What's on TV now?

benbenberi said:

The last couple of days I've been watching The Wilds on Prime. A group of teenage girls are stranded on a desert island. All is not as it appears to be. It's strongly reminiscent of early Lost, complete with flashbacks for the characters, except that's not the story it's telling.

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That one looks intriguing. May give it a try; it'll help fill the gaps between episodes of The Expanse. (Season 5 is being released this Wednesday, the 16th, with three dropped initially and one weekly after that, so I'll have plenty of down time between new shows even accounting for rewatches...)

benbenberi said:

The last couple of days I've been watching The Wilds on Prime. A group of teenage girls are stranded on a desert island. All is not as it appears to be. It's strongly reminiscent of early Lost, complete with flashbacks for the characters, except that's not the story it's telling.

Click to expand...

Like 'Lost', eh? Sorta supernatural, sorta sci-fi, and a new weirdness every week, all spread over a large group of characters? Only they're all teenage girls, so you can't even sort them by bald actor, dark skinned actor, Hobbit actor?
Thank you for the warning.
Oh, I'm in luck! I don't have Prime anyway.

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The Neighbour or El Vecino, as it's in Spanish. Light hearted and a good show for half hour here and there on Netflix. Not your standard superhero show. Kind of like The Boys but more quirky.

The new season of The Expanse dropped on December 15, a day earlier than they said (a typical move for Amazon Prime). I only had time for one episode last night, and it's living up to all reviews and predictions of being the best, most intense season yet. It is, after all, based on one of the most intense books of the series (thus far - one more book left to go), but is translated excellently. And, for those interested, there is an "aftershow", Ty & That Guy, where author Ty Franck (half of James S. A. Corey) and actor Wes "Amos Burton" Chatham discuss the show, talk about Easter eggs and behind the scenes stuff, have guests, and so forth. Search YouTube or wherever else such things are put. They're doing one for each episode of S5, then they plan to go back and cover the whole series, ep by ep, and maybe move on to other books or shows or general genre nerdy goodness. (Chatham is a notorious SF nerd, evidently.)

Finished Inuyasha on Hulu and have just begun the delightful sequel series, Yashashime: Half-Demon Princess.

The single greatest moment in Star Wars just aired in the season finale of The Mandalorian yesterday. I fan girled all over the place. Could not believe it.

Diana Hignutt said:

The single greatest moment in Star Wars just aired in the season finale of The Mandalorian yesterday. I fan girled all over the place. Could not believe it.

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Agreed. Well, maybe not the best moment in all of Star Wars, but the best since the original series for sure.

Diana Hignutt said:

The single greatest moment in Star Wars just aired in the season finale of The Mandalorian yesterday. I fan girled all over the place. Could not believe it.

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Unfortunately I saw spoilers before I watched it. But it was hilarious watching my family's reaction.

I binge-watched a Netflix series for the first time, Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun. Aunty Donna, an Australian comedy team featuring my new pretend imaginary internet husband MANBEAST (frequently misspelled as Broden Kelly), Hunter of Elk, Lover of Women, Sovereign of the Moon, doing rando shtick and making some of it stick. They were guests on another YouTube channel I follow and decided to give the show a try. Not bad. 3 out of 5. Will def try again.

Watched the first two episodes of The Wilds, and will keep watching. So far they're doing a decent job balancing the teen angst with weighty backstory and a solid survival situation, and there's enough mystery in their overall situation to add another layer.

(ETA - I have finished watching all 10 episodes, and would still give it a solid 4/5 stars. The characters could nudge the irritation line, and one or two "twists" were a bit obvious, but overall it's fairly solid and manages to add more complex layers to what could've been a shallow and message-heavy story.)

And we're halfway through Season 5 of The Expanse, and this is definitely their best and most intense season yet.

Diana Hignutt said:

The single greatest moment in Star Wars just aired in the season finale of The Mandalorian yesterday. I fan girled all over the place. Could not believe it.

Click to expand...

Agreed. A great end to a great season. After the latest terrible movies it has restored my faith in Star Wars.

The last half of Vikings' final season is on Amazon Prime now.

Still watching - and adoring - The Expanse S5.

Also streaming 9-1-1, the FOX drama (via Amazon Prime; paid per season), and so far it's a pretty solid entry in the "firefighter drama" field.

