run its course on the amount of shock and shock and repugnance it can deliver? Whatever you answer, they will try to overcome it.  Shows like this, that come with a very distinct premise (superheroes are actually just the biggest, most amoral celebrity assholes and someone has to put them in their place) need to complete a story and move onto another one. Alas, they will likely be stretching out this plot (Butcher needs to take down the worst superhero, the Homelander) as long as they can. I haven't finished this S3 yet, but TV being TV means they need to go on and on and on.

The enjoyment (and I say that out loud with only a twinge of embarrassment) of season one came from the "OMG they did that!" factor. I had already read the comics and knew what to expect but the choices they made in order to adapt and give something new were astonishing, but the plot also felt tighter than I expected. But season two was all plot-stretch, and seemed to be doing some of the themes over and over. The Deep was a pervy dumbass, Homelander is unstable, Starlight is troubled by the life she has to navigate, A-Train is just utterly clueless, Butcher is an abuser, Hughie is naïve, etc. Much of the season felt like it didn't know where it was going, with only one subplot of any impact, in the resurrection and downfall of literal Nazi Stormfront.

Season 3 picks up with lame attempts at closure. Butcher is off the bottle and taking care of his kid, Hughie is working for the congresswoman who runs a dept that holds supes accountable, and Annie is doing her best to navigate... yeah, a lot of again a retread. But they blow some people up, go over the top on the sex stuff, and shock and shock and gross us out even more. But at least the plot seems to be directional -- in that Butcher is using a resurrected thought-lost-greatest-american-hero Soldier Boy (Kripke's buddy Jensen Ackles, Supernatural) to build a plan to take down Homelander. And things are going awry.

The Boys does not lend itself well to being attentive to the plot. So many of the beats are the same, over and over. Character choices are repetitive, the shocks begin to become numbing, and few people learn from their mistakes. But as someone who watch many MANY seasons of Supernatural, that seems to be a Kripke thing. How many times were the Winchester lads going to die or almost die or be altered, only to come back to Save The World. I will watch to see what it is done, but I will burp a sour burp and be done with it.

The Umbrella Academy, S3, 2022 - Netflix

(Wot? I never wrote about S1 or 2 ?!?!)

Seeing a trend here. 

I recall really liking most of season 1, especially anything to do with the time agency, The Commission, and the assassins Hazel and Cha-Cha. They did a pretty good job of adapting a rather non-sensical, whacka-doodle comic book series (it's often more style than substance, which has always had a strong place in comics) into a rather whacka-doodle TV show. I also recall it running out of steam before the end of the season, which worked out as an intro to all the characters. You see, The Umbrella Academy were 7 of 43 spontaneously born children, all at the same moment, all from not-pregnant mothers, from around the world. They were adopted by the strange, proto-typical comic book father figure Reginald Hargreaves (Colm Feore, Bad Cop Bon Cop, who disappears utterly into the role). He is not a good father. He is a "scientist" raising experiments to be super-heroes. The children have more emotional connection with the sentient monkey Pogo (Adam Godley, Powers) and the robot mom (Jordan Claire Robbins, 12 Monkeys), than with Reggie. As adults, the children are very very broken.

Season 3 brings on yet another apocalypse that they are causing, yet also have to save the world from. Seeing a trend here. They have returned from the 60s (season 2) to see the impact their meddling in Time (yet saving the world from apocalypse) has caused. There is no Umbrella Academy, instead Hargreaves has raised other children, calling them The Sparrow Academy. But he was expectedly also a dick to them, and they are, as adults, very very broken.

The show excels when it embraces the whacka-doodle, being so utterly unlike other "superhero" shows, in that nobody ever really does anything heroic, except on the most grand scale, and usually only in reaction to trouble they caused themselves. Unlike other whacka-doodle (Toasty, do you need a tag?) shows, such as Dirk Gently, there is little in the way of charm here. These are not likeable characters. And yet, I find myself absolutely loving so many of them. Of course, Klaus (Robert Sheehan, Misfits) the drug addled medium is my favourite followed closely by nihilistic Five, the old man in a teen's body. And I find myself sighing in contentment at the setting and design choices -- so many other shows, The Boys for example, barely even think about their set production. But all the anachronistic, grand choices in The Umbrella Academy set it aside from other shows. When was the last time that a background character was so distinct, I naturally assumed they were going to play a part in the plot?

Alas, as the show progresses, my enjoyment of the chaos and bizarre plot choices diminishes, as the story once again seems to lose steam. They seem to suffer from a stretching of available plot, needing to fill more and more space with endless moaning & groaning about all the bad choices offered, and bad choices they make.  I live that, I don't need to watch it.

Season 3 ends with another apocalypse averted (but really, was it?) and yet another Universe/Time-Line that the kids are shunted into.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel rewatch, 1997 - 2004 - Amazon

We have series we wait weekly for, we have series returning from seasonal hiatus, we have series we spontaneously download & watch, we have series randomly discovered, we have access to so much TV, and yet we still feel compelled to rewatch some stuff. Marmy has her crime shows that she rewatches on a regular basis, I have own staples (Firefly, Band of Brothers) and yet, for some reason, since they became digitally available, it didn't include Buffy and Angel.

But of late, given the circumstances around Joss Whedon and the challenge of art vs artist, I wanted to revisit the shows, to see if the difficulty was visible, and also to see if the show withstood the test of time.

We are mid-way through season 4, when it was appropriate to watch Angel though not trying to watch time periods concurrently, just keep the threads together. This was the season, post highschool, that the show hits its groove. The literal growing pains were moved through, childish things were put away and some beats had been established. And yet, the whole Adam as BBEG is one of my least favourite antagonists. Just the whole science-meets-mysticism seemed uninspired, but they were also working through the idea that the numerous human-comingled-demon races were not all cut-and-dry Bad Guys. And even that idea, which was presented by the now questionable Watcher's Council, that all demons walking on Earth were mixed bloods, seems challenged, as plenty of demons are dimension-walking so, they could be pure blood examples of their own race, unlike the mongrels that vampires are. I wish The Initiative had been exploring that, instead of just looking for walking weapons.

