Last television show you watched

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Is that Discovery, Sarai? Kinda glad I don't bother with it if so.  

The abuse on DISCOVERY and PICARD is viewer abuse, not child abuse.

I don't feel it is bragging to say every single premise and outline I pitched unsuccessfully to NextGen back in 91 is better than anything I've seen on either of those shows (gave up on DSC after season 2.) Plus, my god, the visual execution! Most of the space stuff is so murky it might as well be SeaQuest DSV, 20,000 leagues below the ocean surface and 20 million miles down from any kind of acceptable VFX standard (note that they are actually winning some awards for the work, which really makes the mind reel.)

DSC had a tremendous potential resource aboard season1 with Nick Meyer, who could have gotten them at least course-corrected about certain aspects (as in, "Shit, don't do THAT!"), but instead they apparently paid him to do almost nothing, or at least nothing that made it to air. I had thought ENTERPRISE squandered its premise in a way that was infuriating and bone-stick stupid, at least based on the couple dozen eps I tried watching, but DSC actually seems worse in many ways.

Somebody needs to tell this Kurtzman guy that deconstruction of a thing doesn't mean you have to destroy it, then piss on its burning corpse.

See, I get as pissed about this as I do about Bond!

lol, so I see Trev!

Yes Sarai, Blake's 7 ran from '78 to '81 ... and that is a darker storyline than I'd expected. Then again, the BBC already had an 'optimistic' sci-fi show (Doctor Who) at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake%27s_7

When I read the making-of book on BLAKE, apparently the last series ended around the holidays during a dark time Thatcher-wise in the UK, so the way the show concluded landed very badly with people ... at least one of the actors, I think the guy who played the thief, felt awful about it. I'm trying to get through the series again on britbox right now, and am really resisting the temptation to jump to late in last season for an ep where there are just two people on board and there is an issue (air supply maybe?) about survival that really pushes things in an edgy direction (not as bleak as that last ep imo, but even so.)

There was a short-lived UK series called STAR COPS about a guy (the actor who played the villainness' dad in TWINE) assigned to a space station and then to a moon base that also had some very dark colors. I think in the 2nd ep his girlfriend is killed by the gov't and then there's like an official secret's act kind of thing dropping over it all, like Michael Caine in THE WHISTLEBLOWER (this series aired around the same time that film came out, I believe.) Pretty good model shots on the moon as I recall, but still plagued by the shot-on-video interiors that typify all that UK stuff.

I have never seen Blake's 7, but people who have seen both Blake's and Firefly tell me that Joss Whedon plundered much of Blake's for his own sci-fi space opera.

I normally hate all television shows and the 10 or so episodes I watched of Star Trek was among the worst but Blake's seems pretty damn cool.

the writing, acting, plot lines all seem far superior but coming from me I don't know if that's an endorsement or not

I have been rewatching Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe series from the late 00s these past few evenings.

I think when Brooker came along he turned out to be the best satirist in quite some time  — remained so for a while, say, Nathan Barley through the second series of Black Mirror — but I think he kind of lost it after that. Success has a way of making one happy, I suppose, and satire only really works when its coming from anger. Black Mirror blowing up as it did might’ve been the worst thing for Charlie.

Or perhaps he’s just found himself in modern times like the rest of us. Funny how the world seems more demanding now of anger than ever, yet what we have is rather a facade of anger, merely performative.

The 'Anti-Viral Wipe' from summer 2020 about all the pandemic madness was pretty decent, but I agree ... success has softened him. I have all the book collections of his Guardian columns, when he was at his scathingly vitriolic best.

Salomé wrote:

I have never seen Blake's 7, but people who have seen both Blake's and Firefly tell me that Joss Whedon plundered much of Blake's for his own sci-fi space opera.

I'm most of the way through my rewatch (did decide to skip around, and found that it actually helped, as I could go right from something at the end of season 2 and then to the end of season 4 to pay that off in reverse spades, also was able to go from mention of Avon's girlfriend to the ep with her a year later), and I'm amazed at how much I might have borrowed from BLAKE.

I put together a series format that went nowhere back in the early 90s, but it features a computer the crew accidentally stumble across on a planet that becomes a significant player in later seasons, very significant by the end. Not ORAC exactly, but it gave me pause to consider.

The second lead in my show (which was set on a privateer, very working-class space stuff -- I was pretty dismayed when I first heard about FIREFLY and then even more annoyed because he seemed to get it mostly right except for the lamentable 'science' -- my spin running very counter to TREK which I find fun but utterly delusional and unworkable) definitely had some flavors of Avon (was envisioning Miguer Ferrer in the role), but suffering from a malady that makes him increasingly dependent on being plugged into the ship. So you'd have started with somebody who could offer pithy cutting remarks out of his character's nature going toward someone who did the same but in a soulless way, which I thought could be kind of tragic.

