Topic: The TV Show Thread

Now that it’s all died down around Doctor Who with the new series done, thought I’d go back to the audio plays.

Creatures of Beauty is an utterly miserable story. There’s basically zero levity and I felt crushed throughout most of it, but it’s really very good. Yes, it leans into early 00s grimdark, but it’s a product of its time and stands out as it’s not really gratuitous in any way. It’s also non-linear, with a plot that resolves itself in part 3 of 4 but keeps most of the answers obfuscated until the final part and repeats scenes across the 4 parts. It sounds stupid to talk about aesthetics with an audio play but the sound design, language used and voice work definitely brings to mind an alien planet inspired by Britain in the 1970s. It’s as if someone took the hopelessness of communities during the Thatcher years and applied it to a planet in its final years. Class conflict is also tied to physical appearance, with only the very richest avoiding disfigurement from a polluted atmosphere. Not a nice place in any way.

The 5th Doctor is the perfect character to navigate this planet because he’s just a genuinely nice and affable person. His curiosity is piqued, he leaves the TARDIS, walks about a bit, finds Nyssa and goes away again. Whereas Nyssa, another companion massively improved by Big Finish, witnesses a woman stab herself to death in front of her in one of the most disturbing audio clips I’ve heard and is summarily beaten to a pulp by police officers and arrested for her murder, being subjected to interrogation that is more than a bit forceful. Essentially they change nothing about the fate of the planet but we learn more in each part about what they learn from their time on the planet. By the end of part 3, they leave and that’s it. Until part 4 shows exactly what impact the two of them arriving has on the people of that planet. It’s an interesting one that isn’t afraid to question whether The Doctor has actually made a positive impact at all on the universe since deciding to run about playing the hero.

I’d definitely recommend this one as a story that 100% could never be done on the telly, unless they did Torchwood level adult themes with a spin-off. There’s a torture scene with a guy having his fingers broken one by one that is pretty distressing to listen to, masterful audio design. It’s actually a good one to listen to that shows off the capabilities of audio plays in general!

More people should listen to these if they’re fans of the show though, the first 50 main range are on Apple Music and Spotify and there’s other selected stories on them too.

I have finally gotten around to watching One Punch Man season 2. Absolutely loving it.

Also watched the first episode of the new animated Batman show on Prime. Not sure why the Penguin is female now? but I'll keep watching to see how it goes!

Oh wow, a fellow OPM fan, fancy spotting one!
Didn’t know there were another Batman show, so I’m similarly confused, if for different reasons.

@Malaise The novels were miles better and I consider the second novel in the trilogy one of my all time favourite sci-fi novels. Recommended, if you're a reader, but the series may have spoiled the enjoyment for you

@Yousef- Haha I believe their are a few of us. I love Anime in general.

I've not watched anymore of Batman yet, but we have our nieces staying over and the little one loves Spidey and Friends and some of the characters are gender swapped on it as well. It's puzzling, because it's not as if the Marvel and DC universe is lacking in female characters!

@Malaise Hope you'll enjoy them

@MightyDemon82 This confuses me as well and the only reason I can think of is that the people making these shows feel the need to bring something entirely new to characters who've been portrayed so many times before. Maybe? I don't know. The new Batman animated wasn't my cup of tea, but Lady Penguin worked well, I thought.

Understandable sentiments, that I also relate with, tons of good females, so this is definitely bewildering. I’ll def need to look. My curiosity is piqued.

Just finished watching the Knuckles TV show. Quite possibly the worst TV show I've ever watched. It wasn't even about Knuckles, it's about a random side character from the movies. Not to mention that there was so much padding. You'd think for a season that only has six episodes and were around 30 minutes long each that the story would be more condensed, but nope. Also, the humor was absolutely atrocious. The protagonist is so unfunny. Not even children would find this show funny.

This has to be the most forced TV show ever made. Even though it takes place after the second Sonic movie, it doesn't add anything to the overall story. Absolutely pointless.

Having watched the first season of Slow Horses a couple of months back (& quite enjoying it), we just started season 2. Loving it so far, seems quite the step up from the first season and Oldman, who is always good… might’ve found his best character ever to portray. Sometimes an actor finds the perfect character for their talent at the right time in their career and that is what has happened here. If you like a spot of British espionage, with more that a pinch of grime (not the music genre… just plain old grime), you could do a far sight worse.

