Also, I’ve been watching The Magicians. Holy shit, this is the darkest fanfic of every childhood magic fantasy rolled up with the fucked up psyches of the pervs who wrote some of them. Narnia, Harry Potter, Phantom Tollbooth? So you want to be a Wizard, Alice in Wonderland, Flowers in the Attic? Wizard of Oz, maybe a dash of non-euro stories… I don’t even know, it’s bonkers.
Anyway, it’s like Grimm’s Fairy Tales versus the Disney versions. Definitely another trigger warning here. It’s not perfect (what is?) but it captured my magical fantasy loving, yet also cynical, interest.
I would like to say that the second season (upon completion) is more in the vein of supernatural. It is a different show, and promises to be different again next season. I also think it can’t decide between being YA and being grown-up, which is also a theme.
I wouldn’t say crass and childish, but I would say toned down and intentionally different. They’re pulling elements from the books - all three, not just going in order - but they’re pulling a Hitchhiker’s Guide, and making the TV show it’s own self-contained thing rather than a slavish adaption.
I’m about halfway through HBO’s Big Little Lies and it’s absolutely great. Not sure how much I like the gimmick of alluding to a murder at the beginning of the show, but not revealing who was actually killed, but otherwise, the mini-series is top notch. I’ve never been a huge Reese Witherspoon fan, but she’s absolutely great in this. And Nicole Kidman… oh my god, she’s just incredible.
I still have about three episodes to go, so I’m not sure how it will end, but I read that the show’s creators are already planning a second series, which could go either way considering that the original mini-series was based on a book, and that’s all there is. Any new content would have to be completely original and not an adaptation.
Regardless, if you like good quality TV, check this out.
I haven’t seen Bloodlines, but I can see how people could bounce off Big Little Lies and not like it. None of the characters are particularly likable or sympathetic, and the entire world of the show, the uber-rich of California, can be pretty alienating.
Dark is the best show I’ve watched all year. It’s cerebral, full of character development, and really good at putting you on edge. If you love thrillers with a bit of sci-fi thrown in to season, definitely check it out. Fair warning that it will require you to pay close attention to get maximum enjoyment as there are a ton of characters and it’s in german.
I finished two miniseries this weekend. I finished watching Big Little Lies, which I absolutely loved and a British series called SS-GB.
Big Little Lies was excellent. The acting was just amazing and I really enjoyed the story. I don’t normally come across stories or issues like in Big Little Lies, so it was novel and unique, but I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it if it had been a continuous series, as opposed to just a 7 episode miniseries. The acting from all the women leads was just outstanding, and the show deserved all of its Emmy wins.
SS-GB was good, but a little too slow to be great. I forget where I heard of this, but it’s another alternative history show where the Germans win the Battle of Britain and take over the country. The show takes places in 1941 and the United States still doesn’t want to go to war, while Germany and the Soviet Union have made peace. I haven’t seen the Man in the High Castle, but SS-GB seems thematically similar. It was good, but it won’t blow anyone away.
I once started reading a novel called SS-GB, so I guess that’s what has now been made into a TV show. I only got a few chapters in, and realised it wasn’t my kind of thing. I was hoping for weird alternative history like Man in the High Castle, but the story was set too close to the alternate branch, and not enough difference things had taken place in the story’s history yet. It’s probably the story I’d enjoy much more as a TV show.
Ahh, Dark is quite good. It’s rewarding for those who pay attention to little details, there are clues everywhere! I was a bit dismayed at how terrible everyone’s memory is. I’m also sad it just came out, and I binged it, and now I have no more episoden. Also Netflix defaulted to playing it in English dubbing, so I had to switch it to German (there’s a narrated German version too) with subs.
So Major Crimes just ended. I’ve been watching that show for years; it’s not jaw-droppingly amazing but I liked it. Was something my mom and I enjoy watching together.
And they completely ruined the last season, and I’m mad about it.
I got Amazon Prime again to watch Lucifer Season 3 over the christmas break and realised I stopped mid-season 2. Watching the remaining of season 2 and all of season 3 so far is interesting a lot of the normal silly supernatural procedural stuff. They had some very bottle episodes (including an episode which introduces a character’s husband just to kill him by the end) in season 3 and it seem to be spinning its gears for the mid season reveal
Spoilers
That the new Police Commissioner is Cain and was also the person actually instructing “The Sinnerman” the silly name makes the reveal a bit better.
Any opinions of Electric Dreams? I absolutely love Black Mirror, but cautious that this could be a rushed cash-in on the anthology craze. I also, shamefully, have not read that much Phillip K Dick, so I don’t know these stories. Curious if I should just read them, rather than watching this show.
I made it about 15 minutes into the first episode. Maybe one of these days I’ll give it another chance 🤷. It might have been fine if it wasn’t trying to market itself as “more Black Mirror”. I just remember the dialogue and delivery being rough, and everything feeling kinda rushed.
I feel like I am in a huge minority in my dislike of Black Mirror. To me it just smacks of cynical wannabe edgy technological alarmism, something I would expect of my parents generation. CELL PHONES ARE BAD! SOCIAL MEDIA IS BAD! Etc.