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 Posted:   Mar 15, 2024 - 8:29 AM   
 By:   TominAtl   (Member)

I just finished True Detective: Night Country. I liked it. Had a few slow parts, but it kept me engaged.

Finished Silo. Really liked it. Can't wait for season 2.


Silo is really good and def am pumped for season 2 as well!

 
 Posted:   Mar 23, 2024 - 3:24 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

REACHER (Seasons 1 & 2) (Watching in UHD on Amazon Prime)
What a cool throwback to the 1980s... it's classic good guys vs bad guys and in the end, the bad guys get their due. Nevertheless it's the 2020s now, and the show manages to nicely update the classic action hero trope and even manages to surprise here and there. The show knows it's a pulp show based on pulp novels, and it just goes with it. Every season is basically a self contained story, season 1 is more of a criminal investigation, where the eponymous Jack Reacher gets caught up in a multiple murder investigation in the small fictional Georgia town of Margrave, when one of the victims turns out to be his brother. Season 2 tells more of the back story of Jack Reacher, as he teams up with former military team mates in order to find out why somebody wants to have them all killed. Each season is a self contained story (with a few references to past events.)

Jack Reacher is a hulking (6'5") former Major of the Military Police Corps, excelling in combat and skilled with all kinds of weapons. He's also an animal loving, friendly nice guy who has a strong code of morals and justice. If he sees someone in need, he helps. He's now pretty much a drifter, not interested in accumulating possesions or wealth, living off his pension, roaming the country, taking the occasional odd job and finding himself involved in crime and conspiracy cases. In short: Jack Reacher is a one man version of the A-Team.

For a change of (modern story telling) pace, Jack Reacher is not an anti-hero, he is not a tortured soul in search of redemption, he is a tough-guy hero, the "real deal". And brings woe to the bad guys. That's it. Nice to see a modern day TV crime show with such an unabashedly hyper masculine hero straight out of the old "Western myth" (Jack Reacher is basically the modern equivalent of the mysterious stranger of the old West, who shows up, helps out, and moves along), and the show is entertaining and refreshingly uncomplicated with its straight forward plot driven stories. You'd think this is a "boy's show", but it's actually my wife's current favorite show. She prefers Jack Reacher to most of the other heroes and heroines TV has to offer nowadays . Dang. I tell her I'd have to go at least a month to the gym before I look like buffed up Alan Ritchson. ;-)


 
 Posted:   Mar 23, 2024 - 3:30 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Constellation, lost interest.

House of Ninjas , losing interest.

Masters of the air, very good.

The Gentlemen- surprisingly good.


 
 
 Posted:   Mar 23, 2024 - 5:58 AM   
 By:   joan hue   (Member)

Bill, we just finished Masters of the Air. It was very good.

We are now into 4 episodes of 3 Body Problem. Interesting and mind boggling.

 
 Posted:   Mar 23, 2024 - 9:24 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Yeah joan, from the off you can see masters is a cut above. Not quite got used to all the characters yet but it's up there with Pacific and band of brothers.

 
 Posted:   Apr 5, 2024 - 3:44 PM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Sugar, the new series on appletv starring Colin Farrell is great. He plays a top-end missing persons investigator. There are even neat classic film references and brief scenes pop up in Farrell's head. They're describing the series as modern day noir, and there's plenty of Farrell voice over, so it has that similar style.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 5, 2024 - 5:11 PM   
 By:   joan hue   (Member)

We finished 3 Body Problem. Interesting. A season 2 is a must!

I finished The Woman In The Wall. Fine acting, but it dragged in places. Moreover, it was pretty depressing since it was about the horrendous Laundries ran by the nuns in Ireland.

 
 Posted:   Apr 6, 2024 - 12:02 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Yes I've nearly finished 3 body problem too joan. The friends are good but I like the main investigator, good actor. Benefict Wong.

 
 Posted:   Apr 10, 2024 - 5:51 AM   
 By:   Solium   (Member)

FBI- Someone gets shot in the head. A bunch of cardboard cutouts investigates a murder. They have a suspect, twisty-twisty its the wrong person and they're back to starting from scratch. Meanwhile we have paper thin subplots of the main characters personal lives. Rinse and repeat each week. The characters are interchangeable. They have no unique personalities. I remember when graphic depictions of bullet holes to the head would get you an "R" rating in a film, now its during prime time televsion when the kiddies watch.

 
 Posted:   Apr 10, 2024 - 6:54 AM   
 By:   steffromuk   (Member)

Watching Shogun and it's a real blast. It's impressive how much work was put in trying to be historically accurate. the production design is incredible.

I tried watching The 3 Body Problem I stopped at ep. 3. having read the books, I really don't like how they've adapted it. a lot of the cast is bugging me. The chinese investigator is such a powerful character in the book, and they didn't manage to convey that in the show to me, even though I think the actor was perfect for the role. I had him in mind while reading the book.
I guess it's fine for those who aren't familiar with the books, but I'll pass i=on this show.

And I'm also watching the Korean live action adaptation of the Manga Parasite: The Grey. The original manga "Parasite" is one of the best mangas I ever read. This show is adapted from another in the series, I think.
It's pretty good and the best adaptation so far (I didn't like the anime version and the previous live action adaptation didn't capture what made the manga so unique).

 
 Posted:   Apr 10, 2024 - 7:34 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

I think it's listed as Parasyte : the Grey. I'm watching it too. Not bad so far. Bit bonkers but not the worst thing I've sat thru.

3 body problem I liked. Never read the books so got no comparison like you. I really liked Benedict Wong in it, had some good sarcastic lines

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 10, 2024 - 8:47 AM   
 By:   joan hue   (Member)

I think it's listed as Parasyte : the Grey. I'm watching it too. Not bad so far. Bit bonkers but not the worst thing I've sat thru.

