The TV and Streaming thread Series 4

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Finished season one of Ragnarok.  Ends up being pretty good by that point, enough that I'll start the second season. 

 

I have watched both seasons now and it really is entertaining, its something different and I love how it ties into the whole Norse mythology with  "RL "characters 

I was always surprised it wasnt more popular on these forums considering how many people love fantasy 

[Gromnir]

On 7/10/2021 at 9:35 PM, BruceVC said:

 

I was always surprised it wasnt more popular on these forums considering how many people love fantasy 

am not surprised. has been kinda glut o' cookie cutter ya fare the last few years on netflix and similar services. listening to boardie feedback has informed us that more than a few who in 2018 mighta' given something like ragnarok a chance by watching most or even all o' a season before reaching a conclusion is now hitting their threshold after an episode or two. don't need more than a couple episodes to see ragnarok fall into same old ya patterns. 

what we saw o' ragnarok was no worse than other ya shows we has tried to watch. not better either. am thinking more than a few boardies is waiting for better, but are no longer optimistic such is probable. 

HA! Good Fun!

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

am not surprised. has been kinda glut o' cookie cutter ya fare the last few years on netflix and similar services. listening to boardie feedback has informed us that more than a few who in 2018 mighta' given something like ragnarok a chance by watching most or even all o' a season before reaching a conclusion is now hitting their threshold after an episode or two. don't need more than a couple episodes to see ragnarok fall into same old ya patterns. 

what we saw o' ragnarok was no worse than other ya shows we has tried to watch. not better either. am thinking more than a few boardies is waiting for better, but are no longer optimistic such is probable. 

HA! Good Fun!

I hear you, end of the day we all have our own preferences around what we watch and what entertains us

I just found Ragnarok to be something different, especially around the slow but interesting integration into Norse Mythology and season 2 is even better particularly  with the arrival of Jörmungandr 

[LadyCrimson]

Finished season 2 of Ragnarok.  All I have to say is there better be a season 3. 

...Loki is a great character for actors to get to play, apparently.  The guy playing him in this one is probably one of the better roles. Not that the other actors aren't doing fine, but ... Loki just kinda stands out chr/lore wise, to me anyway. 

[ShadySands]

Black Widow and Tomorrow War. Meh+ and meh-

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Finished season 2 of Ragnarok.  All I have to say is there better be a season 3. 

...Loki is a great character for actors to get to play, apparently.  The guy playing him in this one is probably one of the better roles. Not that the other actors aren't doing fine, but ... Loki just kinda stands out chr/lore wise, to me anyway. 

Yaaaay, my fellow Ragnarok groupie 

Since no one cares about this series lets chat about it. Loki is brilliant, their is so much scope going forward and how the Mythology will be interpreted in the series. In the Norse mythology in the final days of Ragnarok Thor defeats Jormungandr in an ultimate battle but dies doing so....I wonder if the series will mirror this ?

Also I wonder who the Sorceress will be going forward...so many interesting things to ponder 

[Sarex]

So I guess that's it for season 1 of Loki... Overall I would say it was good but it did go downhill for me as the story progressed, especially because I thought it would be a short show that would tie in to a later movie.

[Gromnir]

loki.

...

f'ing time travel. time manipulation carries with it the potential to use the gods-o'-time-travel-be-damned reset button which means anything which happened season one is quite possible invalidated in season two. bring back dead? ez and is already implied. change and even reverse the most important dramatic events o' season one? no problem. loki went there and did that and we won't know the extent o' the reset 'til season 2. ooh, cliffhanger. cliffhanger? screw you disney.

so, once again, fu time travel plot device.  no real rhyme or reason for why such is possible or which dramatic story elements is inviolable from the vagaries o' time manipulation. time travel just is and it can be whatever the directors and writers says it is. the audience just needs to sit back and take another hammer blow to the cerebrum, 'cause is time travel.

HA! Good Fun!

ps we do not like time travel.

 

[ShadySands]

We didn't much like the last episode of Loki. 

[BruceVC]

14 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

We didn't much like the last episode of Loki. 