And last night we caught the first ep of the new All Creatures Great & Small on PBS, BBC's remake of the classic series based on the books by James Herriot. It wasn't bad, but it felt a bit thin, and boy did it hit all the pilot episode plot points with a sledgehammer. (Look, here's the young eager vet desperate for a job! Wham!... Here's the curmudgeonly old country vet who doesn't think he has what it takes! Bang!... Here's the motherly caretaker who believes in him! Crack!... Here's where the young vet makes a mistake! Smack!... Here's his chance to prove himself!) I've read the first two books and dimly recall watching the original series, but don't remember it being this pushed into the standard mold. Maybe it's just first-ep shakedown issues...

Since we got HBOMax for Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas (and are only paying for the month) we're really enjoying the Harley Quinn series while we can.

The second ep of the new All Creatures Great & Small picked up after the by-the-numbers premiere. They're finally getting some nice momentum and chemistry going, though I'm pretty sure they're shuffling and tweaking from the source material.

Also saw the first episode of Miss Scarlet & The Duke, about the first lady private detective in Victorian London. Enjoyed it, looking forward to more.

(And we cleared the first three seasons of 9-1-1. Some of the stories start to feel stretched by S3, and of course the characters get away with some stunts and things that wouldn't go over in reality, but it's a drama, not a documentary. Still enjoyable. Waiting for the 4th season to finish so we can stream it on Prime.)

*pokes thread while procrastinating*

For the record, I finished off both the new All Creatures (S1) and Miss Scarlett. The former wasn't bad for what it was, but leaned a little hard into the silliness and drama, and while I understand you can't be as hands-on with animals now as when the original series aired, the animals and the cases - so central to the original series, even when animals weren't on screen - almost could've been cut out completely; they honestly didn't even seem like vets at all half the time, and more than once seemed to lack a basic understanding of animal behavior entirely contrary to anyone who even owned a pet, let alone studied animal medicine. (Also did not care for how they hamstrung the lady love interest's agency; she only stands up for herself after a man gives her permission to stand up, and even then she's regarded as a prize, not a person.) Miss Scarlett started decently, bogged down in the middle, and finally was coming together by the end.

We watched S4 of 9-1-1 (still a fairly solid show) and S1 - 2 of 9-1-1: Lone Star (which isn't terrible, but is still a pale shadow: it doesn't seem to know what to do with its characters, who still haven't gelled into a solid ensemble like the original series, and it really pushes the plausibility meter to ridiculous extremes to make Rob "Cpt. Owen" Lowe the hero), too.

I also recently cleared Lucifer (S1 - 5) on Netflix, and quite enjoyed it, enough that I'm currently making a second run through and enjoying it at least as much. Sympathy for the devil with a Remington Steele vibe (only without the disintegration in quality and character that RS went through toward the end of its run), with a wide range of emotional notes, spectacular chemistry, and hilarious dialog. Looking forward to the final season.

And, yes, still rewatching Expanse, though I slowed myself down to one or two eps a week to keep pace with the somewhat-irregular Ty & That Guy recap podcasts. (The podcasts tend to go off the rails, but it's fun just watching two people who so enjoy their jobs and movies and the genre in general, plus there's some interesting stuff on the making of the show. The ep on the tech and shooting of the show - which doesn't discuss any plot points, even, but explores how the new gimbal-mount cameras basically revolutionize what can be shot and how - was one of my favorites so far.) Also looking forward to the final season.

For those who are watching, season 2 of Ted Lasso is now out. Yay. My thanks to AW members for putting me onto this lovely show.

I'm watching the new Godzilla anime on Netflix, Godzilla Singular Point. I can't believe I had to go on youtube and watch videos about quantum physics to explain a Godzilla cartoon..... I like the animation style and the story is good, but it's so bogged down with math that it's hard to follow.

The silence is deafening. Nothing much to report here, so move along, move along. I expect the commercial stations to pump out the same dreck but what's happened to the cable networks? They had a good run for a while and now... nothing.
Sigh. Back to watching Breaking Bad, again.

Been watching Leverage reruns via Amazon Prime; entertaining show, and the writing and characters improve as the seasons go. About midway through S3.

And still rewatching Lucifer and Expanse because great shows are still great.

Rewatched the first 2 seasons of Kingdom on Netflix. I gotta hand it to the people of South Korea, they know how to make political conflict and zombies interesting without making the people who are focused on the political power plays look like idiots. The show wove the two together and it is a joy to watch.

We've been watch Lego Masters Season 2 on Hulu. A lot of fun to a former Lego builder from back in the day.

I've been watching the second season of Love, Death + Robots.

Four episodes in, I'm finding them more consistently entertaining than the first season. More originality, in story and animation. Especially the ones adapted from short stories. Less of them feel like first person shooter video game demo reels.