Televisual Entertainments

Also, Navid Negahban as Amahl Farouk is one of my favourite things about the show, so I'm willing to give the whole Shadow King name-drop a pass.

foundation's pretty good

re Legion: I loved the first season and haven't had a chance to watch any more. I'll be jumping on that ASAP.

The Wheel of Time … blah blah … maybe something interesting will happen at some point.

The last few episodes of this have actually been pretty good! Not blindingly good, or even Witcher good (the script still has more than a few clunkers every week, and the acting is patchy) but definitely way more engaging and entertaining than I expected. Whoever made and greenlit that first episode needs a good talking to, it's really bad.

Anyone else subject themselves to Netflix's Cowboy Bebop yet?

Actually, that's a little harsh; we only watched the first episode yet, but it's mostly okay. I like (most of) the cast, the script is actually okay (on a little sweary in places), and I did the visuals, even if they do feel a little bit weirdly clean for how grungy the designs are.

Where it really falls down is in the direction and editing - it's trying very hard to be Cool™, but seems to lack the confidence to really do anything - certainly anything original. The result is something that feels overthought and hyper-deliberate, which is a shame; some of the fighting stuff looks like it would be really good if not for the fact that the edit is super-baggy, with shots all held just a fraction too long.

Special mention for every piece of facial hair on the show - it's universally fucking atrocious.

I saw the footage of Ed and it's probably the worst thing I've ever seen

I don't know how to explain it except that the tempo is all wrong. You can watch and enjoy Bebop even if you don't get jazz, but you can't make Bebop if you don't get jazz. These guys don't get jazz.

I mean, they're editing the music to fit the scenes, instead of the other way round, for Christ's sake.

I saw the footage of Ed and it's probably the worst thing I've ever seen

…I assumed they'd cut Ed… oh, gods.

Even if you don't play League, I'd recommend Arcane. The story is a bit young adult (don't watch it with kids though it goes dark/sexy in a few places) but the animation is unbelievable. It also tells a great story, in a broad brush strokes sense.

In some bits they really show off (a bit like the animated Spider Man movie), some of the fights in later episodes are among the most stylishly executed anything I've seen on screen. But seriously, just one episode should be enough to take in the jaw dropping animation work.

Imitating its anime forebear in yet another way, the live-action Cowboy Bebop will also only run for one series.

By all accounts it probably should have imitated it by being good.

I finally watched the first season of True Detective, I remember people in here enjoying it. I loved it. I've been reading a bunch of Yellow King related stuff this year and one of my friends said "Of course you've watched True Detective?" I'm glad I got around to it.

I just got around to watching IT Chapters 1 & 2 (liked 1, thought 2 was a drag but the overall package was fine. Haven't watched much big budget horror for a while so it was sort of refreshing to get a scare and then forget about it instead of some creeping dread and "oh God, humanity is the most evil isn't it"). That's not super important but it led me to I'm Not Okay With This on Netflix.
Two of the kids from IT star and it's (so far) really great. I'm about half way. The headline is Young Girl Discovers Powers which is what probably turned me off – that trope is polarising now right? Do I need another one of these things? The good will I had based on IT Part 1 was enough to spur me onto watching this.
Episodes are 20 minutes, there are only 7 or 8 of them so it clocks in overall at shorter than It part 2 and it's very good so far.

Jesus, have you seen the reaction to the Lord of the Rings show? People are really annoyed that not all of the actors are white.

Jesus, have you seen the reaction to the Lord of the Rings show? People are really annoyed that not all of the actors are white.

It's just standard now, isn't it? Every show that doesn't cast 100% of its roles as white people gets attacked by the racists. They did it with Worzel Gummidge, they did it with Around The World in 80 Days and now they're doing it with Lord of the Rings.

I even saw someone arguing that black people shouldn't be cast because it wasn't historically accurate. In a show featuring elves, dwarves and magic rings. There is no arguing with these people.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, as they say.

I think the casting only suffers from the same thing that a lot of these shows do - everyone just looks too clean and perfect. I mean, I get it for the elves, I guess…

I think the casting only suffers from the same thing that a lot of these shows do - everyone just looks too clean and perfect. I mean, I get it for the elves, I guess…

That's another thing that winds me up so much. (Not with you obviously, it just reminded me.)

The racist/sexist gatekeepers of all these fantasy shows are so insidious. They'll agree on a narrative about why X is shit, and stick to that line of attack no matter what. And half the time, these big budget shows DO end up being shit, so the trolls feel weirdly validated.

MPH finally turning on aniki, I always feared it would happen.

That trailer looked a bit shit (not because I am a racist, that's just what a racist would say). But you never know.

