What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Two episodes into the latest Stranger Things. Someone needs to tell the Duffer Brothers they did have editors in the 80's. For example, they could have cut the entire basketball team from both episodes and not missed a thing. All of the D&D stuff thus far has been awfully forced.

Count me in as another fan of For All Mankind. I haven't started S3 yet, but only because I want to clear some other shows off my plate first so that I can pay more attention. I love how they play with history with certain events: some happen, some don't, some happen but have a much different significance or outcome.

I started watching Money Heist: Korea yesterday, excited for a Money Heist spin-off since I quite enjoyed the Spanish original.

Unfortunately this is literally just a re-telling of the original heist, but taking place in a future "joint economic zone" between North and South Korea. The characters even adopt the same cities for their code names. I don't think I'll be continuing.

I quite liked Kinnamen in the first season of Altered Carbon as his somewhat odd deadpan demeanor worked well there. Alas the structure of that show prevented him from continuing.

I liked FAM but the second season dragged a bit, particularly with the wife running the bar. The closeted dual gay relationship is getting long in the tooth as well. I felt they had a lot more interest in the astronauts that got divorced and then got assigned to the moon together. I think the SPACE aspect is more than engrossing enough that they don't really need to do much with private lives. I particularly enjoyed the way they handled the US/Soviet space coupling and working the ethnic angle into that. More of that please.

S3 is out now? Guess apple TV is back on the menu!

Finished hate-watching Stranger Things. Bold move ending the "season" with 30 full minutes of villain exposition.

Sagrilarus wrote: Episode 2 of Season 1 of January 6th Commission Hearings is due to drop today, last episode ended in a cliff-hanger.

20 million viewers on traditional TV channels, to date Donald Trump's highest rated TV episode by far.

Keeps getting better! Food fight, carjacking and a wrestling match in this latest one.

Today was out there.

I wish I had confidence that ANYTHING will come of all of this. But I don't. These motherfuckers get away with everything.

If today's testimony stands, he's guilty of sedition.

Seriously, those of you not watching . . . tune in to today's. Could be one of the most historic hearings in U.S. history. There were six or eight holy-shit moments.

I'm still just boggled by the number of people reacting to this as if it's any more shocking than anything Trump has done before and what he's done for the vast majority of his life. Anyone that has paid attention to this man-child's behavior can't possibly be surprised that he would be throwing a tantrum because his AG followed the law; because not enough people could get through the metal detectors for his pity party at the Ellipse; that his driver wasn't willing to let him bask in the glow of his devoted followers by leading them to sack the Capitol. This is who he is. This is who he's always been. The last six years have been daily reminders of that very fact and, yet, people are still somehow surprised that he's not only not "presidential" or anything even vaguely close to it, but is an outright criminal, as he has been for most of his life.

Hotseat is right. Nothing will come of this because the people controlling the institutions of power are interested in only one thing: preserving those institutions of power and their place within them. That means preserving the dignity of the office of President by not prosecuting a blatant criminal who once held that office and attempted to retain it by overthrowing those very same institutions. It's why the NY Times refused to call Trump a liar when that's what he clearly is. It's why the current AG, Merrick Garland, chosen for his status as a legal non-entity that the GOP might actually go along with on the Court until McConnell decided to refuse to do even that, isn't standing outside Mar-a-Lago right now with a battalion of FBI agents. It's why Biden and Congress aren't taking the blizzard of actions they can take against both Trump and the corrupted Court. All these people care about is preserving the façade that is the American version of "democracy" and that means not bringing those institutions into question. Again, anyone who's been paying attention should have begun to question them decades ago. But most people don't pay attention and, thus, here we are in the Weimarican Republic with our far more threatening version of the Beer Hall Putsch resulting in prison terms for precisely no one who actually matters. And it's because, in the grand scheme of things, those people matter and we don't. To quote one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time: "It's a big club and you ain't in it!" And all they care about is the club.

I haven't been watching the hearings, though I have been following the news coverage. It's interesting that Fox News was initially ignoring the coverage but now is allowing commentators to criticize Trump. I think that Rupert Murdoch is done with Trump:



I think that Trump is a disgrace, a criminal, and an all-around terrible person. I think that he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for any and all crimes that he has committed. And yet, it could set an unfortunate precedent where each President tries to lock up the previous president if from the opposite party. It might be better to just prosecute everybody else associated with the January 6th sedition and make it clear to the American people what happened. Leave a weakened Trump to fight a vicious primary season against Ron DeSantis, and to cry about election fraud each time he loses a state. Some Republicans might get disillusioned enough to skip voting, while others might finally demand reform within their own party.

Shellhead wrote: ...it could set an unfortunate precedent where each President tries to lock up the previous president if from the opposite party.

Really? You prefer the precedent where a President can commit any crime, no matter how serious, no matter how dangerous to the fundamental structure of society, and not be charged, no matter how complete the evidence against him?

I'm uncertain. Both options are bad. I lean towards enforcing the law and prosecuting Trump, but it looks exactly like something that would happen in a corrupt banana republic. It has never come up before in our country, because Republicans had the decency to turn against Nixon and Nixon had the decency to resign.

US Presidents probably have too much classified intelligence to be sent to any kind of prison. At best he'd be playing golf under permanent house arrest because we'd pussy out of hanging him for sedition. At that point the Republican Party wouldn't hesitate to label him a political prisoner. Claiming the "Left" is locking up its opponents after sham trials like fascists. We live in a post-truth world now so it would run. Going to jail would probably get Trump re-elected at which point he'd walk out like Kingpin. Ultimately I don't think it matters though as United States we all grew up in is dead. It's not coming back in our lifetime. Between the Supreme Courts now ideological rule, Congresses inability to do fuckall by modern design, and a third of the country living in a propaganda fantasy-land; you'd better get ready for christo-fascism under whatever nazi they vote in next.

So what else is on TV?

MS. MARVEL continues to delight. It is the best “normal/awkward teenager navigates family and school, complicated by powers” since Amazing Fantasy #15. Plus the cross cultural aspect, which is funny yet handled adroitly.