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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.
I watched Hello Tomorrow (Apple TV). Billy Crudup is usually an instant sell for me, but the artificial whimsy of the show (Fallout technology if the world hadn't blown up) is literally set dressing and not much else. This story could've been told at any other point in time with any other set of simplistic characters and their extremely shallow motivations.
(spoilers) It also doesn't help that...
the "twist" of the show - that there aren't actually any residences on the moon and the whole sales team is scamming everyone - is revealed at the end of episode 1, so there isn't even any "is it real/not real" tension.Here’s what I've been watching lately:
Person of Interest
This one is a rollercoaster! It’s all about surveillance, crime drama, and a team working behind the scenes to prevent threats to people. The idea of using technology to predict crimes before they happen is so intriguing. If you're into action and a bit of mystery, this one's a must-watch!
Scorpion
Loved this show! It's all about a team of genius misfits who use their brains to solve some of the world's most complex problems. From tech nerds to high-stakes missions, this show had a great balance of smart solutions and intense action. Totally felt like it had room for more episodes..
Almost Paradise
After finishing Scorpion, I wanted something in the same vein and found Almost Paradise! While it doesn't dive as deep into the nerdy stuff, it has that same vibe—team-based problem solving with some great action and mystery! It’s a bit lighter, but still super fun to watch.
Anyone else into these team-based, problem-solving, action-packed series? Got any more recommendations?
Lioness - 7/10
Shows like this are usually a hard sell unless I'm walking in with full knowledge of them being cheesy. It's a fun thriller of a series involving the IC and the umbrella of JSOC. Fairly accurate as well but not surprising given that the GWOT has been going on for 20+ years.
Many will find themselves doing a lot of Googling for acronyms and insider terms, so fair warning. The plot is also dialed in with little to no extraneous filler or distractions that beg you to return to the main storyline.
Saldana and Kidman are extremely comfortable into their respective roles along with the supporting cast as operators Bobby, Tucker, and Two Cups. Add in a sprinkle of Morgan "I've heard some bullshit in my time" Freeman to create the perfect mix of action and dark humor.
Sidebar: I'm a harsh grader, so 7/10 is pretty 'good' for me. If your overall expectations are a bit lower, you could probably rate this an 8.
To my surprise, Day of the Jackal has TEN episodes! I'm over the moon.
Buffy is an insane show. I'm really enjoying it.
I also started a rewatch of STRIKE BACK, which is the greatest show in the history of the medium. Not really... but its the last classic Cinemax series. Most episodes have some girl that gets rescued or whatever, they blow the shit out of a bunch of buildings, pew pew pew... credits. Its fun.
Agatha All Along - 5/10
Spoilers below.
A little tired of the hero-lost-their-powers trope. I wanted to see cool witchery and effects - waiting until the penultimate episode for the main character to get to that point was really unsatisfying. Star of the show Kathryn Hahn was only good in handful of scenes really, and for the rest she seemed to be overacting a lot of the time. Come to think of it, most of the cast was not that great or maybe it was the direction. Aubrey Plaza stuck out though, she stole almost every scene she was in - and I quite liked the kid as well, making his episode my favourite of the season.
There were things they pulled off but they managed to cram way too many twists and reveals into almost every episode. It got more and more far fetched as it went on. The borderline psychological horror in this one also did not go well with those regular Marvel quips and jokes. Just let things be serious for a minute. Show, don't tell.. so many scenes where one character was doing something and another was explaining it to everyone else as if these centuries old witches didn't already know these things. However one thing that I did not feel was ever explained though was why Agatha kills witches. They dumbed everything down except the motivation of the main character, it seems. Or maybe I missed it and it's me that's dumb.
Overall the show just didn't land for me. Tone/mood/vibe was all over the place but I guess that was to be expected since it's a spin-off of Wandavision which was also very strange - I also wasn't much of a fan of that one. Agatha All Along felt kind of cheap, so I can't say I understand the general praise it's been getting. Perhaps the bar for Marvel shows is just really low. It was still worth the watch though.
Edit: also just finished The Penguin - 8-9/10
I don't have as many notes on this show but it was great! Stumbled a little towards the ending but overall as solid as I'd expect from HBO back in the day. Mindblowing how it's Colin Farrell on screen, like you really can't tell in any way! Related a lot to a lot of the characters, loved the diversity in both mental and physical problems, everything was just really well represented, I'm sure Farrell had a lot to do with that part. Sofia especially was an awesome character, I don't think I've ever seen anything like her. Her episode (4) was almost like Black Swan levels of horribly scary, and I had to look away sometimes, but it was so good.
Spoilers for the full season
I loved that this show didn't do the big special effects and such. The small bits of witchcraft were so enjoyable.
She's absolutely overacting, but deliberately - she goes from being cast in a cop drama (and Agatha's acting gets IMO deliberately worse as that goes on) onto a fictional place fully created by little Maximoff. She's being over the top implanting things in his head to make them real, different trials, one for each witch, all of this is fully fabricated because she told him while improvising in the moment.
I enjoyed all the characters quite a bit.
Her coven turned on her, her literal and metaphorical family tried to kill her. It's not clear to me if she killed witches before that or just studied forbidden magic. But she's a villain and always will be. She expresses care for Teen/Billy - at least as a distraction to Rio - and does like one truly nice thing. Everything else she does is neutral to evil because she's not a good person. She gets humanized in this show but not forgiven.
The centuries old witches didn't know anything about the Road, because it was always fake and always a con. So she had to keep the con going.