3 body problem I liked. Never read the books so got no comparison like you. I really liked Benedict Wong in it, had some good sarcastic lines


I agree, Bill. Parasyte was bonkers and just ok. I liked Wong in 3 Body Problem and the series.

We are now watching The Gentlemen. It is bonkers, but I'm hooked.

 
 Posted:   Apr 10, 2024 - 12:40 PM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

It gets better joanie. Thankfully as it's only produced by guy Ritchie, the direction hasn't got his excesses which ruined most of his films n made his characters cartoons. This series just about gets under the wire for silly, exaggerated characters. It's very good

 
 Posted:   Apr 10, 2024 - 3:01 PM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

I will have to give FALLOUT a try now... I loved the first game way back in 1997 or so... still have it. In the original box (PC games were sold in big, nice boxes back then), with the original "vault guide" (manual).

 
 Posted:   Apr 11, 2024 - 9:46 AM   
 By:   agentMaestraX   (Member)

Superman and Lois interesting gripping viewing!

 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2024 - 4:43 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

FALLOUT (Season 1, Amazon Prime)

Jonathan Nolan's show based on Bethesda's famous video game series.

Starts out very good, 7 of the 8 episodes are very entertaining, build up mystery and contain a lot of the satirical fun that makes the FALLOUT games so great. (Personally, while I am not really a "gamer", I did play the original FALLOUT game in 1997, and there was a lot of "FALLOUT feeling" in the TV series.)
We had a good time the first seven episodes... but then...

The final episode crashed everything, the ("re")solution managed to be deeply disappointing (while simultaneously predictable in a cringeworthy way). Will I continue with season 2 next years? Probably, because the rest of the show was fun. But the final episode... sheesh... that was just awful. No time to write more about it right now, and of course I would not want to spoiler anything.

 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2024 - 7:01 AM   
 By:   Bill Carson, Earl of Poncey   (Member)

Been enjoying Belascoaran on netflix. Private detective. Quite amusing. Shades of noir film with voice-over .

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2024 - 7:05 AM   
 By:   joan hue   (Member)

I watched all of Fallout. I liked it. The only thing I didn't like about the last episode was that we have to have a season 2 to answer all of our questions.

Almost finished with Shogun. Very good.

 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2024 - 3:51 AM   
 By:   Nicolai P. Zwar   (Member)

Caution: Post contains S P OI L E R S from the ending of the Amazon Prime series FALLOUT. (didn't want to black out my entire post)

So do not read unless you either don't care or have already seen the series.




The ending of FALLOUT didn’t work for me since it undermined pretty much the entire satirical tone of the show.
The series (both the game series and the TV series) is a wonderful mixture or retro-science fiction, satire, humor, and action.

The premise is (again, both in the games and the TV series) that there has been a nuclear war, and while civilization on the surface has been destroyed and transformed by radiation, underneath hundreds of people survived in vaults that were installed before the war. And basically have remained unchanged as a society and lived according to traditional pre-war "rules". So far so good. There is plenty of contrasting the “naive” and “classical” vault dwellers with the “Mad Max” post-apocalyptic world on the surface. There is also a lot of humor in the way the “vaults” were sold (like cars or refrigerators and or other appliance gets sold in the US, even though this is for surviving the nuclear holocaust) and come with interesting instruction manuals and safety “dos and don’ts” and so on. Lots of satirical pokes there.

The series resolution, however, now shows “Vault Tec” as a company led by moral monsters that would fit right in with the likes of Dr. Mengele and the leaders of Unit 731. I mean, they had no quarrels starting a nuclear holocaust to eliminate competitors, secretly experimenting on people, deceiving vault dwellers, with the father of Lucy nuking an entire city out of spite. That’s just so obviously morally appalling and evil that it leaves no room for the satire, doubles entendres, and eye-winking moral problems which are actually recurring themes within the series, such as many people want to do what’s best, but just aren’t sure what "best" is or how to go about it. No one could reasonably make a point for Vault-Tec's behavior, so the company is pure evil now.

So I was very disappointed when the show in the end just made Vault-Tec hyper evil instead of a more organic part of this world, in which there are many fractions just doing sometimes the wrong things for the right reason or the right things for the wrong reasons, such as the Brotherhood, which uses powerful pre-war technology to collect powerful pre-war technology so no one has powerful pre-war technology. (That I found quite amusing and far more fitting.) And that’s the type of company Vault-Tec basically should have been, and not another run-of-the-mill super-evil science-fiction Sauron.

But I will see how season 2 will play out.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 24, 2024 - 4:14 AM   
 By:   Hurdy Gurdy   (Member)

MAMMOTH - BBC comedy (?) series about a PE teacher unfrozen after 45 years and finding the world a bit different.
3 episodes that barely raised a smile. Theme and score by Mike 'HILL STREET BLUES etc' Post.

PASSENGER (ITV) drama/comedy/sci-fi/fantasy... those last two...who knows?
This show doesn't know what it wants to be.
Pithy, unlikeable Northern characters and comedy, strange goings-on in the woods, it comes at you like a cross between NORTHERN EXPOSURE, FARGO, SHAMELESS, TWIN PEAKS, THE X FILES.
I've watched 4 eps of the 6 so far.
It's mainly annoying in its lack of...direction in what it actually wants to be.
The characters aren't likeable enough to be involving drama, it's not funny enough to be successful comedy, the weird fantasy moments are too vague and annoying to compel.
I'm sticking with it in that OCD way to see if there is gonna be any point in the whole thing.

 
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