Amph What was the last tv episode you watched?

Finally finished watching the Andor series.

It features top notch actors and good production design, but needs a little help in the writing and editing department.

This is superb if you like your Star Wars to be composed largely of endless discussions amongst the monied elite power brokers on both sides, sprinkled in with random character asides from the hoi polloi.

Never knew SW content could be such a slog and so boring.

 

I really like Diego Luna as Cassian but could not stuck with this show. If K2SO is in s2, I’ll probably watch that first and circle back. I wouldn’t mind seeing a short series with Chirrut and Baze though.

Jumping around my latest Daredevil rewatch and the cast & writing in this series was so good. Right now, watching season 2 (as this season just had its 7th release anniversary on Saturday).

So s2 episodes 1 and 2, Bang! & Dogs to a Gunfight. We’re introduced to Frank Castle (a.k.a. The Punisher) who takes out almost all of the local Irish crime family and all of the Mexican cartel (Various crime families are swarming over Hell’s Kitchen to take the territory now that Wilson Fisk is in jail.) Frank Castle sees this as open season and wants to wipe everyone out so he’s hunting the sole survivor of the Irish, an underling named Grotto.

In the meantime, Daredevil tries to stop Castle only to be shot in the head.

Dogs to a Gunfight opens with Foggy Nelson (Brilliantly played by Elden Henson - whom I am convinced will come back for Daredevil Born Again) finding his best friend Matt unconscious on a 10th Ave rooftop. After Foggy convinces Matt to stay home, he checks on Grotto at the police station conferring with childhood frenemy Brett Mahoney (a wonderful Royce Johnson whom I also hope comes back) about the Punisher.

The writing & acting are so exceptional on this show I am invested in almost every character. I enjoy all facets of Matt’s life and the people he impacts for better or worse. Dogs… leads into my favorite s2 episode New York’s Finest so it was cool to revisit the moments that lead into that.

 

Trying to finally finish up Versailles. I kept putting off S3 for some reason even though the show is fun. Well Netflix made the decision for me last night after I saw they took down S1&2 so I guess I need to watch 3 before it goes bye bye. I’m on ep 2 which I’ve been on 3 times now.

 

Route 66, season 2
Episode 1: Anne Francis is back in a different role. She gets to drive the car a couple of times. I now have a new standard of what is most beautiful, Anne Francis in the Route 66 corvette.
Episode 2: Suzanne Pleshette is back in a different role. She gives some depth to a fairly ordinary mystery/action show.
Episode 3: Best episode yet. Legendary singer/actress Ethel Waters heads an almost-all black guest cast featuring renowned Dixieland jazz musicians. It's a joyous tearjerker.

 

Episode 4: Robert Duvall is back in a different role: a heroin addict going through withdrawal. I was not expecting something so gritty and real on a show from 1961.
Episode 5: Nehemiah Persoff is back in a different role, a Polish foundry worker who has a dysfunctional relationship with his son, a young dark haired Robert Redford. Martin Balsam is there too.

 

Andor Episode 8. The series started strong, but beginning to have mixed feelings about it. There is some decent world building (quite interesting to see how Imperial courts and prisons work for instance) and a basically sound premise, but its become a little slow. Also, some episodes could almost be an average police/crime thriller asides from the odd blaster shot or speeder going past. I'll stick with it but its a bit up and down.

 

2 episodes left of Versailles. Will finish tomorrow. Fun stuff.

Happened to land my eye on Justified on Hulu. Rewatching now. On S1 Ep 3 and damn I loved this show at the time. Sooo fun.

 

Star Trek:Strange New Worlds Children of the Comet. Man, that just felt so classically Trek.

 

Route 66 season 2 episode 6
Janice Rule is back in a different role. In season 1 she was a fiery Cajun shrimp boat captain; this time she's New England old money. Tod wants to marry her, Buz is convinced she's trouble and no good for Tod. Will this be the end of their travels and friendship? The suspense wasn't exactly killing me. Still, it was an enjoyable character piece, and has the usual great travelogue footage, this time at a boatyard in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Kind of makes me want to watch Captains Courageous yet again.

 

Started watching Attack on Titan. About 3 episodes in.

I think the premise is interesting, but... boy, I do not like the main character. The very moment he opened his mouth, he just oozed obnoxiousness. This seems to be a running problem with a lot of shonen anime for me: main protagonist is annoying and pretty much any supporting character would be make for a better one.

 

Finished up Versailles. Satisfying ending. I feared an open ending in hopes for a S4 from writing team but it was a wrap there. Got pretty dark there that last season.

 

SNW Momento Mori. Three episodes in and already peak Trek. Also, why did Hemmer have to die. Explain it like I’m five.

 

The fifth episode of Picard season 3. It's still good, leagues better than season 1 and 2.

 

The Mandalorian: The Foundling. The fourth episode of the season's quite interesting. Funnily enough, now I'm more interested in Bo-Katan's story than Mando's.

The Wire: Undertow. The fourth episode of the second season's just as strong as the others, and the crooks are as crooked as ever.