Part of the fun in watching a 25 year old show is pondering how the show would have differed if set now. Willow is using the Internet in its infancy (also hacking into proprietary databases) but imagine the knowledge that would be stored in today's massive connected data source, let alone what would be now accessible from the ubiquitous cell phone. The show today would have been attacked on Twitter for being too woke, and likely tackled some of the issues we are dealing with now, while embracing the topics considered ground breaking then. And yet, probably still tainted by the whole Whedon "white knighting"; much of the show seems to suffer in retrospect from now knowing where Whedon's headspace was at the time, especially with the female characters. The creep factor is definitely there.

Angel introduces the idea of greater forces behind the Monster of the Week. Angel himself finds his own "chosen one" destiny as he begins prowling the streets of LA as a weird pseudo "private dick", led by another mongrel demon Doyle, and assisted by Cordy who has run away from Sunnydale after her father went bankrupt / went to jail. In watching so many of the characters, Cordy is the one that seems to be given the most room to grow, and yet still retain her core selfish-self-centered-vapid core personality, but not allowing that to be only what she is.

The first few times we watched, I always adored the tragic love affair that is Buffy and Angel, the pathos of an ageless man in love with a woman who will eventually grow old, the creepiness of an "old man" falling for a 16 year old girl -- even if Angel is forever stuck in the mindset of when he was turned, he was still a man in his early twenties, not the age one should be going after teens. Enter Joss Whedon creep-factor. So, now that I watch it, I am just rather tired of the whole thing. Buffy just needs to move on, and Angel, I believe, is more attracted to the Tragic Love aspect, not her in particular. And that garners some truth, as he moves on to rather different choices later on in his own series.

We have a long way to go, especially to season seven of Buffy, wherein something that was surprisingly introduced early on (The First, season 3, "Amends") becomes the end of the series. I had never thought of Whedon doing the long haul on stories and plot, but how quickly he moves Spike from being the biggest & baddest of the baddies into an almost kicked-puppy role set him up for redemption in the long run. He also minorly does it with the introduction of uber-outsider Jonathan, who comes into the background rather early and is hinted at by season 4 of going to play a greater role.

And into the darkness we go....

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching -- Wot? No Movies P2

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(him) or Toasty 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.  That dog in the fiery house bad.

What I Am/Have Been Watching is the self-admitted state of typically Toast (not him), spending too much time in front of the TV. Sure, the Great Pause is winding down (culturally if not virally) but habits have been formed, doors have been locked and going outside is soooo pre-2019. The weird thing of late is not committing to movies. Sure, we add them to Watch List, we Download them, we say, "Let's watch xxx instead of TV tonight," but then we just either re-watch something classic or I find something else to download. 

One Episode is a segment in which we talk about shows we have watched one episode of (and sometimes more). We would like to watch less volume and more quality Television but that involves wading through a bevvy of meh to get to the good stuff. Sometimes we find gems which, for one reason or another, we don't (or haven't yet) watched another episode of.

P1 is here.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, 2021, CNN - download

If you have seen my IG feed, you know I love food. And despite what I usually say ("I love eating"), no it's more about a love of food and all its glory. I was raised in a state of food phobia (i.e. a picky eater) and barely ate anything outside of my usual North American fast-food fare, or meat & potatoes. Once I was out of my home town, and with Marmy's sense of cooking at hand, I learned to love different food choices. And it continues, with almost new foods entering my radar almost every day.

One of my formative food experiences was Stanley Tucci's Big Night (1996, Campbell Scott, Stanley Tucci) about two Italian brothers in New Jersey having one big night of food celebration at their little Italian resto. This was still in my early exposure years, so not everything looked delicious to me, but the approach, the zeal, the absolute love of the making and eating of the food embedded itself in me.

Apparently, Tucci never left his love for food behind (not sure how he stays so fucking skinny; how do YOU do it Kent?) and this show came up on my IG radar recently. He travels around Italy, visiting all of the major regions of the country, sampling the fare they are known for, visiting farmers, cooks, restaurateurs, and chefs. We have only watched a couple of episodes so far, because it makes me so very very hungry. I have already had to dive back into making "rustic" homemade pasta and putting together a quick cacio e pepe.

The amusing thing about food-travel TV is that every dish, every chef's specialty is the "best in the country". So, watching sincere, and sometimes lightly forced, "OMG, that is incredible!" reactions is fun. The first few episodes cover some American standard fares "of the moment" such as the aforementioned cacio e pepe, carbonara, pizza (Naples, with knives and fork?), tagliatelle bolognese, etc.

But its not just about cooking and eating, as he covers some food history (e.g. the Prosciuttopoli scandal), how different foods arose in some regions, the relationship locals have with the signature foods, and we. of course, get to see how absolutely grand travelling Italy with a nice budget is.

Dark Winds, 2022, AMC+ - download

Native American, or indigenous, culture is rising in exposure of late. I wonder how my new Director of Indigenous Affairs would see this exposure of his people's culture through the colonist's eyes. One of my favourite indigenous actors is Zahn McClarnon, who we got to know as the irascible tribal police chief in Longmire. But his character was one of those, the more you know about him, the more you admire. So, it's not surprising that he was chosen to play Joe Leaphorn from the Tony Hillerman crime series, about two Navajo Tribal Policeman working the usual murder-crime mysteries, while being steeped in American Indian culture. There have been a few adaptations prior to this series, but I was not familiar with them; I was here purely for McClarnon.