Just finished watching season 2 of the Halo TV show. I absolutely loved it! It was so cool to see events from the games but on a larger scale. I never got that sensation while playing the games. The TV show is honestly the best story that's been produced for Halo since Bungie stopped making the games. It's the only thing that's keeping my interest up for the franchise considering Microsoft doesn't care about it anymore.

@LtSarge
Too bad for you they cancelled it

@PegasusActual93 In the article I read, it said that Microsoft was looking for another outlet for the third season. So I'm hopeful it'll continue.

@Malaise Funnily enough I watched Arcane this week also....

Was struggling for a new show, and understood it to be critically acclaimed etc. I have zero frame of reference when it comes to LoL, so essentially went into this series completely devoid of any gaming context...

I really enjoyed it, more than I thought I would. Kind of like a cross between "Frozen" and "Game of Thrones" I guess? The animation was top class, and the plot moved at a decent pace with fairly well-written characters. Ella Purnell, who voices Powder/Jinx, was especially good.

I didn't find it to be the Shakespearian masterpiece that many reviewers claim it to be... but I'll certainly be watching Season 2 as a certainty.

Moved on to "Barry" now - midway through Season 2 and loving it so far. Bill Hader and Henry Winkler are very good in it

I'm trying to hold off on Shogun until around the time AC Shadows comes out, but I might give in and watch it sooner because of everyone's high praises here and reviews. But I love to really dial in on eras with AC games with either shows or podcasts set in or about the time periods.

It's probably going to be the best thing available through Disney atm though, right? And I did resubscribe recently anyway

@Malaise @LN78 Coming from a person who thought Arcane was fantastic, I was really surprised how much I liked Blue-Eyed Samurai. I liked it much better than Castelvania, although not quite as much as Arcane (but close). I’m not sure why I slept on it so long. I think I suspected it was Japanese anime styled storytelling (which I don’t always gel with), but really it has a more Western feel to its narrative, despite taking place in feudal Japan. Definitely give it a try, Mal.

Still keep forgetting to start watching Blue Eyed Samurai, it’s been in my watchlist since it was released. These comments have reminded me to get on that.

I’m going to save a rewatch of the first season of Arcane until closer to the launch of the second season.

Started watching Yellowstone again. It's probably been over a year since I last watched it. I felt like it was fitting to start watching it again now that I'm playing Red Dead Redemption II. And it is honestly very fitting, it's like I'm watching a modern day version of the game. There are also the prequel shows that are closer in history with RDR2, so I'm looking forward to watching those as well.

@LtSarge for real? I was a big fan of that game’s narrative. So I might check this out. 0.0

Been trying out a couple of Apple TV+ series lately and while the streamer has the highest hit-rate with me than any of the big streamers out there, these two weren't top shelf for me.

The first one, Sunny, is a drama starring Rashida Jones, a woman living in Japan who loses both her husband and son in a mysterious plane-crash and then gets sent an advanced AI robot (the titular Sunny) from her husband's employer, stating it was his creation. Having thought her husband made refrigerators for a living, she now faces the realization that not only did he lie about his work, but that he may have hidden a lot of things from his family... including possible ties to the Yakuza.
A highly interesting premise, in my mind, but the series was just too slow for me and didn't really connect. I threw in the towel after five episodes, but your mileage may vary, so if you think it sounds interesting, absolutely give it a try.

The other one is Taikia Waititi and Jemaine Clement's re-imagining of Time Bandits. I'm four episodes in and I've had quite a few laughs already, but I'm struggling to connect with this one as well. It doesn't help that I find the kid incredibly annoying, which he is supposed to be, I guess, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm getting annoyed. Lisa Kudrow is good, but she's more or less playing an alternate version of Phoebe (the third sister?) again. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, as I quite enjoy her schtick. After four episodes I'm not ready to call it quits just yet, but it's far from the slam-dunk hit with me that I expected it to be.

In a bit of a TV show rut... seem to be bouncing off a few things, and still failing to fill the almighty hole that Succession left in my life!

Finished the final season of Barry last week with mixed feelings. I felt Barry was definitely a good show, but with some really missed potential that stopped it from being great. Bill Hader and Henry Winkler are brilliant, both showing real range throughout. My biggest problem was with the jarring shifts in tonality.... this show can go from slapstick comedy ---> seriously dark/gritty moments, and this just didn't work for me. I would say though I think it has one of the best endings I've ever seen in TV, a fantastic sign-off (Despite a bumpy ride)

About to start watching Atlanta, heard good things