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Watch, Watched, Watching: What Now?


Ramsay B.

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@HelenaExMachina I started listening to the first chapter/episode of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter on Serial Box and now I have decided to pay $10 for the rest of the season because it's exciting to be back in that world.  Written by Malka Older, Madaleine Ashby and other SF writers (all women), and audio is read by Maslany.

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7 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

@HelenaExMachina I started listening to the first chapter/episode of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter on Serial Box and now I have decided to pay $10 for the rest of the season because it's exciting to be back in that world.  Written by Malka Older, Madaleine Ashby and other SF writers (all women), and audio is read by Maslany.

I've been considering that too, and listening to the table read really made me want to do so. I've been listening to a lot of audio drama podcasts lately so I'm getting into this sort of thing. Let me know how it is

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Finally gotten around to starting Bosch season 6. There's a comforting steadiness to that show.

However, since I don't watch much TV, this is the first show I've watched set in present day since the pandemic started. And it actually is a bit weird seeing people being normal around each other, no social distancing, no masks, etc.

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I finally made it through The Other Side of the Wind.  Oy, this is was no lost masterpiece, and was probably better off if the effort to piece it together never happened.  It was interesting to see a young cocky Bogdonovitch, an old sinister John Houston, to read into the autobiographical nature of the film, and yes, there were a few Orson Welles shots, but it was a fucking jumble overall even if I credit it with presaging the cinema verite kind of movie.  The last hour was very melancholy, but, still, this is not a 'movie' but a bunch of clips strung together.

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I watched The Darkest Hour on Netflix. I thought Gary Oldman put in a great performance as Churchill, the supporting cast was also decent but didn't get as much characterisation. It generally did a good job of switching between the many scenes of people talking in claustrophobic rooms and shows bits of the war, although the scene with Churchill deciding on his strategy by talking to fellow passengers on a brief tube journey felt a bit too implausible.

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Moving through Normal People right now and enjoying it greatly.  The lead dude is a dolt. Mainly just grunts and looks like he might injure himself if he speaks a word but I guess that's the character :dunno: The female lead carries the show, imo. 

Just finished Riverdale S4 and my god what an absurd season of television, yet I couldn't look away. I'm almost disappointed they're coming back for a fifth. 

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1 hour ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

Moving through Normal People right now and enjoying it greatly.  The lead dude is a dolt. Mainly just grunts and looks like he might injure himself if he speaks a word but I guess that's the character :dunno: The female lead carries the show, imo. 

He’s a serious introvert with depression. I know a few people like him in my life and they aren’t dolts, just have a very hard time sorting through the constant thoughts in their minds and unable to shape the verbal words needed to express themselves. It’s why his writing is so strong and he’s top of his class. Tough characters.

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I watched about four episodes of Saved by the Barn and liked it better than I expected.  I tend to watch these animal shows while on report at work.  I like the BBC ones of course and I like the Zoo shows and Vet shows.  I had never seen this Saved by the Barn.  It's about a guy who uses his family farm in Michigan to rescue farm animals.  Pretty good show with the content you're imagining featured.  There are a lot of goats which is a plus.

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Watched the second episode of The Great, it's working quite well so far. Very amusing in its deeply ahistorical way, trying to capture a sense of the backwardness of the Russian court and its opposition to modernity as espoused by the Voltaires and Descartes of the world.

Watched the Colin Robinson-centric episode of What We Do In The Shadows -- hilarious, though I think my favorite bit had to do with the painting of Nadja's village and Nandor's role in it. I'm waiting for them to reveal that Colin's actually an alien, ala Lifeforce. 

Also watched the "Promortyus" episode of Rick and Morty. Good stuff.

Finally, for fans of Community, I recommend the table read they released last night, with Pedro Pascal filling in for Walter Goggins. His cracking up at the  bequeathments was the highlight of the read-through. Then they followed up with a Q&A that was good fun, and finally they all (minus Pascal) gathered for Joel McHale's and Ken Jeong's Darkest Timeline podcast where more hilarity ensued (including Donald Glover messing around with inappropriate backgrounds and discovering he wasn't in the group chat). Good times, and it's clear all of them had kept pretty close.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Mexal said:

He’s a serious introvert with depression. I know a few people like him in my life and they aren’t dolts, just have a very hard time sorting through the constant thoughts in their minds and unable to shape the verbal words needed to express themselves. It’s why his writing is so strong and he’s top of his class. Tough characters.

