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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 just finished a complete rewatch of Andor season 1, then went right into season 2 and Rogue One. Before Andor, I thought Rogue One was the best Star Wars project Disney had done but now that Andor is finished, I'm convinced it's the best by a lot. If only Tony Gilroy had the movie from the beginning...
I don't think there will be anything like Andor any time soon. Gilroy is leaving and the way I've heard Lucasfilm and Disney execs cluelessly speak about it doesn't fill me with hope. I don't think Disney/Lucasfilm have ever understood what their audience wants or why there was so much passion for Andor & Rogue One.
I recommend both of these projects; the cost of 1 month of Disney+ is well worth it for them alone.
Gilroy had nothing but praise for Kathleen Kennedy, too [1]. Its got me wondering if Favreau and Filoni arent actually the best to be making these properties now that its been kicked off.
The other series have had their moments, but they ultimately lost it. Andor is the right tone and pace and prestige. It was also neat that they got so many of the original cast from Rogue One.
I watched the first two episodes of the Murderbot show and I really liked it.
I think they did a really good job of capturing the spirit of the books. The trailers were definitely more jokey in tone than the show is. I don't think this is a spoiler as it happens in chapter one of All Systems Red, but Murderbot vaguely remembers doing something awful and is grappling with that.
I love the depiction of PreservationAux, especially Mensah and Gurathin. The show has taken pretty thinly written characters (especially the latter) and expanded on them in a good way.
I liked the pacing, as it felt snappy, like the novellas do. I think the 30 minute format works well. I think I'd recommend waiting until it's all out to binge it, as that's what I do with the novellas. I don't think there's enough in the first book to have a cliffhanger every week.
Pleasantly surprised by Alexander Skarsgaard as Murderbot, especially in scenes when it is uncomfortable and anxious in front of humans. This really comes out in episode 2.
And getting little snippets of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, MedCenter Argala and WorldHoppers is such a treat. Murderbot truly does enjoy trashy media, and those little segments were some of the most fun in the show.
It's not a oh-my-god-you-have-to-watch-this-now recommendation, but as a fan of the series, I think it's the best adaptation I could have asked for in tone, production design, and writing. I am very glad they're not just using the name-brand recognition to make a Terminator show. Apple TV+ is really, really good at sci-fi.
Over the last couple of months I've been slowly rewatching all of Schitt's Creek. It's one of my favourite shows of all time, and this year has been the sort of year where I need emotional resets from media that I love, and this year's emotional reset rewatch was Schitt's Creek. I got to the end - thank you CBC Gem for the free streaming - and then watched the special that came afterwards and they hit me with this: in the show there just isn't any homophobia.
There's an episode or so where it is hinted at around the edges that homophobia might be something that exists in the world of Schitt's Creek - it's the episode where Patrick is coming out to his parents, and he's not sure how they're going to react. But like the rest of the show, they react with love and support. And I hadn't really ever parsed that in the show, there just isn't this idea of needing to overcome something for love that so many other shows have. And it's not to say that those shows are bad for depicting reality, but I just genuinely loved that people's identity is just not in any way a negative issue in the world of the show. Some people are gay, some are bi, some are pan, some are straight, and everyone is just treated the same, even in the small rural town that the Roses end up living in. Even the ruralest small town-est guy - Roland Schitt, the closest thing to a disliked character the show has - at no point ever references anything about anyone's sexuality in any kind of a negative way.
So I went online and I found that there are just so many stories from people who love the show because it shows someone like them in a world where it is okay to just be someone like them, and have everyone immediately and without any kind of second thought entirely accept them for who they are.
It's simply the best show for this. And if you watch that, then note that I think it's proof that eyebrow acting ability is likely a genetic trait, because Daniel Levy's eyebrow acting is approaching the greatness of his dad Eugene, who is perhaps the greatest eyebrow actor of all time.