As the originator of this thread, I encourage critiques, good or bad. As long as it doesn’t turn into a flame war, it’s all good.
Season 3 was far superior to Season 2.
If you’re so inclined, I’d recommend skipping 2 altogether and going straight to 3. They’re separate stories so you’ll miss nothing.
Glad to hear it. I really enjoyed season 1…for certain defintions of enjoy!
We’ve watched that too. It’s surprisingly entertaining for what amounts to a food travelogue of Italy. I think a lot of it is that Tucci himself has a pretty good sense of humor, and whoever their director of photography is, that person has a great eye for scenic shots of wherever they are.
I’m also watching season 6 of Rick & Morty, but so far, I’ve only seen a couple of episodes.
I saw the first episode of “Brave New Worlds”, and liked it, but just haven’t picked it up yet.
SAS Rogue Heroes on the BBC, about the origins of the SAS during WWII. Lots of blowing shit up and manly bonding in the desert and blowing shit up and existential angst and blowing shit up and people dying and did I mention blowing shit up?
Pretty good if you like war stories and shows with exactly one woman in them.
Finished The Wrong Mans, which was amusing. Started S3 of Dead to Me.
Finished the last two episodes of Dead To Me. They threw so much into the final season that I was worried there’d be no way to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. For the most part, I think they managed to wrap it up pretty well, despite a deus ex machina or two. A very emotional finish.
Then we stayed on Netflix and watched the first two episodes of Drink Masters, a bartending competition show. Even though it’s a celebration of the odious trend toward way-too-complicated cocktails, it’s very fun. We’ll definitely keep going.
I know I’m about a year late, but we just finished season 1 of The White Lotus and I have a few notes for HBO.
Dear HBO: just because you can say something or show something, doesn’t mean you should. If a character says he has swollen testicles, do we really need to see them in extreme close up? If a character takes a shit in someone’s suitcase, can’t you just tell us about it? Do we need to see turds plopping from his butt? (and in hindsight, even this was unnecessary. The story just needed to put the character in the hotel room – what he did there was unimportant.)
When you take away the gratuitously shocking, we’re left with a fairly decent story. Perhaps enough for 4 of the 6 episodes (the first 2 or 3 are just Terrible People being Terrible). Some of them go on a journey of self-discovery, and become better, or happier. Some learn something but too late, and leave tragedy in their wake.
But I have the same thoughts about the Mossbacher family in White Lotus as the Roy family in Succession: just because people are rich doesn’t make them necessarily non-human. These people are pure id, completely unfiltered. Every thought that goes through their pea brains comes out their potty mouths.
Did it deserve an Emmy? Hell no.
But I really liked the soundtrack. I didn’t know there was so much Hawaiian choral music out there.
Finished Dead to Me last night, then watched episode one of The English about an English woman and a Native American traveling north for. . .reasons. Decent cast, but I’m not sure we can hang on. Two very well known Brit actors (Toby Jones and Ciaran Hines) trying to sound 'Murkin, and Emily Blunt (she of the throbbing forehead veins).
Have been seeing the ABC/CBS 70s Wonder Woman from Warner Bros. “Complete Collection” DVD (signature role of one Lynda Jean Cordova Carter of Phoenix, AZ [BKA Lynda Carter]), and am about to finish my copy thereto (had started with the third and final go [second and final CBS New Adventures season, 1978-79], and am about to finish the second one from 1977-78]), and while I think the two CBS New Adventures seasons from 1977-79 were better than the first one that was set in WWII and was on ABC from 1976-77, I also think that the WWII go was not all that bad once I started getting into it (finished that before I went to the second one).
BTW, my copy is the single-sided one w/DC Universe branding; I had had it on a double-sided release before, but could hardly get it to work (this single-sided one, OTOH, has worked wonderfully [pun intended]).
I have started watching Wednesday, the Tim Burton produced (and directed) TV series about Wednesday Addams, starring Jenna Ortega. It is both what I expected, and not what I expected, in a CW kind of way: i.e. A small amount of subversion of what we’re familiar with from past incarnations.
It’s plenty spooky, with a lot of the “weird goth kid does macabre things” you’d expect, but its plot is actually a murder mystery, and there are a lot more supernatural creatures in it than I expected. Wednesday is not the only weird kid out there after all.
I am enjoying it, it’s got a good balance of everything I like about these kinds of shows. I find the CW is a bit claggy these days, but there was a time when it got the balance right. and this feels like that.
It’s not a CW show, by the way, it’s on Netflix. It just has that CW feel to it.
We liked Darby and Joan - Greta Scacchi and Bryan Brown solving crime and their own personal mysteries in Australia. Great fun.
Just finished Signora Volpe - Emilia Fox as a retired spy who moves to Italy and solves crimes. Good value.
Also completed Karen Pirie - based on books by Val McDermid. Crime procedural, and also enjoyable.
And started Hidden Assets - set in Ireland and Belgium. Two episodes in, and it is really promising.
Agreed. I’m enjoying it quite a bit, and we do laugh at the occasional Easter egg references to the original series they drop in every now and then.
Jenna Ortega is absolutely nailing it, and the rest of the cast is strong. Despite some initial hysteria about Luiz Guzman being cast as Gomez (a Hispanic man named Gomez? Impossible!) he’s actually perfect for the role and it’s Catherine Z-J’s Morticia I’m finding out of place. She’s not quite creepy (or gaunt) enough for the show’s vibe and comes across as trying way to hard.
In other news, I finished S1 of Bee and Puppycat. Still have only a vague idea of WTF is going on, but at last my feelings were validated by the one character who finally snapped and demanded that everyone else acknowledge just how fucking weird everything that was going on was. I hear you, animated character. I hear you.
Also finished S2 of Inside Job. It’s fine.
I started watching The Midnight Club (Netflix) around Halloween and I’m STILL slogging through it. Granted I only watch maybe a half of an episode while I’m eating my lunch Mon-Fri. I like it in a way, but I’m finding that it’s dragging. I’m on episode 9 so almost done and too far into it to quit now. I sure could do without their stories.
Just started I, Zombie. It looks mindless and dumb, but then I thought the same thing about Lucifer and ended up enjoying it.
IZombie starts out as a mystery of the week show, with charming characters and quirky comedy, but soon an intense throughline story emerges that takes it to a new level.
Which is pretty much what happened to Lucifer too.
Has anyone watched Pantheon on AMC+? It doesn’t seem to have a large viewership, but it seems to get raves from the people that do.
I just finished Inside Job as well – the funny thing is I grew up not far from Appleton, WI. I’m not quite done with Warrior Nun season 2 --like it so far Duretti was a much better Pope than I imagined. I am also not quite done with Wednesday and I like it so far Those two are my “make popcorn” shows now that Andor is over (though unlike Andor not for every episode)
Brian
I’m about half-way through Half Bad - The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself on Netflix. Really enjoying it, it’s a lot more bloody and brutal than the CW-styley supernatural teens shows I’ve seen. One main character’s power is particularly … visceral. Splanchnic, even. Sanguine, definitely.