Yeah that was unfair on my part. He opened up more in the last episode (5 I think), and overall seems likable if you get to know him. Perhaps I'm the dolt. Can't recall ever watching a 30 minute drama, but I think it helps with the time jumps they're trying to accomplish. Instead of one season that follows them through HS or college, they dedicate 2-3 episodes to a time in their relationship before skipping off to the next part, weeks or months down the road. I like it. 

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I’m watching the new season of The Last Kingdom and find it immensely satisfying to see this relatively low budget production check off all the coherent writing criteria Game of Thrones had failed to meet since 2015. Whoever wrote this script can actually do screenwriting. I’m really enjoying the story and the characters although the plot so far has felt a bit paint-by-numbers-like. I’m on episode 5 I think and I’m curious to see where everybody lands. Acting is great and characterization is also surpassing post 2015 Game of Thrones so the gloating opportunities are endless. 
 

 

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We finished Upload S1, which was pretty good fun.  The comedic beats worked well and the show didn’t hide from the darker aspects of uploading the deceased: the uploaded person is effectively owned, and can be switched off or their physical reality controlled at any time, by the living person who pays for their upload service.  The only conceit is that the show sticks to the assumption that the upload is the person who died.  It’s really just a computer simulation of the person who died, provided at high cost to a family unwilling or unable to handle grief or loss normally.  It’s not groundbreaking SciFi but it does a nice parody of our current culture by projecting it forward a couple of decades. 

We just started Last Kingdom S4.  Good so far.  The plot seems to have some more impetus.

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On 5/18/2020 at 9:46 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

I've been considering that too, and listening to the table read really made me want to do so. I've been listening to a lot of audio drama podcasts lately so I'm getting into this sort of thing. Let me know how it is

I'm on episode 7.  It's fantastic.  As fun as the old series was.  The same tone of humour and drama.  Much more focus on Kira and Charlotte and a new clone as the main protagonists, but plenty of the sestras and the rest of clone club.  Helena is the only one relatively absent so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if she plays a part in the remaining episodes.  Plot-wise significant, major developments have happened.

At times I forgot it was Tatiana Maslany doing the dialogue whenever Delphine was speaking, because her mimicking is so good it sounds like Evelyne Brochu.

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Currently watching Pulp Fiction. A top two Tarantino film, IMO. But it does have my favorite scene among his films that doesn't require a bit of sword play. That drug deal scene is as close to perfection as possible, speaking as someone who in their youth sold weed, and could make other things happen.

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I watched two episodes of an animated series last night. On the one hand, the latest episode of Rick and Morty and on the other hand, the latest episode of Harley Quinn.

Rick and Morty had a really strong outing. I had my issues with the first half of season 4, but they have been delivering superb material in this second stretch of the season. The episode was perhaps a bit more mean-spirited, but it made more than up for it by being hilariously funny. I also agree with @Tywin et al.'s "Fuck Jerry" status. Really fuck Jerry.

That being said, despite how excellent the latest episode of Rick & Morty was, it was by far the inferior product of the night. I don't think I would have to say this, but the latest Harley Quinn episode (like the entire series so far) was brilliant. Everything about this series just works. The animation, the characters, the voice acting it's all mesmerizing. 

The greatest thing about Harley Quinn is the writing though. I shit you not, but this is currently the show I would point to as an illustration of what good writing can do for any property (comic book related or not). The series is tremendously witty, cleverly builds the world and succeeds in making you care about the characters and their relationships, while simultaneously offering really fun and briskly moving plots on a weekly basis.

I genuinely suffer from superhero fatigue and even I am swept up by this. A remarkable achievement for the show to make someone like me, who doesn't really care about the previous iterations of the characters, glued to their seat. The funny thing is that this show manages to offer some of the most human relationships I have seen on screen in years. I can hardly believe it myself. 

In fact, I am going to create a separate thread for this series. Don't know whether anyone else is watching, but especially to all you folks stuck in lockdown who harbor a pre-existing love for superheroes, what are you waiting for? The finale of the second season airs this week, so you have got two great seasons of TV to look forward to!

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