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Lost in Space: Second Season 

5 and a half Jupiters

Visual bubblegum.  Acting is largely on par with first season.  Story arch wrapped up a few characters, for better or worse.  Story was pretty much what you'd expect out of ScyFy Platinum.  I don't feel amiss having seen it, but it's not one that I suggest as a must watch.  It works as a background while getting your hobby on, or doing choirs, as not much really requires you to be in the room or paying excessive attention.  As a show to sit down with your tween kids, it's closer to a 7 or 8 Jupes

 

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The Grand Tour is the Amazon Prime original kinda-but-not-quite-reboot of Top Gear. I’m not much of a car guy, but the sight of stupidly expensive supercars being driven stupidly fast around race tracks appeals to my inner 8 Year Old and the luscious scenery shots of gorgeous exotic countryside vistas is great too.

But mostly I watch it to watch three old British men insult each other, play pranks on each other, insult each other, perform silly stunts, insult each other, and say the word “penis” a lot. 

Imagine Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, crosses with Jamie and Adam from The Mythbusters, with a heaping helping of The Last of the Summer Wine... and dick jokes.

Not exactly “must see” viewing, but since there’s essentially no plot and only minimal continuity, it’s great for those “nothing else to watch” moments.

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The ABC Murders was a 2018 BBC One adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The A.B.C. Murders.

I was a bit skeptical of the idea of John Malkovich playing Hercule Poirot, but damn does he do a fantastic job. Rupert Grint plays a supporting role as the requisite police detective that butts heads with the private detective but comes around eventually... I didn’t even realize it was Rupert Grint for the first hour. Great performance and he’s certain not little Ron Weasley anymore.

Overall, it’s a lot “edgier” than most Christie adaptations, but I think it works very well. Christie’s novels were actually rather risqué in their day, but most people only know her work via the excellent-but-family-friendly adaptations on PBS with David Suchet as Poirot.

The main plot follows Christie’s novel rather faithfully, but they’ve added a few subplots to flesh out some of the suspects and victims. They’ve also added a backstory to Poirot... I won’t spoil anything, but some Christie purists are undoubtedly sipping their tea rather angrily over it.

I don’t know if Malkovich has any plans to do more, but if he and the rest of the team behind this miniseries decide to make more, sign me up.

(But, please god, not Murder on the Orient Express. Yes, it’s a good story. Yes, it’s Christie’s most famous work... But for [big bad swear word]’s sake there’s like 24,601 adaptations of it. How about adapting Curtain or Ten Little Indians?)

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On 1/5/2020 at 4:51 PM, Ish said:

How about adapting Curtain or Ten Little Indians?)

Ever seen Identity? Fun movie that's not a direct adaptation of 10 Little Indians, but it's clearly a take on the premise. 10 strangers stuck in a hotel together and start dying one by one. 

Would recommend. 

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On 1/9/2020 at 1:35 PM, Ish said:

I’ll look and see if I can add it to the queue...

(I wonder why no one ever adapts And Then There Were NoneTen Little Indians under its original title?)

I can assure you, the Swedes do. I was shocked to see that title on the shelf at my host family's house.

They didn't totally understand when I explained it. That's the problem with a homogeneous society, not really aware of the difference...

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Hinterland is a very niche sort of show. It’s a police procedural / film noir murder mystery series set in and around Aberystwyth (a small coastal town) and the surrounding rural county of Ceredigion (grey hills, grey rivers, grey sheep, and grey bogs) in northern Wales. It’s grey, it’s raining constantly, it’s grey, everyone’s got an impossible to pronounce name, it’s grey, and half the cast have an accent so thick you need a chainsaw to cut through it.

My god, I love it so much.

A few reviewers have compared it to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I kind of agree with. The plot is nothing at all similar and the characters are quite different, but in terms of tone it most definitely is. It’s film noir, but not... It’s a police procedural, but not...

If you like moody, gloomy, noir murder mysteries and gorgeous sweeping cinematography of grey, dreary, and decaying rural farmhouses, you’ll love this show.  

