tv_talk | Speak Up Saturday

This was a true crime documentary week for me! I watched American Nightmare and Lover Stalker Killer. Both on Netflix and with some wild wild twists.

I’m still watching True Detective: Night Country weekly. The last episode had some heartbreaking moments and I’m glad they’re leaning into the spooky elements.

And then there’s Masters of the Air… to say it’s a disappointment would be an understatement.

Sorry to hear about Masters of the Air - I was looking forward to it because of Austin Butler.

Agreed on True Detective: Night Country. (Although I think I figured out what happened, but that just makes it more intriguing to me. It's kind of a mix of Native American Ghost Story/Folklore and Science Fiction Horror.)

I'm a huge fan of Band of Brothers and The Pacific, and so had very high expectations for MotA. The show s not meeting them, sadly :/

(Although I think I figured out what happened, but that just makes it more intriguing to me. It's kind of a mix of Native American Ghost Story/Folklore and Science Fiction Horror.)
Same! I have an idea of what's going on, but I'm still so invested to see how they'll explain it all. The folklore bits in relation to the ghost stories are also excellent :D

Yeah, I was looking forward to it for the same reason.

Almost through with Episode 5 of Night Country. Although, Max has the worst interface. It won't let me rewind or fast forward without crashing. I had to restart completely. And lost the last five minutes of episode 4 (not a big problem - they recapped at the beginning of episode 5).

I just finished episode 5 and I need the season finale! MAX also doesn't work properly for me. Whenever I pause and click 'play' again, it logs me off the thing. They should work on fixing that.

Same. If I pause and click play - it kicks me out. If I rewind - it crashes. If I fast-forward it crashes. Whomever programmed it - clearly doesn't understand the whole point of streaming.

I need the finale too. I'm convincing myself to wait and watch it next Thursday or Friday, and not tonight, because I need to get up early tomorrow for work.

Damn episode 5 was good. My jaw dropped at the closer of that episode. I really should have seen that coming, but I hadn't been paying close enough attention to it. So got surprised.

Whomever programmed it - clearly doesn't understand the whole point of streaming.
Why make things easy if they can annoy their entire user base tbh

IT WAS SO GOOD! I was also so shocked at what happened because I didn't think they would go that far? Which doesn't make much sense since this is True Detective. I can't wait to find out how it all wraps up.

You are far from the only one I have seen disappointed with Masters. I haven't seen it -- what is wrong with it?

Going to put this behind a cut in case someone is worried about spoilers.

here.

I wasn't a fan at all of the homophobic jokes in the first episode. It was like they were trying very hard to establish there were No Homos anywhere near here. It wasn't good.

And personally, I don't think they spent enough time introducing the audience to any of the characters? With a few exceptions, they all look/sound the same. I have little to no connection with any of them. Also don't appreciate how all women here are basically treated as sexual objects.

And they're making some weird choices in regard to plot and pace by which I mean some episodes are cut in weird ways and there is almost no story to follow. There's some confusion about who's who and who did what and what's going on due to both of those things.

How disappointing.

Thanks for the rundown on this. I'd been curious, but this adds up to a pass from me.

You're welcome! And yeah, at least you'll save yourself the frustration.

I've been watching

Boy Swallows Universe
"In 1980s Brisbane, a precocious boy and his selectively mute brother embark on a suburban odyssey of love, redemption, and retribution after their family is torn apart by a drug lord"

The Weekly with Charlie Pickering
"Aussie comedian Charlie Pickering takes a satirical look at the week's current affairs from politics to vaccinations. Features regular guest appearances by comedians like Kitty Flanagan and Tom Gleeson"

and

Australia's Favourite Tree
A documentary about different Australian trees, and the role that they play in the ecosystems

I watched Severance last week and absolutely loved it. I can't remember the last time I was this excited about an ongoing show; I'm already so impatient for the second season!

For the benefit of anyone who, like me, was getting it confused with Succession: Severance is a show about characters whose memories are divided between work and home. When you're at home, you remember your home life, but you have no idea what you do at work. When you're at work, all you remember is work. Where were you born? Do you have family; do you have friends outside this place? You don't know; all you can remember is work, and this office, and a handful of colleagues who know as much about the outside world as you do. You've essentially been divided into two separate people, and one of them is living a life of intense confinement and isolation.

The concept is so interesting, and in many ways it feels specifically tailored to my tastes; I should have watched it earlier! It blends two of my absolute favourite themes in fiction, 'weird memory issues' and 'characters developing intense relationships while isolated together in strange circumstances'.

I really like the tonal balance the show strikes, too. It's dark and it's weird, but it doesn't feel bleak; there's humour and heart and humanity there.

