Picked up Taskmaster again after a long break. Episodes are free on YouTube.
It’s a British reality show where the two hosts get together a bunch of comedians and assign them random and often hilarious tasks to complete in competition with one another. There is usually a time limit to add to the chaos.
Nobody takes it seriously. The show is just mainlined pure comedic joy.
We finished The Watcher on Netflix this weekend. It was based on a true story. Kind of creepy.
My current favorite British show by a country mile. There has yet to be a genuinely bad season IMHO. Even the one I initially thought was a bit cringey (most everybody’s least favorite, season 8), grew on me once I knew some of the background (i.e. that Iain Stirling and Lou Sanders are friends in RL and nobody filming at the time really picked up on any bad vibes - it was more an editing artifact). Of the regular seasons, 8 and 10 are probably the weakest for me and I’d happily watch them over most other TV. The best seasons are sublime.
What I like about Taskmaster is imagining how I’d solve the problem. I really like the creativity required by the game. (And I don’t understand why it’s not been adapted successfully in the US.)
Successfully being the operative word. They tried it, but apparently it failed.
Ha. We are watching 8 now. It’s still pretty good.
1923 has returned from hiatus, I’m happy to note. Still watching Your Honor, but it’s also a one-per-week drop. In between episodes we’re watching the latest season of Fauda on NFLX, which is an Israeli team vs Palestinian terrorists type of thing.
We just finished the first season of Yellowstone. It’s pretty good, if a bit melodramatic.
Tried to watch The Hot Zone on Hulu. It’s about a beak-out of Ebola in a Virginia monkey medical research lab. Based on a true story, I read and liked the book years ago. The series seemed to spend time on the personal lives of the people, which I had no interest in. Lasted 3 episodes.
What does this have to do with The Watcher?
Too much beer on my part? Yep, I’m going with the beer excuse. Sorry about that!
He had his Beer Watcher’s on…
OK, I’m leaving. Y’all can stop.
Anyone watch Stolen Youth on Hulu? 3 part documentary on “Sarah Lawrence Sex Cult.” It’s well done, powerful and depressing.
Have that on my watchlist, glad to hear it’s worthwhile.
I finally watched the first season of Reservation Dogs. It’s just as great as people here have been saying. Great take on reservation life. I think it has every regular working Indian actor in it. It even has both Joe Leaphorns, acting totally against their usual type. The young actors are all great and the writing is perfect. If this wasn’t up for an Emmy, something is wrong.
I’m going to plunge into season two tonight.
We watched it last night. I liked it, but I thought it could have used a narrator. Maybe I’m just to used to shows like Dateline.
I would have been freaked out having that crazy guy living in my college apartment. It didn’t take long for me to say “cult”; it’s amazing what people put up with to please an authority figure.
My daughter-in-law’s sister teaches at a mostly Native school and those kids are thrilled to “see themselves” on TV and relate strongly to everything shown.
I can see why. I grew up among a lot of rez kids and even back then the dissonance(?) between the young and the elders was evident. As shown in the show, leaving the rez is a really big deal. Many will never leave it. The tradition and family ties are still there.
I grew up around Alaska Natives, and the ones who left the villages for the cities were generally pretty miserable. The discrimination then was really bad, and a lot of them ended up in the booze bottle or as prostitutes. Of course, the village life is no picnic either, even today.
That’s my experience too. Lost two close friends way too early because of booze.
Have just finished re-watching all six seasons of Justified. I remember liking it a lot, but feeling it fell off slightly after the first two seasons, with no “seasonal villain” being quite up to the level of Margo Martindale. But that was watching it in real time. Binging it was a different experience and I felt it held up better as a cohesive whole in that context. A strong series that comes to a very satisfying conclusion, definitely one of FX’s best.