Another interesting thing about the series is that it was filmed, simultaneously, as two separate shows: Hinterland, the version currently on Netflix, is filmed in English; Y Gwyll, which isn’t available in the U.S. near as I can figure, was filmed entirely in Welsh... With the same cast, same actors, same script, etc. 

image.jpeg.e39ebf5d18f7efe9a3d1121fad9381bf.jpeg
British DVD box... Actual show not this colorful.

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On 1/9/2020 at 11:59 AM, Munkie said:

Ever seen Identity? Fun movie that's not a direct adaptation of 10 Little Indians, but it's clearly a take on the premise. 10 strangers stuck in a hotel together and start dying one by one. 

Would recommend. 

Would highly recommend.  One of my favorite movies, and comes up frequently in discussions for examples of awesome, practical effects, noir film, that John, especially, thrives in.

One of those movies I know I've watched close to 2 dozen times.

 

The atmosphere is similar to Dark City, or other 90s noir inspired films, without being a comic book.  Great fking movie.

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45 minutes ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

Would highly recommend.  One of my favorite movies, and comes up frequently in discussions for examples of awesome, practical effects, noir film, that John, especially, thrives in.

One of those movies I know I've watched close to 2 dozen times.

 

The atmosphere is similar to Dark City, or other 90s noir inspired films, without being a comic book.  Great fking movie.

I'm right there with you. I was just avoiding trying to over-hype it 😉

But since you went there already, [big bad swear word] yeah!

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23 hours ago, Ish said:

Hinterland is a very niche sort of show. It’s a police procedural / film noir murder mystery series set in and around Aberystwyth (a small coastal town) and the surrounding rural county of Ceredigion (grey hills, grey rivers, grey sheep, and grey bogs) in northern Wales. It’s grey, it’s raining constantly, it’s grey, everyone’s got an impossible to pronounce name, it’s grey, and half the cast have an accent so thick you need a chainsaw to cut through it.

My god, I love it so much.

A few reviewers have compared it to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I kind of agree with. The plot is nothing at all similar and the characters are quite different, but in terms of tone it most definitely is. It’s film noir, but not... It’s a police procedural, but not...

If you like moody, gloomy, noir murder mysteries and gorgeous sweeping cinematography of grey, dreary, and decaying rural farmhouses, you’ll love this show.  

Another interesting thing about the series is that it was filmed, simultaneously, as two separate shows: Hinterland, the version currently on Netflix, is filmed in English; Y Gwyll, which isn’t available in the U.S. near as I can figure, was filmed entirely in Welsh... With the same cast, same actors, same script, etc. 

image.jpeg.e39ebf5d18f7efe9a3d1121fad9381bf.jpeg
British DVD box... Actual show not this colorful.

Agreed!  Hinterland, Happy Valley, and Shetland are among my favorite show of any genre.

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Crisis on Infinite Earths

 

So, we have cross overs from Titans, Arrow, Supergirl, Black Lightning, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Superman Returns, Batman The Animated Series, Adam West Batman, etc etc etc

As such, there is a lot of great fan service.  Having Kevin Conroy play old Bruce Wayne was awesome.  Brandon Routh reprising Superman from Superman Returns, while continuing to play Ray Palmer, and that getting addressed was amazing, as well.  I am among the supposed minority whom enjoyed Superman Returns, so yeah.  

I stopped watching Arrow, Legends, and Flash several seasons ago.  Batwoman and Titans I have stayed current on.  Black Lightning and Supergirl I may have seen an episode of at some point, perhaps a previous Supergirl/Arrowverse crossover.  For Crisis, I went ahead and watched most of the relevant episodes in each separate show, forgoing the majority of Road to Crisis, as it wasn't sufficiently engaging for me to get engrossed in it.

Once we get to Crisis, it is enjoyable enough.  I enjoyed all the tie ins, and how things were handled.  The Black Lightning Episode is probably one of my favorite in the whole event.  

