We’re watching Under The Bridge on Hulu. It’s a police drama based on a book based on real events that happened in Canada, wherein a young girl was murdered, possibly by other young girls. So. . .likely not accurate. The acting is not all that great, and I really don’t like all the flashbacks, but we’ll probably finish it, as the wife likes anything with Native Americans in it.
Harmon’s Gibbs was good in the earlier seasons, but went too far off the tracks. Cole is great. Rookie is usually very good, but it has had some bad episodes.
I dont like the creepy romances on Trent. It has got to be 70% personal life and romances, 25% detective show.
Hacks S3 should be available today, the first 2 episodes at least. I love this show way more than I should, so I’m excited, but tend to agree with the spoilered-for-S2 comment above by @Wheelz. We’ll see, indeed.
On the final episode of “the silo”
Very good , but everyone already knows that.
I totally agree about Cole. He’s just… better than Harmon was. I think it’s because Gibbs was always a bit inhuman in his brokenness and determination, and Cole is a whole lot more likable, but still just as competent. I find myself actually rooting for the team now, not feeling sorry for them because Gibbs is dragging them into one dangerous situation after another. They feel like they have each other’s backs more out of love and affection than duty, if that makes sense.
I feel like the creepy romances on Will Trent (and I agree with you there) are more about just how broken Trent & Polaski are, not so much about character development. They’re more exposition, if that makes sense. The only romance that actually makes sense is Faith & Luke, and they haven’t really brought him into the main cast yet, even though he’s an obvious choice.
I don’t know… even as hokey as it can be, it’s still entertaining. And I think Ramon Rodriguez is doing a stellar job playing an ethnic Puerto Rican who was raised more or less white Georgian.
Okay, I see your point there, thanks. I will try to give them a tad more slack. Still creepy though.
I watched The Rookie. The detective married to the rich lawyer found out her nanny carries a gun (with a license and everything). She fired her on the spot. Now wait- she is a cop, she brings a gun home every day, probably a couple. They had a Ex british secret service bodyguard- armed. And, its poor detective work on her part, as in LA county is is super easy for a LEO to find out if someone has one of the rare LA County CCWs- and it would have shown up on her background check- which she says she always has done. And her house has been a target a couple of times- hence the armed security. So, I would think that having another trained armed person in the house would be a Good Thing. And if she thinks it is NOT- it is her kid- then just tell the nanny not to bring the gun into the house. Why go bonkers on the spot?
Oh and later on her and her partner told a wife her husband was cheating on her- with their nanny. With very little evidence- mostly a strong hunch. What would have happened had it not been true?
And Sgt Tim getting off with just a transfer back to patrol? Wow.
Still- lots of great moments anyway.
I am binge watching Longmire. In the later seasons they abandon the great books and go off on a thing where Walt and or Henry must have some sort of danger hanging over them.
And it got ridiculous. First all all, no Chief of detectives would let one of his men go off like Javert chasing down a man for years after years, ignoring his caseload, and spending the Departments funds like water. It aint gonna happen.
Then Longmire is sued in a bogus revenge and greed lawsuit- hello, Qualified Immunity anyone? Longwire is harassed and kept from doing his job by endless attacking depositions. This is why there is Qualified Immunity .
Next in last season the Mayor tries to shitcan Longmore. Let me get this straight- the Mayor of a town is gonna shitcan an Elected County Official. Nope, nope, nopers. The mayor has exactly zero authority.
I enjoyed it more when it was just the Sheriff solving crimes with his buddy Standing bear.
I was wondering if there was ever going to be another season of this. I’m not sure I want to renew HBO just for it, but I’ll see how reviews are.
I watched it quite some time ago and was disappointed, but for different reasons. Robert Taylor was fine in the lead, but the other main characters were all wrong. In the books, Henry is a huge and intimidating man. Lou Diamond Phillips was just wrong in every way, as was Katee Sackhoff as Victoria, who in the books is a tough character, not this simpering fool.
Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out the central conflict myself. At first, I thought it was Will’s dyslexia and orphanage/foster home upbringing, then I started thinking it was actually conflict with his partner Faith, then his and Polaski’s sporadic love affair, and then I thought mommy issues with Amanda.
