I’m watching Station Eleven, so far it’s a thoughtful art-scifi weaving surrealism, loss, and gentle character depiction with a very fine cast.
Wheel of Time finale felt flat.
Recent Expanse episode was excellent, thankfully picking up.
I’m pretty into Wheel of TIme. I’ve never read the books, but Nuri has, so I get a rundown about departures. I liked the finale, though it wasn’t the strongest episode this season - but the guy they got to play the Dark One did a good job, and I think the costuming choices for him were an excellent example of “show don’t tell” by making him clearly look out of time from everyone else. That was cool.
I’m interested to see where this is all going.
EDIT: Also Lan is the best character, and I still contend that the show should be about him. Rand is such a little bitch.
I strongly agree about Lan, and while it’s been a long time since I read the books, if I recall correctly, Rand has not yet begun to be a little bitch.
JFC really? Ugh.
Yeah, Robert Jordan very much wrote those books as a way to deal with the trauma of being in the Vietnam War, all pushed through the lens of “how would a person ACTUALLY respond to learning that they are the chosen one who has to shoulder the responsibility of saving the world.” Rand is still in the “WTF this is so fucked up, why me?” phase. My guess is that whiny Rand should be done by the end of next season though.
Also agree, Lan is the best, and has some of the best moments in the books too.
As someone who knows the books back and forth, the finale definitely changed some things and felt a bit rushed - probably because the actor who played Mat didn’t come back after the COVID break and they needed to recast him for season 2. So they likely re-wrote a lot of the finale to get around him. Plus they moved a lot of the setup from early book 2 into this finale so they’d have a hook for the next season. It was a lot to pack into one <60 minute episode.
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Had anyone said why they suddenly decided to recast Matt? It seems pretty uncommon that a show has to recast one of its main leads.
There’s still no official word. He deleted his Twitter and Instagram too. The speculation I’ve heard is that it could be a family or health issue due to COVID, it could be that he didn’t want to be locked into a long term gig in Eastern Europe, it could be that playing such a dark role was taking a toll on him, or something entirely different. I suspect we won’t hear anything official until the new season at the earliest, if at all.
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Honestly, except for episode 5 and its needless slow-mo funeral scene, I feel like every episode of this show so far has been absolutely packed. I mean it makes sense - I’ve heard the plan is 8 seasons of 8 episodes each, and with 16 books, that means you have 4 hours of screen time to cover each book.
That’s clearly not enough time, so they’ve got the pedal to the metal. You really can’t miss anything that’s going on.
Vis-a-vis Mat, I think the two most likely explanations are his own mental health, or a family crisis. I doubt we’re ever actually going to hear the answer. Too bad, because I think that guy was one of the best actors in the cast. I hope he manages whatever it is that needs managing in his life.
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The good news is that the middle books have a LOT of content that can be cut or streamlined. One of the characters has a 4-book long arc that could be resolved in one episode. I have a feeling that we’re going to fly through books 7-10 in just a few episodes, assuming they don’t roll that content into other seasons outright.
There’s a Wheel of Time podcast called Wheel Takes that’s hosted by a couple who are involved in TV writing, and they are breaking the show down episode by episode explaining why each decision could have been made and analyzing the writing, costuming, cinematography, acting, etc. as a TV show and adaptation. It’s really insightful and makes you realize that they put a LOT of thought into every decision on the show, even if the final product may not have come across exactly how everyone had hoped.
The showrunner Rafe Judkins has said that his goal is to adapt the Wheel of Time as a whole, rather than looking at each book individually. And now that Amazon has a proof of concept for the show and season 1 did SO well (#1 streaming show, over 5.5 million views on each of the first few episodes alone), I think that we will see the show start to evolve a bit, moving away from the required structure and story beats that TV execs need to see for a show to be greenlit and more into the vision that Rafe has. So many successful shows (The Office, Buffy) had a rocky first season that didn’t thematically fit with the rest of it once it got its footing, and I have a feeling WoT will be one of those.
Re: Mat, I think that the reason for the casting change will eventually come up once the new season spins up, contracts settle, and Barney Harris starts to get back out there looking for work again. As the show gets more traction and more popularity, the TMZs of the world aren’t going to ignore it and it’s going to come out eventually. I just hope it’s nothing bad and that he can speak out about it on his own terms rather than it leaking in some unflattering way.
