What TV SHOWS are you watching?

My wife was like "this guy is too much like my golden child brother, I can't watch this."

I heard that Mare of Easttown was good, but I heard wrong. It's great. It should have been season four of True Detective. I'm only 4 episodes into it, and I am enthralled. There is a lot going on, with a variety of suspects and a wealth of subplots going on, but it is anchored by strong performances by Kate Winslet, Jean Smart, Guy Pearce, and Evan Peters. I confess that I nearly gave up 30 minutes into the first episode, because everything seemed so bleak and awful. But then the script warms up with some humanity, and a variety of characters reveal considerable depth.

Agree. It was excellent and my girlfriend from small-town Pennsylvania even said that they did a great job presenting small-town Pennsylvania. But, yeah, the performances are the real highlight, especially Winslet and Smart.

ChristopherMD wrote: Foundation - The first couple episodes are great. It's not like the books but its still really interesting. Beautiful space elevator that takes 14 hours down to the top-layer of Trantor.

So far so good with Foundation. I am a huge fan of the novels (named my daughter after a character) so was always filled with excitement and fear they would stuff it up. My fiance who hasn't read anything and doesn't really like sci fi is also hooked after 2 episodes.

I have a suspicion that it is going to World War Z on us, having the very bare minimum to do with the books. Definitely intrigued where it is going.

Foundation is interesting and quite pretty but the writing is all over the place. The trial is almost incomprehensible. It's been so long since I've read fhe books about all I remember is the name hari Seldon and the word psychohistiry so the plot at least feels fresh.

I watched the first episode of mare of East Town and like it's very good but I don't know if I have this much kind of dark depressing setup in me anymore unless it really jumps into plot.

It is grey throughout. In fact lots of bad things happen to several people. Well acted, but I felt it was an American attempt at a British cop show, and not pulled off to that level. The British have this stuff cold.

hotseatgames wrote: It is grey throughout. In fact lots of bad things happen to several people. Well acted, but I felt it was an American attempt at a British cop show, and not pulled off to that level. The British have this stuff cold.

Speaking of which, No Offence (Acorn TV) continues to kick ass in season 2. (Season 1 was merely excellent.) Great TV.

It's good to hear there are American shows taking a shot at this genre. I'll have a look at Mare.

Mare of Easttown reminded me most of The Killing, which is also excellent.

Although I made it to season 3, I finally bounced off of Startup. The writing just got really bad, with plot holes I could no longer ignore.

Started Squid Game. It's another one of those "play this game in which losing means you die" shows that seem to be extremely popular in Korean or Japanese television / anime. It spends more time than expected doing build-up, but so far, so good.

Just wanted to follow up regarding Mare of Easttown and note that the ending was great, too. A variety of subplots and loose ends get addressed, but there is obvious potential for a season two.

What is the obvious room for season 2? I don't see it.

I watched the whole thing and thought it was very good. I got a little tired of the unending red herring structure but that's every one of these shows. This is basically American Broadchurch but with a woman POV with a lot going on in her life after tragedy instead of an extremely stereotypical male "a tragedy has eliminated everything but work" David Tennant.

Update, over half done, Squid Game is legit

Gary Sax wrote: What is the obvious room for season 2? I don't see it.

The case is closed, but Mare has her badge back so she is able to pursue a new case for season two. But the other major aspect of the show, as you pointed out, is that she has a lot going on in her life, and there is plenty of potential for future subplots involving various people in her life. It might strain credibility if some of the same characters end up as suspects all over again, or detract from the show if those various supporting characters have zero connection to the new case. Then again, it's a small enough town that everybody is in everybody's business, so maybe the existing cast can credibly have ties to various new characters. I personally don't see a need for a second season unless it will maintain a high level of quality.

I've been trying to push through the later seasons of the Doctor Who revival series (although it seems sort of silly to call it that given that it's already been on about half the length of the classic series). Despite being a longtime classic-series nut (going back to the mid-80s) and a revival-series fan as well, Just about to the end of season 9 (Capaldi), and haven't seen any of the Whittaker run. I'm aware of the standard "it's not her, it's the writing" complaints, so I should probably just see for myself. I guess this was sparked in some sense by the announced return of Russell T. Davies to the showrunner position starting in 2023. While RTD did some things I wasn't particularly fond of, it seems like a good retread direction and course corrective for a show that's lost steam.

I've also periodically picked up full-season Blu-rays for the classic series. Now watching season 19 (Davison's first), which I fondly remember from when my local PBS station at the time finally switched over from showing all-Tom-Baker, all-the-time to having more of the classic series, so I could finally see what happened after Baker's Doctor regenerated. The Blu-rays are really nice, tend to run around $40 when readily in stock, and are probably the maximum quality attainable at this point given the original-source quality. Aside from packaging, which is inconsistent and increasingly cheapo (at least on the US side), there's nothing at all really to complain about. The BBC has a wealth of DVD-era extras to draw on, and each of the Blu-ray sets has many new additional special features.