Thats not really a reason, why didnt you like it 

[BruceVC]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_of_Sarah

I started watching this and its got real potential. Its got numerous SJ  themes that have been done in  a realistic and believable way that includes estranged families, LGBT relationships, Native American rights, inter-racial relationships and of course the ubiquitous " evil, Capitalist, large corporation " that  could destroy the small town through mining projects

So it should appeal  to many people on this forum 

[Lexx]

"However, an unexpected result occurs when the town becomes its own nation, separate from the US. Thus Sarah and the rest of the town must grapple with developing their own country. "

If this doesn't end up with some big company rounding them all up and shooting them dead, it's probably one of the least believable american drama tv show stories ever.

[melkathi]

On 7/13/2021 at 1:25 AM, LadyCrimson said:

Finished season 2 of Ragnarok.  All I have to say is there better be a season 3. 

...Loki is a great character for actors to get to play, apparently.  The guy playing him in this one is probably one of the better roles. Not that the other actors aren't doing fine, but ... Loki just kinda stands out chr/lore wise, to me anyway. 

Laurits is a great take on Loki.

In season 2 I even like the change in Saxa when she tries to take responsibility in the giants' interest, but finds the other three opposed based on traditional gender roles. I feel that this part was done well.

[InsaneCommander]

I didn't like the last two episodes of Loki.

Also, wasn't the rule that you couldn't change the timeline, but only travel to another? Like Gromnir said, they will do whatever they want regardless of it making sense.

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

I didn't like the last two episodes of Loki.

Also, wasn't the rule that you couldn't change the timeline, but only travel to another? Like Gromnir said, they will do whatever they want regardless of it making sense.

The rule was, as I understood it, if you tried to change the past you created a branch in the timeline rather than changing the past. That's why the Ancient One was loathe to give Banner the time stone until they promised to clean up the nodes, and they didn't stop the snap but reset it.

...and then Cap had to have his 'me' time...

[WDeranged]

Finished the latest Handmaids Tale season.  It was good, they're just about keeping the wheels on but it needs to wrap up next season.  I can smell impending failure.

[Gromnir]

saw the first three episodes of we are lady parts. am not usual a fan o' the english brand o' humor (with a few notable exceptions) which depends excessive on physical gags and finding creative ways to string together an improbable succession o' increasingly embarrassing moments for the protagonists. even so, we did smile frequent and laughed more than once. 

it's... fun.

HA! Good Fun!

[InsaneCommander]

17 hours ago, Amentep said:

The rule was, as I understood it, if you tried to change the past you created a branch in the timeline rather than changing the past. That's why the Ancient One was loathe to give Banner the time stone until they promised to clean up the nodes, and they didn't stop the snap but reset it.

...and then Cap had to have his 'me' time...

And now they expanded it
 

Spoiler

The TVA was pruning all the (undesired) branches so there was no reason for the Ancient One to worry. Or maybe she wanted to avoid having people pruned and sent to Alioth.

Also, if Immortus/Kang/The one who remains was outside the timeline, why did it keep changing? Was the TVA outside too? For me it seems only an external source could create new branches.

 

[Amentep]

 

 

[BruceVC]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helstrom_(TV_series)

Helstrom is now on cable  in SA and I am loving it ....but I just read it was cancelled after season 1 

[Raithe]

New Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Will Bring Back Characters from the '80s Cartoon Series (movieweb.com)

Okay, so tangentially related to TV, but still...

Quote

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, an upcoming D&D adventure set mostly in the Feywild, will feature multiple characters that originally appeared in the cartoon. Chris Perkins, lead story designer, confirmed that several characters from D&D's past will appear in the adventure. "I will just say there are a lot of nods to the past in this adventure, including nods to the D&D cartoon. You will run into one, maybe two characters who appeared in that original show."

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Raithe

[BruceVC]

21 minutes ago, Raithe said:

New Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Will Bring Back Characters from the '80s Cartoon Series (movieweb.com)

Okay, so tangentially related to TV, but still...

Raithe, you know how the  ancient laws and codes works of all things fantasy . If you claim to be  a fan of fantasy RPG then you always support everything and anything to do with AD&D and D&D

We all know this, its like saying " I like fantasy books " but you havent read Lord of Rings.  ( which I wasnt crazy about but I did read it and the Hobbit....I found these books to be a little boring in their style of English which I realize is old nowadays. I love George R R Martin and Steven Erikson  style of fantasy ) 

[majestic]

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

We all know this, its like saying " I like fantasy books " but you havent read Lord of Rings.  ( which I wasnt crazy about but I did read it and the Hobbit....I found these books to be a little boring in their style of English which I realize is old nowadays. I love George R R Martin and Steven Erikson  style of fantasy ) 

You just have cast "Summon Gromnir" and he's going to tell you that Lord of the Rings isn't fantasy, it's mythology, which is what Tolkien was aiming for.

