Speak Up Saturday

[misbegotten]

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?

Comments

[jo]

I feel as if I've mostly watched tennis, tennis and more tennis, what with the US Open in full swing. And also some baseball. But after thinking about it, I did watch some non-sports:

Three Body Problem -- my husband and I FINALLY finished watching this -- the last two episodes. Really enjoyed it.

Homicide: Life on the Street: still on season 1, also very much enjoying it.

The Ark: I was a couple of episodes behind with season 2, but I'm caught up now.

Who Do You Think You Are?: I love genealogy shows, and there's a new series of the UK one, so caught up with that.

KAOS: I didn't really want to start this one right away because I have other shows I need to finish first, but I did watch the first episode and enjoyed it very much.

I need to finish Vikings Valhalla, The Jetty, and Bad Monkey (don't think all the eps have dropped yet for this one).

I am looking forward to series 2 of Sherwood (waiting until I have all the eps). And was quite intrigued by the news that there might indeed be a season 4 of Ted Lasso at some point in the future...

[feurioo]

I watched lots of good stuff this week!

DNA Lover: After they introduced a priest as a character and kept talking about pregnancy being something between a husband and a wife, it just struck me as more conservative than I'd like. Dropping this for now.

The Frog: Very stylish and atmospheric. I guess, you really have to appreciate the vibe of this show. Otherwise, you'll think they could've told the same story in five or six episodes. My main disappointment: I wish Lee Jung-eun's character could've been brilliant when it mattered. Throughout the show, she was characterized as a person with a keen investigative sense but I never really saw that brilliance properly realized on-screen.

Love Next Door: Cute first episode. I'm not a friends-to-lovers fan but I dig the antagonistic vibe between the leads. So far, I also like the ML more than the FL lead -- which rarely happens. Just loved his introductory scene with the funeral director!

No Gain, No Love: Fake dating is one of my favorite tropes and I cannot wait to see how this show does it. I liked everything about the first two episodes: A calculating, cold FL, a goody-two-shoes ML who likes to bicker with our FL, the foster family relationship between FL and her two sisters (one of them the 2FL, who is a romance web novel writer), and the 2ML, a chaebol heir, who is in an odd office war with his male secretary.

Only Murders in the Building S4: Dropped the last season because I couldn't stand it. However, the new season started on a super funny note and I finally remember what I loved about this show in the first place.

Sidenote: I'm so sad that Renegade Nell (see icon) was canceled. The news has been out for a while but when I looked it up a couple of weeks ago, the producers still sounded excited about a second season. It had so much potential! And even if it hadn't developed into a sapphic direction (see icon, but there's also another lady who could excite Katie McGrath!Morgana lovers), I still would have cheered for the potential F/M couple simply because I adored the actors and their chemistry. Hell, if there hadn't been any romantic storyline, I would have been fine with it for the strong family relationship between the three sisters. All in all, it is a huge waste. I'm sure this show would have found its audience if properly advertised.

On my to-watch list: Represent, Kaos, Cinderella's Curse (2024 horror movie)

I'm really excited about Cinderella's Curse because the trailer makes it look like a perfectly trashy B movie. There's another 2024 Cinderella horror movie, Cinderella's Revenge, which I will check out later.

[shadowkat]

Finished "The Magicians" yesterday. That turned out to be a good series. The first two seasons are somewhat problematic, but Seasons 3-5 are playful and rather innovative, also they really subvert some die-hard fantasy tropes here, including ones that are apparently in the books. Hint? Quentin the protagonist in the books isn't the lead protagonist in the series, that's kind of split between an ensemble. I was surprised by it.

Now, flirting with Into the Bad Lands. I'm kind of in between series at the moment. There's a few I need to finish, 3 Body Problem, Scavenger's Reign, the Ark...but I'm not sure if I will. Also Only Murders in the Building - still haven't made it through S3, and I think we're on S4 now? It keeps threatening to end, but gets stretched out for another season, while other shows I like better get cancelled. Television remains as ever unpredictable.

[yourlibrarian]

I saw E3 of Quirke, as Colin Morgan guested on it. It was sufficient to clue me into the overall plot, which was somewhat interesting but not enough for me to watch the whole thing.

