What TV SHOWS are you watching?

dysjunct wrote: THE BOYS, unironically and enthusiastically. Great, can’t wait for season 2.

The last 90 seconds of season 1 cured me of any desire to continue with The Boys.

That and I still got a thing for Elizabeth Shue.

mtagge wrote: Over the last month finished up two Amazon Prime shows and one Netflix one, all extremely well done.

All in all I think I am a fan of limited series. They are much more satisfying to me than open ended series. I did watch Dark Crystal: Age of Rebellion a while back when it came out and have mixed feelings about it. I don't like that it was left open for a season two. I also don't like the incongruities with the movie, nor the fact the gelflings won and banded together. I also have thoughts on the mystics being just as responsible for the skeksis's evil, but that is another discussion.

I think that it is interesting that Gelflings won the battle, but we know they lose the war. How they squander these initial gains, I assume, will be the focus of the next season. I can't see them stringing it out more than that. Will people want to see the Gelfings slowly slide into near extinction episode after episode? The Mystics are just as responsible. They could commit suicide and rid the world of the Skeksis if they so chose.

I binged the Netflix show Top Boy. An enjoyable crime drama set in London. I'm a sucker for English crime dramas, so this was a natural fit.

Finished Carole and Tuesday, or at least I finished the first half of the season available on Netflix. I can’t argue it’s essential viewing and the anime library is wide and deep enough that it doesn’t need another entry in “anime for people who don’t like anime genre”, but it is a charming thing. The characters are well defined, and the animation is absolutely gorgeous, especially during the Mars Brightest arc. You’d think they were rotoscoped even when it’s a woman mostly standing still. And the songs hit. Rather important for a series about two girls trying to make it. If you just want the good stuff, search for the Carole and Tuesday, Angela, Cybelle and GGK clips on YouTube. If you want a laugh, search for the two-minute Mermaid Sisters clip. It’s comfort food anime, something nice after a long day.

Halfway through season five of Peaky Blinders. It could very well be my favorite. I’ve enjoyed the production and performance (at least when they let Polly cut loose and not be a wreck) of the other seasons, but the arc always felt the same. “Don’t go up against Billy Kimber/London/the Russians/the Americans, Tommy. They’re mad. They’ll kill you.” But then he outmaneuvers them just fine and is only the stronger for it. Now his opponent wants them to work together, and he’s losing the support of his family. It’ll probably end the same as every other season, but I am enjoying this new dynamic. On a side note, I think Peaky Blinders does a better job of recognizing how evil Tommy is than Breaking Bad, but it has the same problem as it did with Walter White where it just keeps putting him up against worse people to make their protagonist look better in comparison. “Well you have to cheer for Tommy/Walt. Otherwise you’re on the side of fascists/Neo Nazis.”

Enjoying Spy on Netflix which features Sasha Cohen (Borat) in a serious role all about an Israeli spy in Syria in the 60s.

He is great in this short (6 episodes I think) series and well worth a watch.

Finished season two of Babylon Five, at a more leisurely pace than my usual binge rate. In fact, I haven't been able to watch two episodes in a row without falling asleep during the second one. Season two is better than season one, but I actually haven't warmed up to the new commander yet. He is pretty bland, even in comparison to the first season guy, although there have been a couple of episodes where he showed definite potential for improvement. The writing is better and the long-term storyline has come fully into view, but the storytelling is a bit heavy-handed compared to subsequent television shows with long story arcs. The Mid-Atlantic Accent continues to plague the show, and seems to be an intentional element that continues to undermine the actors. I don't think Babylon Five is a great show, but it's moderately entertaining, and I will continue with third season.

B5 definitely shows its age, but it was also a pathbreaker, with the attendant in-hindsight weaknesses and some casting unevenness, mostly with the guest stars. Since you're still working on it, I won't go into my views on it other than to say that I've enjoyed it a lot over the years but that it's amenable to significant critique as well.

