What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Watched the first episode of season 2 of The Witcher, and enjoyed it quite a lot.

Finished all six episodes of Hellbound on Netflix. This South Korean show is about people who get cursed to go to Hell at a certain date and time, and then these giant smoke / rock monsters come and beat the hell out of them. The first episode didn't really pull me in, but I gave it another chance and it really took off. I liked it and I must say, if ANYONE guesses how this series ends, you are some sort of telepath.

1883 - Overhyped but it is a good western so far. I like the Oregon Trail type of stuff so I'm along for the ride at least as far as that goes. The young actress has a familiar look that kept making me think she was related to someone famous but checked and she's nobody before this. I've never watched Yellowstone and probably won't still.

Watched the first 3 episodes of Station Eleven. I like it, but.... it's pretty hard to watch a show about a pandemic while living through a pandemic.

Seems a bit masochistic.

ChristopherMD wrote: 1883 - Overhyped but it is a good western so far. I like the Oregon Trail type of stuff so I'm along for the ride at least as far as that goes. The young actress has a familiar look that kept making me think she was related to someone famous but checked and she's nobody before this. I've never watched Yellowstone and probably won't still.

I still watch YELLOWSTONE as sort of a guilty mindless pleasure. This season has seen a steep drop off in quality. Showrunner Taylor Sheridan, who also writes, directs, produces, and washes dishes on YELLOWSTONE, 1883, MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN, and several other projects in the works for the Paramount streaming service seems hell bent on ramming his metaverse of series down viewers throats in whatever way he can via commericals, in episode crossover scenes, etc. Its gotten out of control and people are social media are rightfully pissed.

Hawkeye - Weakest Avenger manages to carry the weight of his own show. I've never liked Clint very much and even less after his murder-spree as Ronin. Kate Bishop on the other hand is more of a role-model and has a backstory beyond "I used to murder even more people." I like that her and the new Black Widow are going to end up friends like original Hawkeye and BW were.

Did everyone here give up on Wheel of Time? Or is it just less of a priority compared to other new stuff to hit streaming?

Yes.

Shellhead wrote: Did everyone here give up on Wheel of Time? Or is it just less of a priority compared to other new stuff to hit streaming?

THE EXPANSE is my first priority when I wake up Friday mornings. WoT ....whenever I get around to it.

And next week, BOOK OF BOBA FETT will likely take over the top slot in terms of priority.

Shellhead wrote: Did everyone here give up on Wheel of Time? Or is it just less of a priority compared to other new stuff to hit streaming?

I just finished the season of Wheel of Time. I quite liked it, and will watch more, assuming they make more.

hotseatgames wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Did everyone here give up on Wheel of Time? Or is it just less of a priority compared to other new stuff to hit streaming?

I just finished the season of Wheel of Time. I quite liked it, and will watch more, assuming they make more.

They renewed it for Season 2 before the premiere even aired.

I started The Silent Sea on Netflix. This South Korean sci-fi series has a team of astronauts (comprised of some actors from Squid Game and The Stranger) on a salvage mission to a moon base that was the site of a catastrophe 5 years earlier. Let's just say the mission does not go as planned.

I'm two episodes in, and this is some quality television.

Shellhead wrote: Did everyone here give up on Wheel of Time? Or is it just less of a priority compared to other new stuff to hit streaming?

I like it a lot. I think they've made some smart choices with the story and I dig the diversity of the cast - makes the world feel very different from other fantasy shows. The showrunners can obviously still tank it (just see how the final seasons of GoT went), but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Hawkeye is the best Disney+ Marvel show yet, just edging out WandaVision by virtue of better sticking the landing, and even approaching the rarefied air of first and third season Daredevil and first season Jessica Jones. Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld make an excellent buddy cop team, and Jack Duquesne and the Tracksuit Mafia bros steal their scenes. “I read a book on becoming a step-parent,” and “Do we look like the Royal Tenenbaums?” killed me. I’ve seen people online complain that characters aren’t set up well enough or their motivations too murky, but if those are the sacrifices for a six episode season that never loses its momentum, I’ll take it.

The observation that every Marvel movie only exists to set up the next one isn’t new, but this is the first Marvel thing I’ve seen that really made me consider its impact on storytelling. Marvel can’t tell a story with a beginning, middle and end anymore. A character’s arc can never be truly over because then they couldn’t be teased for the next thing, and even death isn’t an end with time travel and the multiverse firmly established. On the one hand, this is terribly frustrating as a single movie or television season can’t satisfy on its own without feeling like you’re missing something by not watching the five films that laid the ground work and the coming two series that continue it. On the other hand, the groundwork is there for writers and performers to build on rather than recreate again and again. The assassin’s scenes with Kate and Clint wouldn’t work the way they do without a movie’s worth of introduction. At the same time, a new character doesn’t feel like she earns her screen time without the knowledge that she is being primed for her own spin-off series.

The cynic in me says this is turning movies and television into both a nostalgia for what came before and advertising for what comes next while steadfastly refusing to allow it it be itself by itself. The optimist says this is a form of storytelling never before practiced on such an immense scale that only needs the right writers and directors to create astounding art.

It’s probably in the middle and will slide between the poles with every creation.

I also saw the first two episodes of PEN15. It is not the hard sex comedy the trailers led me to expect but an emotionally intimate comedy of teenagers trying and failing to navigate the line between a child and an adult and to be cool. It’s hilarious (“Isn’t he eight?” “But he’s really hot.”) and maybe even brilliant, but my emotional tolerance for teenagers trying and failing to navigate the line be between a child and an adult and to be cool is basement low. I don’t know how long I’ll last without pulling the blanket over my head and plugging my ears, but it’s worth more of my time now.

DarthJoJo wrote: Marvel can’t tell a story with a beginning, middle and end anymore. A character’s arc can never be truly over because then they couldn’t be teased for the next thing, and even death isn’t an end with time travel and the multiverse firmly established.

Uh... welcome to superhero comics?

I'm watching season five of Community. Season four was slightly disappointing, but season five is back on track. There were a few brilliant episodes in the early seasons where the show turns into a different genre for an entire episode due to paintball. This time, it wasn't paintball, it was a high stakes contest of The Floor is Lava, transforming this modest sitcom about a community college into a hellish post-apocalypse episode that was clearly inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road. This is a kind of thing that Community does from time to time, and yet it's always fresh and fun.