We just finished up Ripley.
Very very good , slow paced, tense , visually appealing and we may be the only people in the world who have not read the book or seen the movie , so happily ignorant of the whole plot.
Looking for something new (to me), I watched the first two episodes of Tacoma FD last night. For some reason, I was expecting a loose, Reno 911 type of improvisational style. But it’s a fully-scripted sitcom with all the usual workplace-comedy tropes in place.
I did find it pretty funny, but it didn’t blow me away. I’ll go to it when I have a half-hour to kill here and there.
I watched the first two episodes of John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, a six-part limited Netflix series playing live every night this week at 10pm EST. It’s in the form of a talk show, with pre-recorded comedy segments mixed in with the live talk format.
The central concept is that Mulaney is exploring various aspects of the city of LA, so he has serious guests in addition to comedy guests-- he had an LA wildlife expert on the first show (since coyotes are a problem in LA) and a tree expert on the second show (Andrea Begley, who I looked up and turns out yes, she’s Ed Begley Jr.'s daughter). As it turns out, SoCal’s iconic palm trees are non-native, many of which were planted around 100 years ago, and are reaching the end of their natural life. Since they’re non-native, and are water hogs that offer minimal shade, the question is, plant more ecologically sound native species to replace them, or stick with the non-native palms?
Anyway, the whole thing is a shaggy mess that I nonetheless am finding pretty entertaining so far. As Mulaney says at the very beginning of ep.1: “we only have 6 episodes, so we’re never going to find our groove”. Mulaney’s humor can be hit-or-miss with me, but when he hits, it’s pretty damn funny. I thought one of his other Netflix specials, John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch, a parody of children’s shows, was freakin’ hilarious.
The first 2 episodes of ‘Dark Matter’ have just dropped on Apple TV. Seems to be ‘influenced’ by the 1961 John Wyndham short story ‘Random Quest’. That’s one of my favourite parallel universe stories and I’ve seen all the adaptations (even the one with Joan Collins in), so I’ll stick with this for now. But stretching it out to 9 hours seems a bit much and I found myself longing for an alternative universe where the Script Editor was more disciplined.
i got onto “suspects” this weekend. i am a fan of damien moloney and he as usual does not disappoint in this series.
police procedural set in london.
It was my maternal grandmothers maiden name. Don’t call my family common!
Family legend says we are related to William, but it would not be a direct line as his descendants died out some time ago. I do have proof that William Shakespeare was my great, great uncle. But he wasn’t ‘that’ William as he was born about 3 centuries later and ran a butchers shop rather than writing plays.
Funny how that gets handed down as fact, isn’t it? My mother always said our Gray family line included the explorer Robert Gray, who “discovered” the Columbia River in Oregon. My genealogy research put that old biscuit to bed.
The first episode was very dull. The second wasn’t much better. And it takes itself very seriously. Such a serious, extended mystery would be warranted if the audience didn’t know the big twist going in, but this is no “Bruce Willis was dead all along”, we know it is a multiverse show from the published description.
Well, NCIS Hawaii has been canceled- and this is the 2nd worst epi yet. (the worst was the first when Tennant went jumping into a raging ocean after a perpr. I almost stopped watching but my buddy said it got better- and it did. Until the last one).
First of all- why the fuck did they trust Cruz? Next NCIS goes to Serbia- why? Send the CIA. But anyway, the super agent Tennant makes two huge mistakes- first her and one of her agents stand around with the thumbs up their butts watching Sam get sick- meanwhile the terrorist si getting away with “agent X” (corny name). They after she captures the terrorist- sans bioagent- she puts the terrorist on a room unsecured, who gets out and takes a hostage.
I am glad it’s over.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
I do not love the movie of Scott Pilgrim, so I am not the main audience for this show. However, it is quite good. It’s not an adaptation of the movie in animated form. It’s an alternative reality type thing.
Scott loses his first battle against an Evil Ex and this show deals with the aftermath of that. All voice actors return to reprise their roles from the movie.
It’s interesting. Not amazing, but interesting.
I’ve been watching and really enjoying Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. Sherlock Holmes in modern day New York. I prefer it to the BBC version. The changes they make to the stories work. (A big one: Holmes is in recovery from drug use) Miller pulls off punk rock holmes.
They made fun of one of my most hated tropes, where the cops ask a bartender about a customer from weeks ago and bartender remembers customer’s clothes, time coming and going and demeanor.
Watson: I’m looking for a man who was in here a year ago
Bartender: Oh yeah, I remember him. I think he ordered an alcoholic beverage.
I’ve been watching KonoSuba on Netflix – there is too much fan service for my tastes, but I like the story.
Basically the main character dies but chooses to go to a RPG world and when the goddess he meets in Limbo (for lack of a better word) says he can bring one thing with him he brings her.
They get various girls to join their party – One has a super powerful “explosion” spell, but can only cast it once a day and is barely conscious after casting it. All the characters have serious flaws but they still manage to complete quests.
Not a “must watch” but if I have 25 min to kill it is a pleasant diversion.
Brian
I was not aware there was a BBC version of Elementary, or are you speaking of the BBC series Sherlock?
//i\\
Yes, Sherlock.
Thanks, with so many series with the same name that have come from England to the US it can be hard to keep up.
//i\\
No worries, I should have made that clear.
Watching the new season of Doctor Who. It has gone very, very silly. And, sadly, not always in a fun way. I would also very much like them to stop doing musical numbers.
Weirdly, it’s not even the first series I’ve seen this year involving a non-binary magic pianist attacking people with physical representations of musical staves.
At least there were no dead composers.
Yeah. We watched the space babies/snot monster episode last night and it was not good. It’s just my opinion but I don’t think they should have done such a silly episode this early on.
I’m not warming up to the new Who. The Doctor has often tended toward the frantic side in more recent incarnations, but this new fellow is frantic on steroids. Not blaming the actor. He’s an appealing enough guy. This is how the character has been written and directed.
And I seem to recall reading a few months ago that after a few episodes they decided they didn’t like the actress playing Ruby and fired her. Is that correct?
That was the initial report, but it has been retracted. Now, she is returning with, I think, a couple other companions joining her.