Only one episode in, we have met Leaphorn as he begins investigating the murder of a teenage girl and an old man who claimed to be cursed after he saw a helicopter used in an armoured car robbery fly over. The wise woman the teenager was working with is traumatized, but alive. As he begins to dig into what is going on, the idea of Navajo witchcraft comes up, which intertwines in a few other sub-plots. And his new Deputy shows up, Jim Chee, who is in fact an undercover FBI agent tasked with looking for the robbers. 

Set in the 70s, this feels it will be typically grim, full of suspicion and anger against colonials and men like Leaphorn who appear to be working for the white man, at odds with their people. This is "pre-woke" but I hope they don't use "period authenticity" in order to just have people be even more shittier to each other, no matter what side they are on.

Ms Marvel, 2022, Disney+ 

This show, and pun entirely intended, is a marvel. As the Internet of Old White Guys buzzes about how they cannot relate to a show about a teenage Muslim Pakistani-American, I just revel in watching something that is made with such vigor, such sincerity. Every episode, I am glad I am seeing the gradations of their Muslim Pakistani-American community, that we can finally step outside the stereotypes of how pop culture depicts the non-whites that make up the tapestry of North American life.

But its also a superhero story, where in a young girl finds a bracelet (bangle) that provides her with weird, loosely controllable light-based-energy, with which she can smash things, catch people and generally do what the Green Lanterns do with their rings.

I also enjoy that the main character did not have to be sexified up. She is a cute, vibrant teenage girl that is allowed to be just that. We don't have a 24 year old CW model playing the role, and very little about the show is even going to acknowledge that side of pop culture. Maybe that is why the Internet of Old White Guys (older than 20) are whining, in that they cannot get their creep factor on.

And the production! Oh, the colours and the stylistic choices! The music and balance between her doing super hero things, and just navigating her family, lifestyle and community! While I find the actual story-story somewhat lacking, all the things in between are perfectly setup.

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching -- Wot? No Movies P1

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(him) or Toasty 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.  That dog in the fiery house bad.

What I Am/Have Been Watching is the self-admitted state of typically Toast (not him), spending too much time in front of the TV. Sure, the Great Pause is winding down (culturally if not virally) but habits have been formed, doors have been locked and going outside is soooo pre-2019. The weird thing of late is not committing to movies. Sure, we add them to Watch List, we Download them, we say, "Let's watch xxx instead of TV tonight," but then we just either re-watch something classic or I find something else to download. 

One Episode is segment in which we talk about shows we have watched one episode of (and sometimes more). We would like to watch less volume and more quality Television but that involves wading through a bevvy of meh to get to the good stuff. Sometimes we find gems which, for one reason or another, we don't (or haven't yet) watched another episode of.

Of course, this is inspired by Kent's last post along the same topic. And stealing some of his format.

Stranger Things, S4-P1, 2022 - Netflix

S1 | S2

Wow. They finally re-captured the "watch the next episode, NOW !" vibe of S1. And, in looking at the air-times, also allowed the Duffer Brothers to do that thing Kent mentioned, allowing the creators to do alternate episode lengths, to better suit the cohesive tale -- some even reached close to single movie length! Good choices lead to good results.

So, when we last left our intrepid heroes, some of the ST Kids, and Joyce, were moving away from Hawkins, Indiana, for their own protection, relocating to California. Eleven had lost her powers, Hopper had been "killed" in the last ditch effort to shut down the crack to the Upside Down created by the Russians hiding underneath the Hawkins Mall, and Max had lost her brother Billy to the fleshy step-child of The Thing monster they called the Mind Flayer. The kids had saved Hawkins, and likely the world again.

When we pick up only months later, boy have the kids shot up! Growth spurts galore! Things are tense. Eleven is still powerless, cruelly bullied in her new California town. Nancy and Jonathan are suffering the LDR blues, and impending university choices. The D&D group is somewhat mystified by Lucas becoming a member of the Hawkins High basketball team, and his new found "popularity" but they have found new compadres in The Hellfire Club, the school's D&D club, DMed by brash, intense metalhead Eddie Munson. The World of Greyhawk came out in 1983, so it's appropriate the villain in Eddie's campaign is Vecna, the one-eyed, one handed lich wizard.

Then, of course, weird shit starts happening. The Upside Down's influence on Hawkins never goes away fully. This time, it feels more like classic possession horror movies, wherein an invisible otherworldly force frightens, and eventually kills local kids in absolutely horrific ways. And Eddie the DM is suspect prime.

Meanwhile Joyce learns that Hopper survived, grabs Murray, and drops everything to head to Russia to save him. The California Kids get dragged back into the secret government experiments & conspiracy and competing agencies full on attack the Byers house, giving us Road Trip! And Eleven folded back into the lab with creepy Dr. Brenner -- is he trying to resurrect her powers to save the world, as he and Dr. Owens claim, or does he have his own agenda (well, DUH!).

This is the first time since the first season they did a good job tying all the disparate sub-plots together. In S2 and 3 I didn't care so much about some stories, just wanting the focus to shift back to the main plot. But this time, each and every sub-plot was served up in admirable fashion, even if it had to harken back to S1 patterns. 

And the character growth! Not just in physical dimensions but maturity, even if a few were short-shrifted. Nancy takes charge, without the need for Jonathan's support. Steve & Robin have the perfect relationship built on their mutual relationship woes. The D&D Kids are getting somewhat blasé about having to save the world yet again, and dialing in Eddie the DM is handled perfectly. Max has PTSD, but finds solace and strength in Kate Bush. Much of the background cast is once again pushed back to the background, which I prefer. Let the stars shine.

The BBEG and perhaps even the Upside Down itself begin to tie back to Eleven herself, and ... well, I cannot wait for the rest of the season!

