Televisual Entertainments

https://twitter.com/MikeDrucker/status/1127903802378596352

https://twitter.com/MikeDrucker/status/1127903802378596352

We did tell him that dragging the campaign out over twenty years wasn't a good idea.

Finished season 2 of The Orville tonight. Some great episodes, some just OK. Definitely worth a watch but I think season 1 was better.

That Twitter thread was shite. Like all Twitter threads.

That Twitter thread was shite. Like all Twitter threads.

Why, that puts it in a completely different light. Re-reading it with the knowledge 'cav thinks this is shite' has utterly changed my perspective. I mean, the only way you could have added to your cutting critique would have been by replacing all those cumbersome words with a single well chosen smiley, or maybe a gif featuring Newman & Badiel.

That Twitter thread was shite. Like all Twitter threads.

Why, that puts it in a completely different light. Re-reading it with the knowledge 'cav thinks this is shite' has utterly changed my perspective. I mean, the only way you could have added to your cutting critique would have been by replacing all those cumbersome words with a single well chosen smiley, or maybe a gif featuring Newman & Badiel.

meh

All Twitter threads like that are the same.

Tweet one: "Hey, you know the [thing], let me tell you about the [thing] because I have [some vague expertise in the area, but not enough to have any actual recognised qualification]. I'm going to write it in a way that suggests you haven't already considered the blindingly obvious viewpoint I am about to present.

Tweet 2 to 35 "Some bullshit I think that I'm presenting as if it's something more than my lukewarm take on a subject area" X 34 tweets. Rambling shite. Blah blah. Get a blog.

Tweet 36 a qualifying statement, and a "hey, but that's just me, we're all cool" bullshit.

If you like this sort of lukewarm take, follow me for more lukewarm takes on other subjects.

It's one step removed from the 80 minute Youtube videos where a white man with a wispy beard struggles to summarise a point.

Or, as Luscan neatly summarises, meh.

What are you talking about, The Last Jedi twitter threads were great.

Man on the internet doesn't like thing on the internet. News at 11.

Man misuses meme in weaksauce rebuff to valid observation. More news at 11. .

Hey aniki, post one of those Nathan Pye comics, they're HILARIOUS. Ded. Lol.

Fucking hell.

Game of Thrones, then.

Spoiler - click to showIt was… fine. Wrapped things up very neatly, not many surprises in the grand scheme. More endings than Return of the King. Just a bit flat, all in all.

Not really a spoiler:
Spoiler - click to showI've had this feeling from about episode 2 based on the numerous times I'd be a little bit underwhelmed then go and look at the internet and some GoT nerds would be laying out the significance of a scene or action from the episode. It's left me with an impression that, while this series hasn't been great, it probably works well as part of the overarching whole. Anyone binging the show in the next few years will likely have a fine time from start to end. Also, just a nod to some of the less combative bolt holes online where there is this unwavering love and obsession with the show – it's weird that this is the first time I've been seeking out more information on what's going on so late in the game – but for all the petitions to reshoot the series there are viewers who're still genuinely enthused.

Spoiler - click to show I'm in the 'that was pretty meh' category. Dany getting shanked just came and went like it was nothing, for such a big moment, I didn't feel much, and other than Jon being arrested the people on the show seemed mildly annoyed too. Didn't really feel satisfied with the way it ended for most of the characters. The best thing about the episode was the imagery of the ruins and the ashes and shit.

Chernobyl. Episode one.

Fucking hell.

Chernobyl is unbelievably good. We’ve got one episode to go and it’s been one of the best (and most harrowing) things I’ve ever watched.

There’s a fantastic episode-by-episode podcast with the main writer that gives a lot of background info, it’s well worth listening to if you’re at all interested in the events the show is depicting.

It is excellent. All the episodes are quite tonally different too, which is interesting. And there's not an ounce of fat on it.

We keep meaning to watch it, but after a long day at work it doesn't seem like the best way to unwind.

Is it unremittingly grim, all the way through? I'm assuming no-one starts cracking gags, but is it the sort of thing you're happy you watched but would never re-watch?

There are some kind of witty bits, actually. Overall, the first episode is the only one that's really relentlessly brutal, but there are moments throughout that really hit hard.

