What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Rewatched Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, both seasons. Such an incredible show.

Finished Russian Doll. I'd say overall it's a pleasant, light show with a low barrier of entry due to its brevity. The ending was not satisfying.

I've been working on Season 3 of the Expanse and really loving it. Makes me wanna check out the Doors and Corners expansion for the board game--maybe I'll try to give it a review as an excuse to get my friends to play the game with me.

As I continue to watch shows made by foreigners on Hulu, I've stumbled across Cardinal and Hard Sun.

Cardinal appears to be a typical investigative show, but is really well done. Great acting. I'm not a big fan of focusing on what makes the killer tick (just don't care to see mental illness that much) but I'm about four episodes in and that is not an overwhelming part of the show.

Hard Sun, one episode in, ain't nuthin' like I expected. Appears to be a six-episode miniseries, with a very ominous theme. Let's see how this one goes, very much looking forward to episode 2.

I had figured Hulu would just be an adjunct onto Netflix and Amazon on our TV, but I think we're spending about 75% of our viewing time on it. There's some great stuff there if you explore a bit, or get good recommendations.

Watching Deadly Class on the channel that once broadcast BSG. I quite like it, though I have to wonder if I would hate it were I not pulling the comic book since issue one. Set in 80s (with plenty of callbacks) at a supposed school for assassins. Usually stereotypes bother me, but I find this works for me as the creator is commenting on pop culture as opposed to actual cultures. A bit trashy, but fun. Acting beyond the pilot is much better, so hang in there for at least two episodes if you bother. Henry Rollins is a bummer for me, but the actors for Marcus, Maria, Saya and the headmaster are great (again, beyond the pilot). Some subjects are much more fleshed out than the comic and have rekindled my interest in the world presented.

Finished season 1 of the Expanse. Really well done, though I find the books a bit faster paced than the show (which is an unusual situation for TV). Some characters and scenes have been tweaked, notably Naomi and Eros, but I’ve never minded this. I neither expect or want a perfect recreation of the source material.

This could easily be a classic sci-fi series in the making if it picks up a larger audience. The Expanse manages to take interesting hard science fiction concepts and wrap them up into a schlocky and digestible space opera format. And I mean that in the best of ways; it’s entertains without crawling up its own ass.

SaMoKo wrote: Finished season 1 of the Expanse. Really well done, though I find the books a bit faster paced than the show (which is an unusual situation for TV).

This, for sure. I like the show but it was nagging at me why I enjoyed the books so much more. The books seem to fly by, constantly pulling you along at a high speed while I find myself occasionally bored during the show.

SaMoKo wrote: Finished season 1 of the Expanse. Really well done, though I find the books a bit faster paced than the show (which is an unusual situation for TV). Some characters and scenes have been tweaked, notably Naomi and Eros, but I’ve never minded this. I neither expect or want a perfect recreation of the source material.

This could easily be a classic sci-fi series in the making if it picks up a larger audience. The Expanse manages to take interesting hard science fiction concepts and wrap them up into a schlocky and digestible space opera format. And I mean that in the best of ways; it’s entertains without crawling up its own ass.

SyFy dropped it after S3, but Amazon Prime picked it up. There's been no hard dates for S4 yet, but I'm keeping an eye out for it.

It started snowing late last night, and won't stop until late this afternoon, leaving up to 8" of fresh snow to clear. I had a great job interview yesterday, and have a final interview with a different company on Friday, so I am taking a half-day off from the job search today. (Maybe four hours of searching and answering online ads.)

While waiting for the snow to stop, I am watching season one of The Terror. As a kid, I read a bit about this lost expedition in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, so I know that there won't be a happy ending. The show is great, except that I sometimes struggle to understand the British accent. Tense, oppressive atmosphere in an eerie arctic icescape. There are some early hints of a supernatural menace, but the setup could work just as well with a mere story of desperate explorers in a hostile waste.

The circumstances are rife with potential. One ship captain is pragmatic and pessimistic, but the other, more optimistic captain outranks him on this expedition, leading to a disastrous decision that strands both ships through the winter. The officers are all dignified, educated gentlemen, and so far they have easily maintained morale and discipline on both vessels. These are large, well-equipped vessels with the best technology available in 1845. But they are lost in a very hostile environment, and might be stalked by a monster.

Meanwhile, the snow continues relentlessly, just outside my windows.

Doom Patrol: Oh my. Fox on the run AND I eat cannibals both featured on the soundtrack of the first episode?!? Has an edge that Suicide Squad only dreamed it could. Only seen the first episode but holy Shit.

