The TV and Streaming Thread: That's Entertainment!

[rjshae]

11 hours ago, kanisatha said:

This is true up to a point. Broadcast and cable networks now tend to have their current season available to watch for free anytime.

I think if we end up with a single source that supplies only what you want to watch, then we'll then have to worry about monopolistic tendencies from the supplier. I.e. sure we can watch anything, but at a higher cost. Also, with a monopoly, there's less incentive to release quality programming. I don't think there will be a net benefit for the consumer.

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby and I started watching Mickey17 last night.

Not exactly what I was expecting. One of those with deliberate slow pacing, including a lot of one chr's inner headspace monologue narrating. It's conceptually sort of interesting and did keep my attention for the most part but it's not, half-way through, all that compelling. Hubby wanted to go to bed so we stopped halfway. Not sure if either of us is super keen on finishing.

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby's been watching a series (I think via paramount+) called Tracker. I don't know much about it - one of those "guy with skills helps ppl in bad trouble, with a background team" type of shows. But I like that it's procedural, episodes largely self-contained, so sometimes I can randomly plop down next to him to watch an episode and not be lost. Seems fairly decent for that genre.

Mostly I'm waiting for the final Squid Game episodes.

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Hubby's been watching a series (I think via paramount+) called Tracker. I don't know much about it - one of those "guy with skills helps ppl in bad trouble, with a background team" type of shows. But I like that it's procedural, episodes largely self-contained, so sometimes I can randomly plop down next to him to watch an episode and not be lost. Seems fairly decent for that genre.

I commented on Tracker some time ago. It's my favorite show these days. And it is one of the highest rated shows on broadcast networks.

[Sarex]

Murderbot. So far the show is carried by the robot and the rest of the cast is uninteresting to say the least.

[Hurlshort]

18 hours ago, Sarex said:

Murderbot. So far the show is carried by the robot and the rest of the cast is uninteresting to say the least.

So true to the book. Although I expect the sentient research ship in season 2 will challenge that.

[rjshae]

I decided to put together a list of my favorite series over the last decade or so to see what else might fall into the same pot. In no particular order:

• Fringe
• The X Files
• Firefly
• Picard*
• Psycho-Pass*
• Cowboy Bebop 
• Person of Interest
• Dollhouse
• Orphan Black
• Handmaid's Tale
• Andor*
• The Walking Dead
• The Good Wife
• ER
• Deadwood
• Hell on Wheels

*Recently watched or still watching.

For some reason I seem to like female protagonists, usually in some mix of sci-fi, western, or medical drama. I no longer enjoy procedurals, crime shows, or musicals. Any suggestions for future viewing?

[majestic]

4 hours ago, rjshae said:

Any suggestions?

Repeated application of blunt force trauma to the head for liking Picard. 

[Gromnir]

a few o' those go considerable past the last decade, so am not sure what the temporal range is if we are including x-files and firefly, which both had their final episodes over twenty years past, yes? example: pushing dasies and wonderfalls were broadcast after firefly and x-files, but they is a bit remote. 

fleabag, better call saul, hannibal, atlanta, true detective (season 1) and a few seasons of fargo all are near the top o' our favorite tv series from the last ~decade. 

a couple other notables:

mr robot had loads o' great performances, but... am curious ambivalent. not sure why we didn't like it more.

the bear. wth? how the heck is the bear categorized as a comedy? great show that makes us feel terrible. we watched the bear and thought it were fantastic, but maybe something resonated too much, 'cause we frequent were made uncomfortable on a physical level when watching the bear.

chernobyl, shogun and watchmen is miniseries we enjoyed. kinda surprised by shogun-- maybe we liked it more 'cause we were expecting so little? keep in mind, am old enough to have seen the original nbc shogun miniseries when it were first televised.

regardless, can't stress how much we approve of fleabag.

HA! Good Fun!

ps the 80s was a good time for broadcast miniseries, and only about half of them starred richard chamberlain. in fact, richard chamberlain was jason bourne back in the late 80s. 'bout a year after nbc's shogun, masada, with peter o'toole (we kid you not) and peter strauss were released by abc... think it were abc. am realizing that with times being what they are, there is 0% chance o' a masada remake, which is too bad. 1989, at the end o' the decade, we got lonesome dove. was a whole lotta not good miniseries, but following rich man, poor man and roots, they became expected annual occurrences for the networks, and a few o' those miniseries were justifiably memorable even when they weren't fantastic.

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

a few o' those go considerable past the last decade, so am not sure what the temporal range is if we are including x-files and firefly, which both had their final episodes over twenty years past, yes? example: pushing dasies and wonderfalls were broadcast after firefly and x-files, but they is a bit remote. 