That Dirty Black Bag, 2022 - AMC+

What the fuck's up with putting a Plus beside the name of all your subscription based, streaming services? Is there now going to be a need for Netflix to release and ever more exclusive Netflix+  ?

Whatever. <inner 90s girl flipping of hand>

Westerns. I have mentioned before, my self-considered atypical attraction to Westerns. But that interest has a simple origin story, in that one summer in The Country (rural family land), I was out of books to read and found someone's old western pulp-style paperback, probably a Zane Grey. I was struck much the pulp aspect aligned with the Robert E Howard Conan stories I was also reading at the time. The world was dark & gritty, the heroes grim, and the situations dire. A new fascination was born.

TDBB begins with a bounty hunter (Douglas Booth, Jupiter Ascending) killing and beheading a man. "A head weighs less than a body," he intones. Meanwhile a corrupt sheriff (Dominic Cooper, World of Warcraft) tightens his grip on Greenvale, a dry, dusty town that hasn't seen rain in years. Meanwhile Farmer Steve (Christian Cooke, Witches of East End) stands up to the land baron (Paterson Joseph, The Leftovers) that wants what remains of his farmstead, while hiding a secret -- there is GOLD in them there hills!

This is spaghetti western,  shot in Spain, Morocco, and Italy! The angles are skewed, the violence is high and every character growls out his lines. The gruesome violence seems on-par with 2022, a little over the top.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, 2022 - Paramount+

Oh, Anson Mount, I have such a man-crush on you right now, especially that ever reaching coif. Can I visit the ready room for some home cooking? I'll even wear a red shirt!

I started this series commenting (to whomever would listen) extensively on how steeped in nostalgia it is. I mean, think about it, how can a series that showcases the actual starship from The Original Series not be? But this is not a TOS reboot, as its Pike, not Kirk, so this gets set in the years before Pike is confined to a badly designed wheelchair enclosure. In fact, the entire show is set up around that impending doom, as it begins with Pike being coaxed out of his self-imposed exile, one he took to wrestle with the visions of the future we all know about. 

Once he has shaved the beard, and styled the coif, we are back on the nostalgic, stylish, anachronistic Enterprise bridge meeting his new crew. And thus began my reservations. Security Officer La'an Noonien-Singh (Christine Chong, Halo: Nightfall) a descendent of Khan (KHAAAAN!!), and bearer of a most horrific backstory; Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush, Home and Away); cadet Nyota Uhuru (Celia Rose Gooding) who is pretty much playing the Hoshi Sato character from Star Trek: Enterprise, in that she is a genius (GENIUS!) with languages; and background Lieutenant Sam Kirk (Dan Jeanotte, Good Witch).

I am not mentioning the rest of the non-nostalgic bridge crew, just because. So, steeped in that "LOOK ! STUFF YOU KNOW !" mindset, I my reservations shouted loudly. Sure, Mount was spectacular, and the rest of the cast was pretty darn tootin' (sorry, still thinking about Westerns) good as well, but how much would it just rest on its laurels and harken back to TOS ? A whole damn lot, actually, but it turns out that is exactly what we needed. The episodic nature of much of pre-Discovery Star Trek is very welcoming here, with just enough edge to feel fresh. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Fuller attempt to do something fresh(er) with Star Trek but apparently nobody else did, as they immediately kicked him out and then kicked out all coherence in later seasons. All the fresh went rancid pretty quickly in Discovery and yes, that leaves me bitter. And feeling tentative about Strange New Worlds. 

But six episodes in, I am surprisingly optimistic.

But it may just be the coif.

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: A Long Long Look Back, Pt. G - One Or More

 I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty 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.  Freedumb Convoy bad.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. But what else was the last few years about? Sure, we got a few breaks from being confined at home, and might have actually gone outside (gasp!) and socialized with (double-gasp!) human beings (faint-dead-away) but we always ended up back on the sofa, flicker in hand, trying to find something to watch amidst the 35 shows we downloaded, and the 5 or so streaming services we are subscribed to.

Part A is here. Part B is here. Part C is here. Part D is over there. Part E is there. Part F hides over there.

So this is what I am watching right now, or maybe only watched one episode and am waffling about continuing or maybe I even am taking my time with it. This will be a lot, so shorter than usual. Or maybe not. I am a decisive/divisive writer.

Picard S02, 2022, Paramount+

OK, I am back to being utterly annoyed by Picard being an android again -- primarily because THIS season seems to forget it every ten seconds. Perhaps they are making a very bad rendition of the old "if you replace every part of a ship, is it still the original ship" adage, but I am not sure I would consider Picard still human. Sure, he is still Picard but I don't think I would classify him as human.

ANYWAYZ, this season picks up a few years after the events of the first season, and doubles down on the nostalgic references, by adding in the Borg and Q, and a boat load of time travel, which references the whale movie. Again, I am all in for the nostalgia, but this season is just leaving me almost as flat as this season of Discovery did. I just want it to have some... weight.

** If I had footnotes in this blogging software, I would add in a footnote about the nostalgic bit with the return of "the punk on the bus" from The Voyage Home. Seriously, that was some gold level nostalgia !

So, Picard (Patrick Stewart, The Green Room) is visited by Q (John  de Lancie, Torchwood), who has something going on. But Q being Q, he fucks with Picard by altering the past which causes the present to be altered to not much better than the Mirror Universe, or... maybe worse? But for some unknown reason, Picard and the cast of the first season, sans Data's Daughter, still remember the original timeline. So, they decide the best way to fix it, since Q isn't around providing his usual goading hints, is to go into the past using a handy nearby Borg Queen (insert Locutus PTSD; Annie Wersching, Runaways) and perform the sling-shot effect from the Kirk maneuvers handbook.

