Bad news for fans of excellent comedy and pretty good scifi today, as both Brooklyn Nine Nine and The Expanse have been cancelled. Strictly speaking, The Expanse has just not been renewed; since it's only a co-production with SyFy the other producers are already shopping it around for someone else - coughNetflixcough - to pick up.
There are rumours of Hulu circling B99 as well, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up; after the rollercoaster of emotions (and quality) in Community, it might be better to just let it go.
That bit in B99 was brilliant. So gutted it's been cancelled but I think there was a feeling it was on thin ice as it took forever for it to come back from its mid season break and then kind of just came back overnight with very little notice.
In other, more positive news, Legion continues to do whatever the fuck it wants, to staggering effect; its most recent episode took an hour in the middle of a high-stakes season to go on a series of "what if?" diversions that combine their individual mundanity into a profoundly affecting story about family as a psychological anchor. Dan Stevens knocked it out of the park at least six different ways.
It's "YMMV: The TV Series", but I am completely on board for wherever it decides to go.
Also Steven Universe had a pretty great couple of episodes this week, which just makes the likely 4-month wait for the next handful to stop all the more unbearable.
Season 2 of Westworld continues the themes of the first, inasmuch as I'm only interested in Maeve's story and I'm considering waiting 'til it's over and hoping somebody just edits her bits together with none of the other frankly tedious time jumpy bullshit.
I think I'm done with Westworld. I was tuned out for most of this week's episode; Maeve's story is getting tedious even as it approaches its purpose.
Not only is this show not as clever as it thinks it is, its attempts to disguise its mediocrity are even more convoluted and confusing than the first season.
It feels a lot like nothing of substance has actually changed yet this season. The park is still in chaos and the characters are all after basically the same things as when this series started.
We watched the end of Legion's second season last night, and it's setting up for a hell of a third. I'm never going to hear The Who's Behind Blue Eyes the same way.
For me, this season peaked around episode 6, and the latter few got a bit more "normal" than when the series is at its off-the-wall best; maybe having more of an actual plot, a defined villain (though I can't complain on that front - Navid Negahban is great as Amahl Farouk) and clear goals for the characters just makes it harder to crank the weird to 11.
We'd seen rumblings of "best TV show ever" on the internet, so we gave it a go. It comes with one of those crap, off-putting warnings from everyone who recommends it – the first season is only okay, and it gets better.
But Christ they're not joking. The first season is fine, if a little infuriating at times. It's Damon 'Lost' Lindelof, so a bit of whatthefuck comes with the territory. As does not expecting answers. But when we played the first episode of season 2, we actually had to check to make sure we hadn't put a different show on.
Still not far enough into season 2 to tell whether "best show ever" is hyperbole, but it's never less than interesting.
I've just binged every available episode of The Good Place in an embarrassingly short space of time and I think it's honestly one of the best things I've ever watched. It's endlessly inventive, consistently hilarious and I love every character in it. And it burns through plot like nothing I've ever seen: the absurdly short episodes mean you're never more than 20 minutes from a cliffhanger ending and every time you think you've got a handle on where it's going, it fires off in a completely different direction. It's truly amazing.
Yeah I love The Good Place. And totally agree about the rate at which it gets through plot points – I'm always a little upset at how little time every brilliantly clever set-up gets. But then they're along with another that's just as good.
Major spoilers for the end of season one
Spoiler - click to showAnd that laugh. That brilliant, evil laugh. 20-minute sitcoms shouldn't be able to have twists that good.
Yeah, it's great. I'm really looking forward to the new season. So clever and funny.
I've recently completed another watch through of Fringe. That must make 8(?) times now and I still love it & all the characters apart from Windmark, obvs.
I've started watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine from the start again. It's perfect to have on while I do some crafty things in the evening. I'm so glad that the laugh out loud jokes start in the pilot and just keep going. I remember being pleasantly surprised that the show was still excellent & hilarious in the last season. It's unusual for this format to still have strength after 5 seasons. It'll be interesting to see where it goes from here because I think season 5 wrapped up pretty well.
Several people here have recommended Brooklyn Nine-Nine (in this thread and others) so in my post-Good Place slump I decided to give it a go.
You're right - it's great. I'm only seven or eight episodes in but it's really found its feet quickly, and I can see it's just going to get better as the characters get fleshed out. And while it's much more of a conventional sitcom than The Good Place, it shares that show's refusal right from the start to do what you think it's going to do - the main character's not the bumbling jerk you think he's going to be, he's actually funny rather than annoying, the show's not based around a "will they, won't they" relationship with his female co-worker, and so on. Already my favourite character is changing on an episode-by-episode basis, so I think it's fair to say it's a keeper.