At any rate, I started watching Blacklist now that the 8th season's out on Netflix here. The plot has been getting ye olde Chris Carter kudzu treatment for several seasons now, but who cares. I could watch James Spader all day (somtimes I do! ).

 

[LadyCrimson]

The Empty Man, via HBO (it's on HBOMax too I think)

Has a long drawn out history that in short = bigger studio not knowing what to do with an experimental movie and kind of tossing it to the side (not even a DVD/blu-ray release given). The trailer makes it look like another Slender Man/Candy Man or some such type horror movie, and parts of it do kind of feel like that in a way. But the trailer is also very misleading ... I'm going to say I liked it quite a bit more than expected and while it's really long for its genre (2 hrs. 17 minutes) I wasn't annoyed by that. I don't think I'd cut very much out, maybe 5-8 minutes at most.

There are criticisms: may not be enough typical "horror" for those wanting such, could be seen as too slow/boring, and it's rather bleak in a mental way (vs. visceral horror) the film is split into three sections, with a very long past-prologue that is very different styled from the other two, and an ambiguous, multi-possible explanation ending (on purpose) that might leave some feeling confused/annoyed, or unsatisfied/burned (edit: or one could take it simply at face value I suppose).

That said, from the very start I found myself unable to stop watching. Maybe it's because of the way most of the shots were framed, and the pacing of the camera work, I found it visually interesting/hypnotic wanted to see more. The last few minutes did annoy me just a little bit, but then again, I kept thinking/analyzing the film long after. It's kind of a mild mind-you-know-what.

Could definitely see it becoming a cult horror/supernatural/psychological film. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Zoraptor]

Some of the stuff I've watched recently, mostly catching up on things I've missed but meant to see first time around.

Black Sails: Not finished, but it is a good semi historical pirate romp. As might be expected the pirates are pretty sanitised overall, and as with most things there are some interesting plotting decisions where things seem to happen just to set up or prolong the plot instead of being logical.

Black Summer: Fast zombie apocalypse from the makers of Z Nation but more serious, but I wasn't expecting much. Not at all bad overall as a park your brain action/ suspense watch, though again a lot of the set ups make very little sense (mostly, too many resources available for them to be fighting over. Why even bother threatening people and forcing them out of a 7/11 when you're going to take maybe 5% of the stuff there? Why chase a completely random car in your pickup instead of just looting some houses? etc etc).

Kingdom: Korean fast zombies (with political machinations). Probably has the most visceral take of those I've watched, and it being set with matchlock level military tech is interesting too. The only real problem is fairly minor, watching it with subtitles it was really difficult to know any of the characters' actual names instead of just their roles- with the exception of the nurse, because inept bureaucrat guy kept on following her around saying her name all the time. Pretty strong recommendation overall. As a side effect I now have a 'Korean TV' section on Netflix

The Fall: Very well acted and written. Knowing who the serial killer was from the start introduced some limitations, but then not knowing would have just introduced others. Probably a matter of binge watching rather than weekly episodic, but there were a fair few dropped threads too and not exactly light watching. I'm looking forward to seeing something a bit lighter so I was thinking of Happy Valley which sounds pretty upbeat- how could something with Curly's squeeze from Coro be anything other than a light hearted romp?

Barbarians: This one I found a bit disappointing. It's technically fine and obviously limited by budget in terms of scale, but I kind of expected a bit more from the story of Arminius especially with it being a bit of a founding myth for modern Germany. Despite watching this and Dark I don't have a 'German TV' section on Netflix.

Line of Duty (latest season): Clearly- and by a wide margin- the worst season, but simultaneously nowhere near as bad as some make out. I wonder if those surprised by the revelation of 'H' even bothered watching the previous season where the objective expectations for his role were spelt out and him being important was clearly scenario fulfillment from the AC12 team. It also seems very unlikely that they'd pay James Nesbitt just to use a photo of him. Series overall is very much worth watching for anyone who hasn't seen it, creator also did Bodyguard though that is a bit more set piece action.