What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Scavengers Reign - An excellent cartoon about scattered characters from a broken spaceship trying to survive on a very alien planet after their escape pods landed in different places. If a sci-fi Robinson Crusoe on a world overflowing with weird, living organisms is your cup of tea then definitely check it out.

The Money Heist prequel, Berlin is on Netflix, and I've watched 5 episodes so far (of 8). It is a fun heist show, not as good as the original series, but better than the Money Heist Korea spin-off, which was literally just a retelling of the first show.

Money Heist isn't top tier television, but it's fun.

ChristopherMD wrote: Scavengers Reign - An excellent cartoon about scattered characters from a broken spaceship trying to survive on a very alien planet after their escape pods landed in different places. If a sci-fi Robinson Crusoe on a world overflowing with weird, living organisms is your cup of tea then definitely check it out.

I'm enjoying this as well, though maybe I missed something but HOLY CRAP is this world LETHAL yet many of the characters seem kinda blasé about strange worms/bugs/snooty mammals/trees/flowers/pollen/indescribable things coming up to them and not getting a face full of space buckshot. Did they know much about the planet beforehand?

It's a VERY trippy show, amazing visuals, and goes out of its way to highlight some phobias (or fetishes for you weirdoes almost every other scene.

Reacher Season 2 is a downgrade from S1 in about every possible way other than lead Alan Richtsons bulging pecs. Taking Reacher out of small town rural life where he can 'realistically' punch his way through a small stakes mystery with a couple of local cops does not translate well to high stakes international intrigue and a team of "we are the SPECIAL investigators!" that never seem to gel even a fraction as well as the 2 cops from S1. Poor Robert Patrick as the heavy has visible frustration on his face as he paces in a warehouse full of advanced weaponry, sending scores of minions to their deaths, episode after episode. Dunno what happened in the writers room betwixt seasons but substantial mojo was lost.

Very bizarre

jason10mm wrote: Reacher Season 2 is a downgrade from S1 in about every possible way other than lead Alan Richtsons bulging pecs.

The wife and I cancelled Amazon Prime late last year (variety of reasons, including but not limited to price creep, and not wanting to fuel its enshittification) and losing access to Reacher S2 was something that made me mildly hesitate before pulling the trigger. This makes me feel better.

Instead we finished Echo, the Marvel TV series. This is a very short series, five episodes. The first four are good, and then the last one just shits the bed and phones in a completely anticlimactic snoozer. It's very nice that the show highlights people with disabilities, and also many excellent indigenous actors. The lead actress is indigenous, deaf, and is also an amputee. It mostly takes place in the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma. The characters are very well realized, lots of people who are good, bad, funny, or all of the above -- not just the stoic environmental magic Indian type. A good bit of the dialogue is also in Choctaw and ASL, which was cool to see on screen. Vincent d'Onofrio continues to rule as Kingpin, but seems mostly neutered here. And they change Echo from the comics -- in the comics she can replicate physical movement she sees, so she is badass because she can immediately copy any cool kung fu move or what have here. Here she is a competent fighter, but her echoing ability refers to her ability to draw on the strength of her ancestors. So it comes back to magic Indians after all. The first four episodes involve the drama around Echo's relationship to her family, her community, and to her de facto father figure Kingpin. The last episode is a fight between Echo and her family (on one side) and Kingpin and his goons (on the other). Thanks to summoning the strength of her magical ancestors, Echo and her family win in a mostly desultory fashion.

Overall, pass, unless (like me) you like watching things uncritically if they have the "Marvel" branding on it.

dysjunct wrote:
Instead we finished Echo, the Marvel TV series. This is a very short series, five episodes. The first four are good, and then the last one just shits the bed and phones in a completely anticlimactic snoozer. It's very nice that the show highlights people with disabilities, and also many excellent indigenous actors. The lead actress is indigenous, deaf, and is also an amputee. It mostly takes place in the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma. The characters are very well realized, lots of people who are good, bad, funny, or all of the above -- not just the stoic environmental magic Indian type. A good bit of the dialogue is also in Choctaw and ASL, which was cool to see on screen. Vincent d'Onofrio continues to rule as Kingpin, but seems mostly neutered here. And they change Echo from the comics -- in the comics she can replicate physical movement she sees, so she is badass because she can immediately copy any cool kung fu move or what have here. Here she is a competent fighter, but her echoing ability refers to her ability to draw on the strength of her ancestors. So it comes back to magic Indians after all. The first four episodes involve the drama around Echo's relationship to her family, her community, and to her de facto father figure Kingpin. The last episode is a fight between Echo and her family (on one side) and Kingpin and his goons (on the other). Thanks to summoning the strength of her magical ancestors, Echo and her family win in a mostly desultory fashion.

