Amph What was the last tv episode you watched?

Superstore is great. I am wary of it continuing without America Ferrara.

Broad City is great too.

 

If you want a short one, Better Off Ted is only two seasons. A brilliant and overlooked comedy.

 

The Mandalorian, season 1 episode 3. Really enjoying this one.

 

Was watching "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" for the second time. Made it halfway through last night.

This Doctor Who Tom Baker blu ray set has an option to watch this with updated FX which is neat. Nice to have both viewing options available at the touch of a button. It's not an FX laden program to begin with, but the differences are cool, and subtle at times.

 

An episode of Friends where Kathleen Turner is Chandler's drag queen dad.

 

I'm wary as well because of what happened to "The Office" after Steve Carell left.
Luckly we get her for two episodes (instead of just one) and she's out. I'm very curious what will happen with Ben Feldman's character.

 

As part of a beta test of the Scener set-up they'll be using next week for "Starship Troopers", the Rifftrax guys joked through the opening fifteen minutes of the first episode of "Daredevil". Mike, Kevin & Bill did a good job, mainly addressing the episode's lack of subtlety and lighting. Two sample riffs:
- When Matt is telling the priest in confession about how his dad, in the boxing ring, would "let loose the devil" on his opponent: "Sounds like getting blinded was the least traumatic part of his childhood."
- When the show title is revealed: "Daredevil: At least it's not the Fantastic Four."
And they questioned why Karen Page would trust her murder trial to a lawyer called "Foggy".

 

How does that play in 2020?

 

Just saw the AGT finale where a FREAKING SPOKEN WORD POET WON.

I am so stoked for him. He deserved it, but whoa is that unusual.

 

Definitely "Yeah, you wouldn't do this now".
The Friends male cast definitely have masculinity issues. They get all twitchy at any hint of being being less than completely straight. Makes for jokes that make you roll you eyes a bit now.

The episode both makes fun of the situation, but is also sympathetic to Chandler's dad. Monica is pushing Chandler to accept him. Thinking more about it, I'll give it a partial thumbs up actually. It's teaching a little moral lesson about acceptance at a time when Homosexuality was more contentious.

How's that?

 

Episode 1 of Haunting of Hill House thanks solely to @solojones and her recommendation. good stuff

 

The Toys That Made Us: Star Wars
An interesting episode. Talks about how Lucas established a deal with Kenner right off the bat; making them the premier toy company of the time. They show off some handsome collections by fanatics; and this one guy who has a Boba Fett Replica toy (with shooting missile) that is worth over $20K.

 

Yay. Tell us when you get to episode 6. It's an all time TV great.

 

Tales from the Loop S1 Ep8 "Home"
The last episode of this slow-moving but excellent collection of short sci-fi stories set around the town of Mercer, home to an experimental physics facility known as the Loop. The stories are often quite sad, but never mean-spirited. Rebecca Hall and Jonathan Pryce add to the quality feel.

 

The Boys season 2 episode 6

 

Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot & Marple: Padinton Hatsu Yonjigojubun (Sono Ni) Shinobiyoru Kage (2005) – Yasuyuki Shinozaki, Naohito Takahashi

In Part 2 of 4:50 from Paddington, we spend a lot of time with Mabel as she’s undercover as a maid on the grounds of Rutherford Hall. This episode spends a lot of time establishing all the suspects and setting up what is ultimately going to be a really complicated story. All of the characters are well sketched and it’s great to see Mabel forming a friendship with two of the youngsters of the family. I would say the character writing, both in terms of Mabel and the supporting characters, is the best, by quite a bit, that I’ve seen in this series so far. And then the episode ends with a cliffhanger as the body that disappeared from the train is finally discovered on the Rutherford estate. This is so good. 4 stars.

tl;dr – excellent character work, both in terms of Mabel and the supporting cast of suspects, elevates this one, as does the twisty story. 4 stars.

 

The Toys That Made Us: LEGO
An interesting history lesson on the routes of the interlocking brick toy dating back to when it was conceived by a wooden toy and furniture manufacturer from Denmark (a Scandinavian furniture company? What a concept!) in the early 1940s. Lego certainly has had its share of highs and lows over the years. I had collections as a kid in the 1980s; up until my HS years in the early 90s when Lego came out with its "Technic" line of more sophisticated constructions with motors, gears, levers, etc. Goes through it's series of weird action figure lines like "Bionic", up until when the feature movie came out in 2014. One thing it didn't touch on at all was how I'm sure the idea of interlocking bricks to build things had to have come from Lincoln Logs.

