What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Capaldi might be my favorite Doctor because of his suspicion of military culture and his Tom Baker-ish wildness. I loved his run.

But the first episode with Jodie Whittaker was great! I would gladly watch more episodes with that cast. The plot itself was serviceable, but it was a great setup for a new era.

Rescue Me is streaming on Amazon Prime. I knew of the show when it was on the air and remember it being well regarded but I never watched it.

I've only seen 3 episodes but it's pretty impressive so far. Dennis Leary is a pretty good actor and I wonder how much of a hand he had in actually writing the show. He is, of course, given a writing credit but did he do just the comical ball busting at the firehouse bits or was he more deeply involved in the more dramatic parts of the show?

In either case, this is good adult drama and I'm enjoying it.

I watched that when it came out, but I fell off of it before it ended, at some point. We used to look forward to the inevitable moment in every episode when Leary would throw a bottle against a wall.

ChristopherMD wrote: Enjoyed the new Doctor Who and think this could be a really good season with the new showrunner too.

I kept thinking every line was a Matt Smith doctor line for the first 3/4 of the show. Which was a good thing, because she sounded like The Doctor. The last 1/4 was a bit more vulnerable(?) I think it's going to be a fun ride..and and typical duh! to the BBC for spoiling the new theme rendition in the guest stars trailer on you tube. Wtf bbc.

hotseatgames wrote: I watched that when it came out, but I fell off of it before it ended, at some point. We used to look forward to the inevitable moment in every episode when Leary would throw a bottle against a wall.

Same here. It's a quality show but after a few seasons it's a bit repetitive.

I just watched the Doctor Who premiere.

Jodie Whitaker is awesome. I think we are in good hands. Charming, funny, moral, and I love how she treats the companions so far. Look, I -loved- Capaldi but the surliness was his thing. I like how JW’s Doctor has such a positive attitude, her whole tone was “OK, I know I’m in charge here and I’m the smartest person in the room...but I have no idea what I’m doing. What can I do to help you?” I’m really looking forward to a kinder Doctor...and lighter adventures wihout all of Moffat’s portentiousness. No more doom.

Companions, it’s hard to say right now. I don’t think we are in a Donna situation though.

The episode was really just kind of “good”, I didn’t think the Tim Shaw thing was all that great. Plus, it reminded me of the monster on that Candle Cove show. A lot. Odd that he came out of a Dragon Quest slime!

Definitely on board. Not like I wasn’t already, but I think I’m on board more than I’ve been since early Tennant.

I'm behind. I'm trying to watch them in order and I just can't get through Matt Smith. I need to just move to the next season and give up on his stuff. He's in a tie with Colin Baker for me for worst Doc.

Whoa now. Smith isn’t THAT bad. Seriously, go back and watch some Colin Baker stories. He is just a straight up ass. In a clown suit. He’s the only doctor that has no redeeming qualities.

I think Smith is fine but he would have played better if he didn’t come after Tennant. They are too similar.

But yeah, some of those late Smith episodes really drag. There are some bright spots, like Gaiman’s very excellent episode. But that was the point where the show started to become too doomy and portentious. And all of the Doctor’s Name/Trenzalore/River Song crap...OMG, the River Song crap...

I’m working back through Peter Davison right now and then hitting some of the McCoy stories I haven’t seen. Some of those are pretty tough going...the show was kind of at a dead end and struggling. But McCoy was a decent Doctor and Ace was awesome. One of the best companions.

If you want to get caught right up, I think you could get by just by watching the last Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time. It’s a classic “multi-Doctor” thing...but with Capaldi and...the First Doctor! It’s really funny and it has some great references. There’s an awesome bit where the First Doctor sees bits of all the subsequent ones and is kind of shocked...Capaldi comes in - “well they left out all the jokes”. But it leads right into Jodie Whitaker, and I think you get enough of a gist of what happened without having to labor through all of the Clara Oswald stuff.

I think a big part of Colin's problem was John Nathan Turner and some truly insipid writing. At the time you'd see photos of the two of them all the time, as if they were a Doctor Duo. That didn't work and I think it's a big part of the reason the show came to an end. They lost their core base in Britain, at a time when that was the only place the shows ratings made much of a difference. BBC didn't see the show as an exportable product short of videotapes shipped to Commonwealth Countries and U.S. Public Television for a few pennies.