Overall, pass, unless (like me) you like watching things uncritically if they have the "Marvel" branding on it.

I agree with pretty much all of that.

The first episode was the "homework" episode, as it breezed through all the other MCU shows, background, and exposition for those not up to speed. This was a bit of a chore to sit through. Then things finally got interesting with the second episode. The fight scenes were pretty good. I liked the setting and the characters. But as dysjunct notes above, the conflict is resolved in a very unsatisfactory way. For three episodes, Maya is trying to set herself up as the new crime boss after Kingpin's supposed murder (spoiler, he ain't dead). Once Kingpin shows up, Maya seems to drop this ambition entirely, and instead we get this Palpatine/Luke dynamic where Kingpin is trying to lure Maya back into his empire. And then it all just sort of ... ends.

I read a rumor that the show was originally supposed to be 8 episodes, but it seems the creator took to heart the criticism that these Disney+ MCU shows are largely too thin and undeveloped to sustain 8 episodes. The story / pacing seems a bit janky, and I wonder if they edited the hell out of it, to get it down to 5 episodes. It's not a huge complaint, because 5 episodes was fine.

Overall, it was FAR better than Secret Invasion, which was one of the dumbest shows that I've ever seen.

I heard that Echo underwent significant revisions and re-shoots because Kevin Feige considered it unreleasable in its original form.

Fourth season of True Detective continues to impress me, aside from the disappointing musical selections. The show does a great job of portraying a harsh northern winter, and the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska has a very lived-in texture. So it is disappointing that the music utterly detracts from the atmosphere by being a mish-mash of sounds from unrelated times and places. Musician and composer T-Bone Burnett did a great job with handling the music selections for seasons one and three (and inexplicably failed with season two), but he is not involved with season four. I was hoping for some traditional Inuit music and some dark, northern folk, especially given the supernatural aspects of this season. Instead, episode 2 featured songs by the Spice Girls and the Beach Boys. However, the theme song by Billy Eilish is growing on me, as it suits the visuals in the opening credits.

So how does this season connect, if at all, to prior seasons of True Detective? I don't remember any connections between season two and anything else, but seasons one and three both involved child abductions in the deep south. There is a recurring spiral symbol in season one that is back in season four. And here is a big one: Detective Rust Cohle used to live in Alaska, with his father Travis who died of leukemia. In season four, an old woman is haunted by the ghost of her deceased lover Travis Cohle, who had leukemia. I didn't connect the dots until episode two revealed that Travis had leukemia, and then it came together. My brother-in-law has leukemia, so the reference got my attention the last time I re-watched season one.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a weird one. I absolutely loved it for the gorgeous animation and take on the material but can’t, in god faith recommend it to someone who didn’t also love both the movie and graphic novels. Even then it would be iffy recommend. It keeps the spirit and is a marvelous translation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s art but is an incredible swerve on the story with a new emphasis on characters who didn’t get their time in any earlier iterations.

I’m glad it got made and that it took risks, but I get it if it falls flat on its face. I also get it if it becomes a stone classic in the next ten years or so.

For the sake of my Star Trek trivia team, I am continuing to watch all Star Trek, in chronological order. I am currently watching season 4 of Enterprise, and found the overall show better than I was expecting. Third season was one big storyline, but it was a reasonably good one, and season four seems to consist entirely of shorter story arcs, like two or three episodes each. A couple of days ago, I started watching a three-part story set on Vulcan, featuring Gary Graham, who plays recurring character Ambassador Soval of Vulcan with impressive dignity and gravity. Then I learned that Gary died on Monday of this week from a heart attack, at age 73. He was also played one of the main characters on the tv version of Alien Nation.

I've been watching season 2 of The Durrells. I watched the first season some years ago and though I liked it enough, it didn't grab me. Decided to give it another shot and have dug the series more this time. Intend to continue through all 4 seasons. I like how they have no big problems and all like each other but are still a completely dysfunctional family. A relaxing show so far because of the light-hearted atmosphere.

Finished up The Durrells in Corfu. I had noticed the increasing mentions about the rise of fascism in other countries (1930's) as the show went on, with the usual talk of not needing to worry about it yet because its far away. The last season does a good job of bringing WWII close enough that they flee back to England, while maintaining the quirkiness that makes the show fun. And giving all the children a chance to show they've grown some. Would watch more if there was more.