Thanks for the heads up! This was not on our radar at all. The trailer looks encouraging.
I have your answer: I disliked that last S5 episode a lot. The plot was a complete kitchen sink nonsensical shamble, all the way to the annoying end revelation I care nothing about, and a ‘twist’ I guessed about 20 minutes in advance.
As for the direction, something really weird was going on with the cuts and lighting for the first half hour or so, but it did settle down.
Let me know how S6 is!
I finally started watching Paradise and I’m really liking it. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first season.
I finished watching Riz Ahmed’s show Bait (6 episodes, Amazon Prime) this weekend. A struggling British-Pakastani actor has the chance to boost his career by auditioning to be the new James Bond, but things quickly start to get unhinged.
The first three episodes were very funny; the actors playing his family steal the show. The show’s episodes start to get more Serious towards the end (a phenomenon known as bojackhorsemanipulation), but it had a satisfying ending. It’s only 6 half-hour episodes, so it’s definitely worth a watch.
We just finished season 2 and like it. I will credit it for going directions I did not expect.
Yeah, season 3 (the last season) is going to be interesting with the new twist thrown in the mix. I just hope they don’t end the series by doing a reset so that the catastrophe never happened at all. That’s what Sinatra was hinting at to Xavier-- that Alex, the quantum supercomputer, could actually manipulate time and reality to the point it could ‘fix’ everything. But humanity has already done a fair amount of regrouping and rebuilding by the end of season 2. Continuing to see the rebuilding of society would be much more interesting, I think, than a hand-waved ‘there, all better now’.
Started watching The Pitt and welp, that was the rest of the day gone.
Soulmates (Netflix). I typically am a completist, especially with short series’, but this one was a miss as it used a genuinely interesting sci-fi idea (the idea that soulmates exist and you can take a test to identify your soulmate) and did little with it. Excepting the first episode of this anthology series, three of the stories we saw didn’t need the “soulmates” concept in the first place.
We’ll probably get around to finishing it (only two more left), but decided to change to Something Bad is Going to Happen (also on Netflix). Horror is not really my thing, but getting out of my comfort zone is, so going to give this one a whirl.
We finally finished season 29 of Silent Witness. I thought it was over, but there is apparently a S30 in the works.
Look, Emilia Fox can’t live forever. They can only keep it going for another 40-50 years tops.
Season 1 of Jury Duty as a time filler… As the whole world knows (and as made explicit in the opening credits of each show), the premise is that everything is staged and the only person who isn’t a hired actor is this one dude whose name I cannot be arsed to remember. A simple enough premise (albeit somewhat distasteful to me).
What I don’t get is… why is so much time devoted to depicting interviews with and interactions exclusively between people that we, the viewers, know are just actors? It’s just bad writing/editing, IMHO. Like when a writer crafts a story that turns out to be all just a dream in the end, but has entire scenes taking place outside the perception of the dreamer.
The premise isn’t just running thin, it’s been shot through and through and is now bleeding out in front of a crowd of increasingly disinterested onlookers.
They lean into this even more in Company Retreat and I assume they are going for some sort of hybrid mix of reality hoax show and workplace mockumentary. Maybe they think it will bring in more audience that way, but I imagine it also helps with production having enough content to fill the season as interactions with the Hero are a wildcard.
We watched episode 1 last night. I give it a solid ‘meh’. I wanted to like it since I like both Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden, and they seemed like they’d make a good comedy duo (I listened to an interview with D’Arcy Carden on a podcast recently, and she is a very naturally funny, witty person).
But…so, it’s billed as a comedy-drama. The comedy parts are weak and feel shoehorned into the plot. The crime drama aspect feels contrived and has a ‘been there, done that’ feel to it. I dunno, maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it last night. Will probably give it another try, see if it gets better or if we warm up to it.
Were you able to easily get back into it? We watched S1 months and months ago.
It’s 23 hours later so you should be done. What did you think?
Been watching One Piece(live action) with my wife. It’s cute, but seems to stick way too close to the anime. People look ridiculous.
It’s fine. I realize in the anime, they have never revealed what the “One Piece” is. It has 1000+ episodes. Uh, no thanks.
It’s frustrating to watch a show with a central mystery or question and know they are not planning to answer it soon at all.
We stopped after the various mass shooting-related episodes as it was 2am and have not yet resumed, but we’re hooked. As per usual with these shows there’s lots of soapboxing, lots of dubious medical decisions that wouldn’t fly in real life, and an excess of dramatic cases for one day, but it’s a solid cast and Noah Wyle carries the show easily.
I looked yesterday, as it happens. Over 1400 episodes now. I’m never going to start watching the anime.
Why did you watch it if the premise is distasteful to you? I think you set yourself up for a poor experience.
Because the characters they created are funny? It’s a comedy and I enjoyed the oddball characters they devised and enjoyed watching them interact. It was a little bit like watching an improv troupe. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, because in general I hate all reality TV. (Yes, this is more reality-adjacent).
Started watching Death By Lightning yesterday. Good cast. Like it so far. I think my wife is bored. I’m not a fan of Matthew Macfadyen‘s American accent. I can’t explain exactly what’s wrong but it feels off to me.
I remember thinking the same thing when I watched it. And it’s not like Matthew McFayden can’t do an American accent - I thought he sounded fine in “Succession”. So I’m guessing it is some kind of artistic choice, but yeah it just seemed jarring at times.