What TV SHOWS are you watching?

For anyone who lived in the NYV metro area in the 80s, CLASS ACTION PARK on HBO MAX is worth a watch. More homage than true documentary, nevertheless interesting . Didn't learn a ton of new things. One that was amusing was that the makeshift first aid station had a white spray painted circle on the floor. If a patient managed to stay inside the circle without flinching/backing out when being sprayed with a rumored mixture of iodine and rubbing alcohol that stung like a mofo , you won a door prize of some sort.

They did mostly interviews with former employees and customers, as well as the family of the first fatality, a kid who hit his head after flying off the alpine slide and hitting his head on a rock.

Class Action Park was an enjoyable watch. I think one Geoff Engelstein has actually been there.

I survived two trips there in the 80s; my only wound being a burn on my arm going down the nearly vertical waterslide.

I went there a handful of times as well. I definitely got some road rash from the alpine slide, but not half as bad as most of the angry looking dads you'd see walking around with glistening wounds covering most of one or the other sides of their bodies. My most vivid memories of Action Park are how preternaturally cold the water was at a couple of the attractions and the ominous spectre of that crazy loop de loop slide off in the distance that was (thankfully?) never open on any of my visits.

We watched the end of The Good Place, which my spouse loves. It's one of the few longer TV shows that ends really well.

I watched the latest season (sixth) of Bosch on Amazon Prime.
It's basically a network cop show but with SWEAR WORDS so you know it's cable quality. The acting is good at times. Titus Welliver is 60 and forced to do action sequences despite have a typical 60 year old dad bod. Some of the more brutal elements of his special forces background come into play. Sometimes the acting is good, and other times it isn't. The plotting of the season was fun to watch as they had a lot of balls in the air and managed to bring it all together. I can't tell if the dialogue at times is wooden and banal intentionally, to make a sort of point about the dullness of police work and office life, or if it's just not great writing this season.

Lance Reddick plays an ambitious police chief with a lot of questionable moments in his past and a terrifying presence to an almost cuddly family man. Jamie Hector does a great job as Bosch's partner, Jay Edgar. There is such a lack of chemistry between Bosch and his daughter that I wonder if they have some kind of tension in real life. There is a minor thread in this season where two older detectives, Crate and Barrel (nicknames) make real contributions to solving cases because of their accumulated experience. Nice to see old people portrayed as humans. I'm ten years away from being those guys. The show is based on books by Michael McConnelly. I need to read a few.

Even though it is imperfect, the sixth season fulfilled its noir-ish requirements of filling me with a sense of dread, bleakness, and almost overwhelming nihilism. Bosch spends a lot of time staring out over Los Angeles at night, and it makes you think about all those lives, and what they mean. To quote Ted Bundy, "There's so many people" I got that same sense of unease or queasiness when riding with friends to dinner in Harbin, China and passing endless massive, towering apartment complexes. So many people--how do you find meaning in the urban hive of humanity? Bosch keeps the nihilism at bay with his righteous anger and sense of justice. It's all that holds him together, even as it pushes away his coworkers and surviving family. Bosch also listens to a lot of great jazz, so we get a little bit of an education.

I had sort of a similar reaction to you, I watched the first two or three seasons of Bosch before checking out. It was puzzling because it was trying to be a prestige style show but it was a really, really straight ahead detective show besides people being extra miserable.

Gary Sax wrote: It was puzzling because it was trying to be a prestige style show but it was a really, really straight ahead detective show besides people being extra miserable.

Ha ha ha well said. Just don't voice those sentiments over on /r/bosch, they will not thank you.

Been working through the DC animated Harley Quinn show on HBOmax.

REALLY REALLY good, once it gets over the "OMG we can say FUCK and actually kill people on this show!" over reaction in the first episode. It pretty quickly settles down into a very fun "hint hint wink wink" honest send-up of a lot of DC lore and tropes. I LOVE the Bruce Timm inspired designs, his stuff IS animated DC to me. I wish it would push the sexuality along with the language and gore but I get that DC probably doesn't want officially sanctioned Rule34 stuff out there, even if King Shark decapitating a child is ok.

Voice work is pretty good. Kaley Cuolo took an ep for 2 for me to enjoy, but now she is quickly over taking Arleen Sorkin and Tara Strong as my favorite iteration. Other than the Joker (that will ALWAYS be Hamill for me) the other cast do a great job though many of the voices are more on the silly side of casting.

It's always fun when DC can bring all their toys out to play, thus the lego shows and the DCAU are my favorite ways to consume DC because they can lean into the ridiculousness of DC, pull the obscure deep cuts, and still get a morality story in there.

Started to watch American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Got three episodes in and was starting to think that the limited scope of life in an underground bunker after nuclear war wasn't going to be enough to carry the season. Then three characters swoop in from a previous season of AHS and suddenly I have no idea what will happen next. It could be fun, but if there is going to be a 10th season of AHS, they will need some new faces in the writers room.

We've been watching the new version of All Creatures Great and Small and I highly recommend it. Even if you liked the old classic BBC series, this version brings a slightly different tone that is nevertheless extremely warm and good.

Shellhead wrote: Started to watch American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Got three episodes in and was starting to think that the limited scope of life in an underground bunker after nuclear war wasn't going to be enough to carry the season. Then three characters swoop in from a previous season of AHS and suddenly I have no idea what will happen next. It could be fun, but if there is going to be a 10th season of AHS, they will need some new faces in the writers room.

Apocalypse was wacky as fuck. YMMV in whether or not it was in a good way.

But 1984 gave me some hope AHS can turn it around.

I've been blitzing through PEAKY BLINDERS. Season 1 was great, loved it. Season 2 uses rape as plot device a lot and sucks. So fucking lazy. SO LAZY. I'm pissed off. Started Season 3, so we'll see where it goes, but I might bail.

I screeched to a halt after the first episode of season 2 and haven't been back. As you say, it was disappointing because season 1 seemed great, if a bit clichéd. The first episode of season 2 seemed like a Matrix Reloaded situation: "Wait. You mean... it worked?! Now we have to find some way to expand our nicely succinct and closed story because there's money to be made? OK."

We're in the middle of the first season of Tremé. I'm a David Simon fan since The Wire, but had never gotten to the former because I knew it would remind me so much of New Orleans and I want to go back. (I love that town.) And it does, but we can't go anywhere right now, so whatevs. I love it, as I almost knew I would. It's Simon's usual approach, with realistic characters and a lot of nuanced, emotional interplay. But it's also suffused with NO music and a lot of people in the life role that I'm in (creative, with a skillset that society does not deem valuable and/or just never been noticed.)

I’m a pretty big fan of Peaky Blinders, but it has real plot issues. Seasons one through four have the exact same arc. Tommy wants to expand the family business. You can’t do that, Tommy. Billy Kimber/the London gangs/the Russians/the Americans are super hardcore. Tommy is tricksy and wins. Season five is definitely the best since the first in that it actually feels like the Shelby family is struggling and Tommy might lose.

That said, I always enjoy everything else around the writing. The costumes and sets and music are pretty great. I came for Cillian Murphy but stayed for Paul Anderson and Helen McCrory (so long as she isn’t crying through seasons two through four), and there are some terrific guest spots from Adrien Brody and Tom Hardy.

Can’t blame anyone for not liking it. It’s far from perfect and doesn’t do anything groundbreaking. It looks like prestige television but lacks the narrative and emotional heft. Still, I enjoy it enough to look forward to every new season drop on Netflix.