The downer aspect of BLAKE is something I've always favored, long before I ever saw the series (really liked the TREK where instead of continuing a balance of power situation with two groups of natives on a planet, Kirk just up and leaves at the end, realizing the hopelessness of the situation and taking a very un60s-esque way out), so that was close to my heart anyway, but in the main I love the cynicism that comes through on the show along with the paranoia.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

The 'Anti-Viral Wipe' from summer 2020 about all the pandemic madness was pretty decent, but I agree ... success has softened him. I have all the book collections of his Guardian columns, when his was at his scathingly vitriolic best.  

I will have to check out that special, then. I stopped paying attention about when he switched over to the yearly wipe format.

I was a regular reader of that column, and I think I have that same book. Mine is a green paperback with an illustration of a guy watching his tv and its light is burning off his face.

Finished the Newswipes and went back and watched the first ep of Nathan Barley. My god. Can’t believe how mainstream that kind of hipster culture became, and how much of their exaggeration is now reality.

Nathan Barley grew out of an early Brooker thing, a spoof online listings mag called 'TV Go Home'. The prog in it featuring Nathan was succinctly called 'Cunt'.

Yellowjackets

Essentially a modern, feminist take on Lord of the Flies, it was enjoyable but also critically overrated to an absurd degree. Not that I wouldn't recommend this, but it was sold as a high-quality intelligent drama and it was more like 'Lost meets Mean Girls'.

Reacher

Okayish? I read the novels mostly as escapist, fun pulp fare.

I think this is an adequate adaptation of Killing Floor. Though I'm not entirely sold on Alan Ritchson's interpretation of the character. He is a physical match for Reacher much more than Tom Cruise ever was but still not quite the man I know from the books.

Given Reacher is supposed to be a hulking sort of guy from what I recall, always figured Clancy Brown would have been ideal if they'd started doing films back when the book series started. A trifle old, but what presence, from THE BRIDE's Monster and HIGHLANDER's Kurgan right up to the preacher in CARNIVALE. (then again, I'm also the guy who railed against Chevy Chase as Fletch, especially since they cast a much more ideal Fletch -- Tim Matheson -- in the same movie as a baddie. Also not getting why they chose CONFESS FLETCH for the reboot, since that book is mainly about introducing a new spinoff character, inspector Flynn, who might be absent from the new film version.)

Never having read any Reacher I could see how it being Cruise in the movies would've pissed off those who had, but I quite enjoyed the second flick (the first one's oddly plodding for an action-thriller).

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Never having read any Reacher I could see how it being Cruise in the movies would've pissed off those who had, but I quite enjoyed the second flick (the first one's oddly plodding for an action-thriller).

Cruise is not bad in those films. Just all wrong for the role. Reacher should be a very physically intimidating presence.
I have seen people argue that even Alan Ritchson (officially listed at 6'4") isn't big enough.

Started watching Euphoria.

An ethereal portrayal of today's chronically fucked-up kiddos.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Never having read any Reacher I could see how it being Cruise in the movies would've pissed off those who had, but I quite enjoyed the second flick (the first one's oddly plodding for an action-thriller).

I still remember the huge dustup over Cruise being cast as Lestat for INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, which in retrospect played for a time like a prototype for Craig's casting as Bond, or take 2 on Keaton/Batman. It died down somewhat when Anne Rice reversed her position after he apparently charmed her in some fashion. I've only read the book once, back in 1980 when I heard Nimoy was being considered for the role, and I've only seen the film once, in the late 90s, and I just felt each version was kind of sluggish, so his (mis)casting wasn't the deciding factor in the film version not working. Paramount had held the rights for the better part of two decades at that point (initially wanting Travolta as the interviewer if I remember right), while Rice herself later tried rewriting things so that the Louis role could be played by Cher of all people), so I guess somebody just decided to go for it once they landed above-the-title names, which they did manage with Cruise and Pitt.

We finished up rewatching DEXTER, and this time through enjoyed it nearly in its entirety. Really think the actress playing Dex's sister did a magnificent job, as did most of the cast, except for the baddies in the last season and Colin Hanks, who for me might be even less charismatic and compelling than Craig, just an utter black hole. I remember not liking him on MAD MEN either, and am a little concerned about him being in THE OFFER, the 'making of the Godfather' series coming in a couple of months. Then again, he is playing a Paramount executive, so I'm figuring it is a role of an unconvivial jerk, my hope is that he can't possibly screw that up.