I am just not invested in this season, but rarely was I entirely in the three next-gen series either. Oh, sure I watched them every week (but for that gap with DS9 when I Didn't Have TV), but I didn't really care one way or the other, whether it was good or not. This time round, I really do wish it was ... better. I mean, there are just no real stakes here. We know they will repair the timeline, we know they will recover The Borg in Red, we know they will solve whatever Q's puzzle is and maybe even help him. So, its just going through the nostalgia with familiar faces. Maybe they are playing with the tweaks of the Universe again, setting up head canon reasons for why Discovery and coming Strange New Worlds looks so different than original series, but I doubt it.

Still, I will continue watching.

The Wheel of Time, 2022, AmazonPrime

Meanwhile, I will eventually go back and finish this first season, but entirely as expected, the adaptation of the third in the Lord of the Rings clones from way back in the BFF (big fat fantasy) era of paperbacks, Robert Jordon's Wheel of Time series, is just not that good. Fantasy TV rarely is. People, including me, were hoping that Game of Thrones would change that up, as so much fantasy TV ends up looking like everything is set in the Hercules / Xena world. And this one did.

Without going back and re-reading plot synopses, I will relate the handful of episodes from I watched, from memory. A bunch of youngsters (insert [someone else's] complaint about woke TV and skin tones) in a remote mountain village have their lives upset when the place is attacked by legendary monsters; no not orcs, but horn-headed, beast-legged manimals, called Trollocs. Everyone dies but them, and they escape with the help of a witchy-cleric lady (Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl) who represents a repressive cabal of ... well, magic users. She believes one of the kids is likely the reincarnation of a BBEG who was defeated in ancient times, but destined to return. Rather than kill them all, like everyone else suggests, she secrets them away.

This is all supposed to represent a Fellowship analog with the escaping characters going from A to B with bad guys chasing them. But typical of fantasy TV, its more about the moaning and groaning of youngsters with issues, than it is about the fantasy trappings. I was not enthralled, but might go back and see how they round out the season. Luckily, I only read a handful of the original books, and forget EVERYTHING about them, so I am not burdened with Bad Adaptation woes.

The Good Lord Bird, 2020, Showtime

I meant to download this during The Pause, as I had seen the trailers and loved how wacky Ethan Hawke was. He plays American abolitionist John Brown during the Bleeding Kansas period of history, when violence happened between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups, just as Kansas became a proper US state. The show is seen through the eyes of Henry Shackleford (Joshua Caleb Johnson, Snowfall), a slave who Brown frees, and who Brown mistakes for a girl, and puts them in a dress. Henry sees some benefit in the belief and doesn't argue, but ends up in Brown's ragtag group of "freedom fighters", and sees first-hand exactly how utterly insane Brown is.

I have watched a few episodes, and I am just not sure. Hawke's antics are hilarious, disturbing and discomforting but I am not sure where the show will go beyond just being a weird-west slice of period life. Which, being a mini-series instead of just a S01, means that could be enough.

The Endgame, 2022, NBC

Yeah yeah, Morena Baccarin peacocking around haughty as fuck (all the puns intended) is the only reason I even attempted to watch this show. It's pretty much a rip-off of The Blacklist with James Spader, in that a notorious criminal mastermind allows themselves to be captured only to toy with the authorities, doing some stuff that benefits said authorities, while still masterminding a ton of illegal shit in the background that benefits ONLY themselves.

But, for one, her pseudo accent is just terrible and annoying AF. And secondly, all the supporting cast is unknown and incredibly low-grade choices, leaving it all feeling like something that was sitting on a shelf, that was taken down and dusted off when they had nothing else better to release.

Upload S02, 2022, AmazonPrime

Loved season one. Or rather liked a lot ? Anywayz, I came into S2 with lots of anticipation and ... only watched one episode. Not sure why, but we return to the show with the (not) Evil GF having uploaded herself (but not really) to be with Nathan (Robbie Amell, The Flash), while Nora (Andy Allo, Chicago Fire) has gone off the grid, because Nathan disappeared. He didn't actually, just was just had his funds cut off, so he ended up "in the basement" (remember, its all a virtual world, so basement is a ... metaphor?), frozen and unavailable. Nora is worried about the conspiracy that actually led to Nathan's death, so she goes off the grid for a month or so, while Nathan's funds build back up.

There is no reason I have not continued watching other than... squirrel ! Yeah, easily distracted.

Halo, 2022, Paramount+

Video game adaptations don't exactly have the best reputation. And Halo the game is more known for its multi-player editions than the single player bit with the actual story, yet for some reason, this series was greenlit and actually given a budget. I knew I would watch it, just because, but lo and behold, was I surprised when it was actually good !

This is not a retelling of any plots from any of the games, but more world building and a story inspired by the plots from the games, primarily the discovery of the titular "dyson ring" called the Halo. In the initial few episodes we are introduced to the (somewhat oppressive) star faring human culture called UNSC (United Nations Space Command), the alien race they are at war with called The Covenant, and the human insurrectionists holding out against the UNSC. And, of course, the special force of soldiers within the UNSC called the Spartans, led by John-117 or "Master Chief" (Pablo Schreiber, American Gods).

Marmy pointed out that only in the first episode do we see much action, as the Spartans drop down on insurrectionist planet Madrigal, just as the community is being wiped out by Covenant soldiers. In the aftermath, a lone teenage survivor (Yerin Ha, Reef Break) is taken by the Spartans, but not before they discover an alien artifact that gives John visions of a past he doesn't remember.

