What TV SHOWS are you watching?

UMBRELLA ACADEMY s2. Agree with the previous comment that it starts as mostly ho-hum super-sibling angst. But it picks up pretty quick and ends well. I liked it better than s1.

AVATAR: LEGEND OF KORRA. Hard to follow up a triumph like Last Airbender but this gives it an honest try. The characters are not as iconic, which is the biggest weakness. But the setting is so well-realized. Jazz-age Shanghai, plus bending, is just amazing and I am blown away at the attention to detail. Gorgeous backgrounds, widescreen (unlike the first series), and a bit more teen angst romance. Good times and I’m enjoying it, but if I had to choose it wouldn’t be close.

Shellhead wrote: The protagonists in the individual stories in the book were all family, or friends or neighbors of the family. I am hoping that that the show takes the same approach, but I suspect that they will instead go with one or two major characters having all these adventures and then reduce the others to supporting roles.

From the "In the coming weeks" scenes at the end, it seems like Atticus, Letitia, Ruby, George, and Hippolyta are all seriously involved. Apparently Michael K. Williams is playing Atticus' father, too ("Omar comin'!") So, that seems like the whole family.

I liked it. It was paced well. Definitely worth following.

Now I've seen the first episode of Lovecraft Country, and the first half is disappointing. It was almost as rough as the first episode of The Wire in terms of introducing a lot of characters right away. The pacing was uneven, and there were so many things that were handled better in the book. Though plenty of care was taken to capture the era, one early song was way too modern, like maybe from last year. It would be as extreme as if the first episode of Boardwalk Empire had featured a Duran Duran song. And a female character is wearing time-appropriate clothes, except that only a white woman was probably able to dress that way in public without provoking constant trouble.

Then everything snaps into focus in the second half of this episode and becomes riveting. Lovecraft Country wouldn't be the first great show that stumbles a bit at the beginning, so I am still optimistic. However, I am concerned that J.J. Abrams is one of the executive producers. Then again, so is Jordan Peele, so I am hopeful. If I hadn't read the book, I would have skipped the preview at the end. But I have read the book, and the preview covers quite a few good scenes from the book. Hopefully the show will be just as good.

This is one of the only things that makes me regret not having HBO right now.

I really liked the book, and want to watch the show, but not quite enough for another streaming service. Maybe at some point in the future I'll binge it on a trial or something.

So I'm watching Fortitude Season 1 on Amazon. Real slloooowww burn show but like a lot of euro shows, oddly compelling. There is a supernatural/alien/biologic/WTF thread in the show but it is almost completely buried under human drama in this little isolated Norwegian town frozen in ice.

My only real issue with the show is that it is set in the Arctic but it doesn't FEEL cold. There is some lip service to it but I think the set design and cinematography could do more to make the cold a silent player in everything.

Still, there are like three seasons of this thing and Dennis Quaid is coming in to ham it up in season 2 so I can't wait I'm hoping it makes a radical shift like War of the worlds (80's version) and go full post apocalyptic but probably not.

Finished watching Seven Deadly Sins on Netflix, so I needed another show to binge. So I went with Transformers: War for Cybertron. Holy shit, they went about as dark as they did in the movie. Can't wait for the next two chapters. It's not without a rub, the voice actor for Prime did an amazing Peter Cullen impression, but the voice of Megatron and Starscream were downright disappointing.

It's not Megatron or Soundwave without Welker and it's not Starscream without Latta (God rest his soul).

jason10mm wrote: So I'm watching Fortitude Season 1 on Amazon. Real slloooowww burn show but like a lot of euro shows, oddly compelling. There is a supernatural/alien/biologic/WTF thread in the show but it is almost completely buried under human drama in this little isolated Norwegian town frozen in ice.

My only real issue with the show is that it is set in the Arctic but it doesn't FEEL cold. There is some lip service to it but I think the set design and cinematography could do more to make the cold a silent player in everything.

Still, there are like three seasons of this thing and Dennis Quaid is coming in to ham it up in season 2 so I can't wait I'm hoping it makes a radical shift like War of the worlds (80's version) and go full post apocalyptic but probably not.

I endured most of the first season but like a person slowly freezing to death, I eventually succumbed to the elements and drifted off and forgot about it. I too was looking forward to Dennis Quaid's appearance but never made it that far.

The only tv show I can recall where it looked properly cold was the one with Jason Momoa surrounding the HBC. I think he gets involved in some of his film/tv project just to see how much he can get his ass kicked on screen.

