What TV SHOWS are you watching?

While overall I liked Stranger Things s4, I do agree that its starting to lose the horror/terror element. It had it early on in S4 with those freakish killings but when a bunch of kids/semi-incompetent adults can storm an eldritch fortress/mansion/prison with almost no damage aside from 2 sacrificial deaths and one guy iced in the most casual, callous manner it starts to feel more like a game than real life stakes. Eleven having "rage powers" gets sloppy because you know she can beat ANYTHING, so long as she is mad enough. Girl, just go straight to....11 and save us 20 minutes of forced build-up!

A planned final season means it will probably be wholesale slaughter though. I dunno when it is coming out, but the betting pool on who lives and who dies is gonna be pretty epic.

The Terminal List on amazon. Only about halfway through but I've read the books and it is sticking fairly close. So far it is quite good, much more "investigative" than actiony, which is a nice change up from stuff like Reacher where the ability to punch outweighs the ability to think (though Reacher did plenty of that as well, I suppose). Pratt is doing a pretty good job as the tormented Navy SEAL James Reece, his gun handling is on point and the whole thing feels like mid 90's Michael Mann more than anything, which is so awesome.

It is DARK though. Not just in tone, but in cinematography. To the point where I gotta watch this thing in a pitch black room in order to pull out all the details. Dunno if this is a HDR thing, a TV setting, or just a stylistic choice, but I kinda miss the "blue lens for night" effect from older shows, at least I could see who was who.

Boba Fett should have just been two episodes of the Mandalorian. One where he hangs out with sandpeople then they get slaughtered by crime boss. Second where he takes over from crime boss with help of the Mandalorian. Perfect.

BOBA FETT started off with some promise; I really liked the time spent with the Sand People. When they got whacked it went downhill from there IMO.

The Pykes were about as scary as a bag of kittens. No wonder they had to call in Cad Bane.

Fett should have been kept a side character in an episode or two of Mando, and he should have had at best one sentence of dialogue.

Disney wanted to make the dollars, fanboys wanted to see their fetishized anti-hero come to life. Nobody got what they wanted.

charlest wrote: Fett should have been kept a side character in an episode or two of Mando, and he should have had at best one sentence of dialogue.

Just like the films!

Fett has never lived up to the reputation created around him. I collected proofs-of-purchase from other figures to mail in to get his figure as a kid and I didn't even know who he was. He had a grand total of about 3 minutes of screen time and precisely one line in the original trilogy and yet was draped in all kinds of mystique and lore that never paid off in actual story. A lot more was developed in the books and comics which, of course, they decided to ignore when it came to creating films and TV series in subsequent decades but which still seemed to balloon the character's reputation into something that far outstripped his actual contributions to the whole picture. It's really a weird phenomenon.

I'd trade a Boba Fett series for a Darth Maul series. Such a great character design.

Joebot wrote: Disney+ definitely has not cracked the code on how to create compelling TV content. They got super lucky out of the gates with Wandavision and Mandalorian. Everything since has just been mediocre-to-bad with a few rare bright spots (I liked Hawkeye quite a bit).

Sort of incredible to compare almost any service to the quality of content across genres of HBO max. It's more expensive and I have a hard time justifying it but man...

I finished The Terror season 1 last week. Truly the grimmest, most depressing show I've maybe ever seen. Pretty good overall, their use of the artic and situation for horror was second to none.

I loved the first season of The Terror. I would lower your expectations if you pursue the second season.

I started watching Joe Pera Talks to You, I read it was very unique and just got cancelled. It's both a) very good and b) one of the most uncanny (though obviously heightened and unrealistic) evocation of the upper midwest I've ever seen. It's on HBO Max.

10 minute eps, the stated intention is to create something you could fall asleep with. The 2nd episode is in a diner that was so uncanny of a replication of a diner in my hometown I had to stop the episode for a while, memories came rushing back. It channels the same energy parks and rec could sometimes achieve before it tipped into too saccharine---weird, damaged, people but ultimately decent and kind.

I was gutted to read that Joe Pera Talks to You was cancelled. It's unlike anything else on television and usually delivered at least one moment per (short!) episode that had me howling with laughter. (I often had to explain to my significant other why I was laughing -- the humour is very dry and non-conventional to say the least.)

Greg Aleknevicus wrote: I was gutted to read that Joe Pera Talks to You was cancelled. It's unlike anything else on television and usually delivered at least one moment per (short!) episode that had me howling with laughter. (I often had to explain to my significant other why I was laughing -- the humour is very dry and non-conventional to say the least.)

It is very funny so far, it channels some of the emotions of the detectorists for me.

I'm finding I also have an intense emotional reaction to it that I'd be hard pressed to explain. There are so many little moments of well observed grief and loss in it that do not call attention to themselves. Grief and loss that are totally normal and completely lived in in quite a realistic way. I'm almost embarrassed to watch it with my spouse because of that reaction to a silly little comedy. Episode three about the very funny jack-o-lantern thing had this subtle element of loss, when he's looking through the pictures of pumpkin carving and fewer and fewer of his grandparents are still in it, that pretty much had me in tears for the rest of the episode and what it meant about what was behind his stupid jack-o-lantern ritual.

That's sad news, but I look forward to whatever he does next.

If I could have lunch with any three people: Joe Pera, Nathan Fielder, and Zach Woods.

Wish I hadn't waited quite so long to start The Sopranos.

So one of the weird things about the modern deluge of shows is that sometimes you get distracted in the middle of a season and watch a thing, and then years later you are like OH YEAH that thing was fun.

Spousal unit and I made it halfway through season five of THE FLASH and then remembered it was a thing. Happy to report that it is lighthearted fun. Good main characters, good supporting characters, good interpersonal relationships, comfort food for people who want to watch a fun show that doesn’t wallow in the absolute depths of human depravity. Heroes trying hard to solve problems and make the world better.

7yo and I walk the dog. We have a loop that goes through a park, then through 2nd growth redwoods, then home.

7yo: Dad, what cartoons did you like as a kid?

Me: When I was really small I liked Bugs Bunny, because your grandpa would watch with me and your uncles.

7yo: What about when you were older?

Me: Hmm. I liked GI Joe, and Transformers, and Robotech.

7yo: But what was your FAVORITE?

Me: Robotech. Because you never knew what was going to happen, and sometimes characters died. That never really happened in American cartoons.

7yo. Oooh, can we watch it?

(Later)

(Dialing up Robotech episodes on YouTube, kid is blown away, “that plane can turn into a ROBOT?”, apparently everyone is slicing onions up in here.)