The rest of episodes have been about Dr. Halsey, the creator of the Spartans (Natascha McElhone, Calfornication), manipulating John and his connection to the alien artifact, while John learns to become more than the unquestioning super soldier he has been up to, until he touched the artifact. Given who is playing Master Chief, that he spends most of his time with his helmet off is not surprising. But given the rather slow progression of the plot, and the lack of action (in a series based on an entirely combat driven game), I am surprised it has me so captured. But the production values are high, the directing tight and the acting is pretty good considering the source; after all these years we still don't expect much from specfic TV.

Troppo, 2022, ABC Television

Crime TV. We go seeking it out, usually not finding much good, but occasionally hitting a gem. Troppo comes to us from Australia, and to be honest, it only caught my attention because Thomas Jane is in it, and as a grizzled detective. Not sure how he can be already typecast in my mind, because of his role on The Expanse, but here we are.

Ted Koncaffey is an American living in Australia, estranged from his family after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. He was exonerated, but only because of a mix-up in procedure. He is hiding out in Far North Queensland, a rather rural, tropical place, when he is dragged into an investigation of the death of a Korean businessman, by local pariah turned private detective Amanda Pharrell (Nicole Chamoun, The Gloaming). In her teens she was accused & convicted of murder, and has only recently been released, living an angry, counter-culture life while dealing with many.... personal issues.

I was hoping more for Murder of the Week, but the ongoing tale is a rather classic British-style deep & dark murder investigation which, of course, has tendrils reaching into all parts of the isolated community. 

P.S. As the show didn't want us rooting for a possible pedophile, they clear that question up pretty quickly as a medical examiner points out that the physical evidence in the case did not point to Koncaffey, therefore he must have investigated a far too sensitive suspect, leading to his frameup.

Amusingly, I recognized an actress playing the daughter of the murdered Korean businessman as the survivor of the insurrectionist colony attack in Halo.

Outer Range, 2022, AmazonPrime

Only one episode into this one. Not sure yet. My post-Longmire cowboy, open range (not a pun) obsession continues with this weird-west tale of a family dealing with a missing wife / daughter, a ruthless neighbour seeking to take their land, and... well, a big science-defying hole in their outer range that only the head of their family has found so far.

This slightly smacks of Benson-Moorhead style story, but... I just don't know yet. Time will (possibly) tell, but the acting and production values are tight and appropriately eerie. I suspect it will get more fuck-with-your-head as time goes on, and that usually keeps my attention... for a while. I hope it will have some real answers by the time the seasons gets to closing.

But can I really go wrong with Josh Brolin?

Sweet Home, 2020, Netflix

I probably could combine a bunch of single episodes of Japanese/Korean horror/thriller shows into one paragraph, but I actually watched more than a handful of this one, so it gets the post. Netflix is full of these shows, and after the popularity of Squid Game (one of the single-episoders) I am not surprised, but they were there before, and they will keep appearing long after we forget that one success happened.

Cha Hyun-soo (Song Kang, Nevertheless) moves into an incredibly squalid apartment building after something tragic happens at home; after which I got the idea he tried to commit suicide, but failed. Not long after, people begin changing into monsters, and the government announces that people should barricade themselves inside their homes. Most of the residents of the apartment building, after a bunch change and kill others, gather on the main floor for survival. Hyun-soo is infected/cursed but seems to be able to retain his humanity, and becomes the contentious protector of the survivors as they turn on each other in the chaos.

The monsters are fun, the action is gorey and the characters are varied enough to be interesting, but the traditional method of dragging things out for far too long diminished my interest rather quickly.

Moon Knight, 2022, Disney+

OK, why don't I like this latest of the MCU series? Or more accurately, why is it not doing anything for me? I don't dislike it, and I am watching each episode each week, but I spend as much time watching my phone as I do watching the episode. Marvel Fatigue? Not a character I care about? Dislike for Oscar Isaac? None of the above. The only thing that stands out is how irritating I find his faux British accent when he is Steven, but nothing else really comes to mind as to why I am not fully on board.

So, Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac, ExMachina) is a gift shop attendant at the British Museum with more than a passing obsession with all things Egyptian, much to the annoyance of his boss. But he keeps on losing time, and showing up in weird places, while also doing his best to chain himself to his bed. You see, Steven has Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac, Dune), soldier of fortune inside his head (body?) and Spector is also the avatar of Khonshu, Egyptian god of the moon. As Moon Knight, he is trying to stop the previous avatar Harrow (Ethan Hawke, The Northman) from bring back another Egyptian god Ammit.

The action is well done, the effects impressive and the balance between tension and comedy is OK, but I am just ... not into it. The Benson-Moorhead episode did a bit more to keep my attention, but beyond that... yawn. Still, I will see it through.

Joe Pickett, 2021, Spectrum

Yeah, this one was more about trying to find another Longmire. Another rural America crime show this time set in Wyoming with Pickett (Michael Dorman, For All Mankind) as the new game warden in a small rural town dealing with red neck poachers and the people who don't want to remember the last game warden has retired. And also, he has a dark past, because they always do. 

Its going to be another full-season story arc kind of show, but nothing about the first episode caught my attention, beyond getting a sense of deja vu from the video game Far Cry 5. Still, pretty mountains and open fields?

Meh.

From, 2022, Epix

Now, THIS one has my attention!

This is a horror-scifi thriller series where a rural horror road (that one in all the horror movies that is shot from above, winding its way through the trees) leads to that pocket dimension town, like the one from that episode of Fringe. You drive in one side of the town, drive out, but end up coming back in the other side, in an endless loop. You cannot leave town. 

People have been living in this town for .. a long time, doing as best they can. But that's not all. Every night monsters come out of the woods, monsters that to all appearances are eerie 1960s small town American inhabitants, until they catch you. Then they revert to vampire monsters and eat you. The entire town hides indoors at night, protected by strange stone talismans hanging near doors, behind closed curtains, as the monsters do their best to siren song you into opening windows or doors, letting them in. Once you do, you are dead.