What a show. I've had a great time. I've written two fics already and I'd love to write more, but I can see why there's not a huge amount of fanfiction for it; it's hard to come up with workable concepts when the characters' lives are so strange and restricted!

Severence was soooo good! I can't wait for more either.

I also watched Severance, but what I wanted to comment on is how there are now so many shows available (past, present, international) that I have found it increasingly easy to confuse show titles or to simply not remember them.

It can be a real challenge! Particularly when you're faced with two different shows airing at the same time, both of which a) are American dramas, b) centre on a corporation, and c) have a three-syllable word starting with S as the title. When I first posted to my journal about Severance, I got four different comments from people who'd also been confusing it with Succession.

Still, at least they're easier to distinguish than The Outer Worlds and Outer Wilds, two completely different space-based games that came out on PS4 within ten days of each other. It took me a month and a half to realise they weren't the same thing.

Heh, and to make things even MORE confusing we now have all sort of movie and TV adaptations of games as well.

Jumping between a couple of different shows in order to distract myself from feeling depressed.

Decided to drop True Detective because it does absolutely nothing for me. Watched the first two episodes of House because it's finally available to stream again. Pure nostalgia. Revisited the Ted Lasso pilot. Glimpsed into A Killer Paradox but gave up after twenty minutes (will try again). Currently watching An Incurable Case of Love because I need a fun, formulaic rom-com.

On the movie front: Watched Upgraded and it was the blandest thing I've seen in a while.

Same here with True Detective. Should have just called it Night Country and released it under its own umbrella and saved itself some very bad press. The peripheral characters are interesting, the main are not.

House, M.D. is one of those shows...that can be endlessly rewatched, imo. Laurie is simply a joy to watch work and even through the off seasons, the show compels.

Agree re Upgraded. Also, there is no way anyone in that film wouldn't have just googled her. the whole thing would have resolved in about 30 seconds irl lol

The resurgence of House M.D. has been such a blessing, a pleasant surprise that people in fannish spaces are rewatching or just discovering it.

Oh, there's a resurgence? I noticed a couple of newer fics on AO3 but I didn't know that it was an actual trend. I remember lurking on

house_wilson on LJ back in the day, so this news fills me with joy!

Yeah! I've mostly seen this resurgence on Tumblr, so I'm not sure how widespread it actually is across the board, but House has gotten a lot of attention from people over there. It's been amusing watching people's reactions to the show who have never seen it before, lol. It's great.

For an older series, "My mom wouldn't let me watch that when I was in middle school!" is a meaningful statement when uttered by someone who is now 23.

moar hockey! there are back-to-back games today, one my beloved Caps this afternoon, so I'll be indulging more than I've been doing most weeks lately

I watched the new Quantum Leap. Don't think I saw anything else. Mostly waiting for new shows to manifest. Leverage is filming. New Librarians is filming or will be soon. Stranger Things is filming.

Yeah, I think a lot of shows are delayed because of the strikes that happened last year and are filming now. So some probably won't start airing until late 2024 at the earliest, 2025/2026 at the latest.

Yeah, and they rolled out what content they had slowly to try to smooth over the gap in making new stuff. So it's been a slow dribble for a while. Both covid and strikes disrupted a lot, for good reason, but yeah, it will take some time

Finished Wednesday and Queen Charlotte. On the last episode of Bodies. Am several episodes into Collateral. Watched all of Kaleidoscope (some of it out of order) but wasn't very taken with it (how would it have a S2?) Started S2 of Lincoln Lawyer and S1 of FUBAR, finding it rather so-so. It's too bad because on paper it sounds like it would be fun but somehow it's just kind of blah.

How was Bodies? I'm still flirting with it.

Honestly, I'm not very taken with it. I've been watching it with my partner and I think he was more interested than I was. But we'll see once we finish this episode (maybe tonight).

Oh, how disappointing. I'm leery because not a fan of the whole time travel aspect. But it does look intriguing.

I don't think I watched much this week in terms of tv shows. Just the normal weekly things and nothing was really stand out.

oh, I did watch S1 of Darby & Joan which is an Australian mystery thing thats a couple of years old now I think. I think its on AcornTV outside of Australia, on iview within. About an English widow who is travelling in a campervan around Australia trying to find out what happened to her husband (who was in Australia for reasons unknown), and she meets a retired police Detective who travels with her. They solve a mystery every ep and learn more about her husband and the ex-cops past etc. Its very light and comedic. Probably falls under the Cozy Mystery genre.
trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckEePbI4R4Y

This week coming up, I'm anticipating a new show Tracker, and NCIS shows are back and the FBI shows. So help me Todd and Ghosts S3 (US).

