The Testaments (Hulu) A spinoff of Handmaid’s Tale, focusing on a school for adolescent girls under the tutelage of The Aunts.
We hung in on Handmaid’s Tale for 3 or 4 seasons, but got bored and wandered away. (It felt like it had gone beyond the end of the original book and the writer’s didn’t quite know what to do on their own.) But this new one has me completely engrossed (3 episodes in).
I’ve been watching Animal Control on Netflix. An above-average feel-good sitcom, but not quite great. The cast started to gel better in Season 2, though the dynamics still feel a bit over-scripted and forced. It’s shot on location in Seattle, so playing spot-the-location has been fun.
Wasnt that originally on Fox? We hated that show, as it seems to enjoy hurting animals.
I haven’t noticed anything specific since it seems nearly all of the animals are CGI effects. A couple of common ones like dogs and cats are real, but the giraffes, penguins, cougars, etc are just effects.
We are in season 2 of Derry Girls after enjoying How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. Derry Girls is very funny. I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I do.
It’s still on Fox, and on Hulu. Netflix has the first season now as well.
We like it. It’s not high art by any means but it’s a moderately amusing workplace sitcom with goofy animal antics. I can understand why others wouldn’t like it though.
It’s a hoot and the nun is the best one. I’m a teacher and I assure you, the look she gives those kids is exactly what we do at school.
“Jenny, you will go far in life…but you will not be well liked.”
Remember when the one girl said that telling lies makes the angels cry and the nun told her it might be time to wise up.
There’s a new Lord Of The Flies remake on Netflix. I watched the first episode and it seems pretty good. There’s good amount of (somewhat obvious) CG, but that’s no big deal. The only part that really bugged me is that, at least for the episode I watched, a significant amount of it is, for lack of a better term, B Roll. Closeups of insects, landscapes, the boys’ faces etc. It felt like they were padding for time. Like they edited the episode and came up 15 minutes short.
But still, it seems pretty good so far.
It astounds me that someone decided there was enough in a 200 page novel for a whole series.
I think it works since each episode shows a different character’s perspective. I really liked Jack’s episode. I have to take a break though- knowing the fates of the characters ahead of time has made it hard to watch in the last two episodes.
When I went looking for more information about the show, I spoiled some of that for myself. I mean, I read the book and watched the (1963 version?) movie, but that was 35ish years ago and I really don’t remember any of it.
I’m almost finished Beyond the Bar (12 episodes, Netflix, Korean with English dubbing): a brilliant rookie lawyer and her “strong silent type” boss handle a variety of cases at a prestigious law firm that is rife with nepotism and cronyism. It seems slightly more grounded in reality than Extraordinary Attorney Woo, but I’m still not convinced that a big law firm would have the same lawyers working on both civil and criminal cases. The office politics skullduggery is fun to watch, though.
Turning Point, a five part Netflix documentary about American involvement in Vietnam. If you liked the Ken Burns series, you’ll like this one. It’s amazing how that fiasco led to so much of our national disunity and distrust today.
Also finished Boardwalk Empire. It didn’t nail the finale but entertaining television series don’t have to to still be a fun watch.
Wife and I recently found an odd little show from 2023 we had never previously heard of, called Slip on Peacock. We’re not big show bingers, but it’s a little ‘slip’ of of a show at 7 half hour episodes total, so we watched the whole thing in a week’s time. Basic premise: a woman in a not-too-happy marriage has an affair, and wakes up the next morning to find she is married to the guy she cheated with. After her initial shock she finds out (after testing the hypothesis plenty of times) that her “p***y is a wormhole” (the character’s, umm, eloquent description): anytime she has sex with someone, it transports her to an alternate dimension where she’s made a life with that person.
The main character is played by Zoe Lister-Jones, whom we had previously seen in sitcommy, pretty tame roles like the long-running but medicore family show Life in Pieces, or most recently The Miniature Wife. In Slip she’s naked through like half the show, and there’s several pretty explicit sex scenes. I mean, I’m no stranger to sex and nudity in shows and movies, but seeing her in that role was like suddenly discovering one of the actors from Friends doing soft-core porn 
And, oh yeah, the premise / story: the alternate - parallel universe idea was intriguing, but we both felt like the writers could have done something a little more creative or original with it. Still, a watchable show, even sexy stuff aside.
True. I went to Catholic school through eighth grade, and Sister Michael was absolute perfection.
I liked every part of that show. The kids, the parents, the school people were all perfect. I appreciated how they incorporated the more serious aspects into a comedy. I’m thinking especially of the season 1 finale.
Sounds kinda interesting. There’s an Australian movie with Rachel Griffiths Me Myself I which is similar, but has only one “slip.” I thought it did a good job with the premise.
I’m in S3 of “Banshee” at this point. A lot of roll-eyes in this series, and a LOT of nekkid women. Not sure why I’m continuing with it, as the plots are pretty silly. Boredom, I guess.
I felt the exact same way about Soulmates (Netflix) - good premise, unexplored implications.
And don’t forget: Uncle Colm…