Speak Up Saturday

[feurioo]

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

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[jo]

This was week two of Wimbledon, so lots of tennis, but less than the previous week, obviously. But in terms of non-sports watching...

I started watching Ballard (Prime), a Harry Bosch spin-off about a cold-case detective. Am enjoying it, and Harry Bosch appears in it, so that's fun.

I continued watching Silo season 2, Smoke, and the season finales of Murderbot and Criminal Minds.

Earlier in the week, we learned that actor Julian McMahon passed away. All of the online obits I read failed to mention the main show I knew him from -- Profiler, a series I absolutely adored when it originally aired in the late 1990s. Made me want to see it again, and I managed to find a torrent for season 1. However, the quality is pretty poor, both visually as well as the audio -- really muddled sound. I've watched the first few episodes but not sure I'll continue due to the poor quality of the rips. Not sure what the source was, definitely not DVD.

There is really only one thing I am excited about this week -- the return of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds!

[feurioo]

I watched:
Death Note: Thought it was excellent until one particular plot development. Still a great show.
Murderbot: Loved the season finale!
K-Pop Demon Hunters: A cute, little movie. I wish there had been more plot, but the music is solid.
The Summer Hikaru Died: Queer horror anime with an intriguing first episode. I can't wait to watch more!
Too Much: I watched one episode and thought it was neither charming nor funny.

I'm looking forward to the new K-drama S Line. (To whom it may concern: I will try to get the K-drama post for July up tomorrow!) Edit: Managed to watch the first S Line episode and I liked it a lot.

[violateraindrop]

I loved the first season of The Sandman and even re-watched it before S2. The first six episodes of S2 were definitely not as great. I found some of it boring and the characters underutilized. I also just wasn't interested in the Nada story line, so the first three episodes were kinda pointless to me.
Some of it was also kinda cheesy/cringey? Like, there were some shoehorned-in group shots of all the Endless when in S1 they were these mysterious entities you don't get to see often. In S1 they would not have appeared for the wedding of Dream's son. Maybe that's just me, but it cheapens their impact a bit.
The trans story line was also a bit weird. Were we supposed to infer from that that Dream is a good guy after all? I like the intention behind it, but the execution was a bit clumsy. Apparently, the character is from the source material. I have no idea how that played out. With a little bit more time than an episode, it might have worked better.
I get how people might not like Delirium or think of her as annoying, but I thought she was a good addition. She works well opposite gloomy Dream. I'd love to see her realm though.
There are still five regular episodes and one special episode left, but I feel like we won't see all the characters again that Dream said his goodbyes to when he visited Hell which is s shame because I feel like the show could have done more with Hob and Rose/Lyta.

Before S2 I also watched Dead Boy Detectives for the first time since they are set in the same universe. With both shows there's the Neil Gaiman of it all, but you know, there are other ways to watch shows. Anyway, I also loved that. It ends on a cliffhanger though and I feel like this really needed a second season. It reminded me of Lockwood & Co., although the horror element was not as strong. I guess in a way Dead Boy Detectives was more what I expected Lockwood & Co. to be lol
The title sequence is silly fun which I did not expect from a show set in the Sandman universe. The tone of the show is very different, but it still makes sense that this is the same universe, but from the POV of two dead teenagers that solve ghost crimes. I would have loved to see them cross paths with more Sandman characters :/

Murderbot was renewed just after the S1 finale. I really enjoyed the season. It felt different, the humor, the whole vibe. The episodes were too short though, with a rather long title sequence. Maybe they'll change that around a bit for S2 which probably also depends on the source material (which I haven't read). The finale was weirdly emotional. I didn't expect that. It wasn't bad though ;)

I didn't see the twist in the season finale of Poker Face coming. Made sense though, I think. I'm not mad at it lol
A couple of episodes in I said that I didn't like this season as much as the first one, but I was genuinely looking forward to every episode. Maybe it wasn't as good as S1, maybe the novelty has just worn off, maybe my expectations were too high. I still really liked. It hasn't been renewed yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Amazon finally announced a date (August 25) for the start of the last season of Upload. It feels as if there were always ages between the seasons.

[olivermoss]

The final season of Foundation has started and I'm watching that. Really glad to see a show having a full run!

I still need to finish Murderbot, because for some reason watching the show via Amazon it keeps getting really quiet. I need to charge my headphone for volume control.

I am watching Countdown. It feels like a show from 10, 20 years ago and maybe that's what they are going for?

I watched a bit of The Crowded Room. I might finish it later. It's interesting, but not what I am looking for right now. Also, might wait to see what reaction to the full season are like before diving in because of limited time.

[starfleetbrat]

I finished my rewatch of Rizzoli & Isles which I loved. Genuinely sad that there aren't more episodes.