Some of the practical effects, and cgi are pretty crappy, which is pretty par for the course with these DC titles.  A couple of the fights involving the Kryptonians, I feel were a bit underwhelming considering the cousins abilities.  

If you like DC, Watch it.  If you enjoy this level of juggling in shows, watch it.  If you enjoy a few specific aspects, you can largely be selective with episodes and not miss out on too much exposition.   

Overall, it's what one has come to expect from WB/DC. 

With that in mind, I'd give it as a story arch 4/5

When compared to TV shows as a whole, 2.5-3/5 (as with most of the DC live action shows, due to production quality, story writing, acting)

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  • 3 weeks later...

  

3 hours ago, Ish said:

Vaguely disappointed to learn that Super Bowl LIV has nothing to do with iZombie.


Just reminded me, I finished season 1 last night. Great show. Liv really reminds me of Buffy Summers sometimes. I also have to say, I'm really impressed with some of the male characters. All too often, I find male characters tend to fall into archetypes, and some still kind of do here, like Blaine and Clive, but Ravi and Major are great characters who keep surprising me with how great they are.

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I felt the same way about Blaine and Major during the first season. I won’t spoil anything, but there is some major character growth for them (and everyone else, really) in the seasons to come.

The show knows it’s characters are filling certain narrative niches, but it isn’t afraid to subvert those archetypes and even the characters that stick to their archetype tend to do it in a more interesting way than most tv shows. Rob Thomas did much the same in Veronica Mars.

Fantastic series, overall. If you’re a fan of shows like Buffy or Angel, you’ll dig iZombie.

I’ve been a fan of Rose McIver for years and iZombie really let her show her range as an actress. I’m hoping she gets more attention.

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8 hours ago, Ish said:

I’ve been a fan of Rose McIver for years and iZombie really let her show her range as an actress. I’m hoping she gets more attention.

That's really one of the main selling points. She practically becomes a different character in each episode. Reminds me of TMas in Orphan Black. Great work, very fun to watch.

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Re-watching Highlander: The Series for the first time in forever. It’s cheesy, it’s melodramatic, it’s rife with historical inaccuracies, and it relies extremely heavily on the same three neighborhoods of Vancouver, BC pretending to be areas all around the world... But damn do I love it.

Bonus Nerd Point: The second episode has a Games Workshop store in it that’s plot relevant!
 

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Ahh, man... So I mentioned above that I recently started re-watching Highlander. Just a few minutes ago, I looked up the Wikipedia entry on Stan Kirsch – who played MacLeod’s protege and served as the audience POV character – to see if he’d been in anything else.

Turns out he committed suicide just a few weeks ago. 

I never knew the guy, obviously, nor do I know all that much about his life or work outside of Highlander. But when I was ten years old, I thought that Richie Ryan was absolutely the coolest dude on earth (apart from Duncan) and totally idolized the guy. He was smart, sarcastic, raced motorcycles, hung out with immortals, and got all the babes... Up to and including Joan Jett in her prime, man.

Stan, we barely knew ya, but I’m sad to see you go.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Altered Carbon S2 - The sophomore slump is alive and well! - 6/10

I knew based on how much I loved season 1, some level of disappointment was coming in season 2. That level was measurable, but not overbearing (like True Detectives.) I finished the season and found I had more complaints that praises. Without giving away anything, I will say that there was just too much effort made in looking back that looking forward.

I am looking forward to see if season 3 brings redemption or death to this series. 

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On 2/28/2020 at 10:23 AM, Yarbicus said:

Episode 5 of Altered Carbon s2 and I'm out. 

 

1 hour ago, evil_bryan said:

I am looking forward to see if season 3 brings redemption or death to this series. 

Out of curiosity, have either of you read the books?  I have not, but it seems as though they are staying pretty faithful to source material.

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On 3/1/2020 at 12:51 PM, InfestedKerrigan said:

 

Out of curiosity, have either of you read the books?  I have not, but it seems as though they are staying pretty faithful to source material.

I have. S1 was mostly the first book with a mishmash of the other books with a massively altered ending.

S2 has almost nothing to do with the books. 

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