The TV and Streaming Thread: That's Entertainment!

[Sarex]

A House of Dynamite (2025). Bone chilling and for none of the obvious reasons.

[LadyCrimson]

Tried two episodes of Typhoon Family (k-drama, netflix).

Mostly because ever since Rain or Shine (melodrama-rom, with a background seemingly inspired by the collapse of Sampoong Dept. Store) I will try anything with Lee Jun-Ho (he's a member of 2PM/singer) in it as a lead.  King of the Land (pure rom com) was fun at the start but fell off for me midway and The Red Sleeve (rom-drama) was fairly decent even tho I'm tired of Joseon-era settings. Rain or Shine is the best (main lead) series of his imo, tho.

Anyway - this new one is more of a period/business/relationship drama+romance. The period is the late 1990's, so that's fine for me, during that era's  financial crisis. Rich boi loses richness/faces tragedy and tries to make it in the aftermath. It seems pretty good, but not sure it's fitting my mood.  I'll give it my usual 4 episodes try. Many at dramabeans seem to love it, so my reservation is likely my usual grumpy old fart-ness.   >.> 

Lee Jun-Ho and Kim Min-ha are both great tho.

Edited October 25 by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

Task - HBO, 3 episodes (hubby continued to watch another couple, but I wandered off)

Not bad. I thought there would be a little more, y'know, detective-ing and crime-ing, but it's well acted and mostly well written and spends a lot of time developing characters. A lot of family-drama vibes on top of the crime-drama. Definitely worth a shot if that's a genre one likes. If I don't get around to watching more of it, that's more about me and my attention span/lack of daily interest in watching TV etc.  Those first few episodes were certainly interesting enough.

[Lexx]

Watched ep1 of the new Witcher season. It is... actually good. Looks like the backlash from the last season was so terrible that they actually got their **** together. It's a shame that Henry Cavill isn't there anymore, but Liam Hemsworth is not bad. They even remade some of the earlier scenes for flashbacks with him. Can't say how true to the books it is now, because I barely remember anything of it, but yeah... I didn't hate that episode and will watch more for now.

[rjshae]

I watched Vinland Saga on Hulu; it wasn't bad for a semi-historical drama (and it lacked anything resembling anime goofiness). Unfortunately, the second season isn't available yet.

[BruceVC]

On 10/27/2025 at 9:27 AM, LadyCrimson said:

Task - HBO, 3 episodes (hubby continued to watch another couple, but I wandered off)

Not bad. I thought there would be a little more, y'know, detective-ing and crime-ing, but it's well acted and mostly well written and spends a lot of time developing characters. A lot of family-drama vibes on top of the crime-drama. Definitely worth a shot if that's a genre one likes. If I don't get around to watching more of it, that's more about me and my attention span/lack of daily interest in watching TV etc.  Those first few episodes were certainly interesting enough.

Its excellent, one of the best police dramas I have ever seen. Complex and nuanced characters really make the show 

You should watch it to the end

[Amentep]

looks wild

 

[Raithe]

Well this has started up now...

 

[LadyCrimson]

Karate Kid Legends - in a review of The Long Walk, the young Asian actor in that was mentioned re: this movie. Which made me go "There's yet another KK movie?"
----certainly can't hold a candle to the original film (RIP, Pat), but there was enough scattered nostalgia-bait to make me smile. I liked the middle section with the father chr. the most, it had the best chr. moments imo - the bully vs underdog aspects didn't work for me here because it seemed to take backstage, thus "don't care".  I liked it a fair bit better than Will Smith's son version - although since - outside of J. Chan - I actively disliked that one, not sure if that's a glowing endorsement.

Last Samurai Standing - battle royale, short series, in the after-Edo period. Desperate ex-samurai get into a thing - with over-dramatic political/rich conspiracy in the background.
----I wasn't super feeling it until the 3rd episode. 3rd episode was a corker imo and convinced me. Once the number of people is whittled down a bit, series starts to come together better.
----action sequences, mostly awesome. Camera work, choreography.
----No magic/superpowers, but some of that anime speed/strength, especially a couple chrs.
----you'll hear "it's like Squid Game" a lot perhaps in reviews. But outside of the rich politicians making bets (which IS very squid game feeling), the rest isn't.
----mostly action, some humanistic elements, good cast, I ended up liking it. Action stuff: 8.5/10, overall: 6,5/10

Edited November 15 by LadyCrimson

[Raithe]

 

[majestic]

Yay, another beloved franchise ruined by Amazon, can't wait.  

[Hurlshort]

17 minutes ago, majestic said:

Yay, another beloved franchise ruined by Amazon, can't wait.  

I think I've done this before, but Amazon did make The Boys, Bosch, Jack Ryan, Good Omens, Invincible, The Expanse, etc.

The only thing they've messed up that I can see is The Wheel of Time. I know you dislike Rings of Power, but even with that, they aren't doing too bad with that track record.

[rjshae]

4 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I think I've done this before, but Amazon did make The Boys, Bosch, Jack Ryan, Good Omens, Invincible, The Expanse, etc.

The only thing they've messed up that I can see is The Wheel of Time. I know you dislike Rings of Power, but even with that, they aren't doing too bad with that track record.

Plus Fallout.

Funny thing about The Wheel of Time is that the reviews/ratings improved every season, but that wasn't enough to keep it going. I thought from the start that the concept was hopelessly ambitious. Word has it that Jordan planned this as a trilogy, then dragged it out for 14 volumes. It was badly in need of significant trimming.

[Zoraptor]

Fallout is hopefully a good comparison, considering they've got some pretty good and committed talent involved. Not Nolan level in absolute terms, but in relative terms about as good as you could hope for.

(The Jordan stuff was a bit complicated: the first book of WoT was written potentially as a standalone. Which is why it has some... oddities in its conclusion. All the books had a lot of foreshadowing, some for things that happened much much later so it was obviously planned from the start as more than three books; if it sold well. Still, compares well to a certain other fantasy author whose planned trilogy is meant to be 7 books if he could ever finish the sixth one more than a decade later)

4 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I think I've done this before, but Amazon did make The Boys, Bosch, Jack Ryan, Good Omens, Invincible, The Expanse, etc.

Amazon didn't make The Expanse, it just funded the last three seasons.

The same people made all six seasons, and the first three were not Prime exclusives (->on Syfy in the US).

(Pretty sure it was the same for Bosch, not really my thing but I'm 90% sure I remember it on network TV)

[ShadySands]

I thought Bosch was an original too. I vaguely remember Amazon airing some pilots and just continuing with the most popular one, and I think Bosch was the winner. There was this supernatural one I was interested in where these people lose some time in a building but in the outside world even more time passed and something something.

Edited 5 hours ago by ShadySands

[Lexx]

10 hours ago, majestic said:

Yay, another beloved franchise ruined by Amazon, can't wait.  

Didn't they already do new shows and they sucked? Last I remember, there was some prequel show, but apparently it was just shait. Never watched it myself because the reviews sucked.

Edited 2 hours ago by Lexx

[majestic]

29 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Didn't they already do new shows and they sucked? Last I remember, there was some prequel show, but apparently it was just shait. Never watched it myself because the reviews sucked.

One, Stargate Origins. Which I successfully ignored so far, and yeah, it was apparently pretty terrible. 

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I thought Bosch was an original too.

Yep, it was definitely an Amazon original. It was on network TV here which is what I was remembering.

(Same was true for Orange is the New Black/ House of Cards and whatever the werewolves show was with Famke Janssen for Netflix, all were on network tv here but not in the US. And funnily enough, Rings of Power is on a domestic free streaming platform at the moment here)