TV Shows

Just watched a few episodes of "Old Enough" on Netflix.

"Look, we made the two-year-old cry!"

Child abuse is funny I guess.

 

Did you watch this yet? I really, really enjoyed it. Some great performances, and from a couple of actors I hadn't been aware of. Britt Lower was perfectly cast, and Tramell Tillman's portrayal of Milchick is quite chilling. And the big name Hollywood veterans are all great as one would expect.
I've since cancelled Apple TV but I'll sign up again when there's a new season of Severance again (and probably for Ted Lasso as well). I only hope they don't drag it out forever and that they wrap it up after season two, three at the most.

 

Love, Death & Robots. Has anyone seen any of this series? I’ve never heard of it but it cropped up when I booted up Netflix. From what I can gather it’s a series of short animated films, but the animation in some is incredible (in a CG kind of way). I’ll definitely be watching a few tonight.

 

They're short films of varying lengths. Some are better than others, and I enjoy the animation style of most, although a small number were off putting to me. Generally speaking, yes, definitely worth watching. I was excited to learn that there was a third series being released !

 

I think this is why it popped up, but as usual I’m about 12 months behind. I thought it was a brand new thing.

Anyway I watched a couple, the stand-out for me being The Drowned Giant. The narrative was so beautifully written and read. It would make for a great flash fiction story in its own right.

 

I've seen most of the ones from volumes 1 and 2 several times, and now I'm halfway through volume 3. I love the wide range of art style, subject matter, and story structure. They aren't all great, but it's always fun to see what weirdness is coming up next.

 

I'm not sure about that one, but many if not most of them are adaptations of existing published works. For example, the one about the yogurt taking over was Scalzi, and Sonnie's Edge was written by Peter F. Hamilton.

ETA: From Wikipedia:

 

I'm watching Servant of the People, the Ukrainian comedy about a high school history teacher who more or less accidentally becomes the president of Ukraine.

It's big news, of course, because the main character is played by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is the current president of Ukraine, but it's pretty damn funny it its own right.

 

He managed to get elected president for real after the TV show's success. Don't know many details, but the world (and particularly Putin) was rather skeptical of his leadership abilities and he wasn't doing very well in the opinion polls until Russia decided to invade.

Now he's looking rather like the good side of Winston Churchill.

 

Anyone else watching Strange New Worlds?

I am so happy to finally get to watch a proper Trek show again. Episodic, and a mix of fun and exploration! Can you imagine? Like, the things Star Trek fans love about Star Trek?
I'm also working through season 2 of Picard, and while I'm enjoying it, it takes itself too seriously, and can be a little preachy. The whole season seems like it's going to be what could've probably been best served as a two or three episode arch.
Looking forward to watching episode 5 of SNW after the hockey game. Highly recommend it !

 

That was the first election to work it's way into my consciousness. I was five. I remember my mom and her sister discussing some campaign literature and the first political names I learned were Kennedy and Johnson, who were primary rivals. Sixty year old memories tell me they favored Kennedy. In retrospect they may have been swooning over Jack and my memory is twisted by what I have learned about probability in the intervening years.

 

Finally got around to re-watching Twin Peaks last night. I bought it a few weeks ago when the sudden desire to watch it struck me. Then it arrived and the desire wasn’t so strong. There was also a part of me that was afraid I wasn’t going to enjoy it like I hoped, having been a little too young to fully appreciate it first time round. However my fears were unfounded and I binged on the first four episodes. The large character count can feel a little off-putting at times, but Lynch handles them well, and so far I’m following proceedings.

 

I know it’s a somewhat over-mentioned scene now, but I wasn’t aware the dancing dwarf dream happened so early on. It really is quite something.

 

As far as Dune goes, there was some really good acting, but that couldn't save it from a horrible script, unnecessary voice overs, over emphasising a rock star on the cast just to generate extra box office, and miscasting the lead just because he was a favorite of Lynch.

 

I'm watching the new season of Love, Death & Robots, although I'm not really sure why. It's entertaining enough, but surely there's better TV out there? I guess the short episodes and anthologized approach make it a good portion size to serve as procrastination fodder.

In fairness, S2 was better than S1, so maybe this season will be better still. I'm only two episodes in so too soon to tell.

 

I liked it, but you have to think of it like flash fiction. Dust Studios has some pretty good stuff on youtube, but they've also got a lot of crap. At least this is semi-curated.

 

Yeah, IMO there are episodes that will have great acting, or great writing, or great animation, or a great premise...but I'm not sure any episode has more than one of those at a time. Maybe the short form is harder to pull off in multimedia than in text? And I thought a lot of the violence/nudity was pretty gratuitous, although they really improved on that between S1 and S2.

Anyway. I'm still watching, so clearly they're doing something right...

 

Man, for somebody who hardly ever watches TV I feel like I'm posting a lot on this thread...anyway finished the latest season of LD+R and it continues to be just fine. With the exception of this season's last episode, "Jibaro", which I thought was Actually Good.

We also got through all of Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+, which is another worthy entry in the long Star Wars tradition of the good guys winning through luck and the Empire's shoddy security practices. Snark aside, it's a pretty good show, although it's no Mandalorian.