What TV SHOWS are you watching?

WadeMonnig wrote: I've been re-watching Season One of Blake's 7. It's been about 25 years since I watched the entire series, so I started from the beginning. Just finished Episode 7 and it's so fascinating watching the series hitting it's stride. Paul Darrow (RIP) was born to play Avon.

LOVE this show! Funny that you bring it up because I was just talking to Josh about Blake's 7 the other night in relation to how it obviously inspired Firefly and Cowboy Bebop.

Shellie and I have been watching Better Than Us. A Russian made series about robots in the near future. It is surprisingly excellent!

Sagrilarus wrote: Has anyone else tried Glow? The first episode was amusing as hell.

I love GLOW and my wife and I have just finished Season 3. Season 3 was a little light on the wrestling biz side IMO (for reasons that I can't elucidate without major spoilers for the end of season 2) but it was compensated for by how well the characters were developed as the season went on. In a way it kind of felt like a season long bottle episode with an open-ended finale that will probably mean Netflix cancels the show in the next couple weeks.

I've also been watching some Black Mirror episodes based on what I feel like watching rather than in season order. U.S.S. Callister is great, of course, and the best thing about Playtest (whose twist, if you look at it from the right angle, is similar to the one in Stephen King's short story, "The Jaunt") was that I learned that it stars Kurt Russell's son, Wyatt. I loved White Bear and I watched it again with my son to see if it holds up if you know the twist, and I was surprised that it did. I liked the uncomfortable questions that it raised and because of that I was willing to forgive the logical leaps and inconsistencies.

Carnival Row is not bad. I have now watched the first two episodes, and everything is solid. The setting is an interesting variation on Victorian England, the story is good, Legolas and Grumpy Cat are good, and the sets and costumes look exactly right. And yet, I don't feel greatly motivated to continue right now. It's not the show's fault, but I am all burned out on Victorian England right now. I watched four seasons of Ripper Street a couple of years ago, then tried the first season of Penny Dreadful, and then most of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And it turns out that I dislike Victorian England. The primness, the closemindedness, the hypocrisy, the juxtaposition of grand and shabby, that's tolerable. But the rigid class structure just grates on my American sensibilities. I feel like every character in this kind of show is trapped in specific role in society that the story will never allow them to escape.

So I instead decided to watch The Deuce. New York City in 1971 is not necessarily all that different from Victorian England in some respects, and they are only separated in time by maybe 70 years. And yet New York City feels like a city of open possibilities, though everything seems filthy and corrupt. It's like everybody is just one hustle away from great opportunity or mortal danger, and anything can happen. David Simon of The Wire helps ground the show in the reality of the period, and brings along several familiar faces from that classic show. Performances by James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal steal every scene, but the show has a big and capable cast. The show is supposedly about the start of the New York porn movie scene, but so far a lot of the focus has been on streetwalkers and pimps.

I really loved The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which I just finished last night. Before starting I revisited the original movie, which I think is a silent movie trapped in a talkie, and quite a good one. But the show adds a whole lot of depth and character to Jim Henson's original vision, without ever feeling unfaithful to it.

If you like the original movie at all, it's a no-brainer. If you ALMOST like the original movie, or consider it a great piece of art direction in search of a story, then you will probably still like the show, because it adds characters and detail to the whole thing, and it does so very well. I also appreciated that it doesn't have a bad case of Netflix-itis, where every episode is about 10 minutes too long. It's a pretty tight show I think.

Anyway, it was a wonderful surprise for the show to be as good as it is. Definitely worth a look.

I watched episode 1 of The Righteous Gemstones on HBO. It's a comedy about a family of televangelists, and if you liked Vice Principals, you will like this.

Righteous Gemstones is fantastic. Watched the third episode last night.

I'm three episodes in Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and I'm loving it.

I think San il Defanso is right that it should appeal to both lovers and dislikers of the original movie (I'm kinda the latter-- I want to like it more than I do).

I went in expecting to just enjoy the visual feast and creative brilliance of the sets and puppetry, but I've been very impressed with the story as well. They've built a complex world that's just as deep as Lord of the Rings without really being similar at all. Anyone interested in fantasy should definitely check it out.

Gregarius wrote: I'm three episodes in Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and I'm loving it.

I think San il Defanso is right that it should appeal to both lovers and dislikers of the original movie (I'm kinda the latter-- I want to like it more than I do).

I went in expecting to just enjoy the visual feast and creative brilliance of the sets and puppetry, but I've been very impressed with the story as well. They've built a complex world that's just as deep as Lord of the Rings without really being similar at all. Anyone interested in fantasy should definitely check it out.

Yeah, same here. I went into it for the puppetry and craftsmanship (which is nothing short of astonishing), but have been pleasantly surprised at the characters and world-building. I'm also about 3 or 4 episodes in, and it's really got me hooked. The Skeksis are super fun. Mark Hamill basically doing his Joker voice as the Scientist character is pretty great.

I've been flipping back and forth between the Dark Crystal and Carnival Row on Amazon. It's nice to have some honest-to-God fantasy on TV again. And both shows are pretty good! I wish Carnival Row would lean into the weirdness a little bit more. It's playing it too safe. You have this interesting Victorian England analogue, where humans are living alongside fairies and satyrs. It's a cool premise. GET WEIRD WITH IT. Have some fun.

Just go ahead and add me to the list of Dark Crystal praisers. It’s -great-. They really went the extra mile to make it a well-written, well plotted story as well as quite possibly the most beautiful TV show I’ve ever seen. It’s on par with LOTR in terms of production design, it’s just stunning. The puppetry, it goes without saying, is beyond best in class.

Do you need to watch the movie before watching the show? I barely remember any of it.

I’m just a few shows in but I think it stands alone so far. There is plenty of narration up front (Sigourney Weaver) that sets the stage. But seriously- the movie is incredible too, invest 90 minutes into it!

charlest wrote: Do you need to watch the movie before watching the show? I barely remember any of it.

Nope. I've never seen the movie (or if I did, I have no memory of it), and it's totally fine. Maybe there's some prequel-y Easter eggs or something I missed, but who cares. I hate that kind of crap anyway. The show totally works as a standalone piece of fiction.

The TV show is a prequel to the film so, no, you don't need to have seen it to enjoy the show. However, if you do want to see it, it's only an hour-and-a-half and it's also on Netflix.

You can totally watch the show first. If anything it adds richness to the world and makes some stuff more meaningful by giving it context. Notably, it does explain stuff, but manages not to make it cheap. It adds depth, not just explanation.

It helps that in every way that isn't visual, the original movie is sketched very lightly. Characters and history are handled very lightly, so a prequel feels like more of the same story, not something extraneous.

Something else that bears mentioning is how unexpectedly political the show is. There is really quite a pointed message about the avaricious, rapacious ruling class (Skesis) and the ignorant, pacified servile class (Gelfling)...one of the characters questions the practice of giving a tithe/tribute to leaders who already have and control everything while they are left to fight over scraps...which pretty much sums up the feudal nightmare that is capitalism.