What TV SHOWS are you watching?

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is off to a good start. It is funnier than I expected, but recognizably still set in the world of Westeros. I think it is set about 200 years after House of the Dragon and 90 years before Game of Thrones. I have recently re-read all three of the Dunk & Egg novellas that are the basis for this show, and can happily report that the first two are great and the third one is okay. The stories will need to be padded out some to turn each story into a 6-episode season, but that should be fine. In this first episode, we get a much closer look at Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm. In the "The Hedge Knight," Lyonel didn't get dialogue that I can remember.

EDIT: I have been a fan of George R.R. Martin for nearly four decades now, but I gave up on House of the Dragon after the first season. One of my friends kept watching, but she admits that it isn't great. Knight of the Seven Kingdoms might only last for three seasons because there are only three stories so far. Martin claims that he has ideas for a total of 12 -18 stories about Dunk and Egg, but won't write any more until he finishes The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited 6th book of the Game of Thrones series. (Sorry, I just can't call it A Song of Ice and Fire. Too pompous.)

Yeah, I thought it was decently done. Everyone carried their role well and they kept the pace slow to emphasize the drudgery of a life as a (barely and not really) hedge knight. I recently donated the vast majority of my remaining library (had gotten rid of about half of it the last time moved to a smaller place) and the only things GRRM-related that I retained are three comic versions of the Hedge Knight stories and the original Wild Cards books. I have zero concern about whether Winds of Winter is ever released and I do hope that they confine this series to just the material that Martin has provided, no matter how popular it may get. Like your friend, I also gave up after one season of House of the Dragon. The thing that drove the original book series was the fascinating characters. House had no one compelling in any way in that first season and lacked any plot of interest, since all of it is known to those who read Blood & Fire or the other parallels to it, so I was done with it. I had the same problem with Rings of Power, which I gave until the third episode of season 2 before abandoning.

Jackwraith wrote: Yeah, I thought it was decently done. Everyone carried their role well and they kept the pace slow to emphasize the drudgery of a life as a (barely and not really) hedge knight. I recently donated the vast majority of my remaining library (had gotten rid of about half of it the last time moved to a smaller place) and the only things GRRM-related that I retained are three comic versions of the Hedge Knight stories and the original Wild Cards books. I have zero concern about whether Winds of Winter is ever released and I do hope that they confine this series to just the material that Martin has provided, no matter how popular it may get. Like your friend, I also gave up after one season of House of the Dragon. The thing that drove the original book series was the fascinating characters. House had no one compelling in any way in that first season and lacked any plot of interest, since all of it is known to those who read Blood & Fire or the other parallels to it, so I was done with it. I had the same problem with Rings of Power, which I gave until the third episode of season 2 before abandoning.

THE HEDGE KNIGHT is off to a promising start - when they start the familiar AGOT theme music only to cut it off as Dunk takes a dump is a good way to differentiate it from the other GOT shows.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON suffers as Jackwraith says from a lack of compelling characters. The younger versions of Rhaenerya and Alicent are decent and you start to root for them....til they get older then you realize that they, like virtually every other character, lack any sort of redeeming qualities whatsoever. Yeah, I know in civil wars it's hard to separate good from bad. But still.....

The other issue is that the show is so dark, both visually as well as having virtually no humor aside from the occasional snark from Matt Smith.

Hedge Knight is a way better source material for a TV series in terms of structure fit with television, so hearing it's decent doesn't surprise me.

I plan to watch this when I am done with Andor. It’s not easy to watch anything meant for adults with a young kid.

I actually enjoy HotD.

Yeah, nothing wrong with liking what you like. House of the Dragon works for a lot of people. It just didn't work for me, as with the vast majority of highly-popular TV series these days. I've had The Pitt recommended to me by more than one person. I watched two episodes and was like: "How is this any different from any other medical procedural (ER, House, Grey's Anatomy, etc.) that we've seen going all the way back to shows like Emergency! in the mid-70s?" I mean, it's fine, but there's nothing transformative about it and I had to roll my eyes a few times in the first episode at some of the exposition (Normal people don't describe their jobs to each other when they've supposedly been working side-by-side for anywhere from weeks to years.) If you're gonna hook me, you gotta have two things: 1. A (preferably new) good story. 2. Interesting characters that drive that story, rather than just riding along with it (as we say in the football world: actors instead of passengers.) But that makes me more demanding than a lot of people that don't have those expectations and/or just want to be entertained/distracted. I've wondered in recent years if it's because I'm not the target audience for producers who are aware that the majority of viewers are simultaneously playing on their phones while "watching."

