tv_talk | Speak Up Saturday

I watched (in order of enjoyment):
- Taskmaster AU S4: I never want it to end!
- The Devil's Plan: Death Room. I was surprised about Justin Min (Umbrella Academy) as a contestant. Really curious about the secret challenges.
- Drunter und Drüber: An Austrian cemetery comedy on Prime Video. Funny!
- Taskmaster UK S19: The new cast hasn't yet clicked for me.
- The Four Seasons: Not sure if I will ever check out the season finale.
- Parallel Me: A German show about a woman finding herself by traveling through different parallel universes. Watched the first episode, but I'm not intrigued enough to check out the second one.

Movies (in order of enjoyment):
- Thunderbolts: I'm not a Marvel fan, but this was a perfectly enjoyable popcorn movie.
- Late Night with the Devil: Liked the movie's vibe, but the story was unfortunately very thin.

Edited 2025-05-10 19:24 (UTC)

The only new show I started this past week was the second season of Malpractice (ITV). This time, it's about a well-intentioned but shifty psychiatric registrar, Dr James Ford. Ford is distracted by his phone when a struggling mother comes in for a postnatal checkup and is later involved with the sectioning of a patient. But by the end of the day a tragedy happens, and all of his decisions about the two patients are scrutinized – while he appears to be hiding a secret.

Otherwise, it was the usual weekly installments of various things: Leverage, Will Trent, FBI, Portrait Artist of the Year, Landscape Artist of the Year... And sports of course.

The only thing I am really really looking forward to this week is, of course, Murderbot. I watched an "Inside Look" thing on Apple TV's youtube channel and that just made me more excited about it. There's also season 4 of Welcome to Wrexham premiering this week, but I was a bit disappointed by season 3 (mostly by how short it was compared to the first two seasons), so we'll see how this one goes.

Having run through the one episode of Jeopardy Champions and a little more of the others I'd found, I ended up on Roku's Game Show channel. There are a lot of fun games there, the drawback being that it's a live broadcast so no pausing rewinds, etc. no picking which to watch and of course there are commercials. But I've seen four different shows now and they're all good to play along with.

Am caught up on Andor which, while I felt it had a slow start that could have done more in the first arc, turned as gripping as anything anyone could hope to see. I don't know how the final arc will top that to end the series but am looking forward to finding out.

Otherwise I'm about to wrap up L.A. Law, am now on S2 of Brokenwood Mysteries, saw a few more episodes of Unlikely Animal Friends and Life in Zambia, and am current on Daily Show and Late Show.

The only new starts this week were Miss Austen (we're on episode 2) which is excellent timing as I'm 300 pages into a P&P fanfic, and Stolen Girl which I am current on.

Can you tell me more about this P&P fic? I'm intrigued. :D

I never seem to remember the name or author of anything I read so went to look it up. It's An Ever-Fixed Mark by AMarguerite (on AO3). Still have 200 pages to go so it may end up like many long fics by being overextended and recursive, but the first 200 pages were excellently done.

We've been watching High Potential. My favorite parts are when Morgan explains to someone how your brain can run amok and what you can do about that.

The Four Seasons: Not sure if I will ever check out the season finale.

Oh, was it that bad? Boo.

We finished Tale of the Nine Tailed (the ending didn't work as well for me this time, but it's still a really fun show), and we're watching Doctor Who (this season feels very uneven; I want so much to like it more than I do), and Population: 11 (a black comedy about a tiiiiiny town in the Australian outback). We're also watching Sherlock & Daughter, but we haven't caught up with the latest episode yet.

In movies, we watched Rosecrantz & Gildenstern Are Dead, which made me giggle a lot, and Uproar, a really excellent New Zealand movie about a 17yo Māori kid wrestling with identity issues in a sea of racism. It's set in 1981 against a backdrop of widespread anti-apartheid/anti-racism protests because the South African rugby team were touring here.

Hee, I don't actually remember what she suggested, I only know the French Morgane stays up all night watching documentaries. :D

I think the US version isn't quite as extravagant as the French one and thus more relatable on the actual high IQ stuff. I also very much liked the episode where she talks to her son about it.

Have you seen the French original, HPI? It's more of a comedy, but an excellent one.

HPI season 5 premiere is nearing! \o/\o/\o/ I have managed to contact (tentatively make friends with) a French fan of the show, and hope I'll be able to get the new eps from them. It turns out that Belgium and Switzerland are airing the first two eps on Monday already, where I thought I had time until the French premiere on Thursday. Huh! It's always so exciting to wait for a season premiere. I'd forgotten how exhausting it is, too.

I got sucked into The Pitt this week and watched all of it - just finished it yesterday. Phew! So good! I still maintain that the one-day format detracts from my enjoyment of character development, but they did a really good job letting us get to know the characters despite that restriction. I liked all of them in the end, even Langdon. I think my faves were the abrasive women, Santos and McKay. I was happy (not happy) to have predicted what was going to happen in the evening eps, as I'm usually not good at picking up on foreshadowing. I blame it on them being very very obvious. :D Now on to the fic! (I will take recs if you have them.)

I also saw a documentary called Ice Grave at the theater this week, since there's a festival going on here. It's (another) version of the famous Swedish North Pole expedition in a hydrogen balloon in 1897. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e%27s_Arctic_balloon_expedition . I can't honestly recommend it, but it was well done and pretty immersive, put together mostly from the photographs taken by one of the three expedition members, and underscored by the absolutely beautiful saxophone score that was apparently played in real time for the whole duration of the movie (from this artist, Bendik Giske, and it sounded very much like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OQfk5HUN-Q). I couldn't find any more information on it online anywhere, and the version we saw looked kind of unfinished. I don't think it has an international release yet.

I rewatched Whitechapel. Too bloody for me, I have to look away sometimes but Phil Davis!
I'm rewatching New Tricks.
The newest series of Taskmaster. Very enjoyable. Look forward to it.
I can't make myself watch The Last of Us because, you know.

It's been a while since I saw it but Whitechapel had a good cast.

I have not seen the French original.

I'm a big Marvel fan and Thunderbolts* was really good. Finally. So many recently have been bad.

I binged Ransom Canyon. It was a slow burn but I enjoyed it. And dang some of those cowboys were worth the watch.

I also watched The Palma on Netflix. It was kind of like watching a disaster movie. It was enjoyable enough.

Honestly, I need some fun movies or disaster movies to watch. Suggestions?

Oh, was it that bad? Boo.

No, it was mainly a plot development that I didn't appreciate. :)

I'm afraid I don't have any viewing suggestions coming to mind but I wanted to mention your icon amused me!

No problem. Thanks. You are welcome to snag it but I have no idea who made it. I grabbed it years ago and lost that information is moving icons constantly. I try to add the maker to the file name when I save it but I guess not that one.

Ah, okay. Thanks!

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