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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.
Final episode of Alien Earth tonight and, unless it totally sucks, I think this is easily a top 5 TV show this year. That's both an indictment of the 2025 TV lineup and a compliment to the best extension of the Alien IP since definitely Prometheus, but maybe all the way back to the original.
I'm only halfway through the season at episode 4, but so far it's fantastic.
Something I've noticed is that whenever I think "Did the people in the show notice that a suspicious or weird thing is happening?", the show will address that right away. They'll show a character is aware of what's going on and is allowing it to happen intentionally. The only other show I remember that kind of thing happening in was Better Call Saul, where there were times Saul/Jimmy would try to pull a trick on someone that you would expect to work in a poorly written show, and as I said out loud it was stupid, the other character like his brother or whoever would notice and call him out in the show.
I also noticed that, thanks to Timothy Olyphant's character reading the ship logs, he tends to know the stuff about Xenomorphs that the audience already knows, such as how the eggs and face huggers work. So unlike many Alien installments, we don't have to sit there and watch as these clueless characters learn all the stuff that we've seen other characters get killed by a thousand times at this point.
Agreed, the only dummies making mistakes are the children and the 'boy' genius, Kavalier.
I like the intelligence of (some) of the characters too.
I was listening to a podcast about one of the earlier episodes (I think the podcast was the ringer) and they were talking about how some of the characters know too much. For example "Boy" calls the samples "bioweapons". For him to know that the xenomorphs are bioweapons would require knowledge from the future and/or the alien past. But I didn't get stuck on that, because I assume he meant that they're effectively bioweapons, and that would be their use by his rival, without knowing that they were designed.
It did not suck! Alien: Earth easily in my TV Top 5 for 2025.
https://www.theringer.com/2025/09/23/tv/alien-earth-season-1-finale-the-real-monsters-takeaways
A contradictory opinion.
I think some valid points are raised, I agree with a number of them but they did not detract from enjoyment. Hopefully this gets renewed.
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It did not suck and I was happy and surprised to get an Alien show. I love the Eye, and was annoyed it dint do anything once it got a human host. They are saving it for season 2 I guess. I had a feeling they were going to do that. Otherwise I liked it as an episode. I appreciate that they didn’t kill any of the main characters. I thought they might kill the brother (via the Eye). I was kinda hoping the eye would get him, but I also do see his value in the show and what he represents. So I’m glad he made it. Too bad his squad mate became ceiling sack alien food. I thought she was cool.
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I think the eye chose the person it did for maximum story value next season. I am also disappointed that we didn't get to see it control a human host.
Ah good point.
I'm so happy Slow Horses is back!
edit: For superhero shows, DC has absolutely nailed it with Doom Patrol, Peacemaker etc.
Slow horses is one of my and my wife’s favorite shows! We are also happy.
Didn’t know it’s back! This is great news. One of the few shows I look forward to.
I absolutely love that they shoot two seasons at a time. All shows should learn from this and keep a consistent, yearly schedule.
Is anyone else watching Task? It was made by the same person who did Mare of Easttown and has a similar vibe - weathered Pennsylvania law enforcement officer tries to solve a crime and keep their life together. I'm really enjoying it so far. The acting has been great and there's a lot of tension in each episode.
Also, most of the actors are from the UK/Ireland but they do a great job with the PA accents. They've got a real Idris as Stinger Bell thing going on.
I liked Mare of Easttown and I'm going to watch this when I'm done with Alien Earth.
Line of Duty - 7/10
Six seasons of an anti-corruption police unit somewhere in the UK. Had some very rough moments, especially the first season, but overall good tv, especially season 5 was great!
My mom and I watched the first episode of Halloween Baking Championship on the Food Network. We'd really enjoyed the Kids and Spring Baking Championships, and I like spooky season so this seemed like a good time.
And... we didn't like it.