1. Fargo S5 - with Juno Tempo and Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I finished it today. It's streaming on Hulu. It focuses on domestic violence. And is kind of a satirical take on the true crime genre. (Not a fan of true crime for reasons I won't go into here - but I like Fargo.)

2. True Detective: Night Country - this is hard to watch because it is on MAX, and MAX has the worst interface of all the streaming services. You can't fast forward or rewind. I did. It crashed. And I had to restart from the beginning. So as a streaming service? MAX sucks beans.

However, the story has its moments. The dialogue is clunky in places. But the characters are interesting, the actors are top notch, and I like the mix of Native American Ghost/Folklore Magical Surrealism and Sci-Fi Horror. It does have a strong political bent. And references some of the mysticism from S1.

3. Ted Lasso - Apple TV - much better interface. Actually Apple has the best of the interfaces out there. And Ted Lasso is a kind of a feel good sitcom, with likable characters. My fav is Rebecca.
I mostly watch for Rebecca, the owner of the football club. (Also Anthony Stewart Head plays the villain, her ex. Rupert.)

4. Tried to watch Cheers reruns on Hulu, but that series does not hold up well. At all. You can tell it was 1980s, and not just based on the hair styles. Ugh. I loved it in 1981, when I was a teen and didn't know any better, now? I cringe. Not a series I can re-watch, unfortunately. I was looking for the episodes with the magician Harry the Hat, but alas could not find them.

I've been thinking of giving Fargo S5 a try. I don't need to have watched the other seasons, right?

It may actually be S4 - I may be wrong, and there isn't a S5 yet.

Correct. You do not have to watch the other seasons. It's an anthology series kind of similar to True Detective, but with more episodes and more humor. Fargo kind of bends towards satire and humor, while True Detective bends towards mystical and creepy. It is graphically violent. But if you can handle true crime and True Detective - you should be fine.

I liked the most recent season. But two trigger warnings: 1.) it's about domestic violence or survivors of it, and you do see it, and 2) while we don't see it? It's implied that the villain preyed on the female protagonist as a fifteen year old child. But it's not really shown - except with wooden puppets.

Thank you for the warnings! I think I only ever watched the first season... and I have no memory of it. I've heard good things about the most recent one and thought I'd check it out. Even more so now that I know it leans more towards humor and satire :D

I really disliked my Apple viewing experience on a Windows desktop. Looking forward to what you'll think about Rebecca's development throughout the series!

I can't watch it on computer. Television set - is about 55 inch. Computer is about 13 inch. I'd go blind if I tried on my labtop, plus it would kill my neck.

Rebecca's character is getting more and more interesting in S2. I didn't like her as much in S1, but I adore her in S2.

Mostly only Kdramas:

I finished a rewatch of Healer, which is one of my all-time favourites (action-romance, identity porn, feelings and morality in a world of journalism vs corruption, plus it's got a fantastic Clark Kent-Lois Lane-Superman type love triangle; not your typical Kdrama fluff). Netflix.

Started Sell Your Haunted House, in which a fantastically cranky exorcist/real estate agent teams up with a con artist/unwitting psychic to clear vengeful spirits out of buildings so they can sell them. It's really great so far. Netflix.

And I also started The King Loves, by the writer of Healer, which is a historical drama with a love triangle that I'm hoping will resolve into OT3ishness, and capable fighty female lead, and buckets of identity porn and palace politics/scheming. Viki.

Other than that, we watched Renfield, which was a fun gorefest, and then rewatched About a Boy for baby!Nicholas Hoult, which was better than I remembered.

Is "Sell Your Haunted House" reality based or fiction based? Also any relation to Surreal Estate?

Oh I loved Renfield. It is a fun gorefest - although the gore is kind of fake and hard to take all that seriously. The whole movie is a bit of a hoot.

It's fiction, a light horror drama. I haven't seen Surreal Estate, but they might be similar?

Agreed about the fake gore. I was glad of that, personally. ;-)

Sounds similar, except maybe a little darker and more clever? Thanks for the rec.

If you decide to give it a try, I hope you like it. :-)

Quantum Leap - Just got caught up to the most recent episodes. I'm not sure what's going on, relationship-wise, with this show - I'm so tired of the love triangle (quadrangle?) and I just want the characters to move on from it. Other than that, the show remains fun and not too serious.

True Detective: Night Country - The atmosphere on this show is so amazing, and is exactly my kind of suspense/horror. I was shocked by the events of the most recent episode. I think there's only 1 episode left?? I can't wait to see how they explain everything/wrap it all up next week.

Star Trek Enterprise - An old much-watched favorite, but I've been specifically rewatching all of the Andorian episodes. Vulcans are my favorite species on Trek and I enjoy this arc, which showcases the rocky history between Vulcan and Andoria. Also I love Shran. <3

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