X-Files had a small revival with two new seasons airing in 2016 and 2018, in case you missed it. Had some pretty good episodes. Well worth watching for old fans of the series, probably no real appeal for new viewers. The overarching storyline remains silly and pointless, as it was beyond season six (or probably earlier, depending on how much you liked the alien rebellion). 

 

Edited June 26 by majestic

[rjshae]

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

a few o' those go considerable past the last decade, so am not sure what the temporal range is if we are including x-files and firefly, which both had their final episodes over twenty years past, yes? example: pushing dasies and wonderfalls were broadcast after firefly and x-files, but they is a bit remote. 

fleabag, better call saul, hannibal, atlanta, true detective (season 1) and a few seasons of fargo all are near the top o' our favorite tv series from the last ~decade. 

a couple other notables:

mr robot had loads o' great performances, but... am curious ambivalent. not sure why we didn't like it more.

chernobyl, shogun and watchmen is miniseries we enjoyed. kinda surprised by shogun-- maybe we liked it more 'cause we were expecting so little? keep in mind, am old enough to have seen the original nbc shogun miniseries when it were first televised.

Yes I did enjoy Mr. Robot and Fargo. Although I'm not fond of crime series, non-procedural detective series can be fun to watch. In the case of X-Files, I only watched it long after the series had run its course, so for me it feels more recent. Shogun was excellent, but I'm not sure I'd watch it again. Another series I just remembered was Legion, which I'll add to my list.

[rjshae]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

Repeated application of blunt force trauma to the head for liking Picard. 

Well a swift kick in the nether regions for implying the need for violence.

[LadyCrimson]

Started watching some k-drama/rom-com, via Netflix, called The Potato Lab.

The first episode was meh to ok, but then around 45 minutes there was this total camp scene of the stoic male lead running from a bird and falling/rolling down a field - yes it was stupid but I laughed. After that, typical kdrama romcom tropes/plot. Although, sometimes purposely self-aware tropes, which is a bit amusing.  I'll likely lose interest rapidly but at least that scene gave me a giggle. And I can get it off my watch list. Heh.

[LadyCrimson]

Man, why couldn't Netflix have been so k-drama content focused when I was just getting into/really into k-drama content and not totally jaded, years ago?
--Trigger - silly sounding but social-commentary what-if premise but Kim Nam Gil has yet to disappoint me re: projects he's selected/been prominent in. I've liked every single one of his series (10 years). I will watch.
--Wall to Wall - Kang Ha- Neul as an actor has yet to disappoint me - some of his series I wasn't into. But mystery/thriller/horror is a genre I often like (10 years). I will watch.
--And for now - SQUID GAME is on. Please be a good conclusion! Pretty please!

 

 

 

Edited June 28 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

Finished Squid Game season 3. Generally not bad, but...

 

the ending is meh. I thought they would wrap it up, but now it still feels like just another cliff hanger. Even worse, it looks like they are turning this into some global franchise, like how John Wick got bigger and bigger with every movie.

I mean, I'm not hating the ending. Just don't really have any clear feelings about it. Guess I just don't like that it doesn't actually end like they said. It's open and now Netflix can do a ****ton of spin-offs from which one is worse than the other.

They didn't even deal with those rich people. I get it, it's kinda realistic how the rich fks get away with everything, but still.. feels like wasted potential. 

Edited June 28 by Lexx

[Sarex]

Standard Korean ending.

[LadyCrimson]

4+ episodes of Squid Game.

Episode 2 and 3 were pretty great. But my brain went:

"Ohhhhh yeah, the evil rich people, I didn't miss them."  ...  "Oh yeah, the people on the boat going nowhere."
And my finger hit the FFWD trigger faster and faster.  I'll see it through, I may like some more scenes. I can tell tho they created too many threads and it probably won't come together in a satisfying actual conclusion fashion.

 

Edited June 30 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

It's been a day since I wrapped up Squid Game and now I feel kinda angry about it, lol. Can't go into it without spoilers, but it's pretty much what I wrote above already... I'm disappointed.

[Bartimaeus]

A handful of episodes of 1970s' Laverne & Shirley. It's...charmingly amusing. I've heard that it gets terrible after the setting changes from Milwaukee to Los Angeles in the last few seasons, but I probably won't make it that far.

For a show that was #1 on TV for a few years in the late 1970s, it's never had any blu-ray releases and is only available to stream in SD on something called Pluto TV.

[Gfted1]

Smoke on AppleTV

I made it 1.5 episodes before I fell asleep but it was pretty good. Loosely based in a true story.