CJB wrote:

Started watching Euphoria.

An ethereal portrayal of today's chronically fucked-up kiddos.

Seen that listed on the opening HBO Max banner for a while now. I can be talked into the kidz flicks, but it looked a little tedious to me. Curious to know what you think when you've gotten through it.

Myself, currently (slowly) going back through HBO's Rome. Felt like history so it came down to this or John Adams, which I may yet do next.

Somerset wrote:

Seen that listed on the opening HBO Max banner for a while now. I can be talked into the kidz flicks, but it looked a little tedious to me. Curious to know what you think when you've gotten through it.

Not the sort of thing I'd usually watch, but I must say I've found it to be quite compelling. If nothing else, the acting is very good. The whole thing has this sort of dream-like colour pallet (which I assume has something to do with the main character being on The Drugs most of the time) which I found... soothing. Sounds strange, I know, but at least give it a try.

Oh, and not to mention the cans on that one bird.  

Somerset wrote:

Myself, currently (slowly) going back through HBO's Rome. Felt like history so it came down to this or John Adams, which I may yet do next.

Been many years, but John Adams is indeed very good. Made in the good ol' days where "colourblind casting" in historical bios meant a WASPy Founding Father was played by a half-Italian actor.

CJB wrote:

Oh, and not to mention the cans on that one bird.

Well why didn’t you say so to start with? Queued!

Somerset wrote:

Been many years, but John Adams is indeed very good. Made in the good ol' days where "colourblind casting" in historical bios meant a WASPy Founding Father was played by a half-Italian actor.

Already at the end of Rome S1 so I think I will move onto JA after.

Kind of surprised (well, I guess not really) there has not been a revisiting of the idea/setting for some other perhaps more drawn out series. The collection of men/characters who all converged in place and time to argue a nation into existence seems like great fodder. Even if your half-Italian actor would of course now be some Pacific Islander and the cotillion scenes would be pumping Lil Nas X.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as John Adams, perhaps?

I was thinking Momoa but I suppose the shaved head Dwayne would be more historically accurate, which is important.

Either way, we’re going for muscle. We’ve gone from Reeves to Cavil on the Superman front, West to Bale, Connery to Craig — it’s time to pump up the founding fathers. We’re getting the guy from 300 in. Signees to the Declaration of Independence train together. No one will bench less than 2x body weight. Carb intake? <20g/day.

It was all about the right to big arms, wasn't it?

Station Eleven

Very enjoyable but ultimately I still ended up much preferring the novel.
I did not care for the changes they made to the source material though I can understand why they made them (mostly to bring various story lines a bit closer together). The Miranda scenes ultimately felt closest to the spirit of Emily St. John Mandel's book.

CJB wrote:

It was all about the right to big arms, wasn't it?

Excellent.

Some might even say the right to bare arms.

Freedom of the (overhead) press.

The right to a speedy mile.

Etc.

Salomé wrote:

Station Eleven

Very enjoyable but ultimately I still ended up much preferring the novel.
I did not care for the changes they made to the source material though I can understand why they made them (mostly to bring various story lines a bit closer together). The Miranda scenes ultimately felt closest to the spirit of Emily St. John Mandel's book.

First I’d heard of this (book or show). Surprised as it seems to have sold over a million copies according to wiki. Also interesting that the whole production began (if I’m reading this right) right before Covid and finished only recently, considering the swine flu component of the narrative itself.

Came across a show, LOUDERMILK, that originated on a streaming platform or network from AT&T that failed so fast that the series' third season was orphaned unaired until Amazon picked up the whole package. Blew through all three seasons last week, vastly entertained.

About an alcoholic music journalist who now ekes out a living mopping floors and running a recovery program. Not too many familiar faces outside of the lead, who toplined OFFICE SPACE and had a part in THE CLOSER (he's the guy Alec Baldwin is hissing at with, 'do you hear that? That's pain, coming through on a subsonic level.'

This was done by one or more of the Farrelly Brothers, and must be the only thing I've seen from them since SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. Lots of nasty reverses, some good laughs and even some heartfelt stuff. The main guy, while looking like Karl Urban after some physical debacle, is kind of compelling in a hangdog way, and nearly every ep has a PTS where he disparages people in the world for their inadequacies in a way that I found very amusing. Then you get the theme melody, which we found so catchy that my wife and were rocking our shoulders from side to side, mashing into each other for the 20 seconds it lasts before the show starts.

Probably not for all tastes or all the normal people, but here's hoping 'you don't find too many normal people' at this site.