 

My family is binge watching Galavant which we missed the first time around. Think last night we ended about halfway through S2.

Love it, I wish the sexual humor was a little more subtle for the kids but as a child of the 70’s and 80’s we children saw shows and movies that were only about a thousand times worse LOL.

 

Haunting of Hill House

I finished the whole thing last night. As a mashup of Shirley Jackson creepery and dread with The Amitytville Horror extended into a long form streaming season, it's a lot of fun. But sometimes the long form is a little bit too long. Nell's story, by itself, before episode 8, tries to emerge as an almost perfect ghost short story with its Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge vibe. It badly wants to deliver the goods. Nell's story grants justified purpose to the now much overused and abused flashback/flashforward narrative style. But eventually everything else in the story disappoints and distracts as it tries to stand against Nell's plotline. Even the central tale of Steven and Olivia intrudes as an unnecessary aside, frustratingly diverting focus from Nell. And in episode 8 the central thesis of the house, whatever it is supposed to be, collapses like a poorly made architectural model angrily ruined by a restless poltergeist. The ending really, really annoyed me. It felt like a betrayal of 7 episodes of universe building and carefully constructed atmospherics.

But still: good enough to binge. I was not at all not entertained!

 

Doctor Who: Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric, and Survival

The last three episodes of Who's classic 26 year run, I decided to watch them after reading Lungbarrow (Ghost Light and Lungbarrow were originally the same thing, with the original script being rejected and morphing into GL, later being adapted in full as a novel).

All three of these stories are among the very best of all Doctor Who. Other than some dated camera styles (all shot on videotape that gives the stories a kind-of cheap look) they still hold up as incredible, both for their time and now. Each one is rich in theme and character work, something that's usually quite rare in Classic Who.

Ghost Light is a moody Victorian haunted house story that tackles the complex nexus of evolution and hierarchical values that emerged out of the 19th century. Curse of Fenric manages to mix bridging the Cold War, ancient Norse vampire myths, secret codes, and the power of faith in a dizzying success of blending elements. Finally Survival is a one of the most pure horror stories of Who, that takes the urban blight of the late 80's, then combines it with the primal instincts of violence (cheetah people on black horses being a particularly striking image) and the ruthless Thatcher-era ideologies of how only the strong prevail, to bring out the best in the show. It's a dazzling run of thematically coherent stories,

Basically, Who never should have ended based on these episodes, it was at its highest point right at the end.

 

I am one of those people who loved the ending but I can see why it annoyed some people yes.

 

The 9 episode of Raised By Wolves. Can't wait to see what the baby of a WMD is going to be. The false prophet is doing a good job of delivering his role but I am a bit tired of the character so even though he will probably live I'm glad the flock decided to put him out.

 

Challenger: The Final Flight
I watched the first three episodes of this new four-part documentary series on Netflix over the past weekend, and the last one this evening. This was a really gut-wrenching series across the board; whether you lived through the events of the Challenger explosion or not (I was 9 years old and in grade school, watching the shuttle launch live in my third grade classroom). It features interviews with the former NASA officials, victim's family members, and several of former personnel company called Morton Thiokol that provided the booster rockets for the shuttle. It's very revealing, and as some may know already they came to an ultimate conclusion for the cause. Hard to believe what these people figured they'd get away with; at the risk of seven lives. Some, to this day, don't even regret their decisions and would do it again; even knowing then what they know now. Above all the space shuttle program was on a schedule of launching something like a dozen or so missions over the course of a year, which was the only reason they were reluctant to delay the launch outside of the period of a few days even as that January morning was just above freezing. Of course after the disaster, there was no shuttle launch until the Fall of 1988 with Discovery. In any event, I'd highly recommend this series.

 

Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot & Marple: Padinton Hatsu Yonjigojubun (Sono San) Shinpuru na Doki (2005) – Katsutoshi Sasaki, Naohito Takahashi

This four parter just keeps getting better. The supporting characters are interesting and treated with more depth than in any other story in this show so far, in my opinion. And, while this story has a very thrilling high-concept hook, it’s slowly paced and, ultimately, very much a sad and slowly paced story and the show embraces that to a kind of surprising degree by actually letting the emotional content of this story breathe. The show isn’t afraid to be kind of sad and emotionally complicated and I respect that in a show for kids. This one is well on the way to being the best adaptation of the series so far. 4 stars.

tl;dr – slowly paced and sad, this adaptation is surprisingly emotionally complicated for a kid’s show; could end up being the best adaptation of the entire series. 4 stars.