What TV SHOWS are you watching?

I've been re-binging the first season of Justified. Ten episodes in, and I had forgotten how delightful it is, in a gritty sort of Kentucky-noir way. Also fun and unsettling knowing what fate awaits various characters.

Is it on a service, cranberries? I'd like to rewatch the guy from Deadwood pretend to be a gigantic strutting metaphor for a penis for a few seasons again...

Gary Sax wrote: Is it on a service, cranberries? I'd like to rewatch the guy from Deadwood pretend to be a gigantic strutting metaphor for a penis for a few seasons again...

It really is kind of a frat boy series. It's on Amazon Prime . Definitely a vacation binge.

bummer, we gave up prime this year! Wanted something light after our Bryce trip.

CranBerries wrote: I want to know what Mtagge was doing in Moscow, and if Mtagge has seen The Americans.

Foreign Service. It means I am unplugged from popular Western culture, don't always have reliable Internet access, live in cultures where intellectual property theft is rampant (as legally acquiring things is difficult to impossible). In fact I am breaking the law right now by posting here.

I watched a little of The Americans. In reality hostile intelligence is ham fisted and bulk gathered. The Russians broke into our place constantly. It was a bit actiony for my tastes.

Walton Goggins is the reason I enjoyed Justified.

CranBerries wrote: I've been re-binging the first season of Justified. Ten episodes in, and I had forgotten how delightful it is, in a gritty sort of Kentucky-noir way. Also fun and unsettling knowing what fate awaits various characters.

I liked Justified, but by the end of the fourth season, I was tired of watching Timothy Olyphant's smirk. Also, it seemed like the show peaked with the excellent second season. So I still haven't gotten around to watching season five.

Watership Down is my favorite book of all time, and I recall seeing some early Pixar movies and thinking, hey, they could do a terrific CGI version of Watership Down now! Wouldn't that be amazing?! Well, we finally got it, with a BBC series on Netflix, and it's... only okay.

I should say that for the most part, this version serves the story very well. The voice cast is great, and several moments and scenes are nicely depicted. And visually, there is some good scene direction and shot composition. But whew, the animation just isn't great for a lot of it. Pretty much any time anything moves. And you can look past that and still enjoy the great story and adventure, but it does bring it all down, unfortunately. With the movement animation being so poor, I'd have rather seen a less realistic style of graphics... that might have made that all work better. But they went for realism, and while some of the individual imagery was very nice, the movement really jolted you out of that. I rewatched A Bug's Life after this, which is a little rough by Pixar's current standards, and that was still much more smoothly animated than this. And that was released 20 years ago in 1998!

Another disappointment about this version is that they didn't do ANY of the El-Ahrairah stories that are in the book. Well, they did the intro story. And that is spectacularly done, with a more puppetry style of animation. And I expected to see at least one more of the fun El-Ahrairah stories depicted that way at some point. But they never did. They showed a few times where a rabbit started to tell one of those stories, but that was it. Yes, that could have been too much of a break from the narrative to do the side stories as often as they are told in the book, but still, those stories in the book are so engaging, and even just one of them shown in full at a midpoint in the series would have provided a really nice experience.

Well, maybe in another 10-20 years someone will make this again, and it will all be top notch. While the 1978 2D animated film was far less complete, and differed in more respects from the book, it remains the better animated version of Watership Down, overall.

Well, that's frustrating to hear. I was looking forward to watching it, but now I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.

Watched a couple good shows this past week:
Flowers: This is a 12 episode series from BBC. At turns comedic, uncomfortable, poignant, and touching. I recommend it. 
Derry Girls: I would never have thought that there would be a comedy about a groups of girls in high school that takes place in Northern Ireland during The Troubles and that I would find it entertaining. It is an ensemble in the same vein as The Inbetweeners. It is only the first season, but a decent show. 

Gregarius wrote: Well, that's frustrating to hear. I was looking forward to watching it, but now I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.

Do you like the book? If so, it’s definitely worth watching. In some respects it’s quite good, and definitely captures what’s great and epic about the story. I enjoyed my time with it, for sure. Just disappointed that it wasn’t better animated, when we clearly have the capability now to do that very well.

Grudunza wrote:

Gregarius wrote: Well, that's frustrating to hear. I was looking forward to watching it, but now I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.

Do you like the book? If so, it’s definitely worth watching. In some respects it’s quite good, and definitely captures what’s great and epic about the story. I enjoyed my time with it, for sure. Just a disappointed that it wasn’t better animated, when we clearly have the capability now to do that very well.

The BBC is clearly awful when it comes to animation. I just don't get it, between this and the Doctor Who recreations, it is literally just beyond forgivable. 

I finished the Netflix anime series Hero Mask. It's about a shady corporation that creates a set of paper masks. The wearer is granted special powers, but there is a cost.

A branch of the police gets involved in trying to take down the corporation, and hijinx ensue. I enjoyed it. The most maddening aspect is that there are 15 episodes and all of them end on cliff-hangers, so you'll be frustrated when you have to turn the show off.

Can someone from Canuckistan please explain to me how Letterkenny managed to get produced? One of the most remarkable shows I have ever seen on TV. But damn, hold on tight when you watch and listen very carefully.

Can’t help you. I’m the only one up here that isn’t a fan