What TV SHOWS are you watching?

I thought house of dragons was pretty good too, though as you said I think we're good on birth scenes, you've communicated how dangerous birth was at this point and how instrumental women were treated, just as baby machines.

It's a shame their budget is just ok so the dragon stuff looks pretty iffy. Tough ep for this problem since there were a variety of crucial dragon scenes.

I'm a fan of the writing of William Gibson, but I'm not going to bother watching The Peripheral, due to the involvement of Westworld producers. Westworld had a strong cast and looked great, but the story was ultimately a tedious and pointless slog. Death in Westworld was a revolving door in a beige shopping mall with fancy displays and no actual merchandise for sale.

We have started the new Interview with a Vampire series and it is quite enjoyable. This Lestat is second only to the actor in Queen of the Damned for Lestat portrayals. The Louis character feel much more imagined and miles better than where Brad Pitt was when he played Louis. I'm not a fan of the direction they went with Claudia as I think the original concept in the movie was better with regards to age and emotion. The TV Claudia does get better after her intro epis.

Also, the new Love is Blind season is out for those of you who like their dumpster fires televised.

I am definitely not alone in my dissatisfaction with Westworld. Here is an awesome excerpt from an article in the Guardian about the fourth season:

"There are exactly three kinds of scene in Westworld, I’ve figured out: “Two people are making threats past each other, not to each other”; “Two people have arrived in a place that leads them to the next place and they are both talking like aliens about it”; and “Evan Rachel Wood is knotting her eyebrows and softly discovering a truth” (until later in the series, after hours and hours of softly knotting and being passive, when she will suddenly become steel-strong). There is a fourth variation, where an actor arrives out of nowhere and says “Remember me?” – which I explicitly do not – but it normally descends into one of the other three scenes. Nobody in Westworld seems to be capable of answering a direct question without reciting a riddle. It is maddening."

I'm going to watch Peripheral for one reason. The star is Hit Girl from Kickass.

Watched the first two episodes of Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix. This is a Tales from the Dark Side kind of show from Guillermo del Toro.

Story one is great and focuses on a greedy racist played by one of the Soggy Bottom Boys from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Story two is about a scumbag grave robber who runs afoul of a nest of rats. It is unsettling as fuck, and if you are particularly rat-phobic you might just want to skip this one.

For weeks, I couldn't decide if I liked Rings of Power more than House of the Dragon, but eventually it became apparent that House of the Dragon was clearly the better show. Better writing, better acting, more focused and compelling. And yet I find myself getting upset during nearly every episode of House of the Dragon. Maybe Game of Thrones affected other people that way and I was fine with it because I had already read the books. Except that the last two books haven't been published, so I didn't know what to expect in the final season of Game of Thrones.

As a citizen of a democracy, it's easy for me to criticize a hereditary monarchy as a poor form of government, and the biological drawbacks of incest in such a form of government seem obvious. But this final episode of season one of House of the Dragon raised another reason why incest is a particularly bad idea in a monarchy: the inability to consolidate power through strategic marriages. We see that Queen Rhaenyra is unable to secure her alliance with House Baratheon because her sons are already pledged to marry their cousins. Oh well, at least she managed to hang on to support from the only other surviving Valyrians on the planet.

Regarding HotD, Baratheon was mostly just being a jerk. Luc has THREE younger brothers at this point, Joffrey, Viserys, and Aegon (the III), so Luc and Jace themselves are not that relevant, especially since Aemond himself will never be King since his older brother Aegon (the II) has 1-2 boys at this point himself. What we really missed out in that scene was Aemond picking one of the 4 girls and the least attractive girl mocking Aemond and goading him into fighting Luc. That bit doesn't really play into the narrative the showrunners are pounding out of the book but would have been a great addition IMHO.

So the incest, for the Targaryens, is really more about keeping dragonriding, which seems to be a genetic capability (or at least heavily enhanced by a genetic component), localized. If Targaryens spread their seed then within a few generations you could have dragons in all the great houses which, much like nuclear proliferation, suddenly given smaller houses a say at the table (which Ukraine, at this moment, is deeply regretting giving up).

In the days of Old Valyria I don't think these families were quite so insular, but even there there were "Dragon houses" like the Targs and "non-dragon houses" like the Velaryons.

The dragons as a concept are sorta underbaked IMHO. How and why they breed, the specifics of dragonriding and the relationship with the rider, and the pseudo mysticism around hatching the eggs, really takes some shots when there are more than just Dany's three. If we ever get a "grand old days in Valyria" story (IIRC HBO developed one with Naomi Watts but scrapped it after the pilot) I hope this gets a better foundation.

I was slightly puzzled when that Kingsguard twin showed up with a crown for Queen Rhaenyra. Did he steal this crown from King Aegon? Was there a spare crown just sitting around? Or did he have time to pay a smith to whip up a new crown out of uh whatever fancy materials happened to be at hand?

Shellhead wrote: I was slightly puzzled when that Kingsguard twin showed up with a crown for Queen Rhaenyra. Did he steal this crown from King Aegon? Was there a spare crown just sitting around? Or did he have time to pay a smith to whip up a new crown out of uh whatever fancy materials happened to be at hand?

Aegon II was crowned with the crown made for Aegon I the Conqueror (his....great-grandfather if I'm counting correctly). Kings Jaehaerys and Viserys wore a different crown, THAT is the one smuggled out by Arryk to give to Rhaenyra when he "defected". They don't show it, but in the book Queen Alicent orders that crown to be locked up but it slips out and gives Rhaenyra a little bit more legitimacy.

I quit Westworld after a few episodes, came back to it for a season, and quit forever.

I have finished Station Eleven, and it is my favorite show in years, maybe decades. Only BSG was as enthralling, and it was a whole season too long. Absolutely loved this show. Loved.

Yeah, Station Eleven was great. I'm sure to watch it again at some point. The airport episode (ep 5, I think) is one of my favorite post-apoc things ever.

Paying my Marvel dues. I think I would have liked Moon Knight better as an original series, preferably without the supernatural. The mystery of the first episode is enticing, but then everything gets explained in detail. Excessive detail. Absolutely is everything is explained to the very back rows until the final twist, which was at least well set up. Some good stuff like the mummy zombies and the suit, but it didn’t live up to the craft and potential of that first episode.

She-Hulk was half-baked. There was occasional good stuff, but it didn’t feel earned. I liked her speech about having the cool friend and then being the cool friend, but we never saw that. She was always surrounded by loving supportive friends and family. The lawyer tells Jen that no man would have to listen to women dump on him in court in order to win his case, but that literally happened in the preceding episode. They kept throwing out these lines about the struggle of being an angry woman or doing twice the work for half the appreciation, but I never believed them within the series. They were just things being said. It’s not my joke, but it was just Futurama’s Single Female (Green) Lawyer, straight out of the ‘90’s and everything. At least Daredevil was allowed to experience some joy.

On the other hand Ms. Marvel looks great after the first episode. Some great imagery, a different sort of character, solid family dynamics and actually implementing some gorgeous comic art. I kind of wish she didn’t get powers and could just be a hero as a teenager from Jersey City, but that was never an option.

I’ve also managed to fit in some adult things. I don’t understand how Derry Girls can be so great. The characters are absolutely one note, repeat their jokes several times every episode and are objectively terrible, but it works. I’m always laughing.

I’m not as hot on Undone as some of you have been earlier in the thread. Once I noticed that it was the same producers as Bojack Horseman and realized it was going to be another sideways look at mental illness, family trauma and the like, I lost a a lot of interest but held on through the first season for a pretty great ensemble.

Yes to Derry Girls!

Eight episodes in and ANDOR is still excellent.