What TV SHOWS are you watching?

ChristopherMD wrote: Tales from the Loop - This was the comfort show that I needed right now. Its sort of a scifi anthology series where each episode focuses on a different person living in the town above the Loop and some weird shit they get into. The visual aesthetic of Simon Stålenhag's work translated perfectly into what I can only describe as early 80's Swedish Ohio. The show moves at a leisurely pace and whether that's good or bad is gonna depend on the viewer.

I just started this last night, and your description is right on the money. The word that comes to mind is "bleak," but I actually find it anything but. It's a unique aesthetic for sure. I'm only two episodes in, but I really like it so far.

Tales from the Loop is -solid- but man, is it STARK. I don’t know if I’d call it bleak, but it is so minimalist and measured that it is a lot closer to Tarkovsky than you might expect from an Amazon show. It’s definitely not good times and belly laughs that’s for sure. And it moves like a glacier.

It works really well as an anthology, but it also feels very Twilight Zone-ish. Especially the second one. That was pure TZ, all the way down, except for the mech and the underlying story about the facility.

The weirdest thing so far was the two teen boys in episode 2 playing a sloppy bedroom cover of a sloppy Fall song, “A Figure Walks”. What kind of world is this where teens are garaging Fall tunes, let alone one off of Dragnet. Later one of the kids is listening to The Misfits’ “Skulls”, which is the first time I’ve ever heard a Misfits song in anything.

My son is really into it...I thought it would be way too slow and subtle but he is asking to watch th rest of it.

Michael Barnes wrote: It works really well as an anthology, but it also feels very Twilight Zone-ish. Especially the second one. That was pure TZ, all the way down, except for the mech and the underlying story about the facility.

The interesting difference, for me, is that you see the ramifications of things afterwards. Like after the second episode every time you see

I finished Tiger King. I really don't think it's that great. It just landed at the right time. Unless you just want to see what people are talking about, I'd skip it.

I also finished season 3 of Ozark. This, on the other hand, is absolutely worth watching. I'm surprised they have gotten this much material out of the premise, but I'm looking forward to more.

War of the Worlds (BBC 2019) - Skip this miniseries unless you really must see everything based on WotW.

War of the Worlds (EPIX 2019)) - First season of a TV show I watched for free on xfinity. Stars Gabriel Byrne and is more of a post-apocalyptic show then a WotW show. The aliens wipe out most of the planet in the first episode and the survivors try to keep going while being hunted by robotic dogs. As far as post-apoc shows go its pretty good and not full of people doing stupid things. Just don't expect to see any tripods, at least not in this season. Its a French/English co-production so half the scenes are subtitled depending on whether the characters are in France or England.

Indian Summers - Drama about British living in 1930's India who migrate to the base of the Himalaya's in the summer due to the heat. Gandhi gets name-dropped several times but the focus is more on the lives/opinions of the characters in the show, both Brit and Indian. Very pretty although filmed in Malaysia not India. Will continue on to the second season as I like the period and setting.

Saturday night I was preparing for sleep and started watching the first episode of Barry, season two. I finished the series at 4:00 a.m.

To answer his own question, I think that, after watching the final episode of season 2, Barry is, in fact, evil. Not that there was any question. But I like Bill Hader so much.

Anthony Carrigan, who plays Noho Hank the Chechen, is just so funny.

I also noticed during the recent SNL from home show that Bill Hader's actual face looks as grim and drawn as that of Barry the Assassin.

When Barry shoots that one person (you know who) in the final episode, well we knew that was going to happen but still.

I'd like to watch something as interesting as Barry but without all the "shocking" pull your gun out and shoot someone in the forehead killings. That's a trope that probably came from Reservoir Dogs or something that feels lazy, even in a show like Barry. I need to go rewatch Grosse Pointe Blank.

Really, Barry is a show about being trapped in a job you don't like, and being unable to escape, which is something many of us struggle with. I guess I could go watch the final season of "Men of a Certain Age" if I want to explore the same topic without the shooting.