Ballard - watched S1 and it was fine. Nothing special, but I would watch a S2 if one came into existence.

The Cleaner - binged all three seasons of this uk show and it was great. I'd seen S1 before, but not S2 or S3. So funny.

Finale of Criminal Minds - I was kinda eh about it tbh. I was a bit confused by the sympathy the team had for Voit, I mean sure, he has empathy now, but he was still a serial killer who ran a fan club for other serial killers who killed pretty much on his orders. So, seriously wtf team.

Murderbot finale was good, but still too short. I feel like I am just settling in to watch it when it ends. I've read a few of the books, not all of them, but it was back when they first came out and I can't remember what happens so I'm debating rereading them and continuing with the ones I haven't read. Not sure if I want to spoil myself for it though. Are the books better?

otherwise I haven't watched much new, there isn't a lot airing right now at all, and I find myself looking for old things to put on to fill the void at night lol if anyone has any recs for more obscure things let me know.

looking forward to S11 of The Great British Sewing Bee this week, and Star Trek Strange New Worlds S3

[yourlibrarian]

I've been watching a bunch of things on Max, mostly biographies. I found the Jaws 50 year anniversary documentary interesting as, while I remember the film I've never seen it.

In bios I finished Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed which was a fair amount of surface stuff. Someone really enjoyed going through all his work and cutting together pieces that hinted at his secret life. Rather better was the doc on Jayne Mansfield that Mariska Hargitay created. It focused to some degree on Mansfield but also on Hargitay's journey of self-discovery, as she has no memories of her mother. I hadn't realized she and her brothers were in the fatal car crash. But probably my biggest surprise was that someone in the family kept paying for a storage unit for 50 years!

I started watching the doc on MS magazine but it just got too upsetting to continue. I was, however, fascinated by the section where they discuss how much the magazine relied on reader letters, and termed the magazine "a portable friend" because of the way it allowed like minded women to connect with one another.

Also finished Elizabeth Taylor The Lost Tapes, which while using journalist recordings to narrate the story didn't provide anything particularly novel in it past a few stories about life as a child actor.

Continued with Hacks but am not sure I'll finish it. Still partway through Robin Williams Inside my Mind, which adds some things to what I knew about his early years.

In movies, saw Shazam fury of the gods which was pretty meh, as it just seemed rather predictable. Also watched Traitor which was a lot more interesting in terms of the undercover spy story. Also saw the Batman Lego movie which was 30 minutes too long (tedious final battle section) but was otherwise entertaining, particularly in all its pop culture references.

Watched Penguin which was so well written. Plan to say more about it separately. It made me go back to Gotham season 4 which just reminds me of why I stopped watching. I may jump ahead to later in S5.

[china_shop]

I can't remember when I last checked in here (kept meaning to!), but I'll just list for the last week or two:

We finished Murderbot, and I mean to watch the whole thing through at some point, probably in a month. We finished Poker Face, which was very silly but fun. Relies super heavily on Natasha Lyons' charisma and having fun guest stars.

We're most of the way through Étoile season 1, and I have mixed feelings about it but plan to finish the season.

Also watching Turning Point: The Vietnam War (Netflix), which is super interesting. Recommend!

We've watched the first episode of season 2 of Hannah Fry's The Secret Genius of Modern Life, and last night we watched a handful of episodes of Bluey, which is ridiculously adorable.

In Kdramas, I finished Our Unwritten Seoul, which was so good, My Dearest Nemesis, which was thinner but I enjoyed it immensely, and am halfway through the first episode of First Night with the Duke or whatever it's called. :-)

ETA: Oh, and we watched Ghosted on Apple TV+, a spy/romcom with Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The reviews are terrible, and it was indeed very very silly, but we watched it on its own terms and enjoyed it tremendously. Some laugh-out-loud moments. A+ popcorn movie! (The trailer is VERY spoilery, ftr.)

[tinny]

I was very busy, so no tv watching happened last week at all.

This week, I caught up and watched the remaining eps of Murderbot, and I must say I loved it overall. I'd been a bit worried about how far they strayed from the book plot in the middle, but they found their way back and really stuck the landing. They've also been renewed for season 2, so that's great.

I otherwise did not watch much, one watchalong is on pause, the other is mid-North of North. All good so far.

I watched a few more eps of The First Night With The Duke, still not very interesting, but I was busy, tired, and didn't want to watch anything important. And I am enjoying Taecyeon's face. I hope to be more awake again soon so I can watch actual good stuff.

Oh, and I went to a movie premiere during a festival last week. #schwarzeschafe, a German comedy. The trailers on youtube are very weird, but still don't manage to really capture the weird vibe of the film. It's about a few people in Berlin who each stumble into their own crisis. I found it very poignant and funny. It comes to theatres this Thursday, and I can definitely rec it.