We've still not seen episode 5, because our NowTV trial ran out and we haven't set up a new one yet.

1, 2 and 3 are all fairly horrifying. 4 will need you a stiff drink to get through it. 5 has moments, but is probably the mildest.

It's rated the best show of all time on IMDB. I'd take these things with a pinch of salt, but by and large I can't think of a better series of 5 episodes of anything. Maybe Breaking Bad at its best. It's the consistency that makes it. And I could see myself watching it again at some point, though I think I'll let the horror settle first….

Halfway through the second series of The OA and bloody hell. I haven’t seen anything this strange and weird and pretentious and unsettling since the last series of Twin Peaks. It does not give one single shit what sort of show you think it ought to be. It’s utterly brilliant and I bet everyone hates it.

Halfway through the second series of The OA

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

I’ve just seen the

Spoiler - click to showgiant psychic octopus that lives in the S&M dungeon

and frankly I’m ready for just about anything now.

My favourite thing about the second season of the OA is that you could probably have posted that without the spoiler tags and nobody would have known if you were being serious or not.

The third (and final? Am I making that up?) season of Legion has kicked off this week, and it's off to a pretty strong start involving a multi-lingual time traveler, a non-Euclidean corridor made of coats, the requisite musical number, and some very creepy hints about what's to come.

I can't wait.

I left OA at season 1. It didn't need a second season.

I only made it a thousand years into season one, and couldn't finish it.

Finally managed to watch the last episode of Chernobyl. Staggered by both the quality of the show, and the level of bureaucratic ignorance of the USSR. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, why the hell not!?

Next, we have to see if we can find time somewhen to watch Stranger Things 3, which I've seen some positive reactions to online.

So, The Boys. It's OK. Tails off a bit. But Homelander is great.

This is the most '90s thing made in the last 20 years. It's like a TV adaptation of a forgotten Jet Li Hollywood breakthrough attempt, and I'm pretty sure I love it.

I finished the first season of Preacher last night, and I still have no idea if I actually like it.

For the unaware, it's about Spoiler - click to showa preacher in Texas who becomes host to a fugitive divine being that gives him the power to command people to do what he wants. His girlfriend is trying to drag him back into his pre-preaching life of crime, and his best friend is an Irish vampire. So it's a bit weird, as a premise.

It's certainly not what I'd call an enjoyable watch; it's astoundingly slow, for one thing, to the point that the end of season 1 would basically be the end of the pilot in just about anything else; it's interspersed with sudden bursts of gruesome, brutal violence; and the whole thing is shot through with a constant sense of teeth-edge unease, with a score seemingly engineered to keep you telling like something terrible is about to either happen, or be perpetrated by one of the cast of degenerates. But then it's surprisingly, snortingly funny in parts, too, and it's hands down one of the best-looking shows I've ever seen; any shot in Preacher would be the best shot in any other show.

I have no idea if I'd recommend it.

P.S., I did read the first volume of the comic book years ago, but I don't really remember much of it, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the adaptation.

I'm also watching The Boys, Episode 4 was so fucking grim Spoiler - click to show when Homelander and Maeve leave everyone to die on the plane. Homelander's actor is amazing, but I think A-Train is pretty good too.

[Preacher is] astoundingly slow, for one thing, to the point that the end of season 1 would basically be the end of the pilot in just about anything else

That first season effectively takes place before the comic even starts; they're already on the road when it kicks off.

I personally loved that slow-burn first season, but the second didn't grab me the same and the third totally passed me by (though @Minx has seen it all) - it sounds like it really goes places, leaving that gradually-building tension behind in favour of explicit (in multiple meanings of that word) heresy and blasphemy.

I think The Boys starts to tail off after Episode 4, but yes, that was grim. That bit. Grim.

I don't understand why all the forum regulars aren't watching it.

I'm a dumbass who didn't realize I could watch it on my PS4 because I have Amazon Prime and I only use Amazon to buy things. I can watch other stuff with it on PS4 now though, so that's cool!

EDIT - I watched it all now, I think Episode 8 has the most effective 'What if Superman was evil' scene I think I've ever seen, and that's a common theme that's been explored a lot. Superman has been known to flare his heat vision in his eyes to scare people before, but Homelander doing it is really sinister.