It has a low budget, and they handled it so well IMO. It gave us the grounded stuff instead of the big flashy magic battle at the end. We got a taste in the penultimate episode and then got a tragic story of a mom losing her child... While still being evil.
Agatha was gaslighting Billy the whole time, and was trying to gaslight the other witches as best she could considering her plan was to kill them all at the end of the second episode. She was desperate due to being hunted by the Seven and absolutely played her persona up, because she can usually make it work, and might at least have gotten herself out of Westview before the Seven had caught up with her, if the Teen's quasi hex didn't manifest the Road.
I did love it being unapologetically queer, and how everything that feels cheap about it is a)practical and b) on purpose. I also loved that every time I had a question - What is your name? Where's Rio? Etc. the characters asked it aloud. They didn't always get the answer, but they didnt sit there ignoring the obvious because the script said to.
Anyway, I'm a big fan of the show and it's possibly the first show I've finished in a couple of years.
That it's the first show you've finished in a while definitely says a lot about it. Glad you were into it! I always appreciate your takes and analysis. You have so much more depth to what you watch/read. Way more layers to this show than I realized but just like The Locked Tomb, it just flies right over my head which won't surprise you I'm sure but yeah I just don't pick up on these things. I can't really disagree with any of what you say, because I definitely now understand what they were doing. I guess it just didn't work for me? Maybe it was the character or the actress herself? Like I said, the kid's episode was my favourite by some distance and I feel like it's not a coincidence that that's the one Hahn wasn't really in all that much.
That's fair, sometimes things just don't vibe. I was definitely taken along for a ride and absolutely loved that
spoiler
It actually was Agatha All Along.
First the title didn't mean much, then it was Billy all along but then, it was always a con!
idk I loved it.
Also though the song is such a bop.
I was also not a huge fan of WandaVision, but I thought this show was better than that. It wasn't that good, but the final few episodes elevated the it for me. It made it an overall decent show. Which is pretty good on the MCU show scale
Caught up on Star Trek Prodigy and Lower Decks. Both are good. I prefer LD. Already thinking about starting over LD from the beginning.
I'm trying to get through the last two seasons of Discovery. This really is a poor outing for Star Trek. I just can't fathom leaving any Star trek unseen. So, I'm doing it. But it's becoming a background show that's just kind of on while I do things on my computer.
I've also started over on The Orville. I think I let season three fall through the cracks during a move, so I had more than half of the season left. It's been so long since I saw the first two, I thought it worth watching them all over again. They are a treat. Surprised at how much I like what amounts to a parody of Star Trek created by Seth MacFarlane. But, it works.
I just finished watching Deep Space Nine for the first time after starting it in March. Holy hell, what a show.
DS9 All Spoilers
I'm at a complete loss of words for how excellent the entire run of the show was, from start to finish, with very few truly bad moments and a lifetime's worth of great moments. My original plan was to start Voyager (have also never watched before) right after this, but considering I was still crying for an hour after I finished the last episode, I think I need to let DS9 live in my brain for a while first. The last handful of episodes were just spectacular and the ending left the perfect taste of bittersweet.When I first started watching a few months ago, I expected the show to just be some campy 90's TV fun. I really didn't expect how touching this show would be and how meaningful it's been to me this year. I feel like a kid again watching this show, yet it has the emotional complexity I want as an adult, it's just truly wonderous. This show is going to live with me forever and I'm glad I got to share so much time with Sisko, Jake, Kira, Odo, Jadzia, Ezri, Julian, Miles, Worf, everyone else, and even Quark.
I loved the storytelling structure of the show, it made it extremely easy to watch, but you still got tons of "OH FUCK" moments when it really ramped up. Pretty much every character, even single episode characters, are written and acted so well that everything feels in-universe and extremely immersive. You feel like you're living in the show with the characters as you watch and that's part of what made this so compelling of a watch for me. I'm not "watching" a group of people "do stuff", I'm sitting there with them as they live their lives. The dominion war spans years and it's not like any character is realistically fighting that whole time and this show does a fantastic job of showing the characters going back to their "normal" lives in between whenever they're called to combat.
I really don't have anything negative to say about the show, it was such a thoroughly enjoyable experience, even the "bad" episodes, and I've never really watched anything that's hitting this same set of feelings, not even TNG.
As for favorite episodes:
I think Badda-Bing Badda-Bang is my favorite feel good/off beat episode.
It's Only A Paper Moon is probably my favorite single character centric episode.
In Purgatory's Shadow was the most shocking moment for me (I audibly gasped when it was revealed that Bashir had been replaced by a changeling).
The Visitor is the episode that made me cry the most.
My favorite overall was probably In The Pale Moonlight. It was ballsy storytelling having your heroes of the show straight up tricking an entire race of people into a war that could decimate them, and that story telling really worked. It showed how flawed many of the characters are, they aren't superheroes.
There really were dozens of excellent episodes, though, like Duet, Far Beyond The Stars, Trials And Tribble-ations, The Way Of The Warrior, Waltz, and a lot more. It's near impossible to pick favorites.
If you haven't watched DS9 or any Star Trek, I thoroughly recommend it. It's a lot of episodes (173 episodes at 45 minutes each, with a few being 90 minutes), but it's an easy show to watch and doesn't require that much investment even though the show invests heavily back in you, if that makes sense. You don't have to remember a bunch of characters or very intricate politics, but the show has such smart writing and emotional depth that you get well more out of it than you put in. It is now my favorite show, no questions about it.