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TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Our Flag Means Death started -- its basically What We do in the Shadows... but with pirates and no interviews. Pretty good so far. Its nice to have Rhys Darby as a lead and pretty much everything from Taika Waititi is great.
Speaking of Taika Waititi, Wellington Paranormal started up again a few weeks ago. If you're not watching it, you should reconsider your life choices. Its X-Files.. but local police who either don't want to believe or just don't care enough to believe.
On Thursday we get the second episode of Top Chef and the start of The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, starring Sam Jackson. It looks pretty neat. Apple has done a pretty good job so far with their originals.
Peaky Blinders is also back. I don't know what it is about this series. I love it, but I really don't give a shit about it. It's missing something from the earlier seasons.
Last up, Season 4 of Formula 1: Drive to Survive is out on Friday. I recently got into Formula1... and I've been acting like an addict. Sky Sports had a documentary, Duel. Hamilton Vs Verstappen, last week. It pretty much documented the back and forth season with the controversial finale. Pretty good refresher / primer for those of us who weren't following the season until later. I can't believe it took me this long to get into F1. Everything about it is great.
Oh! I almost forgot to mention the crazy Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. Its shot with an old aesthetic and the acting is amazing. It feels like a mockumentary --- sort of what Valley of the Boom was going for, but refined.
Late edit: After eight seasons, I've finally given up on The Flash. I hated it from the get-go, but each season always had at least one or two episodes that were good enough... but I just can't do it. Barry --- you're NEVER the fastest man alive. Every week there is someone faster! suck it.
My friends and I watched one or two episodes of DTS on a whim last year, before the season started. And that was enough for me to be like, "Hey guys? We should watch F1 this year." And we did. And it was awesome. Like I'd watched F1 races before, like when visiting my parents since my dad would sometimes have the races on, but I never really got into it. This time, I (and the other guys) watched every race, often even waking up at like 3, 4, or 5am to catch Free Practices and Qualifying sessions.
I think we're planning to watch DTS in it's entirety this year. It'll be interesting to see how different the narratives are from the actual season. The F1 season was already full of drama; let's see how DTS can amplify it!
Anyway, about 8 days til FP1 in Bahrain. Can't wait!
yeah, I was in the same boat. Someone on IRC suggested I get into it -- and it seems like its the perfect time to tuck in.
Also check out Ted's Notebook after each race. He wanders around the paddock chatting people up, talking about the race, and all that.
Now that I've dipped into this world, I see F1 stuff everywhere! Have you picked your favorite drivers?
I'm definitely Team Redbull, but that's mainly because they use(d) Honda engines. So technically I'm also about AlphaTauri as well. My family are kinda Honda fanbois, if such a thing exists.
Honestly, there's not really a driver I don't like. Mazepin was kinda meh, but doesn't matter since it was announced today that he's out (due to his dad being an oligarch) and Kevin Magnussen is back in with Haas. I'm excited to see if Haas can compete as a mid-field team (and then which team will be the new backmarkers).
Since I'm RB, Mercedes is the natural rival. But I still like Lewis Hamilton; he's the GOAT for a reason and he shows it every Sunday. And I like what he does and says off-track. Bottas was great. We'll see how Russell does in Bottas' place.
Max is so good, right? I've been slowly trying to narrow down my favs, but its impossible. Like you said, they're all pretty much great.
I think my top three is Verstappen, Lewis, and Leclerc. I also like Russell and Ricciardo for this coming season, but unless they work some real magic, I suspect this season will be all Max and Lewis. It'd be nice for Lewis to get the season after that mess last season. :)
Welcome to the fold. :D
have you been watching the tests that are on right now? It's late for me, so I had to stop, but I'll catch up with a recap later.
Unfortunately, I haven't, since I had to be in meetings for most of the day. I usually just watch the recaps.
Emmy nominations are a few months away. Emmy’s are incredibly hard to predict because there aren’t any precursors. Here’s what I’m feeling gets nominated though:
Comedy Series:
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is out this year but reviews are tepid and nobody seems to care about it anymore. Barry is also out this year but again I don’t think it’s going to have the same passion as a lot of new shows that are out like Abbott Elementary (which is a big ratings hit in a streaming world) and Only Murders in the Building.
Drama Series:
Killing Eve got mixed-negative reviews this season, and again nobody cares about it. It’s been airing and no one on social media except a few die-hard fans are talking about it. This is Us has been on its way out for a while but it recently got blanked for SAG nominations so I think that show is dead now. Stranger Things is past its prime, and it has been for a while now. Hard to see Bridgerton re-capturing the success of the first season.
Things that can get in: Yellowstone, Yellowjackets, 1883, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The reason I went with Loki is because of it’s support below-the-line and it’s nomination at the WGA.
Limited Series:
I don’t know if there are going to be 6 nominees this year but that’s what Goldderby has. Moon Knight probably isn’t getting nominated since WandaVision was a celebration about the history of television, which is why Emmy voters ate it up. But it’s filler.
LuLaRich
I was in the mood for an interesting docuseries, and I was surprisingly taken in by this. I didn't know much about LuLaRoe other than that I had a former co-worker who sold it a few years ago at its height (no idea if she actually made money or just got scammed). The four episodes move quick and don't overstay their welcome. I watched the whole series in one sitting.
The Vow
After LuLaRich I was in the mood for more pyramid-scheme/cult-y content and came across this as a recommendation. I went in without knowing anything about its topic: NXIVM (gigantic trigger warning for that link, by the way). I had somehow missed all the news about it -- including the most alarming stuff -- so I had no idea how dark and sinister this story would get. I was truly taken aback.
The documentary is a slow-burn one at nine episodes long. Definitely not a one-sitting deal, but I appreciated the more plodding, thoughtful pace and time it gave to the topic. The series also doesn't fully resolve itself by the last episode. A second season is supposed to be released this year that covers the rest of the story, which was still ongoing at the time of filming.
One of its subjects, Mark Vicente, was a documentary filmmaker who joined the cult fairly early on and then left years later. He has a lot of primary footage and recording from his time in it, so a lot of the series has direct, un-recreated depictions of the organization's face-level practices. There are also some recordings of private phone calls that cover the darker, more awful things. Vicente was the co-director of a 2004 documentary called What tнē #$*! D̄ө ωΣ (k)πow!? that I actually watched back when it released. It had gotten some positive press and reception at the time, but I thought it was brazen pseudoscience garbage. I remember wondering at the time whether the people making the movie actually believed what they were selling, or if it was a conscious con. When I saw him pop up in The Vow, which covered his time in the 15 years since where he fell fully into the NXIVM cult, I realized he was a genuine true-believer.
I can’t say I recommend the series, as it’s a really tough watch, but I did think it was very well done.
Has anyone seen the apparently newly remastered version of Star Trek TOS that is now on Netflix? They redigitized the episodes from the film stock, but since the show was shot for television the added clarity and definition actually makes it look worse, cheaper, and poorly lit. And all the space shots were remade in CGI which doesn't harmonize at all with the rest of the show. Just dreadful. I want the original back :(
Edit: looks like the remaster was made by CBS in 2006. I'm pretty sure Netflix didn't have this version when I watched it years ago.
I watched a few episodes back in 2018. The only thing that stood out to me was the new VFX. It’s not like the show ever looked good. I mean they taped some shapes onto a dog and said it was an alien. It was the 60s after all.
The problem is that, by redigitizing from film to what I can only assume is 4k, they revealed a lot of imperfections that were never meant to be seen. So the show looks cheaper instead of enhanced.