It's… fine. It reminded me of early Futurama, with its weirdly silent world (where's all the foley and background music?), uneven characters and slim plots stretched out to fill 22 minutes, but having gone back and rewatched the first handful of Futurama episodes, Disenchantment really doesn't measure up.
I'm not even sure why. Maybe the fantasy setting just doesn't appeal as much as scifi.
Finished Iron Fist season 2 this evening. A monumentally vast improvement over season 1 (the lowest bar), but Danny is still by far the weakest part of the whole thing - not helped by the fact that Finn Jones is just not very good at the whole "acting" thing.
I've not seen much of Iron Fist 2, but I don't think that Finn Jones is necessarily bad at acting - he just doesn't seem to get a lot of acting to do.
Daredevil let Charlie Cox vary his portrayal a bit with his dual life; Jessica Jones had a variety of relationships that gave Krysten Ritter different emotions to move between; even Luke Cage has the difference between the character's private and public for Mike Coulter to switch it up.
Danny Rand just isn't interesting. All of his motivations seem revolve around the same thing: the Fist. I don't know what Danny wants from life the way I understand what drives the other Defenders.
Danny Rand just isn't interesting. All of his motivations seem revolve around the same thing: the Fist. I don't know what Danny wants from life the way I understand what drives the other Defenders.
That's actually something of a key theme in Iron Fist 2.
Maybe it's just that he's not comfortable with the accent, or something, but there's just something very rigid and stilted about the performance, and it doesn't seem to be an intentional character beat.
Yep, fair point, me and the 9 year old are enjoying it equally I think (and he's not much of a TV watcher, so this has been a big success). Only four episodes in though so no spoilers!
Been catching up on The Man in the High Castle while the in-laws watch Strangers (which I gave up on very quickly). One episode left in Season 2, and I think it's been much stronger and more consistent than the first, which really lost steam about halfway through. I've never read the book, so I have no idea how close it is, but I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I'm a few episodes into S2 of a Daredevil rewatch ahead of S3 landing this weekend. I'm hoping to get S2 and The Defenders done before starting on any new stuff. Aniki is away so I wasn't planning on starting as soon as it dropped anyway.
Daredevil has always been my favourite of the Netflix/Marvel shows - it feels more real than the others to me. The characters and the threat to life is believable, although I've not got to the mad ninja stuff in S2 yet… Watching Matt Murdock slowly destroy all the relationships with the people in his life is gripping- Karen thinks he's an alcoholic (Foggy trying to cover for him) and she does nothing to help & actively enables his drinking kinda bums me out a bit.
Jon Bernthal is so fucking good that I'm actually considering rewatching The Punisher!
Watching Matt Murdock slowly destroy all the relationships with the people in his life is gripping
I usually find this stuff immensely frustrating; Jessica Jones 2 was particularly bad for this, as Jess just pushes everyone further and further away. I just want people to be happy.
You’ll need to do Iron Fist S1 before Defenders for it to make much sense. It’s not widely liked but it’s not that bad really. JJ2 is the only really poor one of the series I’ve watched so far.
Just cramming in as much Daredevil stuff as I can before S3. I did Iron Fist S1 fairly recently, I think. Just before S2 went online. Apparently it's not getting picked up for a new season, which is a shame considering the status of the Iron Fist at the end of S2.
Oh, I'm not saying it's a good idea. Disney having their own platform at all is a bit squiffy, to be honest; I don't think we want to get to a place where every studio has their own subscription model.
I’m nearly at the end of the second series of The Handmaid’s Tale. It continues to be the bleakest thing I’ve ever seen; it pulls no punches whatsoever and the level of suffering they put every character through seems almost unendurable at times. It’s also thought-provoking, beautifully filmed and extraordinarily well acted, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
The second series was always going to be difficult as they used up almost all the source material in S1; it did wobble a bit initially but from the halfway point onwards it’s been right back up there. Awful, compelling, brilliant stuff.
I'm fully prepared to be the only person on here watching the Netflix She-Ra (though I suspect Ninchilla might have watched it?), but it's great so whatever. I keep having to restrain my expectations for a Steven Universe or even Avatar-style turn into more serious territory, as really it's just kinda fluffy and goofy and fun.
Plus I'm a sucker for an interesting magical girl transformation sequence, and this has a pretty good one.
Sarah's an enormous fan of the original, so there's no way this was ever not going to end up on our list; only made it five or six episodes in (just saw the Seahawk one) so far, but it's pretty great.
Spoiler - click to showI did also start trying to learn the First Ones alphabet…
