I just finished watching Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix. It’s quite enjoyable as a travelogue–Hancock visits some interesting and spectacular locations–but the theory he puts forward and tries to prove is nonsense.
Where can Lucky Hank go?? When will someone get killed??
I saw the entire season and enjoyed it. It is pretty certain if you are an American, your feelings about this show and it’s source book will be skewed depending on who you voted for in 2016. I would not think a voter of Trump will appreciate the allegory. I thought it was a charming modern fantasy tale, somewhere between Rumpelstiltskin and Needful Things. People forget all nursery rhymes and fantasy stories often had real political statements behind them, whether or not some group agreed.
Anyway. I enjoyed it, if you have a Trump poster on your lawn still you will not.
paramount+ does the same thing with the roku channel
We finished Shrinking on Apple TV. It’s one of those rare shows where I like almost all of the characters. Nice cliffhanger for Season 2 (Boop!)
Agreed on Shrinking. Once the daughter started to open up a bit, it became totally delightful. Jessica Williams is hilarious.
We’re almost finished season 5 of “Yellowstone”. The show started out as ‘Sopranos on a ranch’, but has turned into ‘Dallas’.
Someone here recommended this. So, I tried it. I made it through one episode. It wasn’t the worst, but I didn’t watch another one.
I watched 2 seasons. That should demonstrate how much I love my wife. Even for her I couldn’t do any more.
Tyler was definitely the most inexplicable part of that show, and like, what’s with all the kids? But in the book there’s even less of an explanation. That said, in the book there’s not all this redemption drama to complicate things. Tyler is your typical run of the mill child-rapist cult leader, so even with less explanation it makes more sense than the TV series.
I’ve watched 2-1/2 episodes. It’s been well-written and involving, but I’m not sure I need gritty R-rated drama set in a corrupt, collapsing, violent South American men’s prison – especially not five seasons’ worth.
But for anyone who’s fine with the subject, provided the writing and acting are good, it’s got my recommendation. I’ll probably keep visiting it for awhile.
I watched the first episode of Lucky Hank, and it reminded me a bit of The Chair, a Netflix series from a couple of years ago starring Sandra Oh as the English department chair of a New England liberal arts school. Both shows seem to feature faculty facing backlash from students on social media.
Chernobyl, HBOmax.
Had the pleasure of watching this with someone who lived through the events in question and her reactions were fascinating.
What they got right:
Look and feel of the Soviet Union (set design) was almost perfect. Some minor issues - a scene has girls playing while wearing a traditional religious uniform (kinda like a scene where kids are playing in their Communion outfits), but otherwise, “wow”.
The people. They all looked right and they had the properly beat-down look about them.
The intimidation. I remarked to her that it seems that Soviet power was based openly on intimidation and the only way to advance was to take one’s intimidation and become more intimidating in return. She said “that’s exactly how it was”.
What they got wrong:
Despite the above, Soviet society (as shown) wasn’t callous enough. For example, mothers were never given their newborns to cuddle, only 10 minutes to nurse, twice a day. The baby is taken away and the mother is left to stay, alone, in her hospital room, no nurse checks, nothing. The scene in the hospital with the parents and children earned a literal guffaw out of her.
State Soviet party officials never addressed groups of working men. Their orders were handed down to local party officials who then addressed the men. So the scene in Tula, with the blue suited guy and the miners, would never have happened.
Fathers never played with, or even held, babies. Just wasn’t done in 1991 Ukraine, definitely wasn’t done in 1986 Ukraine.
If anyone was going to perform an investigation like the one performed throughout the story, with one person traveling and interviewing people to get “the truth”, it would have undoubtedly been a man. No if, ands, or buts.
However, no one would even think to perform a fact-based investigation, the idea is silly. The goal always was to cover your ass, to make sure you avoid blame via avoiding accountability. “You would even do this in the fields”, referencing the need to show neither competence nor incompetence in doing anything, even to the task of harvesting potatoes every September. Just a base level of mediocrity.
An excellent show, well worth the time, and from one who was there, remember: the reality was worse.
One other thing. Unlike all the other events of Soviet history, including the necessity of the Ukrainian famines of the 1920s, there was no attempt by the Communist party to mythologize Chernobyl, or even give it the proper propaganda treatment.
It was, for all intents and purposes, ignored, never mentioned in the news, never eulogized, nothing. It happened, and then the news stopped. No movies about brave men, no songs about how the Soviet state rose to the challenge, nothing.
Tiring of True Lies. It has nothing that made the movie charming or interesting.
I wonder if the they were consciously trying to avoid falling into old Cold War era anti-Soviet tropes about how terrible everything is under communism, and in doing so ended up making the USSR appear nicer than it actually was.
Re-watching Station Eleven. Of all the shows I saw in 2022, this one stuck the most. It is very likely my favorite post apocalyptic story, especially of those made for television. Very well thought-out.
I think Hank ought to team up with that jerkoff student in his class and start cooking meth.
And I think it’s time to lay Night Court to rest again. If Dan isn’t going to be Dan anymore, fuck it.
I was bored yesterday so I re-watched the first episode of Rome, a series that was on HBO like a decade or more ago. It was really, really good and I was sad that it was cancelled after only two seasons.
Me, too. I loved Rome.