Look I don’t know if anyone else on this Forum, or in the world for that matter, wants to watch John Brown and his crew win a gunfight against Border Ruffians trying to enshrine slavery in Kansas law while Elmore James’ “Shake Your Money Maker” plays, but if you do The Good Lord Bird is out and it has that in the first episode.
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I like the sound of it, but it’s only on kinda eh local streaming service Stan at the moment, so I’ll have to get around to seeing it elsewhere.
Just finished the Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. It’s a nice hero’s journey type tale with some feel good moments. Enjoyable TV.
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I’m a sucker for The Great British Bake-Off -watching via Netflix.
The current season/series comes out weekly, with a delay between release on British “Telly” and here in the US through Netflix -I don’t worry about spoilers, so I follow along on twitter and reddit. This series’ production was truncated because of the decision to keep everyone in a “Bubble” -the contestants, hosts, judges and crew were quarantined before filming and it was completed in six weeks. One of the things that made the show work was that contestants went back to their normal lives in between filming episodes.
I miss Sandi Toksvieg playing the straight-man with Noel. Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding as two oddballs doesn’t work for me.
I’m probably the only weirdo who likes the out of the ordinary challenges -I’m looking forward to this week’s Japanese sweets. I think it’s good that some episodes have stuff outside the purview of British home bakers, otherwise the show would become repetitive “It’s Victoria Sponge week! Last week, the Welsh baker won ‘star baker’ thanks to their impossibly dry biscuits with little red dragons on them! Can they win star baker again, or will they lose their spot to the posh student?” Just bake a snickerdoodle, God damn you. I get they wish to avoid the spectacle of US television -especially since our game shows are turning into reality TV, but repetition would kill the show, it’d be televised vallium. There has to be some tension.
You’re supposed to like the bakers and think Paul Hollywood is the bad guy -I’m sure he loves being seen as intimidating. Besides, it creates those moments where someone freaks out because they don’t want to present a bad bake to the Big Bad Wolf, and another contestant helps them out. I think that is the part I like the most -whenever a baker says something supportive or literally helps another baker.
Edit: Sorry for ranting.
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This is 15 characters of agreement!
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GBBO is one of my favorite relaxing shows. I still remember The Big Squirrel.
I haven’t seen the new season, but I found this article on Slate to be interesting and I agree with the general point:
“The technical challenges now feel less like a means to test bakers’ practical skills and more a way to get them and the audience to say in bemused unison, “I’ve never heard of this”—and there’s data to back that up. One Reddit user analyzed all the technical challenges from Season 1 through Season 9 and found that they were getting more complicated and obscure over time. The Great British Baking Show isn’t like Nailed It , where the point is to watch contestants fail. If all the contestants bungle the technical challenge to the point where one of the judges almost walks out upon seeing the end result—something that actually happened in week four of Season 10, when the bakers were charged with making a Tudor-era dessert—then the problem is not the bakers but what’s being asked of them.”
Oh, and for the record, I can’t stand Noel. I don’t find him funny in the slightest bit. He’s just annoying and trying too hard. I liked Sandi Toksvieg. She was smart and funny, in an understated, very British, way.
Noel, and Matt, are both the worst parts of GBBO. I really, really, miss Mel and Sue.
I’ll also totally agree with the Technical. 90% of the time I have never heard of the thing that they’re making.
I will disagree with the Tudor thing though, they’ve had Tudor week in Season 4 (which I’m actually re-watching now) so expecting British Bakers to be passingly familiar with famous historical dishes.
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I miss Mel and Sue as well.
I thought they did a great job of being personable but also keeping the focus and emphasis on the bakers.
Noel, and I assume Matt, is like a muppet to me. He’s just one weird gimmick after another. He’s too over-the top for me.
I don’t want to see the same 30 recipes in slightly different orders, and I think it’s possible to present “Foreign” desserts (like the Malaysian Sarawak) with proper respect to professional bakers who make it all the time. Like, you know, not saying Paul Hollywood produces Babka better than what you find in New York’s Bakeries. People exploded at that, but I don’t remember if any of the GBBO people said something so obnoxious about the Sarawak.
If that’s not possible, then I’ll gladly enjoy watching them puzzle out stuff like Maids of Honor, which are traditional European desserts that were enjoyed by an actual King of England. How much more “British” can you get?
The one thing I dislike about GBBO is that it’s…well, very British, and given that it’s focused on baked goods, it gives an excellent opportunity for people to show off their colonizer bullshit. It’s not like particularly aggressive about it, but man is it a thing I notice.
I have a similar beef with Gardener’s World (a show which I lump in with baking for some reason - gardening and baking seem to occupy the same thought in my brain), where they go around showing all these Brits rampantly introducing exotic plants they stole from across the world and I’m like…can we not?
But I do love watching Paul Hollywood make people sweat.
I’ve been watching Stranger on Netflix. It’s basically Korean Sherlock & Watson, and I find it very charming so far.
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Something I’d like to watch is Star Trek. Netflix has seemingly entire runs of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT. I tried to start TOS and TNG when that failed.
