WandaVision here and there and Modern Family still.
Those first couple WandaVision episodes had like 1 minute of interesting content between them. Very weird format for a show. It’s getting better with each episode, but those first two were just, like, a less funny version of Dick Van Dyke with ~30 seconds of compelling tension per half-hour.

Modern Family is just comfort food tv

i got me a bit of free hulu and im watching THE GREAT. which is indeed great and fucking hilarious and i love it.



also on hulu i'm doing x-files from scratch. i was a late arrival to the show back in the day, and it's nice to get the whole enchilada in the proper order.

i think i'll keep hulu forma while. i haven't even gotten started with the mike pence show... i mean the handmaid's tale.

...

on the prime video front, almost finished with buffy season 3 which, with season 2, makes the best buffy season. from that point forward the show declines a bit in the big narrative scenario (the initiative, dawn, the nerds, bla bla bla) but there still will be some spectacular episodes coming, like "hush," which originally got me into it, or "once more with feeling" which was the funniest fucking thing ever. and the final season will be fucking terrifying.

the narrative interest for me at that point migrates towards "angel," which was a great spinoff, especially in its early seasons, before the whole cordelia debacle.

Ah, but on Angel Winifred Burkle is introduced at the end of season 2 and becomes a full cast member in season 3 and she's a delight to watch all the way to the end of the series.

yeah fred was fantastic. so was lorne btw.

connor, however... ugh lmfao

american gods season 3 has become a ponderous, boring, nearly unwatchable thing i keep looking at out of inertia.

slow motion fights, slow motion fuckfests, no humor, no more great stories, just tired gimmick after tired gimmick, a cemetery of great characters that went nowhere. so fucking sad because the first season was spectacular, the second season as very good, and now....

I watched some of The Great last summer, just as I was getting extremely ill and felt as though I might die. Think I have a bit of a conditioned aversion as a result, because the thought of it makes me sick.

Also, it was one of those historical shows that tries to mix in pop culture songs and pretends people of color were given prestigious positions at court? I get the impulse, and I’m sure it’s well-intentioned, but it just strikes me as weird. Not necessarily bad, just — I don’t know. Rings false (on account of it being utterly false).

Also I hate the guy who plays Peter. Just gnawing away at scenery like a starved dog.
Huzzah! Russia was so punk rock tho amirite

(I also watched it just a few weeks after watching the excellent Catherine the Great series on HBO with Helen Mirren, so maybe I was biased going in.)

UGHHHHJ.... I’m sorry to hear it. I had high hopes as a huge fan of the book, but season 1 already had the cartoonish violence and gallons of neon-red blood and kind of a Zack Snyder on speed feel that I really didn’t think was fitting for the source material. So I never watched last season 1 and now I likely never will.

Just praying someday Terry Gilliam or someone else with a flair for the simultaneously eccentric and deeply dramatic takes a crack at a film version.

ETA: SYMBOLS!! Did I ever tell you that I finally read Gaiman’s Sandman saga in full? I can’t remember if I ever did, but it was your nudge that made me go back to it (I’d read the first volume or two previously and just never went any further).
Anyway, this was a couple years ago now, but yeah, I read that shit and it was indeed awesome, and like you said, it is indeed Gaiman’s first masterpiece, and a high point in his writing career — graphic or otherwise. Pretty sure it’s the greatest piece of graphic fiction I’ve ever read, and it ranks among his best works, right next to American Gods and Ocean At the End of the Lane.
So thanks if I haven’t said thanks already. Cheers.

awesome! glad you liked it.

i need to give american gods a try in book form. i wish i had more time to read for pleasure... i usually read all day for work purposes and end up exhausted these days. so i watch tv for relief.

no, it's more of a "i don't give a shit about accurate protrayals, and people of color are just people, no need to typecast actors to skin color" thing.

all fiction is fiction, this one learned its lessons from postmodernity and stopped pretending. it's very good and funny. maybe has some tom stoppard influences.

the blatant anachronisms are some of the funniest shit, like the mention of "salsa verde" for some torture description had me rolling on the floor. i mean, salsa verde did exist elsewhere back then but... hahahaha, i like this show, i'm looking forward to 2nd season with fingers crossed.

eta: show was created by this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_McNamara_(writer)

if you haven't seen "the favourite" i highly recommend it

==


also finally after all these years started watching the handmaids tale this weekend



i don't know if i could have endured this gruesome shit while pens was vp. these fucking people are real and i detest them...

I watched this during the Trump/Pence years and it shook me more than the book ever did. I think it actually remains strong over the 3 seasons, and I’m hoping for more, but holy hell is it terrifying.

The One on Netflix

how many fucking slow motion musical numbers does american gods need per episode this season?

seriously asking. it's so boring now. today i'm finishing this tv homework, and tomorrow i get the audiobook so i can rest my eyes while "reading."

cancel my subscription to season 4.

How the hell are there 4 seasons? They must be stuffing it with new crap.

And slo-mo musical numbers? Bah! Glad I never kept up past S1

yeah like some important shit happens and they plug in some "deep" song and the action all happens in slow motion.

on and on and on.

it's like a sentimental jerkoff or something. hugely fucking annoying. and 4, 5 times per episode. i should count the groans.

anyway it ended today in a cliffhanger. i hope they don't bother with more of it.

in related news, just saw that american gods has been cancelled, no 4th season.

CLEARLY DESERVED

and a toast to orlando jones, unfairly sidelined, who saw this shit coming

Yeah, why did half the people exit that dumpster fire? Maybe because it was a dumpster fire. Was Neil even still involved at the end?

Must take a lot to get a STARZ show canceled in 2021. I mean, they’re certainly not going to axe anything that’s bringing in viewers and reminding people that STARZ still exists, so must have been pretty bad.

Make 7, Up yours :D

hahahahah! yeah... that brings back good memories.

Sorry if I missed the talk about The Americans in this thread.

(Searching "Americans" brings challenges.)

So....is it good? I hear great things about it, and it seems to have flown under the radar for most of its 6 seasons.

It's pretty good, especially the music selection with Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Dutronc, and even some Dutch tunes. It's a bit lame though that one of the main characters who's Dutch is played by a Brit (and still has some lines in Dutch), and a Belgian who's also played by a Brit. With eight episodes it's a bit long-winded but it's not boringly such.
It's based on real events and I had read a bit too many interviews beforehand perhaps with the real guy who is now played by the Brit.

It’s one of the best television dramas of all time pretty easily.

It’s, like, at or near the level of Sopranos, Breaking Bad, maybe even Mad Men. Personally I prefer it to those. Takes a few episodes to get really invested, but I can’t really express how goddamn great it is. And it’s great straight through, all the way until the finale, which is not disappointing.

Best American thriller series I can really think of.

Please watch.