What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Having watched the first two episodes of both House of the Dragon and Rings of Power, I can say without reservation that the latter is simply the superior product right now. Whether it stays that way remains to be seen, but it's just a better story and better production in these opening two stanzas.
dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2022/09/r...of-storytelling.html

Rings of Power is pretty good Tolkien fanfic with amazing production values. I'm on board.

Edit: Oh damn, I didn't know you were a fellow Borders alum. Worked there 1999-2009. Monterey, Santa Cruz, Bellevue WA, Provo, Eureka, San Luis Obispo. Did a bunch of sorts all over the country ... opened stores in Chicago, Scottsdale, etc.

A good job, as long as you think making poverty wages is a worthwhile tradeoff for meeting phenomenally cool people and reading a lot of good books.

Yeah, I was at the HQ in the early 90s when they were still servicing client stores. Working conditions weren't much different then, either.

Edit - Never mind, I was confused.

Watched the first few episodes of Welcome to Wrexham (Disney+ in the UK but I believe it’s Hulu in the US), a documentary following Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds purchase of the struggling football club of the titular town. It’s very entertaining. I like that it focuses mostly on local people and their entanglements with the club rather than the co-owners, who feature as walk-on parts in what isn’t really their story when you consider the 150 odd year history of the club.

Jackwraith wrote: Having watched the first two episodes of both House of the Dragon and Rings of Power, I can say without reservation that the latter is simply the superior product right now. Whether it stays that way remains to be seen, but it's just a better story and better production in these opening two stanzas.

Same here. House of the Dragon is more even in tone but super-focused on a handful of characters in a single court. Rings of Power is juggling a variety of (converging) storylines and more characters, but the tone ranges from deadly serious to somewhat silly. I find the hobbits nearly intolerable except for Nori. I don't normally favor elves, but my favorite characters in this show so far are Galadriel and Elrond.

Par-MEE-see-un.

At this point, I go back and forth on which show is better, House of the Dragon or Rings of Power. Whichever one I saw most recently is the best. House of the Dragon is doing some great courtly intrigue with some action mixed in, while Rings of Power is assaying a more epic tale by utilizing the multiple POV approach of Game of Thrones.

I don't think there is much question for me, House of the Dragon is running rings....heh heh heh, around Rings of Power. The acting, the plotting, the costumes, it all goes to HotD. RoP LOOKS good but it feels really hollow, the dwarf/Elrond storyline is about the only one I really care about.

Hopefully Sauron can liven it up.

Oh man, I’m the opposite. New GoT is full of dumb and boring people without the advantage of a world whose past history I’m invested it. It tries to be shocking but it’s yawn-inducing compared to the original. Stab! Sexual comment! More stabbing! Blood! Herp derp.

dysjunct wrote: Oh man, I’m the opposite. New GoT is full of dumb and boring people without the advantage of a world whose past history I’m invested it. It tries to be shocking but it’s yawn-inducing compared to the original. Stab! Sexual comment! More stabbing! Blood! Herp derp.

This. I'm writing about both of them here: dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/

House is pedestrian, not least because they're trying to do a character-driven story with uninteresting characters. They just don't have anyone of the level of a Tyrion or an Arya or a Jaime or... The only one with a personality is Daemon and he just can't carry it alone. It's gotten better since the first episode, but that was almost enough to put me off it from the very beginning. Rings hasn't been brilliant, but at least it's using characters that you want to see back on screen for what they might say or do, like Halbrand, and there's more going on than just retracing the steps of GoT. They need to spend more of that monster budget on dialogue writers in House. Again, Rings hasn't been of the level of GoTs early seasons, either, but it's easily the better show at this point; not least because it's at least aiming higher.

Well, we will have the Willow show next month as a tie breaker

And that Witcher spin off as well, I think? Plus whenever Wheel of Time comes back.

Who would have thought we would see SO MUCH fantasy content? 'Member when all we had was Hercules re-runs, Xena, and that Conan show? AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Definitely time to put aside castles, knights in full plate, viking longships, and the gloomy visas of Ireland and Scotland in exchange for Bedouin warriors on camelback, something based on the early wars of Israel, and galleys driven by oars with rams n'stuff. Or do Larry Correia's Black Sword, which is set in future/post-apoc/now fantasy India(???)

Willow is an awesome movie.

I’m looking forward to the show.

I think a Willow show could work but it's a dice throw. At least it's a IP that hasn't been absolutely wrung dry for 30 years, those are so few and far between for sci-fi and fantasy viewers.

Willow was one of the only movies we had in English while we were kids living in Germany and we loved it. Great popcorn fantasy. I hope they don't ruin it with a bunch of mythology and world-building like the Star Wars prequels.