I did see all the episodes of Catch me a killer. It was about the first police profiler in South Africa, all true stories apparently. The show noted at the end that South Africa was the country with the second highest rate of serial killers. It didn't mention the first, and my first instinct was to suspect it was the U.S. However it was astonishing how many concurrent serial killers they had there and the ghastly amount of deaths (usually dozens). I don't think mass shootings count as serial killings, though if they do I imagine the U.S. would be first.

Saw all of Good ship Murder which I watched mostly because I enjoy cruises and thought there would be a lot about the boat and travel. And to be fair there was a good bit of this, with each episode taking place in a different port. However the show just didn't grab me. If it comes back for a S2 I don't think I'll watch it.

Saw all of Jamaica Inn which had some twists in the story but ultimately just came off as dreary and depressing.

Have started The Commander and will give it a go as it seems each season is just 2 episodes.

Have also been watching Inspector Lynley. I made a post this week about the issue of adaptations. While so far I have preferred the TV episodes to the books, there was one episode in S3 where I felt there was a lot missing from the book and a 2 episode treatment would have been better. Also, I could have sworn the book had a different killer and I wondered if it was changed to make the TV series more palatable to viewers.

[china_shop]

Still watching For All Mankind, which continues to be good, but we got slightly diverted into Bad Monkey, which is a black comedy crime drama based on a Carl Hiaasen novel. It's set in Florida and the Bahamas, full of weirdness. I'm enjoying it.

Finished Strange Planet, which was sweet and observational, and have watched one episode of the Australian dark comedy drama, Totally Completely Fine -- not sure yet whether we'll continue with that.

And in Kdramas, I'm still watching Love Next Door and a little more Romance in the House.

[makamu]

I am slowly making my way through Outlander , and I am surprised by how much I enjoy the latter seasons (I'm halfway through season four right now), considering that the fannish discourse on Reddit made it sound like they are the worst thing ever (but then again, the discourse I have seen for that fandom so far has weirded me out a lot). Sure, sometimes the romance tropes get a bit much for this "not really into romance novels" person, but I knew the genre going in, and it helps me get a better picture of what tropes I do like in what form.

I have also very casually begun watching 9-1-1 (I'm on episode four of the first series), and so far I like all the characters, though Hen is my favourite so far.

And although it has already been two months since I watched it, Turn: Washington's Spies has completely eaten my brain and shocked my writing muses awake. I'm hip-deep in historical research for it, and for the first time in a decade a pairing grabbed me round the throat and forced me to write them. So I'm sitting here, basically plotting out an alt!history series set in the Early American Republic *sighs* Help?

[valoise]

The Umbrella Academy - In my bingy rewatch I've finished season 3. It's interesting how many little details I'd forgotten, including one that hints at something important in season 4.

Time Bandits - I finished it, but the ending felt a bit flat.

Sunny - One advantage of series that drop one episode a week is they are easy to keep up with. I'm still enjoying this.

Rick and Morty: the Anime - It's strange, I had been so looking forward to seeing the franchise through the lens of Japanese writers/directors/animators. But they've created something that feels slow and serious, two things the original series absolutely was not. I'll probably finish it, but it's totally not what I expected.

And I've squeezed in a few episodes of Pointless and Star Trek: Voyager.

[tinny]

Another week of vacation, and I didn't have time to watch much. I watched two eps of 4 Minutes (now on ep 6 of 8 and the reveal of the main conceit). I love it! Also great (although quite a bit embarrassment-squicky) are the cast episode reaction videos (on youtube). The first three have now been subtitled. The fourth one actually takes place in a movie theatre, with a bunch (100? 200?) of all-female fans watching the episode with them and afterwards asking questions. Omg I wouldn't even want to be one of those fans, let alone stand before them on a stage and answer embarrassing questions about my sex scenes (I don't know what they're asking yet, I have to wait for the subs, but eeeeeek).

I also watched two more eps of Meet You At The Blossom, now on ep 9 of 12, and it's looking good. I also still like that.

I rewatched the episodes of To Ship Someone I saw without sound last week, as planned - and one more, so I'm now around 21 of 24. Also hopeful for a good ending there.

I just read today that there's a new Bai Yu show out (called "Bank On Me" - it's about banking...), and I'm planning on watching that.

I also read today (here) that there's a third season of Someone Somewhere out, and the rec intrigued me, so I watched the first episode and I like it so far. I'm likely going to keep watching that.