[Hurlshort]

I've been working my way through Star Wars content for the last year. I watched Clone Wars, then Bad Batch, and now I'm on Rebels. I just finished Rebels season 2, and it ended on a very high note. I decided to take a break from the animated stuff and watch some live action, but I'm trying to stay in chronological order, so I gave The Acolyte a try. It is set about a century before anything else.

The first 4 episodes are bad. Bad acting, pacing, etc. I ended up fast forwarding through a good chunk of dialogue. It's still fun to look at, as is most Star Wars stuff for me. It also has Manny from the Good Place. I kept expecting him to throw a molotov ****tail and talk about Blake Bortles. He's the best actor in the bunch by a mile. In episode 5 it suddenly got good. Granted episode 5 was all action, but:

Spoiler

They killed off almost all of the annoying characters. Like they really wiped the slate clean. After 5, they started really unveiling the mystical mystery that the pot revolves around. It was much more interesting than the terrible personal dynamics of the first 4 episodes.

So it ended better than it started, which is actually how I feel most of the Star Wars content is. Other than Bad batch, the animated stuff was all pretty tough in the first season. So I guess it is a shame it got canned, but not really. There are plenty of other things to watch. 

[majestic]

For a moment I thought you were talking about Ahsoka, but then I realized you meant the other pretty useless Star Wars series. I actually liked The Acolyte more than Ahsoka, but that's just me being me. I also thought The Book of Boba Fett was more interesting than The Mandalorian for most of its run, but people hated The Book of Boba Fett and loved The Mandalorian - well, except season three. I think that was universally reviled, and rightly so.

Edit: The funniest thing about The Acolyte was everyone complaining about the sexist lesbian force cult, as if the former Star Wars canon did not have the Nightsisters of Dathomir, a secretive, matriarchal and sexist cult of force users who made no real distinction between the light and the dark side. They even rode rancors to battle just to make them even more ridiculous.  

Edited July 7 by majestic

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Edit: The funniest thing about The Acolyte was everyone complaining about the sexist lesbian force cult, as if the former Star Wars canon did not have the Nightsisters of Dathomir, a secretive, matriarchal and sexist cult of force users who made no real distinction between the light and the dark side. They even rode rancors to battle just to make them even more ridiculous.  

Yeah, I found the woke police were once again ridiculously off base. The Nightsisters were a bit toned down from the Clone Wars, but they fit the lore nicely. I haven't watched Ahsoka, I will watch it after Rebels. Given that I enjoy Rosario Dawson, I imagine I will be happy with it. It really just comes down to the actor in most of these series for me. I know the Obiwan Kenobi show was pretty weak, but I can watch Ewan McGregor do pretty much anything.

Actually I'm watching Ewan McGregor ride an old motorcycle across Scandinavia with my wife in a series called Long Way Home. That is also pretty good.

 

[rjshae]

Made it through A Handmaids Tale. At first the premise seemed ludicrous, except the same behavior has been practiced by monarchs throughout history. As shown throughout the tale it actually could have been much worse for the protagonist. The situation in D.C. was particularly gruesome. The eventual redemption of Serena didn't quite work for me; it somehow seemed a bit forced. But overall the plot was satisfying, and I liked that it ended unfinished as it was the end of her particular story.

[LadyCrimson]

Got around to finishing Squid Game/3.  The first few episodes were the best ones, impactful, but after that, for me it was meh. After the 4th episode it was completely obvious where they were going and it kind of killed my motivation to finish, which is why I took a while to do so. Anyway, spoiler section:

---the main issue for me is once most/all one already cared about are gone and CGI-baby exists, I knew immediately what would likely happen and that scenario wasn't going to do it for me  unless they did the final "game" process really really well. And I was right, and it didn't.
---cop-brother went nowhere, and worse, the show never made me care about it. He's just an idiot the entire time, with no conclusion for him.
---I did like that the father w/sick child got out.
---30-40 minute "epilogue?" Really? Could have used some of that time to make the final game or the brother side plot a little more weighty.

Should have only had one side-plot - either the brother or the female guard's.  Just felt like padding for splitting up what should've been a single-run 2nd season.
I didn't mind the very last scene, not surprising they'd leave a weird opening for future tie-ins. I kind of doubt the actual writer/director is interested in doing more, from what I've read - well, unless they toss him truly absurd amounts of money perhaps. But Netflix could still do a prequel, if mostly new team and actors (which is where I think they'd most likely go). I would not be interested myself.

========
Also been watching more of Potato Lab, but FWD'ing through side plots. The two leads still have these S-Korean romance and group social series slapstick type moments that make me laugh - like this cooking competition bit that almost felt anime jokey. The usual "drama conflict padding" side chrs are a snooze tho. But those funny moments are great.