Now I’m not sure; it seems to be more diffuse and poor adaptation on his part to many things mixed with secret low self esteem, and how that affects those around him. I enjoy it, but I’m not sure exactly what it’s about, if that makes sense.
I’m going to give the first two episodes a 6.5 out of 10, maybe? I could be prejudiced at this point by expecting S3 to be a comedown from S1-2, but the first S3 episodes have not grabbed me quite yet. We’ll tune in next week.
Among other things, I found the boobage a bit gratuitous. Did they have bare boob before?
Not that I recall. That’s usually a substitute for poor writing.
Well, at least he is part native American.
A couple of years later, and this is now on Netflix and I just finished the first season. I really liked it! It definitely has a classic Coen Brothers vibe with alternating dark and light tones, quirky characters, and people pushed to the brink. The performances are excellent throughout and the Australian outback is just the right desolate landscape for the story. The writers were excellent at making you think the story was going in one direction, then pulling out the rug from you and zigging in a different direction.
They didn’t quite stick the landing with the final episode, but overall I give it a 9/10 - very enjoyable.
Well we finished “Silo” and I am now under orders that I have to watch all series first and check there is a suitable level of closure at the end of the season before we watch anything else else .
I am currently into season 3 of Attack on Titan, an anime series that I’ve only heard of because it has (or at least had) ridiculously high IMDB ratings. Which means that either it’s fantastic, or its fanbase is very dedicated to rigging the ratings.
It’s… OK. So, more of the latter than the former. I’m not an anime guy at all, but I’m enjoying it enough to keep watching. The setting and premise and imagery are novel and fascinating. The storytelling is fractured and often confusing.
I’m also super hyped for Shardlake on Hulu, based on the series of historical novels. It’s a murder mystery set in the reign of Henry VIII. I devoured the books, and the review I read of the series was quite promising, but I haven’t started it yet.
I’m enjoying S3 of Hacks just as much as the previous, seems as good as ever… which is to say, enjoyable and watchable and makes me laugh, but not really approaching greatness.
Also, I intermittently write up summaries and ratings of TV shows and post them on Facebook. Here’s my most recent post (much of it discussing shows that have already been discussed here, of course): Extraordinary on Hulu is a comedy about a young British woman, dealing with relationships, hustling to find a job, etc. It actually reminds me a lot of the lighter bits of Fleabag, earthy but not judgy, with a relatable young heroine making all sorts of mistakes. (Although, like most shows, it’s not as good as Fleabag). But it does have a hook, which is that it takes place in a world in which everyone gets a magical power when they grow up. Everyone, that is, except for our heroine. Fun and light and silly, with some make-fun-of-the-superhero-genre thrown in. B-
Culprits on Hulu is a heist show, told in the present day, as some of the heisters attempt to live their lives a few years post-heist; with ongoing flashbacks to the heist itself and the preparation for the heist. It’s a show of three parts: the emotions and rawness of the protagonist’s happy present life being slowly ripped apart as his history catches up with him is extremely good (I note that he’s a gay black man trying to have a happy relationship in a slightly racist American town), definitely transcending what you would expect from the genre. The heist itself is good, although nothing we haven’t seen before. But the finale is a big mess… still worth watching, still fun, but was on course to be in the B range, but a D-level finale drags it all down to a C+
Reservation Dogs on Hulu is a dramedy about high school kids on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma. Its name is a pun on Reservoir Dogs, the Tarantino crime movie, and for the first part of the first season, it leans into that comparison, with the main plot driver being a medium stakes confrontation between the protagonists (four kids) who are kinda sorta in a gang, and a rival kinda-sorta-gang. But it fairly quickly abandons that and just becomes slice of life stories about these kids, their lives, dealing with loss, etc. What it does incredibly well is present Native American reservation culture and beliefs, and feel incredibly authentic about them… but without being stuffy or humorless about it. One of the best characters is a spirit guide, a dead warrior from the past who appears to give our main character advice. Except… he was a terrible warrior in life who fell off his horse at the battle of Little Big Horn, and is 80% comic relief.
Particularly notable are the four lead characters, all of them unique and beautifully drawn and written and acted.
