Topic: The TV Show Thread

Started watching Shogun on Disney+ today. A friend recommended this show to me as I love Japan and it's been absolutely superb thus far. I've watched two episodes and it's fantastic. I haven't experienced many media of feudal Japan so this setting is very interesting to me.

@LtSarge Shogun is, in my opinion, one of the absolute best TV shows I've seen in many years. I read the book this January (which was also extremely good) and the show did not disappoint. You've got some great hours of television ahead of you

My friends recommended chasing Supacell with another British superpower show called Extraordinary. This one is more of a sitcom / comedy than Supacell is. On the surface, Extraordinary is fantastic, a genuinely laugh out loud, lovely and feel good story, that manages to find the ordinary magic in a world where everyone has a super power.

However, what really made it special for me - and this is gonna sound so morbid - is this ever growing reflection on loss that runs through the show. I am fascinated by the presentation of grief on screen. Grief is unique to everyone, but at the risk of sounding like I am gatekeeping being sad - which is absolutely not my intention - anyone who has experienced true grief knows the difference between a genuine presentation of grief on screen and someone writing grief without having experienced it.

Light spoilers here - protagonist Jen is initially introduced as this quite chaotic figure. She is messy, bratty, rude, just generally quite unpleasant and unlikeable. We learn she has lost her Dad, and crucially this isn’t initially used as a tool for sympathy, it's just a part of her fabric. In a fun use of the show's twist, rather than really facing that grief, Jen gets to push it aside as her best friend’s power is channelling the dead. This means Jen can act like her Dad is still alive, and just sort of live in that lie, even though its stunting her growth (quite literally in the mechanics of this world) because this means she never really has to face what happened and let go.

The show touches on this throughout, a few poignant scenes like when she is reminded she still has a parent, alive, right there she is pushing away for the one who is gone, but it is always so carefully woven into the overall fabric of the show, so the show never gets lost in the misery and drama. It really helps us slowly learn why Jen is the way she is, and grow to organically appreciate the person she is, without it just cheating our sympathy with a dead parent card, it really makes sure to earn this.

It all comes to a head in the final episode of season 2, there is a brief goodbye sequence and I ugly cried like a monster at that sequence and it was all so brief, so perfectly tuned for the overall vibe of the show. Just perfect man.

So I love an adult animated comedy, and from time to time I'll watch anything ranging from fantastic to bang average and maybe even highly questionable at times...

I was really in the mood to get stuck into something new, but I watched a couple of episodes of Exploding Kittens last night and just felt incredibly empty. It felt like it had barely any redeeming factors, and I couldn't put my finger on why. I guess I was expecting an 8 out of 10 type show and it just fell completely flat. And this was while mildly inebriated too, when you'd think anything could get a laugh 🤷

I suppose I'll ask if anyone has any recommendations for soemthing much better, but there's a chance I'll have seen it already, possibly multiple times 😅

(It's really bad, it's really, really, really, really bad. It does not get any better, just much, much worse. Maybe the worst thing ever put on netflix 🤢)

@FuriousMachine That's very high praise and I'm starting to feel the same way as it has gotten me really hooked! The last time a TV show has gotten me this hooked was when I watched The Boys for the first time. Genuinely looking forward to watching more soon.

@LtSarge Like @FuriousMachine said, I thought Shogun was great. You obviously already know, but for a show that is 95% just them sitting there and talking, the episodes are really engaging and fly by.

No, I don't say that just because Anna Sawai is a beautiful woman either.

@KilloWertz But it doesn't hurt

@KilloWertz That's the thing about a show like this, when something actually happens then there's a much greater shock value than if the show had constant action. I finished watching episode 4 where Toranaga's son used the canons to kill Ishido's men and that was absolutely brutal! Definitely wasn't expecting that, not to mention how gruesome the bodies looked afterwards. I'm definitely locked in at this point lol. It's such an engaging show.

@FuriousMachine Well, yeah, it doesn't. I'll admit that I do plan on watching Monarch someday because she's the star. I only subscribe to Apple TV+ whenever I know I'm going to use it for a while.

@LtSarge That is a pretty accurate assessment, and I didn't see your spoiler coming either. There's 1 or 2 other things that happen late in the season that are even more shocking, but obviously I won't spoil it.

@KilloWertz I enjoyed "Monarch" quite a bit, but it is nowhere near "Shogun" levels of good, of course. Also a very different role for the lovely miss Sawai. She's also in "Pachinko", which I also hear good things about, but that is a very different show from those other two, as far as I can tell.
I predict we'll be seeing quite a bit more from the young lady in the years to come.

If this is half as good as the Castlevania series, I'm in.

“Hasta la vista, Dracula”

@FuriousMachine I think I'll just stick to Monarch for now, whenever I actually start watching that of course. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if she got more English speaking roles in the future.

Season 4 finale of The Boys was absolutely fantastic. Looking forward to season 5 after that ending and Season 2 of Gen V.

@MightyDemon82 Yeah it was brilliant right? I felt the opening few episodes of S4 were a bit stagnant, but the second half of this season was utterly fantastic.

Similarly to how I felt about Succession, I am really glad that the Boys is 'bowing out' with a planned & definitive final season - and will ultimately avoid going down a rabbit hole of diminishing quality.

I'm pumped for the final season!

"Make America Super Again"

@MightyDemon82 @CJD87 Yeah that was a good un! I agree with CJ that the first couple of episodes fell short of the usual high standard, but the last few were back to what we were used to.

Did we see what happened to Ryan, after he killed Grace or did I miss something.

Also see they changed the original title of the episode due to what happened to Trump recently.

@MightyDemon82 @CJD87 I decided to rewatch from the beginning when season 4 came out so didn't get to it until it was about half way out. I thought the first few were only a slight dip over the usual quality but maybe going through those ones quickly helped.
@JohnnyShoulder No you're right that was the last bit we saw of him.
Such a good finale, it's a shame that the next season probably won't be out until 2026. It's going to be long wait.
I'll have to get around to watching Gen V, I added it to my watchlist then forgot about it. There was one point in this season of Boys where I got confused about something before discovering it happened in Gen V. I'm glad they didn't do too much of that.

@BearsEatBeets Yeah I've not watched Gen V yet either, but I'm not so keen on adverts with Prime and will not be ponying up to remove them. 😑

The first couple were still good TV, just not upto the usual standard. But, it rare to have a TV show with every episode being killer.

The way some people were reacting like it suddenly became some woke left or right wing political trash nonsense. The Boys had always been a bit political, so not sure why this season it has become more of a problem.

@JohnnyShoulder I'm finding the ads squeezing in to tolerable range at the moment but likewise won't be paying more. Hoping they don't try and test that tolerance going forward.
I wasn't aware of any reactions to the show (probably as I was late starting). I would say the political leaning felt dialed up a bit this season or maybe just more closely reflecting real US at the moment but like you mention it's always been there. Anyone thinking it's new can't have been paying much attention.

Also I only just discovered Kimiko spoke at the end when Frenchie was mind controlled away. So much going on at the end but shocked I didn't even notice that.

@MightyDemon82 @CJD87 @JohnnyShoulder @BearsEatBeets Just finished watching it and it was a great finale, capping off another great season. Really looking forward to next season!
I keep worrying that they'll kill off Kimiko, so when she had that moment with Frenchie, I got really worried, but thankfully she'll be around next season as well

I tried watching Gen V, but gave up a few episodes in. It lacked the biting satire and the fun of the original show, so I didn't connect with it at all. Not sure if any of the supes showing up in the final scenes are from Gen V or not, but I didn't recognise any of them