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Been watching Doom Patrol finally and loving it. The best way I could describe it is “what if someone let folks make an adult* live-action show with similar humor and wackiness, plus serious moments, to Adventure Time/Owl House/Centaurworld using superheros”.
*=Outside the first episode, it could be a show for teens but guess they wanted to throw a handful of sex scenes at the start for some reason.
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There’s a later season 2 episode that also has a lot of sex in it. I just figure they’re like we’re on HBO MAX lets show a little skin and drop some f bombs aplenty.
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Just finished season 1 of Archive 81. I think fans of Dark will enjoy it. I was maybe a little annoyed at the ending, since I feel like this kind of horror is best kept liminal and unknowable and that it’s a compromise of the genre to provide answers. Still! very fun.
I watched a couple episodes of Succession.
I guess Cameron’s done well for himself, but his imaginary friend hasn’t grown up at all in 35 years.
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The Boys has an animated spinoff premiering soon on Amazon, and the teaser is great.
So Station Eleven on HBO is really really good. Always surprises me how little marketing HBO does for some of their best content. Or maybe it’s because I avoid all ads or commercials. idk Sometimes feels like HBO tries to bury their own new releases.
Anyway, this is one of the better dramas I’ve seen in a while. The show is set mostly in the post pandemic apocalypse Midwest United States where, as far as we know, 99.999% of the human population on the planet has succumb to a deadly flu. Which of course causes the complete collapse of society. The story centers around a theatre troupe of survivors, a post apocalypse cult, and the appreciation of art in times of struggle. I think. It’s hard to talk about without spoiling things, but shit gets intense. And if you like stories which incorporate the “play within a play” trope, you’ll have a lot to chew on here. Was hard to not binge watch the whole show in a few days.
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I know I shouldn’t be, but I am very excited for this show after this trailer. One of the most interesting parts of the Halo canon to me is the fact that the spartans weren’t invented to fight the covenant, we had them lying around when that conflict happened. And it sounds like we’re going to dig into why we had them lying around based on this trailer.
So, are trailers like contractually obligated to follow a very specific format regardless of the actual tone of the full product?
Try watching that trailer on mute and play this in the background starting at roughly the same time:
Pretty-much still matches up perfect. Is that good? Bad? Sad? Unavoidable? Why take a game that has one of the most well known soundtracks in western gaming, turn that into a TV show, and not use any of that score? No, apparently the answer is a new and completely forgettable score that turns into a full-on Hollywood sadcore “unexpected cover of a classic hit song”, I guess.
At least You Spin me Round makes more sense for a story about a giant spinning space ring than In the Air Tonight.
I have to assume they weren’t interested in even attempting to get rights for the original soundtracks? Even though they are literally the only valid choice for this to work?
I always had a big softspot for Halo overall, even tho I don’t really care about the lore or story continuity all that much. it’s ballooned out of control. After like Halo 2-3 it was, whatever. So the show having its own plot continuity is gravy. As long as they nail the vibe.
And while they got a lot technically right, the vibe just feels off for some reason from this. Might be the aural aspect, the music, the dialogue, the overall choice of how to make Chief sound. Seems like they are trying to get Iron Mandalorian with guns and aliens. The actor for Chief has none of the vocal traits of the game version, neither in the words he’s saying or the voice he says them in, or the effects making his suit sound like it came from The Expanse. Combine that with a lack of the Halo music and it’s jarring to the point I’m just not buying it.
I had this on the “Might actually try Paramount Plus” spot, but now its more like “eh, might find a way to watch it eventually”
There’s a lot of potential here still, the Covenant stuff looks epic. And the Marines and Spartans look legit. And I’m glad that there was something of a Marathon symbol on that artifact which means that motif is at least carrying over. Who knows what they’ll get to include that is being kept from the trailers. Hopefully there’s some good space battles and they actually get to the Halo ring and do a Silent Cartographer and do The Library since without having to play it, it might actually be interesting.
a play, within a play, within a play, within a play? i think? maybe i lost count
i started watching in december but as the eps were coming out. i took a break from it, bc it is heavy, for billions (less heavy), and succession (well…). but yes, i would absolutely put it at among the top of currently airing.
i wish the throughlines behind the story were a greater part of conversations in general. generational assumptions and trauma is, i think, an essential component of understanding the modern world.
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