For a show 25 years old, it was ahead of its time. Yeah it hasn’t aged well, but still worth watching.

Question for Star Trek fans: I've seen every episode of the original series multiple times and every episode of The Next Generation at least once. But Deep Space Nine didn't really hook me and neither did Voyager. I started watching DS9 on Netflix, but find myself a little impatient with the usual structure (Problem, 1st commercial, increased problem 2nd commercial, crisis point, 3rd commercial, resolution) and the sorting out of relationships and general weird stuff from being near the wormhole in the first season or two. I know that it picks up into real tension around the third(?) season when contact with the Dominion is made and a lot of political activity begins between the various factions on this side (Federation, Klingons, Cardassians) figuring out how to deal with the arrival of this new threat/potential ally. Can anyone clue me in to when that stuff really gets rolling? I'm thinking I might skip ahead to that point as, otherwise, it's going to take me forever to watch all of them, which I've kind of decided I'm going to do, at some point. Thanks.

Season 5 finale. Here's the wikipedia description:
"Faced with the realization that the Dominion are taking over the Alpha Quadrant, Sisko decides to mine the entrance to the wormhole with self-replicating cloaked mines, thus beginning the Dominion War."
Followed by a basically six-part episode in season 6.

Although I feel you'd be better off looking up lists of top episodes per season and watching those. Every season was a mixed bag.

The show begins early on pretty episodically and the Dominion is introduced (I believe) in the second season. They gradually become more important with more interconnected episodes and serialization. The conflict begins first more as a cold war and then breaks out into an out-and-out total war in the sixth and seventh season (concluding in the finale). It's probably possible to pick out specific episodes to follow just that storyline, but it's pretty tied into other stories as well.

I'd start in season 3 or 4, but you won't regret starting later.

Finished season five of Peaky Blinders. Yeah, it's pretty easily my favorite season. The shifted dynamic, not of Tommy striving for more but trying to hold onto what he has against upstarts, has been a joy for this audience of one. There were several absolute beautiful long takes. Peaky Blinders is a show that loves its style, its soundtrack and slow walks past the flames of Small Heath and Cillian Murphy hiding his eyes behind his cap, and these oners were showy, but none of them felt excessive or unnecessary. They all were used deliberately, to guide the viewer on their emotional journey. My only complaint remains what I alluded to at the beginning of the season, the writer's need to keep Tommy Shelby not just the protagonist but the hero. He does many despicable things, but several women tell him he's a good man and his enemies are always worse than him. And Winston Churchill admires him. It feels like Steven Knight doesn't trust his audience not to not cheer for him.

I've read about a suggested episode guide of DS9 that Wil Wheaton is currently following for his first viewing of the series. Seemed interesting.

The pilot of the new HBO series Watchmen was really something.

I went into it with pretty low expectations, given Damon Lindelof as the showrunner. He's written many of the dumbest sci-fi movies in recent years (Star Trek Into Darkness, Prometheus, Cowboys & Aliens, World War Z), and his work on Lost was .... well, let's just say "spotty." However, I did hear generally good things about The Leftovers (I never watched it).

I thought it was a great pilot TV episode. It laid out the bare bones of the world, introduced some key characters, sketched out the conflict, and left you with a whole bunch of intriguing questions. The music was cool, the action scenes were tense and exciting, and the dialogue was pretty sharp.

As a Watchmen "sequel" ... it remains to be seen. I haven't read Watchmen in years and years, but I was able to catch most of the references to the cast and events of the book. Somebody coming into this show without that background had to have been seriously confused. It's not clear until you're a little ways into the episode that this is an alternate history story.

The actors were great, especially Regina King. So, there's a lot to like here so far. However, I remain skeptical that Lindelof can pull this off. He's tackling some complex themes here. His previous work doesn't give me much confidence that he can execute this with the intelligence and nuance that's required.

Saw El Camino: dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/h...ruck-half-story.html