Topic: The TV Show Thread

Watched the first two episodes of The Rings of Power. It’s alright. Visually stunning for sure but I don’t think I’m quite as up on Tolkien lore as I need to be to fully appreciate it. You might need a degree in the LotR appendices to really understand half of who everyone is. I love some of the stories going on and then others I’m not as much of a fan of. The elf dude pining after the human woman is brilliant, he’s a bit less perfect than the normal portrayal of the elves and looks like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. Galadriel is interesting too, she’s quite scary but I guess it’ll contextualise why she’s in the forest instead of with the other elves and how she manages to resist the Ring when she goes all spooky on Frodo.

Watched the first two episodes of The Rings of Power. Not feeling it so far to be honest. Two episodes and there aren’t really any characters I’m rooting for yet. In the first LOTR movie you follow the hobbits immediately and then later, the fellowship. Too many characters whose stories are moving at a snails pace, after two hours.
It’s a problem I have with a lot of TV shows to be honest, plots are artificially dragged out to make 10 hours of viewing. It’s why I prefer film.
Also, definitely an inclusive LOTR for the 21st century, which is a good thing, but does practically every male have to be stupid, and every female wise and and kind?

@MB81 "but does practically every male have to be stupid, and every female wise and and kind?"

Yes! Because many writers are so talentless these days women can't start from nothing, work hard and achieve. She must just be automatically brilliant at anything and certainly superior to her male counterparts.

That's where identity politics gets us though.

So the missus just came back from a day in Wrexham (the area she covers for her work includes North Wales) bearing gifts. Wrexham shirts, caps, coasters and Aviation Gin. T’was a good afternoon!

@colonelkilgore
I watched the first four episodes yesterday. They do seem like genuine guys who want the team to succeed and progress. Wish there was a bit more of the running the club as a business shown with the new CEO as it seemed quite clear that most of those on screen dont really know anything about it. Happy to watch the rest of the episodes when they appear but get a feeling i know how its gonna end (for that season at least).

@sorteddan yeah that is the thing, I know how the 21-22 season ends! Still, it’s just the first season of many I’d imagine… and it’s always interesting to see how things start. I know what you mean about it not going deep enough into the day-to-day running of the club, hopefully that will start to come more into it in future though.

I went right off football… but this story has actually gotten me interested again. Who doesn’t love a good underdog story.

Saturday was a pretty nostalgic day of TV for me. When I woke up in the morning Cartoon Network was showing a couple episodes of the OG Teen Titans (the two part finale of season 2), so I decided to watch (& realized that this version of Robin is probably my favorite animated iteration of anything "Batman").

That night me & bro stayed up and watched Toonami together for the first time in years (watched Primal, YashaHime, Lupin the 3rd Part 6, and an hour of One Piece). Because of YashaHime & Lupin we joked that if you suddenly transplanted someone from 20 years ago (when both InuYasha & Lupin the 3rd Part 2 were part of the lineup) into the modern day, they'd probably assume both shows had just been completely ongoing this entire time, lol.

@RR529
Toonami, that takes me back. I used to watch Adult Swim late at night as a kid for episodes of Superjail, Robot Chicken and Venture Bros while trying not to get caught by my parent's. Was never much into anime but I loved Dragon Ball so tuned into Toonami for that too.

@PegasusActual93, was never big on Superjail, but I enjoyed Robot Chicken & Venture Bros.

As for Toonami, I still remember it in it's infancy where it was an after school block & hosted by Moltar (the bad guy from Space Ghost) instead of T.O.M. (the robot it's had for most of it's run). I think one of the earliest lineups was DBZ, ReBoot, & the New Adventures of Johnny Quest. I even remember when they were making a big deal out of Tenchi Muyo! premiering.

@RR529
Superjail was fun just for how truly bizarre and unpredictable it could get in any given episode but was certainly not everyone's cup of tea. It's been fun having a re-watch of various Adult Swim shows that I haven't seen or really thought much of in years. I knew of Moral Orel for example back in the day but never paid much attention to it. So I watched through it like six months ago and wow what a masterpiece of satire and emotional storytelling. If that show had come out a decade later than it did it would have been a hit.

Poor Brian K Vaughan really can’t catch a break. That’s Paper Girls now been cancelled after one season by Amazon.

That got cancelled? I've never watched it myself but it seemed to be getting a decent amount of attention when it released. Many shows have been renewed for less.

@PegasusActual93 Wonder if the considerable budget for The Rings of Power will impact other shows. It did seem to do well and had decent reviews so all I can think is Amazon wanted to save some money.

@nessisonett
I mean Amazon is one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet, if they can afford to fund that Lord of The Rings show then they can afford to fund a random science fiction show that probably didn't cost even 1/10th the budget.

@PegasusActual93 Jeff needs all that money to pay for phallic rockets and simping for the Queen though.

Finished watching season 5 of The Expanse the other day and while it was overall a good season, it was easily the weakest one so far. It started out great but got worse in the last couple of episodes due to a certain character that I absolutely despise. Then they had the audacity to pull a twist at the end that came out of nowhere and made no sense at all in terms of the overall plot. It's like if a king slipped on a banana and broke his neck. It was just so stupid, I don't understand why they did that.

Really hope the final season ends on a high note compared to the previous one.

Finished up a couple shows over the weekend.

Midnight Diner season 2 (Netflix) - Continues to be a good watch with some surprisingly emotional episodes. You can definitely tell it had a higher budget compared to season 1 as well.

Cars on the Road (Disney+) - I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Cars franchise, so I thought this was pretty cute, and elicited a few laughs.

I watched "Dopesick" on Disney+ (completely justifying my huge £2 outlay for their trial month offer) after seeing that Michael Keaton (justifiably, it turns out) took home the Emmy for his performance in the show. It's all about Big Pharma in the US and their responsibility for the current opioid addiction epidemic that the country is experiencing. There's was a little bit too much jumping back and forth in the timeline of the narrative for my tastes and a couple of the characters verged on caricature (particularly of the moustache twirling big business honcho/ruthless yuppie varieties) but otherwise it was beautifully written and performed and one of the best "based on true events" dramas I've seen since the peerless "Chernobyl".

Well that's a wrap on season 6 of The Expanse and the show as a whole. What a disappointing ending. It felt so rushed, they hyped up the villain for two seasons and offed him in the most unsatisfying way possible. This together with the awful ending of season 5 have left such a bad taste in my mouth, which is too bad because the first four seasons were impeccable. But the last two were not as good.

I feel so empty now. Sigh..

I am probably the only one on the planet that did not think much of Severance. Can't quite put my finger on why, but it just didn't do it for me. I really liked the last episode, but did not like how it ended.

Oh well, can't like em all. I'm on to Slow Horses now.