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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 recently learned that archive.org has all the episodes of both Connections and The Day the Universe Changed available on their site. If you inspect the HTML you can easily pull out the URLs for the video files, download them, and move them to a more convenient device like your television for offline viewing. So that's what I did. I put 'em all on my AppleTV and will be watching them over the holiday break here in the US.
I was first introduced to these shows in the 1980s in my high school World History class by the rarest of teachers — one who found my offbeat humor funny! He was a good guy and I miss him, but his legacy lives on!
FYI, there are also various download options in the sidebar for each, and if you click "show all" it lists the file locations directly. E.g.
https://archive.org/download/james-burke-connections_s01e01
https://archive.org/download/the-day-the-universe-changed-s01e01-the-way-we-are
Oh yeah, good point! I'm more annoyed that there aren't links to the next episode in each section. WTF? At the bottom are "related" videos, many of which are later episodes. But you usually don't want to watch episode 9 after episode 3. I appreciate what archive.org does, but they really could use some usability improvements.
Not that you are in charge of anything there, but where is episode 6? I was able to change 01 all the way to 10 in this URL (https://archive.org/download/james-burke-connections_s01e01) and found every episode except 6
This loads the episode for me: https://archive.org/details/james-burke-connections_s01e06. The direct link to the H264 version is https://ia800808.us.archive.org/2/items/james-burke-connections_s01e06/Connections.E06.Thunder.in.the.Skies.NTSC.DVD.DD2.0.x264-NaRB.mp4
I should also mention that these versions are much higher quality than what YouTube offered. (And YouTube appears to only have the first 4 episodes of Connections for some reason!)
After listening to the latest episode of the A24 podcast with Tim Heidecker, John C. Reilly, Fred Armisen, and Jonathan Krisel, I decided to tuck into Moonbase 8. It may not be for everybody, but I really like it.
I also finished up Queen's Gambit. Being the last person on earth to watch this, I really enjoyed it. I'll leave it there.... purely as a record for future generations that I did, in fact, watch this series AND was the last person to do so. 🏆
Both Bruce Pandolfini and Garry Kasparov consulted on the book and the series, which was pretty neat. Its nice to see a series do their best to try and capture the technical side of the game. Rounders did a decent job at this, but didn't go as far as they could have (for more on this, check the poker pros commentary track.)
Oh! That looks interesting! Thanks for pointing it out.
Third-to-last! My spouse and I still haven't watched it, but are planning to.
You have no idea how happy it makes me feel to not be the last :) We should get matching jackets.
Moonbase 8 didn't get the best reception, but I really liked it. I did all but the last episode last night. I guess it took them a few years to get the series picked up, but I don't know why. It's got some big names in it within the ol comedy series world.
For the first time in quite a few months, I actually managed to watch a few shows this past week:
I plowed through both seasons of HBO's Barry, and it was a rather amusing mix of comedy and drama, interspersed with the occasional bit of incredibly gory violence. It's a strange show, but it works surprisingly well, and Bill Hader, Stephen Root, and Henry Winkler are great in it. However my favorite character, by far, is NoHo Hank though... he absolutely steals every scene he is in! (mild spoilers)
I also watched HBO's Raised By Wolves, which despite being interesting, I did not enjoy, and discussed here:
https://tildes.net/~tv/rqg/discussion_raised_by_wolves
And I also finally got around to watching The Boys Season 2 as well. Even though it started off painfully slow and surprisingly weak, with the first 3-4 episodes leaving me worried that the season was going to be a complete dud, it thankfully picked up the pace in the second half and finished off strong... so I was ultimately still left satisfied and looking forward to Season 3. Though it definitely has me questioning (even more than I already was) why Amazon decided to release the episodes weekly instead of all at once, considering how weak the first half was. I can't help but wonder if they lost quite a few viewers over the first few weeks, that may never come back to the show, thanks to that.
If travel documentaries are something you enjoy, you should also check out Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's Long Way Up, where they ride prototype electric motorcycles from the Southern tip of Argentina all the way through South and Central America, and end up in Los Angeles.
It's the follow-up to their previous ones (which are also on Apple TV+ now and very much worth watching), called Long Way Round and Long Way Down, where they did similar trips but using gas motorcycles. 'Round', they started in London, and drove through Europe, Siberia, the US, and ended up in NYC. 'Down', they went from the northern tip of Scotland all the way to South Africa.
I just started the Animaniacs reboot after a clip on YouTube popped up and it was better than I expected. I don't have enough to say that really warrants a thread about it, but I'm finding it hilarious in the first episode so far.
Anyone here watched the mini-series The Stranger on Netflix?
Just started it this week with my wife, we're about half-way through. It's pretty good so far, but as with any thriller the proof will be in the pudding when they tie all these threads together.
Paranormal was surprisingly good.