Does anyone have a link to maybe a list of important episodes for those series? Or recommendations for certain arcs that they find interesting? Time dictates that I just can’t get through all 700+ episodes of those series.
Also, I’ve tried to sit through them, I want to get into them, but I…just can’t. Most internet stranger ST fans I’ve asked about it seem to take the tack of “You sit through every goddamn episode and read every goddamn book or you’re worthless as a geek” which is 1) gross and 2) if I have to sit through every single release to find some spark of something enjoyable, no. A small portion of them usually kindly suggest I just stop because I obviously “don’t get it” but, like…I do like sci-fi?
Like, the pilot episode of TOS is super interesting, for example. I have the feeling that, given the style of American seasons of TV, there’s a LOT of bullshit that doesn’t really matter in the long run of the show, but they need to fulfill their 22 episode contract. I guess what I’m in search of is a resource that would let me watch 8-10 episodes per season and cut the fluff.
Is this a lost cause? Should I just give up and read the wikipedia of the shows? Any help would be much appreciated!
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I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve watched the first few episodes of every iteration of Star Trek, but none have grabbed me enough to carry on. Common advice is “keep watching until season three, and then it gets good” and I have the same “fuck that” thought in response.
However, there have been individual episodes that have been recommended, and that I’ve watched and enjoyed. But only a few from each version of the show, and delving any deeper has come up short in terms of quality.
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My suggestion as an on-boarding point for Trek for someone who’s never really gotten into it yet is to watch DS9 as the bridge between Peak/Golden-age TV serialized entertainment we are used to now and the more episodic content that just about every other trek show leans much more heavily on.
DS9 does a pretty good job of introducing concepts, characters, races, etc. that were preexisting to new audiences and doesn’t make many assumptions about the viewer, but still treats you as an intelligent being and I find it still has the most engaging cast and the first 1-2 seasons aren’t weak like TNG.
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I watched all of TNG again recently, except that I skipped the first two seasons entirely, as well as several specific episodes along the way.
Same with Voyager.
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It’s ok to just not like Star Trek. I am also a nerd that does not like Star Trek. If you don’t like it, why keep trying? Go find something that you actually enjoy and stop wasting your time.
That being said, I’m also always telling people that they should force themselves to watch or read the all-time legendary great works, even if they do not enjoy them. No matter who you are, you gotta play some Super Mario Bros. I mean, come on.
That being said, there is so much Star Trek content, which Star Trek stuff actually qualifies as legendary all-time great must-watch? Is there any Star Trek thing that is like, Casablanca levels of greatness? My guess is that if anything comes close to qualifying, it’s probably the Star Trek movie with the whales, right? Maybe just watch that and then move on with life?
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Good to know I’m not alone! I think part of wanting to like it is that I enjoyed the movies (like 1-5), not because they were great, but because I remember staying up late with my dad some weekend as a little kid and watching them on TBS or Sci-Fi. Nostalgia for good memories, I guess.
I’ve done a similar sampling method that you describe for TOS and TNG, but beyond that, just scrolled through the episode teaser that NF lists by the thumbnails and, given the sheer amount of episodes, there’s few and far between that really jump out, in terms of interest. Like, shockingly so. I guess that I just thought that, it being so heavily hyped and associated with geek culture, it would be better? Idk. Maybe that’s too harsh and subjective.
Might attempt what DigitalDeckard suggested and look at DS9, cos those episodes seem to jump more often than TNG. Failing that, like Apreche suggested, guess I’ll move on. There’s more stuff out there to enjoy!
I may have a bit of insight here. I happen to be a pretty big fan of Exactly Voyager. None of the others. I’ve tried to get into both TNG and DS9 and sort of bounced off both.
So why? Why will I pretty much watch any Voyager episode put in front of me and bounce off any other star trek? Well I think the answer comes down to, I had a book club style intro to Voyager at a young age. A friend of mine would watch it with me on occasion and be excited to talk about it with me over highschool lunch.
Basically early on when I was watching it, I was motivated more by external factors than the show itself. After enough of that supplemental motivation I ‘got over the wall’ as it were. The show became about characters I knew and cared about, rather than just a spaceship show.
I guess I’m saying all startreks have a bit of a like difficulty curve. You have to give it some time to get to know the characters and the universe, before it becomes interesting enough to sustain itself.
I wanna be clear that I’m not saying “force yourself to watch it until x at which point it actually gets good” I’m not saying that. The opposite really. There’s so much media out there and plenty of it is more interesting out the gate than startrek.
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I was recommended the same thing: watch DS9. I got about 6 or 7 episodes in.
I think my breaking point was when there was going to be a court scene, but there was obviously no room in the budget for a courtroom set. So there was a quick bit of dialogue where the captain asked the bartender “can we use this bar set for the court room scene?”
For pretty much every show I stop watching, I remember the thing that made me think “I’m not going to watch the next episode of this.” It’s rarely the worst thing so far in the show’s run, but the camel-back-breaking straw sticks in my mind.
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