I'm not aniki.

Typical Prole

I've finished Expanse Season 4. I fucking hate the main cast. Apart from Amos who makes me question aspects of my sexuality.

Holden is just dreadful. Mechanic woman is a Blue Peter presenter. Space Cowboy man is now straight up annoying. Bobbie unconvincing. Arvasala can't act in English (though she looks the part)…. But there are enough reasonable distractions to keep me going. It's a bit Mass Effect now, but obviously struggling to adapt the books into a compelling TV story, but it has kept me watching - even if a lot of each episode is me rolling my eyes and sighing.

Onwards to Season 5.

I think theres a few of you who like Drive to Survive? New season, covering the stupidly dramatic 2021 season, is up on Netflix as of today.

Also, from Monday Amazon will have a MotoGP one, which will cover just as many big events within the sport, including the final season of one Valentino Rossi.

New season of The Orville has started on Disney+ and the first episode is great.

New season of The Orville has started on Disney+ and the first episode is great.

That was indeed an excellent episode of Star Trek.

I hear Strange New Worlds is very good too, although I'm not sure if it's available in the UK yet.

Anyone watched any Love, Death and Robots on Netflix? It’s an anthology show, so it has its ups and downs, but the ups are pretty impressive.

Check out Jibaro from the latest season, preferably with a good set of headphones. It’s a hell of a way to spend 20 minutes.

New season of The Orville has started on Disney+ and the first episode is great.

The latest episode, A Tale of Two Topas, is one of the best things I've ever seen on TV. It takes a controversial subject and handles it with nuance, sensitivity, kindness and even a little humour. It's absolutely the kind of thing Star Trek and indeed sci-fi in general has always tried to do and they've handled it perfectly. I hope the episode gets the recognition it deserves.

I was going to watch it last night but it turns out we can't watch season 3 in France. We just watched season 1 again instead.

Stranger things has gone from an entertaining homage drawing on a fondness of things long-gone, to a hugely over-elaborate, chuck everything at a wall and see what sticks, not-as-good-as-it-thinks-it-is, coke-addled monstrosity.

It's basically the Oasis of TV shows.

Series 4 was its Be Here Now - starts well, is sporadically entertaining, is utterly convinced of its own genius, and, whilst populated by characters you recognise, has had all the heart and hunger ripped out of it and replaced with mooooooorrreee of everything else. I'm not sure I'll bother with 5.

Product/10

I really enjoyed most of it; I mean, Joyce's plot was kind of ridiculous, Mike/Will/Jonathan didn't get much to do in the grand scheme, and Vecna got exponentially less scary the more we saw/found out of him, but overall I thought it was entertaining enough.

I'm just over halfway through (just watched episode 5) and I'm really enjoying it! The core cast could do with trimming down a bit and the Russian prison camp sub plot is interminable but apart from that it's really fun. The characters are great, it barrels along at quite a pace and it looks amazing.

Mind you I also like Be Here Now…

The editing is appalling, with multiple establishing shots crammed in for no clear reason (it's not like the runtimes need to be longer), and there was one scene in the desert where the colour grading was all over the place, but by and large I quite liked it.

I agree that it's probably gone too big with the stakes, though.

I really liked a lot of the early, NoES inspired stuff in Hawkins. It was genuinely creepy and exciting, with some nice twists and turns. I liked the introduction of the Hellfire Club too, and a lot of the flashback stuff in the middle was largely good too. The stuff outside of Hawkins has always been much less interesting though, and there is just so much of it this time round… The Russia stuff was interminable, the California/road trip stuff was average. Outside of the action, most of the characters just mope around because of girl/boy trouble, which might be accurate teenage behavious but is much less watchable than them taking the piss out of each other. And the villain, after some great early scenes, got less and less scary throughout the last two episodes to the point where I spent more time wondering how much of his costume was CGI than I did worrying about whether or not he'd pull off his diabolical schemes. I guess that last bit is at least true to 90%+ of Stephen King's output too…

New season of The Orville has started on Disney+ and the first episode is great.

The latest episode, A Tale of Two Topas, is one of the best things I've ever seen on TV. It takes a controversial subject and handles it with nuance, sensitivity, kindness and even a little humour. It's absolutely the kind of thing Star Trek and indeed sci-fi in general has always tried to do and they've handled it perfectly. I hope the episode gets the recognition it deserves.

Caught up with this tonight. Fantastic TV. Just so good. Hits hard when your daughter is trans I can tell you.

Your daughter is trans Bri? I had no idea.

Well, neither did I until a few years ago. :-)

I guess that's the way these things work! All the best to her, I bet you're doing a brilliant job.

