My wife and I started watching Strange New Worlds several nights ago, after someone posted a thread that the whole season was out on YouTube. I complained in that thread about the ads, which were both frequent and random the first night we watched. We watched two episodes that night, and two more the next night, and the second night I think there were a total of two ad interruptions the whole night. Last night we watched thru ep. 7 and the ads were slightly more frequent, but still not as bad as the first night. So I don’t know. I, too, sit with remote in hand, ready to skip them as soon as they pop up.
Oh, and we’re both really enjoying the show. Not sure if I will sign up to watch S2 though, unless we drop one of our other streaming services.
I’ve previously talked about finding Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Peacock, so I’ve been trying to see all of the episodes. A couple of things:
On June 1st, Peacock posted a notice that the series is going away as of the end of the month, so I now have about 20 days left to finish watching all seven seasons (about 33 episodes each season!)
I’m on season 3, so I had a about 150 episodes left. I’ve been cramming the episodes into spare times throughout the day, seeing maybe five episodes a day.
To make it a bit easier, I’ve decided to watch only those episodes rating 7.0 or higher on IMDB. I guess some of them are real duds; if I have time, I’ll try to watch a few of those for laughs.
The highest rated episode, at 8.3, is Lamb to the Slaughter, starring Barbara Bel Geddes, based on a Roald Dahl story. I’ve seen it before and really enjoyed it. Strangely, it’s not available in the Peacock offering; it seems like it’s only on the Roku channel. (Or I bet I can find it on YouTube). There must be some contractual agreement on who gets to show this episode, but I can’t find any details.
My wife probably thinks I’m crazy, or maybe planning her murder, based on the plots of many of the episodes. I’m not - I swear it!
We are finishing The Night Agent tonight (on Netflix). It’s been a good series. An FBI agent assigned to the White House ‘Night Agent’ call line gets a call that unleashes all kinds of mystery and violence. I’d recommend it if you like that sort of show.
I’ve been watching Murdoch Mysteries. I started by watching the first thirteen seasons on Hulu and then the next three (halfway through the sixteenth season) on Acorn. It’s a Canadian detective drama set in Toronto around the turn of the twentieth century. Like many of these shows, it’s based on a series of novels. The lead character is a brilliant detective who often uses inventions in solving the crimes. He, or other characters, invent most everything you can imagine from the twentieth century.
I read all the books decades ago, so it’s nice to re-visit them. They changed some things in the first season stories in a way that I thought was awkward, but the second season episodes seem more true to the original books. It’s so weird, though, because we see a lot of the same UK actors in the various shows, and this one is no exception. But it is such a well done period piece (set in the 60s-70s), I’ll see an actor and expect them to be younger than they looked the last time I saw them because it so far in the past, y’know. D’oh.
I could never get into Murdoch Mysteries. It always felt off. Kinda fake. I think it’s because I tried watching it after seeing the Miss Fisher stories where all the period details were so authentic. By comparison, Murdoch seemed a little fakey and like older cheesier TV shows. Also, the first episode I watched was really weak, and the characters were not acting believably either. Maybe I caught a bad episode?
I’ve been watching 24 Hours in A&E on Freevee. It’s a British reality series that takes place in a hospital’s ER or what’s called the A&E over there. There are 30 seasons and I think it’s still currently being filmed. It looks like some of the years had 2 seasons. I’m not sure how it works - I’m only on the first season which is 2011. It’s very interesting and something I can pick up whenever I’m in need of something to watch.
I was working from home last week (rare for me) and wanted something on the TV that I could watch while muted, so I watched the first two series of Inside the Factory on Paramount+. It’s a UK series that shows how various goods (mostly food items) are produced in enormous factories. Sort of like How It’s Made, but perhaps more talky than that show and going into more depth.
Just started watching Black Summer on Netflix after hearing that Stephen King reviewed it positively. I’ve seen two episodes and will continue for now.
I’ve been watching those too. One of the things I like about it is that it alternates a walk-through of the production process with looks into the history and sometimes the science behind the products. And Gregg Wallace is a hoot, with his frequent comments on how amazing or unexpected something is, and how he gets involved in adding things, trying to do some of the work, and (of course!) tasting things.
“Swarm” on Prime is insane in a great way.
It follows a socially awkward young woman who is obsessed with a pop star (clearly a Beyonce stand in) who suffers a personal tragedy and chooses to deal with it in an unexpected way.
Struggling to finish The Days (Netflix) about the Fukushima power plant disaster. Some of it is engrossing but it’s mostly:
Station manager gets bad news on phone.
Gives instructions to “suicide squad” in darkened control room.
Lots or pitch black scenes with a flashlight occasionally illuminating a sign somewhere
Team comes back and checks their rad meters while ominous music plays.
Rinse and repeat interspersed with politicians and corporate bigwigs making unreasonable demands and the single actress with a speaking role wondering if her husband is okay.
If you liked HBO’s Chernobyl…just get Max and watch it again.
Stars on Mars (FX). 12 B-list celebrities play a Survivor-style reality game, but in a setting that is supposed to mimic a habitat on Mars.
The players are playing the game seriously, but the producers inject a welcome dose of humor. The first episode was surprisingly fun. Marshawn Lynch and Lance Armstrong talk smack about whether each other’s sport is difficult. Ariel Winter confuses Lance Armstrong with Neil Armstrong. Seriously.
I’ve finished the latest season of Indian Matchmaking and moved on to Jewish Matchmaking. (Netflix)
I’ve decided to keep going with Will Trent and am revising my former view of it.
I’ve finally realized that what I thought was the back story is the actual story and what I thought was the actual story was the setting.
This isn’t really a show about solving crimes. The crime stories are just the medium to present what the show is really about, which is broken people. Everyone on the show is broken in various ways by past and present issues: childhood abuse, substance abuse, anger issues, threats of violence, PTSD, teenage pregnancy, neurodivergence, etc etc. It’s a show full of dumpster fires in full blaze. And what sets it apart from similar shows where the backstory traumas are there to “make this person interesting” (as I initially thought this one was), in this show they just seem to have made everyone traumatized. And not in a fun way.
I’ll see how the season pans out.
I also finished Hotel Del Luna, which was nice to look at but really dragged out every episode way too long. 1.5 hours each - they could easily have knocked 15 minutes off each one with no loss of story.
I just finished This world can’t tear me down an animated show by Zerocalcare, an Italian cartoonist. Available on Netflix.
I thought it was very good, a mix of humor, absurdity and humanity based around a fight over refugees being housed in his neighborhood. Not a long series by any stretch, and the tangents he goes off on, the backstories and such don’t feel like a waste of time.
Two episodes in to Tiny Beautiful Things (Hulu) I’m getting sick of dramas about people whose life is falling apart and whose kids hate them and use “fuck/fucking” in every sentence because the writers think it makes them sound real and edgy. Starring Katherine Hahn.
The Executive Producers also gave us “Big Little Lies” and “Little Fires Everywhere” and I hated both of those, too.
Oh, me too. I’m no prude, but I intensely dislike being pummeled by vulgarities every other word. Real people don’t talk like that, generally speaking. It’s just lazy writing.