I always say, if a show is worth my time, it's worth focusing on just the show. I don't enjoy or see the point of multi-tasking entertainment.

Same. My wife, OTOH... I can't count the number of times I've cited a line from something we were "watching" and I get a blank look or she'll suggest we watching something and I'm like: "We did. Two months ago." It's almost literally Short Attention Span Theatre.

I watched A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms last night. For reference, I have never read a George R. R. Martin book. I largely enjoyed GoT, bounced out of House of Dragons after season 1.

I think Dunk is a likable character. I'll try episode 2, but my main takeaway from the first episode is that it was boring. I know they had to do some setup but give me something!

I'm also caught up on season 2 of Fallout. It's.... fine. I'm watching because I enjoy the actors, and because they have done a great job of realizing what a real life Fallout looks like, but I don't really care about the story.

I finished Letterkenny and started Shoresy last week. From now on Letterkenny is my gold standard for puns and realistic conversation among friends who are just hanging out. Most of the characters were getting on my nerves after 12 seasons, some from the very beginning. There is usually no plot or just the tiniest hint, but it's still funny, occasionally immensely funny.
Shoresy, the spin-off about the foul-mouthed hockey barbarian with a heart of gold, starts out much stronger plot-wise (which doesn't mean much), the unreal banter is front and center, it's just the characters again. This show also has a lot of severely chafing one-note personnel. Everyone is likeable though, no surprise as it's a Canadian show.

hotseatgames wrote:
I'm also caught up on season 2 of Fallout. It's.... fine. I'm watching because I enjoy the actors, and because they have done a great job of realizing what a real life Fallout looks like, but I don't really care about the story.

Moreso than last season, they are trying to juggle way too many storylines.

The original vault
The new vault
The old abandoned vault whose inhabitants are now wandering outside
Lucy/Ghoul wandering plus numerous Ghoul flashbacks
Lucy's dad
Maximus/Brotherhood

6 storylines and only eight episodes to do it in. Basically each episode you only see half the storylines progress. If it was a 13 or even 10 episode season, maybe. But 8 ?

I got halfway through the second season of Fallout, but now I can't watch anymore because Amazon Prime is only giving me access to season 1. And I used to be able to watch Amazon Prime originals without commercials, but now they have commercials in everything. I have also had numerous issues with HBO in the last year, especially when watching a tv show. If I stop watching after, say, episode 7, the next time I resume watching, it will jump to episode 9.

That's odd - I have Prime and have no issues. As far as the commercial load, that started a year or two ago. Its fairly tolerable compared to broadcast TV: I usually watch on my iPad so I just surf while the commercials run.

Msample wrote: That's odd - I have Prime and have no issues. As far as the commercial load, that started a year or two ago. Its fairly tolerable compared to broadcast TV: I usually watch on my iPad so I just surf while the commercials run.

As a founding member of Gen X, I was raised on network television with regular commercial breaks, so a return to dealing with commercials is not a dealbreaker for me. Commercials are an opportunity to grab a snack, hit the bathroom, throw clothes in the washing machine, etc. I actually appreciate that Prime puts a timer on the screen showing exactly how long this particular commercial break will last, so I can decide what I can accomplish in that break.

I have recently been watching The Night Manager on Prime. The title is appropriate, but completely failed to attract my attention when the first season landed in 2016. But the positive buzz about the brand new season 2 caught my attention. The Night Manager is a mostly low-key and realistic spy drama featuring Tom Hiddleston (Loki) and Hugh Laurie (Dr. House). They are both fine actors, and the story is also a very good, as an adaptation of a John le Carre espionage novel of the same name. Le Carre himself even makes an appearance in one episode. The occasional action is explosive, sometimes literally, and there are some great plot twists. The cinematography is nice and there are a variety of exotic locations on display.

However, another Amazon Prime glitch has manifested while viewing The Night Manager. If I pause the show and the interruption runs too long, I can't easily restart the show. The controls within Prime are slightly greyed out, so I can't un-pause or do anything else, except go back to the main Roku menu screen. Once I'm on that main menu, I can freely do everything, including going back into Prime and restarting where I left off.

Perhaps an issue with Roku's implementation of the Amazon Prime app? I've not ran into this on my Samsung tv.