I don't understand why all the forum regulars aren't watching it.

I think I'm just not in the place for a grim "what if our heroes were shitty people" show at the moment. There are enough shitty people in real life, I don't need 'em in my escapism too.

My thoughts exactly.

Because fuck Amazon Prime?

Not all the heroes are shitty.

It's like, what, two or three of the Avengers movies worth - 8 episodes. It's amusing. You can pirate it if you hate amazon. It's based on comics, which you all apparently love. I dunno. Seems odd.

Actually I would really like to watch this. I just have a thing against Amazon Prime when they took £80 out of my account for the whole year when I needed the £80.
Karl Urban is quite the go to guy for comic book adaptations. I'd like to see a sequel to Dredd still.

I don't understand why all the forum regulars aren't watching it.

Nearly finished the series but until this thread I'd no idea it was a comic book/Garth Ennis thing. Thought it was just another Amazon Prime show I'd probably never watch.

Really enjoying it, counter to my experience with Preacher which I managed to get through S1 out of curiosity. That was the first "graphic novel" series I ever read and have since reread several times so I'm struggling to muster enthusiasm for the show.

I still finish every episode of Preacher with a knot in my stomach; it's like it's been precision-engineered to make me feel uneasy.

Season 2 feels like it's dragging its feet a bit, too, with a couple of side plots that don't really work. I love Ruth Negga, but Spoiler - click to showTulip's gangster husband just feels pointless and entirely disconnected from the rest of the proceedings. I'm not sure what it's there for, except for Jesse and Cass to have yet another conversation to try and out-bastard each other. And given that it's allegedly Tulip's problem, she's sidelined in truly astonishing fashion.

But the cinematography…

I mean, damn.

Has anyone watched/is anyone watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance on Netflix?

I'll be honest, for a decent chunk of time I started to think I'd dreamt the original movie, so few people seemed to have seen it, so to get a full 10-episode prequel series was a bit of a surprise.

It's by turns charming, brutal, funny, and grotesque, as various Henson puppets connive against, battle, rescue, and politick each other in one of the most intricately-visualised worlds I've seen. It's so intricate, though, that it frequently works against itself; shots sometimes get so busy that I started to lose track of what was actually happening, a problem compounded by the fact that the camera seems to be frequently mounted on a crane under the control of a toddler who's eaten his body weight in blue smarties.

Still, the puppetry is as good as you've ever seen (nobody does it like Henson, after all), the writing tropey but solid, and the voice cast - which includes Mark Hamill, Benedict Wong, Simon Pegg, half the secondary cast of Game of Thrones, and (hello to) Jason Isaacs - all acquit themselves pretty well.

It's not without issues, but as far as these things go, it sets a high bar. It respects the source material, but doesn't treat it like an immutable gospel, opting instead to take that framework and do something interesting with it. I'm really intrigued to see where they go with it on the inevitable second season.

I watched the trailer and it looked like a slightly awkward mix of puppetry and CGI, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it so I’m sure I’ll watch it soon.

I haven’t seen the original movie since I was a kid though and I remembered it scared the living shit out of me. Do I need to rewatch it before tackling the series?

Hopefully this is all just a precursor to the inevitable Labyrinth series.

I couldn't get on with the puppets. But I am 100% behind a Fraggle Rock reboot.

I haven’t seen the original movie since I was a kid though and I remembered it scared the living shit out of me. Do I need to rewatch it before tackling the series?

We didn't, so I'd say not. You might get a little more out of it, lore-wise, but it functions just fine on its own.

I couldn't get on with the puppets.

It does take a considerable amount of suspension of disbelief, and even still, the quality is wildly variable. Most of the skeksis are great, especially in close-up, though it's pretty obvious that they're operating a much less expressive rig in the wides. Deet and Hup get the best of the good guy work, but Rian has some shockingly poor performances; his mouth barely moves during the big speech he gives in the finale.

It is also time you could have spent watching The Boys.

The concept of The Boys didn't really grab me, and I'm pretty sure Sarah would absolutely hate it, so, uh… I'll stick with the slightly ropey puppets. Cheers.

If anyone is looking for more Muppets, the Sky series Yonderland is a lot of fun. It's a fantasy thing by the Horrible Histories team.