It ran for three seasons, and, frankly, is one of those shows that should have run for one season and then stopped. The first season was incredibly original and entertaining. Unpredictable, new, funny, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. And then there was more of it, but less sharp and more maudlin. And then there was even more of it, even less sharp, and even more self-congratulatorily maudlin. Still worth watching, but definitely a show where my final rating is WAY lower than I would have predicted four or so episodes in. B-
Echo, the newest Marvel show on Disney Prime, is a weird one to watch concurrently with Reservation Dogs, because it’s also putting Native American culture front and center. It’s about a young native women who is deaf and also has a prosthetic leg, and is trying to escape her past as, basically, a semi-superpowered mob enforcer. So it also is trying to tell a story while foregrounding Native American culture and beliefs. And… does it far more clumsily than Reservation Dogs (although they share a slightly comical number of actors, not surprisingly I suppose).
It reminds me a fair bit of Ms. Marvel, which is also about a young-super-power-y person dealing with life while we learn a lot about her culture and background. In both cases, the main character is fantastic, and the story around them is frequently clumsy and uninteresting. I basically enjoyed it all the way through… certainly wasn’t tempted to stop, as I in fact did with both Secret Invasion and The Marvels, but it’s certainly not among Marvel’s best. C
Mrs Davis on Peacock is the cream of this crop. It’s a hard show to explain. So I’ll just describe the first two scenes:
(1) We open in 13th century France, as the last of the Knights Templar are being burned at the stake. After they die, a mysterious young woman steals one of their boots from the ashes, and runs to a convent, where we learn that she is a nun. Sitting on a table in the convent is… the holy grail. Then a bunch of baddy inquisitors (no one EVER expects the French inquisition) bust in and threaten all the nuns, asking where said grail is. But, turns out the nuns are badass warrior women, whip out swords, and after a bunch of over-the-top wire-fu-esque action, everyone is dead except for the initial nun, who is given the mission, by the dying Mother Superior, of carrying the grail to “our sisters across the sea”
(2) The next scene takes place in the present day, on a deserted island, where a very clever castaway has been stuck for years, but he’s finally finished building a huge rocket via Gilligan’s-Island-esque improvisation, which he launches into the sky. It’s a firework, and his hope is that someone will see it, and come rescue him. Which works! But upon being rescued, he is disturbed to learn that, in the decade he was stranded, the world has been… taken over?.. by an ominous sounding but superficially helpful AI app, which everyone is logged in to and talking to all the time.
And it just keeps going like this, from one crazy scenario to another. Some shows, you don’t know how they are going to end, in that you aren’t sure who the killer is. But you’re confident that at the end of the show, you will find out who said killer is. This show, you have no idea what’s going to happen in 5 minutes. And if you try to guess, you will be wrong. Yet, somehow, the whole insane plot with all the crazy characters and happenings end up wrapping up incredibly well. Every goofy one-off what-the-hell moment ends up circling back around.
Also, and this might be either a plus or a minus for those of you who are genuinely religious, or genuinely NOT religious, its main character is a (present day) nun, and her faith is an incredibly important part of the show… but not in a sacrosanct, off-limits way. You will NOT expect where that part of her character ends up going, and it is arguably sacrilegious in the extreme… but it is also, I’d argue, treated respectfully, and with great weight.
All around: B+
A-ho! Young warrior!
I couldn’t disagree more. I thought this show was brilliant, and the 2nd and 3rd seasons were the best of the series. The arcs of the 4 main characters from where they start in season 1 (hoodlums stealing the chip truck) to where they end up, and how they got there, by the end of season 3 was not only very realistic/believable, but beautifully done. I also appreciated the weaving in of the parents/adults’ stories as well. The episode where the gals resurrect their childhood dance routine at the convention was classic !
Actually, not.
FWIW, A “reservoir dog” is a large rat…like someone who snitches to the cops. A slang term borrowed from another slang term.
Finished the last episode of Renegade Nell (I was savouring it, pretending it wasn’t a binge drop) and it was perfect from start to finish, exactly my kind of thing, with a perfect balance of action, humour, fantasy, and all in a swashbuckling period setting. Fantastic performances, especially from the three sisters, and a brilliantly unique premise. I highly recommend it because I really want a second series.