Compared to the other two shows, this one just felt... mean? The banter between the host and the contestants didn't hit the right notes this time. When one of the judges entered midway through, it felt like they were talking about the contestants—which, hosts usually do, but this time it felt even more "other". Meanwhile pretty much everyone was under high amounts of stress. Even those who started out confident and cool-headed had stuff go wrong and started to freak out by the end.
Partway through the episode I was looking up info about the set, and found out a lot of other people don't like this season either. General consensus matches mine: this show was too negative. It barely focused on the baking, it was all focused on the bakers stressing out.
I feel so bad for one of the contestants because she was clearly super stressed and felt in over her head from the beginning. She's a nurse who runs a home bakery on the side, and said outright she was feeling a bad case of imposter syndrome and that she felt out of place. She had a meltdown after realizing she forgot sugar in her cake where she lied down on the floor. And just... The constant focus on her felt so icky. Pretty much every shot of her focused on how insanely stressed she was. The editors even left in a joke from her nursing job about "sticking fingers in all the holes" that she clearly instantly regretted, and only said because she was a giant bundle of nerves.
Yet despite all her troubles, her cake was one of the better ones. And then she revealed she has brain cancer, and... That makes all the focus on her feel even worse. I feel like she was chosen for the show purely for the potential drama. On that note, a lot of people seem to really dislike her because of how stressed she is, which just makes it even WORSE. This poor woman has enough to deal with, and she's now being exploited on national TV.
I was so relieved she wasn't in the bottom three, because this season they have a bakeoff between the bottom three bakers instead of a full second round with everyone. They also have the other contestants watching and commenting from a balcony, which is new and absolutely has to add to the stress. But when the judging came, one of the people who passed the first round announced he wanted to drop out. He claimed it was because he realized he was more "back of house" and he wasn't having fun, and honestly? He made the right call. I don't think anyone was having fun, something about the format this time is just bad.
We're not going to watch any more episodes. It's just too negative. I do want to keep an eye on the nurse's progress though, because I seem to be in a minority who feel sympathy for her. I want her off the show ASAP not due to her being a bad baker, but because the show is clearly just exploiting her for drama. Based on some comments about the second episode (apparently her bake looked raw??), they really might be keeping her in the show just for exploitive purposes.
Sometimes I try to watch one of these cooking reality shows, but I usually don’t watch past one episode. There is something so incredibly manipulative about each second. There is a very recognizable formula of edits and music and repetition that really bothers me.
The Mitchell and Webb Gift Shop Sketch has the repetition pattern and over production right even though it isn’t making fun of a contest.
Too bad, I like cooking and I like contests but I can’t watch cooking competitions since that British baking show.
Based on comments and complaints about this season, past seasons focused more on baking than drama. I assume it worked similarly to the spring baking championship, which was laid back and positive for the most part. Even when one team challenge had a contestant very obviously miffed about her teammate's mistakes messing up their dessert, it didn't heavily focus on it or try to play it up. I feel like this one would have just had endless clips of her complaining and blaming him.
My mom and I got into the kids' baking competition in the spring because it was just so nice. The kids were all super supportive of each other and helpful, regularly giving each other tips and even helping if one of them finished a little early and someone was clearly struggling. It was genuinely never-ending positivity. This show is basically the exact opposite.
It just makes me sad for the contestants because I'm sure they signed up for the experiences from previous seasons, not... this.
Despite being a massive fan of Top Gear and The Grand Tour (TG is the reason my main hobbies are cars and motorsports), I had never watched TG season 1 until this last week. Everyone said it was bad, so I never bothered. I’ve been down with some sort of sickness and have had loads of time, so I binged it. It was not nearly as good as future seasons, but compared to the other early seasons, it really is not bad. Jason doesn’t have any chemistry with Jeremy or Richard, but his segments aren’t bad and Jeremy and Richard have good reviews, it just isn’t as zany as it starts to get around season 5ish and beyond.
While I have watched seasons 2-5 before, it’s been a long while, so I’m continuing on with those right now.