I binge-watched the entire first season of The Terror yesterday, as the snow came down all day. I'm an experienced binge watcher, but I don't think that I've ever done nearly 8 hours in a day before. I took occasional breaks to work on the job search, and spent two hours snowblowing, roof-raking, and shoveling.

I wanted to watch this show in snowy weather, and I timed this viewing for a big snowstorm, because I like to enhance my entertainment in this way. The first time I saw 30 Days of Night was in an old movie theater during its last week of business. Many of the seats were damaged, and it was chilly enough that I could see my breath during the movie, which was perfect. In a similar way, I like to burn and use background music for my favorite board games.

The Terror is utterly compelling. The pace is often slow, but that is absolutely appropriate because harsh arctic weather is a slow oppression to be endured, not a quick threat to avoid with reflexes. Then there are times when the screen explodes with action and chaos, followed by a leisurely examination of the consequences. This wouldn't work well as a movie, but makes for great television with plenty of character development. Initially, everybody is presented as competent professionals all working smoothly together. Then bad things happen, then worse, and morale and discipline and even sanity all suffer. Hardship eventually strips away pretense from every character, revealing their hidden strengths and weaknesses.

Some of the visuals are surprising. The aurora borealis turns the night eerie and alien. The stark white landscape leaves the eye to focus on unsettling shapes and patterns. One unnerving underwater sequence has a dreamy quality. The opening credits doubles down on these elements in a manner that reminds me somewhat of the first season of True Detective. The music score is minimalist and unsettling, and many scenes features the low-key background groaning of wood under great pressure from ice.

There is a monster, but it is handled well. Fleeting, terrifying glimpses for the most part, with long enough absences for other problems to move to the spotlight. Plenty of bad things happen that have nothing to do with the monster. Just one day after binging, the lingering impression of The Terror is not of a monster show, but an overall horrific experience that included a monster.

The ending was surprise. Not a cheap surprise twist, but a plausible development that is grounded in the story. Just not the ending that I was anticipating.

The Terror is inspiring from a gaming standpoint. The basic premise would make for a terrific Call of Cthulhu rpg campaign. Or it could make for a tough co-op/solitaire boardgame or maybe a traitor boardgame. There definitely feels like a game could be built around the interaction between discipline and morale on a naval vessel.

I watched the first episode of Umbrella Academy, and was not impressed. The show took a first episode to ram home what we knew in the first 5 minutes: The old man is bad, and the protagonists do not get along. That's it. For an hour.

The best visual moments were rip offs of the Wes Anderson aesthetic, hell, almost the entire visual style was ripped from the Anderson playbook. So was the music.

The performances were one-note, which matches the one-note characters, so maybe that's a deliberate choice, but not a compelling deliberate choice. The exception was the character #5, who seemed at least interesting and had something more going on, and the actor was a joy to watch. Unlike Ellen Page's Vanya, who seemed to be the physical embodiment of grey - which, again, may be her character, but as theme grey, it is, well, grey.

It was tired and derivative and while I realize I should bail, I am curious about the cliffhanger. I'll give it one more episode.

The problem with living through the "Golden Age" of television, is that we have a lot more mediocre television to wade through to get to the truly great stuff. And the truly great stuff is as rare as it ever was.

I wonder if there's a parallel to our current "golden age" of board games? I guess we'll never know.

Russian doll was cult of the new last month, you might have nailed the comparison.

Friend of mine watched all of umbrella, I told her to go watch Misfits on Hulu. That's the show she was hoping for. Even has the same best actor

RolandHemisphere wrote: The performances were one-note, which matches the one-note characters, so maybe that's a deliberate choice, but not a compelling deliberate choice. The exception was the character #5, who seemed at least interesting and had something more going on, and the actor was a joy to watch. Unlike Ellen Page's Vanya, who seemed to be the physical embodiment of grey - which, again, may be her character, but as theme grey, it is, well, grey.

# 5 continues to be a great character as you get more of his backstory. He's the closest you have to a 'main' character I'd say out of all of them... for most of the season. And I love that he's an actual 15 year old.

We just finished it yesterday already. I say give it another episode or two.

I watched the first 2.5 episodes last night. So far I like it OK, it is definitely garage sale Grant Morrison. I am worried it will pull a hill house and be more about family bickering than cool genre stuff.

Ellen Page’s character is terrible though. Mopey mope. She reminds me of Neil from the Young Ones except not funny.

The photography and production are really very handsome- barring A Series of Unfortunate Events (which I think is one of the best-shot/best art directed shows of all time), it’s Netflix’s best looking show.

I can’t believe there hasn’t been a Smiths song yet. Surely that is coming.

I lasted about 25 minutes with Russian Doll.