If you want to see another positive take on these things, the latest series of The Umbrella Academy has handled Elliot Page's transition brilliantly.

Well somewhat ironically, we cancelled our Netflix sub when they continued throwing money at Dave Chapelle.

Just finished The Orville season 3. Great stuff. I've already discussed the best episodes but the finale was excellent too

The final episode isn't out till Thursday…

Oh shit, I thought that was the end!

Against all the odds, the Sandman series is really bloody good. The comics were a pretty formative experience for me when I first read them, and I've always had it in my head as essentially unfilmable, but this is closer than I ever thought it would get. If you're coming in objectively, there's probably a fair bit of wtfery, and you have to have some patience for a mopey faux goth lead who looks like a cross between Robert Smith and Dylan Moran, but the feel is right. It's walking the right line between horror, philosophy and comedy that the comics got so right, and it looks and sounds great. The casting is mainly good too, a lot of people I don't think I've seen before alongside character stuff from stalwarts like Thewlis, Dance, Christie, and the colour blind approach freshens it up a bit. The other endless particularly are spot on. Overall, very impressed. Can't wait to see how they get into the meat of the run in series 2 etc now they've done the set up right.

I've never read Sandman, but I've heard a lot of good things. Do you think the show would work for a complete newcomer?

a mopey faux goth lead who looks like a cross between Robert Smith and Dylan Moran

We've only watched the first episode yet, but I was astonished they'd managed to find an actor who looks that much like a comic book character. Not this character in particular, mind – I've not read the source either – just like every chunky, ugly-but-not IDW/Image comic protagonist.

I've never read Sandman, but I've heard a lot of good things. Do you think the show would work for a complete newcomer?

Yep, my wife is enjoying it, and there were very few ‘who’s that, why can they do that?’ questions.

The first episode sets everything up pretty clearly. Incidentally, you can pick up Sandman Book One for about twenty quid. It has the first 16 issues, I’d definitely recommend it.

It's next on my list to watch - I've never read the original comic but I've read a couple of Gaiman novels and enjoyed them, and the TV adaptation of Good Omens was pretty good too.

Is it true they've buggered about with the aspect ratio? Seen lots of howling about that in various places online, it's the kind of thing that would aggravate me intensely.

Yep, my wife is enjoying it, and there were very few ‘who’s that, why can they do that?’ questions.

Yeah same, it's no worse/better than say the witcher for this. It's actually more accessible as a TV series than the first few issues of the comic, as they've dropped a lot of the (unnecessary) references to other comic characters.

Is it true they've buggered about with the aspect ratio? Seen lots of howling about that in various places online, it's the kind of thing that would aggravate me intensely.

Not noticed anything like this, but I'm not very sensitive to it so wouldn't necessarily see it.

This week I have mostly been watching… Mr Inbetween.

So, I came to this via a dumb F*ceb00k reel or whatever their TikTok bit is. I've started watching these while waiting on kids shitting or cleaning their teeth or while hiding in a cupboard because the FB algorithm has me pegged as someone who wants life hacks and things to do with kids. How to paint a straight line, how to quickly hang a mirror and then balance a suitcase of rocks on top of it, how to create a treasure hunt or bake banana bread in a sock.

Up pops a reel with these messages "Dad will do anything for his daughter" and "film of 2022!". I'm like 'those are things I'm interested in.'

It's clips of a really crappy looking Australian TV show. The only identifiable thing about it is maybe that's someone from Neighbours (it was. Brooke Satchwell.) and that's definitely Dewey from Justified. I kept watching then checked out IMDB and found Mr Inbetween.

I can't recommend this enough. I finished it last night, there are three series on Disney and then it's done. Episodes are 25-30 minutes. It plays a bit like Louis in that that it tends to have a couple of vignettes per episode but it's about a hitman. It's weirdly charming, it looks great – the FB video just made it look cheap – it's all written by Scott Ryan who stars and is directed by Nash Egerton (brother of Joel and stunt performer). It's also really tight, there's no "you've got to get to episode X", I think if you're in on the first episode you'll just enjoy it throughout.

Finally caught up with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and it's surprisingly excellent. Not really been a fan of what they did with Discovery or Picard so wasn't really expecting much from this, despite positive reports, but it really is the Star Trek show everyone's wanted for years. Episodic structure, really likeable crew and some excellent storylines. The best Trek since DS9? I think so.

Just a shame it's on the televisual graveyard that is Paramount Plus. The sooner everyone realises the market isn't big enough to support all these poxy little me-too streaming services, the better.

Anyone watched Rings of Power yet? The internet hates it because racism, just wondered if it was actually any good? I'm away from my TV for a few days so have to live vicariously.