In anticipation of the upcoming second season, I re-watched The Boys this week, and it was great. It's a dark, cynical take on the superhero genre, with lots of action and some humor. The casting is excellent, starting with Karl Urban as the vengeful Billy Butcher. Even the casting of a minor character played by Haley Joel Osmont was perfect. The story is good and takes some wild twists. The music selections are consistently appropriate for the moment, especially the brutal deployment of the Air Supply song All Out Of Love while one character struggles with writer's block. (Read the lyrics.) There is also some interesting commentary on society, touching on a variety of current issues. Even though I'm a big fan of superhero comics, I never read The Boys because I dislike writer Garth Ennis' juvenile obsessions. From what I hear, this show deviates considerably from the comic and always for the better. The characters in the tv version have credible personalities to offset the incredible powers, and even the worst characters were relatable at times. However, this is not family fare. There are some shocking and offensive moments, and every episode is front-loaded with several parental advisory warnings.

That first season was so good, I'm trying to keep my expectations in check in case the quality nosedives.

Speaking of nosedives Fortitude season 2 is a bit of a drop off from season 1. It dumps about a third of the cast and most of the plot lines in favor of a bunch of new characters and a new supernatural/biologic/alien/wtf bad guy only loosely related to the prior season.

Alas, the problem is that police incompetence REALLY becomes an issue when your sleepy little town with 4 cops starts seeing double digit brutal murders. Still, the pacing is a bit more brisk and they don't drag out the mystery nearly as much. Season 3 is gonna need all new sets though because Dennis Quaids gravelly acting has chewed them all up :,p

Speaking of Dennis Quaid, he is the father of Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie Campbell in The Boys.

And his mom is Meg Ryan, quite the Hollywood royalty. Shame about her plastic surgery, haven't seen much of her since (but then again, with the massive diversification of media sources these days, she could be headlining a massive series on Hulu and I'd never know).

I hate-watched the end of The Boys and they killed the only character I cared about in the last show. Really a big pile dismal with nothing worth any sort of emotional investment. I wanted to see it through to the end, but damn, the last two shows are soul-eaters.

Scott & Bailey is a British crime drama with interesting characters that ran I think between 2010 and 2014. Well drawn characters, it's a good mix of drama and amusement in a show where the characters drive the story. It's a great example of how much better the genre is done in Britain than in the U.S. I use subtitles because sometime the Manchester accents are thick enough to miss details in the exceptionally well-written prose. Woman-conceived, woman-written drama. In fact the lead detective is the writer of the show, the two creators characters as well.

Wild Bill is set in England but stars Rob Lowe as an American taking over the top job at a police department in a high crime-rate part of England. Northern England again, using subtitles to help with this one too. But -- I'm trying to decide if it's an American or British show, because in spite of its setting it generally has the lunk-head cop dialogue and action that is more representative of the American approach to the genre. Cases are very linear, very elementary. Characters don't remain consistent. I can't recommend it, but it's on BritBox if you're interested in having a look. Running right now, four episodes loaded to date.

I appreciate the audience here tends towards science fiction and comic book style materials and I enjoy both of those as well. But regardless of genre, the execution, the characters and the narrative have to be good. That is available in all genres, as is dreck. For something more down to earth I think Scott & Bailey is a great choice, on Hulu at no additional charge.

I was very disappointed with the second episode of Lovecraft Country, though still looking forward to catching up with episode three tonight. I enjoyed the book by Matt Ruff, and it is straight up Call of Cthulhu with African-American protagonists. The show looks amazing, better than I could have imagained. But the writing for the show is messy. Lead writer and producer Misha Green has a fairly thin resume up until her work on Underground and Helix, a couple of shows that only faintly registered on my radar. In the book, the heroes are brave and resourceful, but on the show, they are just extremely reckless and lucky.

So despite the extensive and realistic-seeming depiction of racism of the period, the main characters keep acting like racism is a tornado, a very rare but unstoppable occurrence that nobody should bother planning around. That leaves the script choppy, with characters disregarding the setting and therefore behaving inexplicably. It doesn't leave me impressed with the characters, it simply creates a distance that can't be overcome with the gorgeous sets and scary monsters. Another poorly written scene shows the heroes trying to rescue someone, but all the tension evaporates as the camera shifts elsewhere to show that character has already escaped and the heroes immediately show up afterwards.

Abbey Lee is lovely, but her presence bothers me because they apparently added a character to the story just to fit her in. You might remember her as The Dag in Mad Max: Fury Road. Actually, she and Alex Collins seem to be playing a pair of roles that were split off from the single book character known as Caleb Braithwhite.

My other big problem is the music selections, which veer sharply between perfectly appropriate and wildly wrong. Period music performed by talented black musicians? Sign me up. Modern intrusions like Tierra Whack or Marilyn Manson? No goddamn thanks, it's de-railing the presentation of the setting. I'm glad that this show exists, and I hope it gets better, because I am otherwise not likely to live long enough to see a better adaptation of Lovecraft Country.

I didn't care for episode 2 of LC either (though the opening was fun), but for a different reason. It felt like they crammed an entire season's worth of content into a single episode. The plot and characters have had no chance to breathe.