New Family arrives, after being driven off the road by a pair of tech moguls, who get caught up in the loop. New Family learns the ropes quick enough as their kid gets trapped inside the RV and the town sheriff (Harold Perrineau, The Rookie) has to bring a talisman and protect the family until they can free the kid, the next morning. And then they are welcomed back into town, to learn the whole story.

But beyond the absolute horror of what is going on, there is also an incredibly complex and mysterious ... something else going on. Where does food come from? They grow some, but apparently just beyond the town borders, animals appear in the woods, as they are needed. There is electricity and running water, but... from where? New Family Dad (Eion Bailey, Band of Brothers) finds out quick enough that none of the wiring (you know, in walls or extension cords) has any actual wires -- its all just rubber plugged into outlets yet still providing light and power. Where did the talismans come from? Who is the strange man who turns out to be the very first survivor of the town back in the 60s? What are the Far Away Trees? Who is talking to the psycho girl? Much of the show is about WTF is Going On? And that has me enthralled.

And it is also incredibly horrific. Not scary, but monstrous and horrible, as soon after the New Family arrives, the tentative peace the town had for a while (weeks? months?) disappears and people keep dying in thinly connected events -- the town drunk forgets to go home in time, and his daughter opens a window, the girl working in the diner hears voices and kills one of the tech moguls, but also opens the door to the clinic letting the monsters in to kill the old man with dementia, and the hippy commune house on the hill has a particularly bad night after one man is "seduced" by a single monster/siren. Things are getting worse after New Family has arrived, but threads are being unraveled, that may lead to the town's rescue or... get worse? I have no idea, and that is what has my attention.

I also like that I recognized the old, run down structures of the town, more the style of architecture, and found out it was being shot on location outside of Halifax, NS. I also reallllly liked watching Maritime comedian Shaun Majumder (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) showing his dramatic chops playing the town priest.

That reminds me, I have to download another episode.

The Outlaws, 2022, AmazonPrime

Only one episode in. This is a British series created by and starring Stephen Merchant. The premise is simple enough -- a disparate bunch of people are gathered together to fulfill their community service sentence by cleaning up a rec centre. They are all ages, all levels of crime, but all stuck together working under a clipboard Napoleon. The trailer tells us they find a mysterious bag of money and the season will come from them deciding what to do with it, but the first episode tells us exactly where the money comes from, and the story is that much more complex for it.

The characters are fun, and not black & white at all, which will work to the show's benefit. People are assholes but nobody is a "bad guy" yet. Yet. And Merchant, as writer, director and star, is his usual quirky, weird but basically nice guy who I suspect will get darker as time goes on.

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: A Long Long Look Back, Pt. F - I Suppose It's Only Occasionally a Long Look

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty 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.  Freedumb Convoy bad.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. But what else was the last few years about? Sure, we got a few breaks from being confined at home, and might have actually gone outside (gasp!) and socialized with (double-gasp!) human beings (faint-dead-away) but we always ended up back on the sofa, flicker in hand, trying to find something to watch amidst the 35 shows we downloaded, and the 5 or so streaming services we are subscribed to.

Part A is here. Part B is here. Part C is here. Part D is over there. Part E is there.

Travel Man, 2015-2019, Amazon Prime Video / CBC Gem

This is more a Marmy show, than a Toasty show, but I walked into the room enough times and sat through a couple of episodes, as she binged the entire series on Gem and Prime, that I have some words to share.

So, premise. Richard Ayoade (the host at the time; The IT Crowd) and a celebrity guest travel to a tourist destination city for 48 hours. Most of the time, the idea is to pack the two days with as many of the local attractions, and food, as they can while still being budget conscious. I assumed the idea worked because Europe is small enough, and diverse enough, that you can travel from the UK to just about anywhere pretty quickly, but that idea is blown apart in season 1 by visiting Iceland and Marrakesh, which are not nearby whatsoever. The other idea is that Richard generally doesn't like to travel, hates sun, hates water, hates new food, etc. So the idea of a celebrity guest, usually a British comedian, following around thus curmudgeon's itinerary is where the funny comes in.

Most guests don't handle Ayoade's weird, dry, grumpy comedy very well but some play off him very well, and some even surpass him, giving him more than a bit of his own medicine back in return. But really, its the locations that shine. Even in such small doses, the places chosen, even the far out there ones, are just fascinating. I have always said, that if I was to travel, that I would prefer to stay in a single place for an extended time, like a month or more, to learn about the places the locals know, to get the feel for the area that is not focused on pure tourism. This show is the opposite, in that almost everything they do is utterly tourist focused, often led by local guides, but they are always about the experience which is typically so purely tied to the area, that even the micro-dose of exposure encapsulates the experience. 

Some of my favs include Richard and IT Crowd alum Chris O'Dowd in Vienna, where O'Dowd seems to be a genuine friend to Ayoade and completely in tune with the humour of the show, and the "tourist" choices they make, one of which is a sewer tour, overwhelming stink and all. Jo Brand in Venice is fun because she is also not quite the traveler but has a wonderful time despite the two being themselves. Paul Rudd cracking wise in Helsinki in a sauna with other half-naked people doing their best to not lose it on camera is hilarious, but I am not sure he and Richard ever meshed well in comedy styles, given that both like to make others uncomfortable; but that could have been the entire point. I might be biased but Aisling Bea was both funny and charming outshining Richard entirely for their visit to Budapest. Jon Hamm and Richard getting absolutely wild custom tailored suits in Hong Kong made the episode worth it.

In the end I was overwhelmed by a desire to travel, but won't, with a large budget, which I will never have. I also think that a show could be created and presented by a guy such as myself, a self described "I have never really been anywhere" but replacing the curmudgeon with just typical anxiety ridden enthusiastic curiosity about everything and everywhere. I know I would love to travel but doing so always drags up such... baggage.

