What show are you watching now?

It’s an oldie but I missed it a decade ago....Dexter is a lot of fun and my wife and I will miss it when it’s over. Just started final season #8.

 

Finished The Crown S02 and Netflix threw Lucifer at me. It's super cheesy and full of clichés, but like a car crash I can't turn away from, I'm hooked.

 

started Eureka series a day or so ago. Funny. Research facility with acronym ARF and the scenes with dog in it made me laugh.

 

Hannibal yet again for me

The tension in there, geez!

 

Season 3 of Shooter just hit Netflix. I'm a few episodes in.

 

I just finished the first season of Netflix's Love, Death, and Robots. Loved it - reminded me of the Animatrix. Some of the animation is jawdropping. Some episodes were definitely better than others, but if you are interested in animation and science fiction, this is worth a watch. Mature audiences only, for sure.

 

Dark -I am surprised that something so tightly written and clever comes from Germany.
It is one of the few shows that fill a twin peaks void

 

Tried watching Stranger Things S3 but couldn't make it past three episodes. I really liked the first season. The second was just okay. The 80s aesthetic had been pretty subtle. But in season 3 it's dialed up past 11 and so is the goofiness. It also doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table plot wise. And the characters who were once charming are now boring and borderline irritating.

The show itself has gained quite alot of hype over the years, most of it completely unwarranted. The novelty of Stephen King meets 80s Spielberg was interesting and well done in the first season. But I feel the show has been coasting on this ever since.

 

I hadn't gotten around to checking iut S3 yet but that's disappointing. I really appreciated how they had it set in the 80's and there were 80's things but they didn't shove it in your face.

 

I wouldn’t say it’s disappointing exactly, but I also think the story last season where Eleven ran away was more interesting than the actual main plot. They split into three main groups:

1) The kids minus Dustin, this is pretty cringe at first, but they eventually get on track.
2) Hopper and Winona. They try to sell this unresolved sexual tension thing between them but it doesn’t work.
3) So with the underwhelming first two groups how is the show not disappointing? The third group: Steve, Robin (a new girl who works with Steve at an ice cream shop at the mall called Scoops Ahoy), Dustin, and Lucas’s bratty little sister. It’s so good, like, even if the rest was garbage throughout (the other stories do eventually get going around ep5) it’d be worth watching just for this group’s storyline.

So not across-the-board amazing, and I’m kind of bored with the whole mind flayer thing already, but am fully on board with the #3 crew fighting Russian spies and tripping out on truth serum.

 

It definitely has it's fans. You may like it. I just think it's a paper thin idea that doesn't warrant a multi season format and is being milked.

I love The Goonies, but I wouldn't want to see it turned into a series. I think the "unnecessary sequel" problem we've always seen from Hollywood movies has migrated to television. Where paper thin ideas are getting stretched over dozens of hours when a simple two hour movie (or say four to six episode run) is all that's needed.

But binge watching is the new pastime, and Netflix is capitalizing on it.

There are very few shows I feel are necessary to be told over many hours. I couldn't imagine Breaking Bad as a two hour movie. Same with True Detective, The Wire, The Knick....

 

I need some help. I am watching the TV series Eureka and I am on Season 4. The theme music has an upbeat song with either synthesized or processed whistling in it.

My brain tells me I have heard something similar on another series I have watched in the past. And no not the Andy Griffith show. Think the past 5-7 years or so and a series because the other theme song played so much it kind of annoyed me a bit.

Any ideas of what my brain is linking when I hear the Eureka theme?

EDIT: Duh why didn't I think of that , thanks @sfoclt, see next post for the theme!

 

Even though I do very poorly w/"kids on bicycles" content in general (STAND BY ME, I'm talking to you), I let a friend cajole me into trying STRANGER THINGS--all the hub-bub for which I'd managed to ignore. Just finished Episode 5/Season 1. To sum this up:

I stlll have little patient for pre-teen/pediatric dialogue & scenarios. ST isn't changing that. What keep me going are 3 actors:

Millie Bobbie Brown: Within the 1st minute of her onscreen time, I couldn't take me eyes off her. This is the most natural & gifted young actor I've seen in many years. Her early scenes are non-verbal, almost entirely "face acting," which she does as well as any in the business. She's a major talent. I love watching her lock eyes with adult actors physically larger, stronger, and far more experienced than she--& she'll either hold her own or subtly dominate. She's the main reason I'm still watching

David Harbour: I'd only seen him once before, but it was very fine character work (the Boston cop in THE EQUALIZER). He's a talented actor w/genuine physical & emotional authority here...and consistent unpredictability. A pleasure to watch

Winona Ryder: In younger roles, her beauty and glamour were part of her acclaim. But I've always liked her lack of vanity--her underlying tension, borderline agitation, an edgy, squirrely vibe that IMO is pure character acting. She's older now, truly a character actor, not ingenue. And all her skills are on display. She was born to play this role (a nutjob mom no one believes)--and she nails it.

Re various comments about Season 3 above: of course I'm not there yet, so can't comment. But in general, I see it as almost normal that even the best shows start wobbling in their quality & consistency after a season or two. Long-form episodic video challenges the writers & actors to an extreme: there is so much content & story to be created, and so many "looks" actors have to give their characters over time, that inconsistency is inevitable. IMO single-season phenoms like BODYGUARD & MANIAC benefit from the long time pause after that peak quality Season 1 (either pause or no more seasons).

 

I could only make it through 15 minutes of that new Netflix sci-fi show Another Life. Great premise... Arrival meets Interstellar.

But my God the horror... virtually no setup, and the astronauts they chose looked more like Beverly Hills Starbucks employees than qualified crew. I could see the writing on the wall so didn't waste anymore of my time. It has a score of 4.1 on imdb for a reason.

 

Netflix has been doing whatever the opposite of “killing it” is lately. No surprise they’re losing subscribers.

 

They're becoming the new SyFy channel. Just B-grade trash week after week.

 

I'm pretty sure all the Beverly Hill Starbucks staff are from outer space.

 

Because of all the buzz here I caved and got a 7 day free HBO trial to watch Chernobyl.

I'm kinda speechless except so say that it was interesting comparing what I remember hearing about it as a 20 year old at the time vs. what was supposedly really happening with that whole issue. Given the location of Chernobyl, I don't think many of us realized how it could have turned Europe into an uninhabitable waste land.

I still think about Fukushima often. There hasn't been much info about that lately although it's supposedly still an ongoing problem.

 

Pretty excited that Mindhunter is back. Season 2 live on Netflix. S1 was fantastic. Anything Fincher is usually the goods.

 

I have MINDHUNTER on my Netflix list...really need to dip in and sample that. I hear nothing but good things about it.

In the last 1-2 weeks I've been obsessing over DARK, the summary of which looked interesting. Well, it's way more than interesting. The characters are uniformly intriguing & well drawn, and the plot, which features time travel of a rather novel sort, takes place in 2 timelines and is fascinating.

When not binging on DARK, I've been catching up on Season 2 of LONGMIRE, a really fine modern western with exceptionally strong American Indian characters.