What TV SHOWS are you watching?

After seeing too many aggressive (and bad) ads for it, I'm enjoying Murderbot way more than I expected.
If you haven't heard of it: a group of really annoying scientists will only get the funding for their research field trip if they take a security unit.
The scientists think that's slavery and try to treat the sec-unit like a sentient being - it is that but it's also very much disgusted by the thought of being seen and treated as a human. Also, the Bot just found a way around their programming and is afraid someone will find out it achieved free will.
To complicate matters, the planet they're on is way more deadly than anyone expected - and someone seems to have tampered with the sensors.
Three or four episodes in it's an enjoyable screwball thing with love, death + robots (snicker).

I am watching The Tourist, the TV series based on a guy getting amnesia. It's sort of Australian Fargo. it starts out slow but gets better. I was pleasantly surprised by who the man character hooks up with. The series raises the question of whether you can start your life over, and my take is that there's some stuff you can't come back from, even though my personal theology says Murder is the point of no return.

As a fan of the books, I see the show through that lens. It’s interesting to see a different perspective.

It is a good show.

Nodens wrote: After seeing too many aggressive (and bad) ads for it, I'm enjoying Murderbot way more than I expected.
If you haven't heard of it: a group of really annoying scientists will only get the funding for their research field trip if they take a security unit.
The scientists think that's slavery and try to treat the sec-unit like a sentient being - it is that but it's also very much disgusted by the thought of being seen and treated as a human. Also, the Bot just found a way around their programming and is afraid someone will find out it achieved free will.
To complicate matters, the planet they're on is way more deadly than anyone expected - and someone seems to have tampered with the sensors.
Three or four episodes in it's an enjoyable screwball thing with love, death + robots (snicker).

In this lull before 8000 shows drop, I've been watching Dept. Q on Netflix. It's a British detective show focusing on cold cases (gasp, what a novel concept they definitely haven't done 80 times).

Likable characters, except of course the boss who is played by the lady from Game of Thrones who breast-fed way too long. She's doomed to always play a bitch.

Seems like it's designed to be one of those "1 case per season" style shows, and the interesting aspect of this cold case is that it's a missing person who we, the viewer, know is still alive.

Won't knock your socks off, but you could do worse.

Dept. Q had a lot of moving parts. I enjoyed it, but then immediately forgot I had seen it, but I was in bed sick for two weeks so everything was a little surreal.

Duster is good. I have been feeling nostalgic about the '70s recently, and this show does a great job of conveying the texture of the early '70s, with music, clothes, hairstyles, and more. However, at least a couple of the songs are from a later time period. Co-stars Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson are decent actors, and their respective looks are specifically perfect for this era.

It's good to see Keith David again, and Corbin Bernsen is still alive and funny in his occasional scenes. The biggest surprise is Donal Logue, who is completely unrecognizable as a corrupt cop/Jesus freak. Most might remember him as the main villain in the first Blade movie, but I will always remember him as the father from '00s sitcom Grounded For Life. Patrick Warburton also has a memorable turn in episode two.

I liked Donal Logue from his star-making turn in indie hit THE TAO OF STEVE.

That era was kind of the last hurrah of my hipster cred before I got old and mundane.

Watched the first episode of season 4 of The Bear, and it was good. They have a direction, which is more than you can say for season 3.

Finished Dept. Q and this one surprised me with how good it turned out. Also at one point there is a character saying a lot of names in rapid succession, and the camera cuts right to her face, and she says my first and last name, which was a bit of a funny coincidence.

I wondered why I was seeing The Bear come up more often when we checked in on Hulu. Didn't even know season 4 was coming out. I LOVED the first two seasons and that probably made my expectations for season 3 too high. I watched the first couple episodes and just walked away from it. It was OK, but such an enormous step down from levels of seasons 1 and 2 that I just wasn't compelled to keep watching. I should go back and try again...

... since something else I went back to after years has turned out to be pretty good. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. When I first tried watching it, 4 or 5 years ago, I fell asleep twice trying to make it through the first episode. So, I took it off my queue, but they kept recommending it to me and I know that people raved about it, so I went back a few weeks ago and started watching it while I'm exercising in the morning. I'm on episode 8 now and it's pretty solid. It's bog-standard epic fantasy (find the glaive/sword/one ring/bus ticket that will save the universe!) plot-wise, but it addresses a lot of modern and mature themes in the course of the story and the visuals are excellent, so it's been worth it.

Alternating episodes of The Bear and the final 6 episodes of Squid Game. This last season of Squid Game is good but takes a lot of focus away from Gi-hun (the star). He doesn't talk a lot, and mostly mopes around, having been thoroughly broken by all of what's happened. While the show is still excellent, I think parts without him are a bit lacking simply because he's the strongest actor on the show and I love that he does every scene dialed to 11. He would be extreme ordering a hamburger.

Watching season four of News Radio. It feels so sweet and innocent now.

Finished Squid Game. I'd call the resolution both surprising and not surprising at all, for different reasons. Taken as a whole, I'd say the show is great to good, with each season being not as good as the one before it. In my opinion it is the second-best thing Netflix has ever done, after Bloodline which is an under-appreciated gem of a show.

Yeah, I should try watching Squid Game again. I never made it past the first couple episodes because it reminded me of so many similar things like Battle Royale. But I even have five characters for Squid Game in my Funkoverse pile, so it had to have been halfway decent...

It's quite a lot more (and better) than Battle Royale, so you should definitely consider giving it another shot.

Cranberries wrote: Watching season four of News Radio. It feels so sweet and innocent now.

Little did you know the future of the blue collar building repair guy as one of the most influential people in the entire world.