*cough*

The FBIs, 2021-2022, Stack TV / Download

I had the Slot A of this collection of crime shows in a previous edition of this topic, but I only briefly touched on it, really just said "I am watching it." I have continued to watch the show(s), usually waiting for a season to complete before downloading them in large bunches for Saturday morning me-time viewing. But in the winter of 2021, we grabbed StackTV for the access to Hallmarkies and two of these shows were there for the watching -- so I caught up. I say "two" because the third, FBI: International was listed as available, but they would only let me watch the first three fucking episodes. Seriously, fuck StackTV -- you pay for Amazon Prime video, you pay to add on StackTV, they force you to watch commercials, and then they also deny certain shows for bulk viewing, likely due to some sort of rights mis-negotiation. And yet, they still have the gall to advertise the fuckin show as something you can watch, while... you cannot.

But that's alright, it is the least of the three. The Alot A show FBI continues to follow the careers of Maggie and OA, as they fight the good FBI fight in NYC, against serial killers, terrorists, bombers and other criminals. The show has begun to explore the roll the FBI has in the war on terrorism, or more accurately, the war on Muslims. OA is a Muslim so that contradiction has always had a role in the show's current affairs, but more recently he has been forced into difficult situations, bringing in people who have been corrupted by more powerful influential folks. They have also touched briefly on the BLM stories, and explored the societal challenges via two supporting characters, one white and wealthy (he left behind Wall Street when he felt its sliminess lay its hands on him) and one a young, black woman who is challenged by her own community for being a police officer. The Crime of the Week is fine, but I like when the show explores what we are dealing with in the real world.

So yeah, just another, "Yeah I am watching it."

Meanwhile, I don't know what the fuck is going on with FBI: Most Wanted. The first offshoot was focused on a federally mandated recovery team, so kind of like the US Marshalls service but focused on crimes within the FBI mandate. But other than locale, it was pretty much Crime of the Week. It differed in that it had a side-focus on the personal life of their leader Jesse LaCroix, who was raising his daughter with the help of her maternal grandparents on a farm in upstate NY. LaCroix's late wife had been a soldier killed in action, but the fact she was Native American also played a part in the plot, including one of the team being her brother.

LaCroix was depicted as an emotionally reserved individual utterly trusted by his team. Little affected his steely exterior but his daughter. The show started up during the beginning of the pandemic and production was almost instantly impacted by things going on, leading to some major character changes by the end of the season, that just felt... off. LaCroix's brother in law leaves the show, along with his parents, the grandparents taking care of LaCroix's daughter. I am still not sure if something happened behind the scenes to influence the departures, or it was just connected to The Pause, but it changed the dynamic of the show significantly, eventually leading to more departures and new castings.

The Slot C of the show, FBI: International is still rather new, and I did eventually catch up via my  usual of downloading everything. This is a weird one, focused on an FBI task-force based in Budapest, that are supposed to take the reins on crimes with American connections anywhere in Europe. The show barely attempts to play it out exactly as it sounds -- that the local police forces, including Interpol, are barely adequate and not equipped to do anything without American intervention. Its still pretty much the formula for all other FBI shows, where the locals (American small town) have to give up jurisdiction to "the Feds", except its on a wider scale, but the same tension plays out. There is also a weird undercurrent that most of these police forces suffer an immense amount of corruption and local government intervention, which is all kettle black pot territory.

So far, I am not all that enthralled by the cast, but for the re-tasked cadaver dog who came out of retirement to round out the team. Of course, the locales are beautiful, but rather than explore more of the host country's unique natures, much of the episodes seem to have everyone being angry, swarthy men with funny accents. One episode was an exception, taking place in the break away state of Transnistria, in eastern Moldova, the real country, not one of the many (including Hallmarkies) fictional countries with similar sounding names. I had never heard of the place before the episode. And now, with Europe mired in an unexpected war, I wonder how later production, and plots, of the show will depict this turmoil (tragedy, crisis, utter fucking rage-inducing nightmare).

Discovery S04, 2022, Paramount+

My enthusiasm for this Star Trek series is diminishing with each season, and if the previous one left me unsatisfied, this one just left me ... entirely flat. Its like going back to the Next Generation and realizing, the series on its own was not great, more so, it is about the franchise reemerging and the gem episodes that shine. But Discovery is less episodic and more serial, so the entire season plot has to be of interest to me, and it just ain't. Sure, I will continue to watch, but not feverishly so as I did with the first two seasons.

This season moves on from re-establishing the Federation and just tosses yet another full season arc Big Bad. For a culture that had all but collapsed into anarchy with the loss of safe warp travel, they sure recovered in the blink of an eye. Burnham is now captain of the Discovery and is pressed as to her loyalties when Book's home planet is destroyed by some new space anomaly that they very quickly discover is not natural, but manufactured... by some race from beyond the galaxy's edge. Book is rightfully upset and teams up with a mysterious genius to find the BBEG and kill them.

I always forget that everything in Star Trek takes place in a single galaxy, and the edge of said galaxy has always been a crazy purple barrier. But no matter, Discovery is able to bypass any obstacle and needs to reach this "extra galactic" race before Book and his murderous scientist do. And they do, because of course they do.

I don't really have anything in particular I disliked about this season, but.... <in best Vamp Willow voice>, "Bored now!" Burnham and her ever present whisper-talk (curses upon you Kent for pointing this out) doing her best to stay as a reputable captain (instead of running off half-cocked like she has ... for the entire series) while still trust Book to Do the Right Thing. Meanwhile they do some half-baked but admirable attempts to add in some gender politics and mental health stories into the mix but... <yaaaaawn>

I have a feeling Strange New Worlds will fill my interest more than this show, and this season's Picard have.