Good TV (aka, the TV series spamthread), the second series

[Raid]

Nah, O'Hare was replaced because he had an increasingly severe mental illness that didn't really go together with a TV shooting schedule. Straczynski kept it quiet until after O'Hare's death as he didn't want to draw attention to someone suffering, but thought that talking about it after the fact could maybe help others.

I'm dimly aware of some of the story beats, and I know they bring the character back once or twice.

[Rusty]

Wednesday

Wasn't sure about this one but it's definitely grown on me. Probably helps that Wednesday is pretty cute (I checked, she's 20)

I kind of reminds me of Harry Potter. Boarding school, houses against each other, magical type goings on.
Maybe with a sprinkle of Buffy.

Oh, and surprisingly gory in places

[Raid]

Archer - season.... thirteen?!
I think I said having watched the previous season that I thought this had run its course, but I'm happy to say this most recent one is something of a return to form. It'll never recapture what made the show so great for the first three or four years, not least because I was in my early 20s when it started airing and I'm now hurtling towards 40, but it does at least feel like it's recovered from the coma seasons, even without Jessica Walters.

Sandman
I forgot to review this when I finished watching it a few weeks back, but it was one of the most disappointing speculative fiction shows I can remember watching. It took me so long to get through because I just never had the enthusiasm to continue, only ever doing so when I'd run out of other stuff to watch. I hate the dialogue and worldbuilding (or lack thereof) in this because it never feels like there are any rules to any of it, and it's all so wishy-washy. Morpheus' powers are never really elaborated on, nor why any of them are actually important; we're told that losing the ability to dream is devastating to humans, but not why. I very rarely remember my dreams, in fact the only ones that tend to stick around are the anxiety ones, and frankly losing those would be doing me a massive bloody favour, and that's remarkably close to how I feel about Morpheus being under threat.

Case in point, there's a duel that happens around the midpoint of the series, where the two characters come up with... something that kills the previous... something. It's never explained why they keep one-upping one another in such small steps; a snake is killed by a fox which is killed by a hunter on horseback and so on, and the end something is nothing more than a vague concept so why do they not just start off there? It's like a playground game for four-year-olds, but lacking their world-weary sense of logic. There's zero drama to any of this when it fails to tell the viewer why they don't just kill the snake with an antimatter explosion, and that lack of drama extends to the entire series as a whole. I just don't care about anything that happens because the stakes are never explained. And it really doesn't help that Morpheus is a smug, self-satisfied arsehole with this smarmy sense of what someone thinks is charm, portrayed in a way such that I just want someone, anyone, to punch him in the face.

There's one notable exception which is the diner episode, which is genuinely brilliant television. None of what happens in that one really needs explaining because it's all based on human attitudes and emotions, and it's brilliantly acted and produced. That it has next to no bearing on the plot and barely features Morpheus at all is telling. It made me finish a series I actively did not want to finish in the hope that there'd be another spark of brilliance in there somewhere, but that failed to manifest.

It's *probably* my least favourite TV show of 2022.

[Snowy]

I really enjoyed it...

[Raid]

If it's of any consolation, I remembered after posting that that I watched Picard season 2 this year, so it's merely my second-least-favourite.

[Sly Boots]

I really enjoyed it...

Same

[Alan]

Spoken like a man that’s not caught up on Discovery yet.

Wednesday

Wasn't sure about this one but it's definitely grown on me. Probably helps that Wednesday is pretty cute (I checked, she's 20)

I kind of reminds me of Harry Potter. Boarding school, houses against each other, magical type goings on.
Maybe with a sprinkle of Buffy.

Oh, and surprisingly gory in places

The blatant Potterishness is what’s really putting me off. Main lass is pretty good and CZJ is a great Tish.

[Sly Boots]

Wednesday is very good. I far prefer Raul Julia as Gomez, though, but it seems the guy they picked is truer to the original comic strip. Fred Armison is a good Fester though, and Thing is great

[Raid]

I haven't started Wednesday yet, but I already know I'll prefer Raul Julia. I can't think of another film or TV performance where it looked like the actor was enjoying the role more than Raul Julia as Gomez Addams.

[Hatredsheart]

I really enjoyed it...

Me too, even the Lucifer/Morpheus duel. John Dee in the diner was my favourite, Death close second.

[Animalmother]

The Walking Dead, why am I watching this again knowing it rapidly devolves into an utter mess? I've no idea but I'm strangely enjoying it so far. On the 2nd season which I remember being very dull but isn't actually all that bad on a rewatch. I think being able to watch a few episodes in a row makes the story flow better and doesn't give you time to contemplate the stupidity of it all. Everyone is an asshole (except Glenn) and you actively want some of them to be eaten. I'll keep at it until I inevitably get tired of it's bullshit.

[Alan]

On that note:

Walking Dead - the final season
Yes theres a lot of shit over its massive run but most shows that run so long have bad patches. Ive never been one to complain about the slowness of a lot of it, its actually what I quite liked over its time. There are a lot of major inconsistencies over the run like with "stealthing" through zombies - at first they need to be covered head to toe in zombie guts and by the end they rub a little on their jacket and its fine! So yeah the final season - I quite enjoyed the first half overlooking the crappy armour but the second half and particularly the finale felt super rushed, haphazard and pulled too many punches. Then as the walking dead finishes, forever, gone but not forgotten we get a teaser for 4 spinoffs! A Daryl, a Michonne, "Dead City" and more Fear TWD. I guess that one with the teenagers was so bad they were too embarrassed to mention it here? Oh and there was "Tales of the walking dead" too wasnt there? Thats Star Wars/Marvel levels of oversaturation. I'm really not sure how much I'll keep up going forward.

Overall I have really enjoyed it more than not over its run and I always looked forward to that one per episode awesome practical effect zombie smoosh. It was almost a rule by the end.

[Animalmother]

I didn't read your post Alan in case of spoilers (like I'll make it that far ). I know there's at least 2 or 3 spin-offs in the works including a Negan & Maggie one and a Norman Reedus one. Possibly another one set in Seattle or something similar. There's a dead horse getting the bejesus flogged out of it somewhere but if people are willing to watch it more power to them.

[Sly Boots]

We've been enjoying The Patient (Disney+), which sees Jewish therapist Steve Carell kidnapped by a serial killer who forces him to try to cure him while chained up in his basement.

10 eps, each one a breezy 25mins, so it's pretty well-paced and the cliffhangers get you wanting to watch the next one immediately. Still got a couple to go, but recommended.

[Raid]

The Legend of Vox Machina

I started this back when it first came to Amazon and bounced off it somewhat. Being based on the twitch stream of a quite popular tabletop roleplay game, it felt like it was for too niche an audience - people who recognised elements from the game sessions. The script's pretty crude, as the characters speak in the voices of a group of friends getting together and having a laugh with beer and snacks; it might confuse people who find the language incongruous to the setting. I'm not sure you can even call it a D&D series as it's a custom setting and licensing issues mean that they don't use, for example, recognisable spell names (Bigby's Hand is referred to as Scanlan's Hand etc.).

It also felt like it would be too confusing for people who aren't used to what D&D is like to play, and having watched the full series now, I stand by that. As an example there's a scene following the aftermath of a battle, and one of the party is just ripping a fallen enemy's body to pieces - I know that's because they'd be selling those monster parts as they're fairly valuable, but there's no indication of that for a new audience so it just looks like the character is a sadist.

It's still a decent adventure series, the story's reasonably compelling and I think it's quite good looking in terms of visual design. I doubt it's one I'd recommend, but I largely enjoyed my time with it.