Plowing through season 3 of BLACK LIGHTNING so that we can switch to TFTL.

BL is okay, ranges from “pretty good” to “seen it a million times before.” The writing team is majority African-American, so as one might suspect, the show is best when it leans hard into the black experience and fun/speculative ways it can intersect with traditional comic hero tropes. It also doubles as a family drama and so the interpersonal relationships are also a high point. It’s weakest when it’s just another superhero show with your RDA of ass-kicking under sufficient but not stellar effects.

The core cast is quite good, especially the lead and the guy who plays Tobias Whale, the main villain.

After hearing good things I gave Castle Rock season two a shot. It was better than season one in every way and didn't drop the ball at the end. Tim Robbins was good and Lizzy Caplan was great.

dysjunct wrote: BL is okay, ranges from “pretty good” to “seen it a million times before.”

I thought the first season of Black Lightning was terrific, but I haven't gotten into second season yet. Did the quality drop after first season? Or maybe I'm just overreacting to the quality of the family storylines. It was just so refreshing to see family drama without family dysfunction. I have to admit that the season dropped more to baseline superhero tv show when it came to the crimefighting stuff. Still better than any of the Arrowverse stuff.

Shellhead wrote:

dysjunct wrote: BL is okay, ranges from “pretty good” to “seen it a million times before.”

I thought the first season of Black Lightning was terrific, but I haven't gotten into second season yet. Did the quality drop after first season? Or maybe I'm just overreacting to the quality of the family storylines. It was just so refreshing to see family drama without family dysfunction. I have to admit that the season dropped more to baseline superhero tv show when it came to the crimefighting stuff. Still better than any of the Arrowverse stuff.

I think it is mostly consistent with S1, with higher stakes for the characters. Pretty good overall, with flashes of brilliance and some standard superheroics. The writers up the pressure on the family, giving them more grist to play off each other, but it never felt contrived to me.

But, I like the Arrowverse so take it all with a grain of salt. :-P

I gave Tokyo Vampire Hotel a try for a few minutes, but it's all in Japanese and I couldn't figure out the closed caption control on my tv. My remote needs more buttons on it. Will do some reading up on my tv model this weekend and probably give TVH another shot.

I liked Westworld seasons one and two enough to hang in there, despite concerns that the Mystery Box would prove to be empty or full of shit. I nearly loved the first episode of season three for the cyberpunk setting, except that the audio mix was bullshit. The synthwave background music tended to be louder than the dialogue, and that is a basic failure of storytelling. Hopefully they figured it out by episode two, or maybe I can figure out how to do Closed Caption.

Finished Black Lightning s3 and started on Tales From the Loop. Three episodes in and I like it. It’s slow but compelling. I like the loose connections between the episodes, where a supporting character from one episode becomes a main character in the next. It feels a bit like Black Mirror, except more wistful and melancholy instead of relentlessly, grindingly bleak.

Figured out the controls on my tv and gave Tokyo Vampire Hotel another go, and wow it is super-violent. Episodes are just 38 minutes, so I knocked out one and two in a sitting. My girlfriend is a big anime fan, so I have seen a fair amount of anime, but this might be my first time watching a live-action tv show from Japan. The pacing is odd. There is a lot of action, but sometimes a plot point is belabored beyond reason, as if the show is aimed at really stupid people. And yet there are some interesting ideas and some real style on display. The first episode starts out with a star wars-like intro exposition, and then a cold opening before the theme song and credits. The second episode sets some kind of record for a cold opening that lasts nearly half the show before the theme song and credits arrive. If you liked Kill Bill Pt 1, you might like Tokyo Vampire Hotel.

Don't need a downer to watch right now, and Netflix picked up Community. It's a good cap to end the night on a positive note.

My spouse has been watching that. It's ok but man is Chevy Chase's character not funny to me.