 

Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom

Terrific 4th Doctor story and now one of my favorites overall, after having finally seen it.
Great villains, great performance from Tom and Sarah, and a great story overall.

 

Space 1999: Black Sun and Ring Around the Moon. The first was a solid apocalyptic tale where the crew of Moonbase Alpha accept their demise as they pass into the titular Black Sun (basically just a Black Hole in today's terminology). Melancholic, it was quite effective how the various characters dealt with the oncoming disaster before being saved by what was basically an enigmatic space god. The second was a lot weaker, despite having the Alphans first encounter with alien life. It was incredibly drawn out, with multiple scenes of spaceships slowly flying through space, or characters spending eons deciding on whether to send out more expeditions to fly through space. The alien attacker was some vague voice from the stars who could possess people but never really espoused any character of its own before blowing up.

 

Lockwood an co.

struggled to the end, not very good.

 

Route 66 season 2
Episode 7: Ed Asner is back in a different role, along with Lon Chaney Jr. Somehow they kept the drama from feeling like a soap opera despite a plot ending that was pure soap.
Episode 8: A hard look at the life of a woman trying to adjust to life outside after spending 18 years in a mental hospital. Excellent acting and directing.

 

Whoopi... "Once Bitten"; not that many people watched during it's only season in '03-'04, but I was one of them... and somehow my old VHS tape*** of this show, and the VCR used to record it, still work (it's not streaming on Peacock)! Even with some bad, hacky sitcom tropes, this still holds up for me... Whoopi Goldberg can be/is wickedly funny; Omid Djalili as well in this show. She gets bit by a pet ferret in this episode.





***the ads/newsbreaks for KNBC are a real bonus; this episode happened to air the night Schwarzenegger was elected in the '03 California recall.

 

New Amsterdam S1 E20
I love series with medical thematic, and it was so hard to find something I liked after Doctor House
But this one seems pretty interesting, at least for now

 

Doctor Who - "The Dæmons"

A wonderfully bonkers serial where the obligatory indulgence of 1970s pop culture's fascination with Satanism has to get filtered through a soft sci-fi show where magic doesn't exist. So, don't worry about it: all of those occult rituals? Obligatory psionic signifiers. That giant Satan? Actually an alien who has influenced our development for hundreds of thousands of years (shockingly more robust and interesting than your usual ancient aliens fare, as they've been influencing large shifts in historical development up to the present day, not just architecture, though because this is just an excuse plot point, it's underdeveloped) and has merely become the inspiration for depictions of demons (the usual chestnut for this sort of thing. Sadly, or appropriately, demon summoning duties are strictly on Roger Delgado's appropriately garbed Master, and we don't get a weirdly jarring visual like Spock getting his occult on in Star Trek: TAS). The May Day stuff? Shut up.

It's all a bit ridiculous, and as Terry Dicks admits in the making of documentary, they were scrambling for excuses and failed, so basically, you're watching the Doctor battle Satan and Satan's weird little gargoyle henchman. It's cool, I appreciate how much they go for it, and the usual Classic Who cheese is on magnificent display. Not an episode I would recommend to newcomers given the stylistic weirdness, but to people used to the typical show beats? Hell yeah, watch them get freaky with the Hammer horror pastiche.

All of that said, they do sort of miss a couple of great Doctor Who end of serial punchline beats in favor of... dancing around a Maypole. Come on, even if you're too early when the Doctor gets in his awesome burn when the Master gets arrested, you absolutely cut on Yates asking the Brig to dance and the Brig saying they should go get a pint. This is basic stuff.

 

Voyager:
Cathexis. "Brain dead" Chakotay's mind jumps from person to person after a visit to a peculiar nebula that leaves the ship in distress. A mediocre episode at best, IMO. The First Nations stuff is so clumsily handled in this show that I wish they hadn't.
Faces. Some Vidiians capture Lt. B'Elanna Torres and split her into her Klingon and human halves because they believe that her Klingon self is resistant to the Phage and can help them find a cure. The episode ends with the Klingon Torres getting shot just as they're escaping the Vidiians. Her DNA is harvested to ensure that the human Torres can survive. This episode is vaguely reminiscent of the TOS episode The Enemy Within, where a transporter malfunction splits Kirk into a violent and bad tempered half and a meek and indecisive half, and it's my second-favorite first season episode, right behind Eye of the Needle. It also gives the first hint of chemistry between Torres and Paris.

TOS: Spectre of the Gun. The OK Corral episode's one of my favorites of the third season.

 

Route 66 season 2
Episode 9. Lee Marvin is back in a different role. Last time he played a cowboy who was the heavy. This time he's a musician who's the heavy. He's always very good as the heavy. Sam Peckinpah directed, which explains why the weekly fistfight was bloodier than usual.

 

Debut episode of Netflix's Korean Drama, The Glory.

Not sure if i'm into it, mainly:

1. Western Dubs. I can read, restore the original dialogue and just give me English subtitles.
2. The tone. I get it's a revenge story, but the fun just isn't there.

 

Does Australian Netflix really not offer you original language soundtrack versions with subtitles? I think UK Netflix always goes the subtitled route for live action (not sure about animated things like Spirited Away).