Davison is good, and there was good writing, but those shows were made in an era when the pacing was much slower and they were still episodic -- there were three or more 30 minute releases per story. So you get a sort of sing-songy cadence to the stories where there are multiple cliff-hanger moments that then promptly resolve themselves. At one point I think Davison has four sidekicks. Busy place.

I really liked McCoy and Ace kicked ass. There was some very good writing in that era and I think McCoy did a good job of keeping things lighter.

Tenant was a tough act to follow.

I finished Slasher Season 1 and it was good...up until the last episode, that is. The season seemed to be pointing toward a reckoning regarding the town's sordid past and all of their secrets but very little of it came to fruition. The killer ended up being a cipher with the most perfunctory of motivations, explained by a by-the-numbers flashback. The killer could have literally been anyone else in the cast and it would have been more interesting than what they went with, which is a shame because the earlier episodes were so promising. The small-town-with-secrets setting was engrossing once the secrets started coming out, but I can't recommend this season unless one is okay with basically all of those revelations not amounting to very much.

We've also been watching some horror anthology shows this month for Halloween. I watched the "The Little People" episode of The Twilight Zone with my six year-old daughter as an experiment to see if she would accept it despite it being in black and white and the slow pacing at the start. She took to it immediately (my favorite quote of hers, "I like this show, it's like a mystery!") though I had to explain part of the twist. We watched "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" as well, but she didn't quite understand the hook of the episode (i.e., post-nervous breakdown man sees gremlin, no one believes him) and she kept getting distracted by thinking the gremlin was a little man, so she never fully got into it.

My sons and I went through all the best Tales from the Crypt episodes last year so this year I've been trying to mix in some deep cuts that are still worth seeing. We watched "The New Arrival" and "The Reluctant Vampire", both of which were mediocre. TNA is an anti-child-psychology episode ripped straight from the headlines of 1958, and TRV is a touch too goofy for my taste but the ending is great.

This year I also intended to give some of the true crime episodes more of a chance since I think 70% of them put me to sleep on my first watch of the entire series several years ago, so I watched "The Sacrifice." Okay, screw the true crime episodes, "The Sacrifice" sucks: a ridiculously predictable "shocking" twist mixed with some Skinemax-level softcore makes for a dull time.

Also, I just finished the latest season of Better Call Saul and it was excellent. First, I should say that I could have done without the Nacho/Gus/Salemanca/Mike B-plot that comes across as tortured, elaborate fan service. Everything in that plot is moving at a glacial pace (so they don't catch up to the Breaking Bad timeline, presumably) and I really don't care who comes out on top in the New Mexico meth trade before Heisenberg shows up. However, Jimmy and Kim's arc were fantastic, and the final two scenes were pitch perfect.

Love how this discussion fits right into this

Checked out the first couple episodes of Star Wars Resistance. The animation style is a big improvement over Rebels and I bet we'll get some great aerial dogfights in this series. I'm also glad we're seeing pre-Force Awakens stuff and Phasma might actually not be a waste of celluloid if they can beef up her character here. The main hero characters are a mixed bag but could grow on me. I do like the Imperial Red Baron villain but they offset him with the comical fish-mobster villain. Also the pirate attack felt straight out of Tale Spin in a good way.

Half Price Books recently had their annual $2 clearance sale at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Every item was priced at $2 or less, and the first 200 people each day got free tote bags. I had just lost my job two days earlier, so I was one of the lucky 200 on the first day. They had a live band there, consisting of drums, trumpet, trombone, and tuba. I filled my tote bag with 15 movies, 2 seasons of tv shows, and a comic book trade paperback, for $36 plus tax.

So I have been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season three. I vaguely remembered it as possibly the best season, and it was a steal at $2. It has been a nice way to get into the Halloween spirit. At the time it aired, I was sometimes annoyed at the way the male characters tended to be relegated to secondary roles each episode. But in hindsight, a show like Buffy was good for women, because it encouraged them to not passively accept treatment as second-class citizens. The stories are good, Xander was less annoying than I remembered, and there were some good funny scenes.

Season 3, was that the mayor?
Yeah, that was a good one. The Halloween episodes were always a bit of fun too.

mc wrote: Season 3, was that the mayor?
Yeah, that was a good one. The Halloween episodes were always a bit of fun too.

Yep. The mayor, Faith, and Anya the vengeance demon were all in this season. It also set up the Angel spin-off that started the following season. I don't like Xander, but there was a great episode featuring Xander. And a couple of episodes featuring Willow as a very cool vampire.