Speak Up Saturday

[feurioo]

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

Comments

[wearing_tearing]

I'm pretty much only watching The Pitt S02 as episodes come out! There are some new faces this season and I'm still not sure how I feel about them. I've been enjoying the slow start of a shift and the cases we've seen so far, though, and am very very curious about what's going to happen to ramp things up.

[feurioo]

I have been watching:

Can this love be translated? Still need to watch the last two episodes, but I cannot bring myself to finish them. :x

True Blood: I'm now pretty much at the end of the second season. Couldn't care less about Sookie/Bill, S2's Big Bad, Bill's backstory, or any plots involving Jason. What I do/did like: Tara/Sam (I thought there was potential for both characters to grow), Jessica/Hoyt, vampire politics with Eric, and the few moments Lafayette gets to shine. I probably would have shipped Sookie and Eric hard back in the day, so now, at least I don't have any false hope...

[jo]

The highlight of this week was the final 3 episodes of series 4 of The Traitors UK, which were great, managing to remain stressful, edge-of-your-seat stuff right down to the very end. Love this show so much! (only the UK one mind you -- the Canadian one is meh, and I refuse to watch the US one because they don't have any civilian contestants)

Also this week, I was reminded last weekend of a Canadian cop show, Allegiance, that I had started to watch when it first aired back in... 2024?, but couldn't remember if I'd finished the first season, and I definitely hadn't watched anything since, yet the 3rd season was underway, at least here in Canada. So I found season 1 on CBC Gem, rewatched it (confirming I had not ever finished it), then watched season 2, and have caught up with season 3 as of this morning. It's actually pretty good. It's about rookie police officer, Sabrina Sohal, who works to exonerate her politician father after he is unexpectedly arrested for treason. As she navigates this personal and professional crisis, the police procedural explores themes of racism, class, privilege, and the complexities of the Canadian justice system. It's set in Surrey, BC, so has a very diverse cast. Funny side note -- one episode of the first season had one of the main dudes from Heated Rivalry in a minor role. He was... pretty cringe, but I couldn't tell if it was because the character was pretty cringe, or if it was the acting.

The rest of my viewing were the usual weekly eps of things. The Pitt season 2 is starting off quite slowly, but I think things are finally about to kick off, which, based on the trailer, involves a ransomware/cyber attack sort of thing that takes down their computer systems. Star Fleet Academy is still watchable, and I really love Holly Hunter's character, Chancellor Nahla Ake. Also, Will Trent, Saint Pierre (Allegiance is way better), Portrait Artist of the Year, and High Potential -- which I am finding more and more tedious, I have to say. And I've caught some early round matches of the Australian Open.

Now that The Traitors is done, and I'm all caught up with Allegiance, I have quite a few series waiting for me that I'm interested in checking out. Not sure which I'll try first, however. The list includes: Girl Taken, Steal, The Beauty, series 2 of After the Flood, Blackshore, and PONIES.

[violateraindrop]

I finished A Man on the Inside. I think the second half of the season was a bit better, a little bit more like the first season. I feel like they toned down the frequency of jokes and it was also more emotional, especially the finale. The second season also didn't end on a cliffhanger. They managed to bring back a couple of people from the first season which was nice.

spoilers for two pairings

I immediately thought that Didi hired Julie because she wanted to ask her out. Then they added that bit about Julie having a girlfriend in the past and finally, in the last episode, Didi asks for that date. I would have been very disappointed if I was wrong lol
Like I said in my comment last week, I wasn't a big fan of Charles and Mona. They never seemed like a good fit. So I'm glad that they broke up...

Finally, and only three weeks too late, I have finished Stranger Things. The last episode of the second batch was very emotional, but there was also so much explaining. Apparently Netflix wants it this way. I'm so happy that Mr. Clarke finally became part of the group. And wow, it was a huge group by the end. It made one of the most emotional scenes of the season kinda awkward.
The finale had a bit of everything what you'd expect to wrap up such a big show. There is the big fight that made me think "that looks expensive" and some good emotional character moments. I think they did a pretty good job of wrapping the show up. I've seen (and heard about) worse. That said, the epilogue at the end was a tad bit too long, but the show did that a couple of times, so that wasn't a big surprise.
Overall I still think that my expectations for this show were way too high. Maybe it was finally getting to it after ten years, but for such a pop culture phenomenon, it was not as good as I expected. Considering the big gaps between the seasons, I'm not sure I would have finished the show if I started it early/at any other point during its run.

I also finally watched KPop Demon Hunters. Again, very high expectations, but I think they were met? The music is catchy (even if not really my thing) and the animation is gorgeous. The plot is fine for an animated movie. I'm not exactly the target audience, so that's the way I watched and evaluated it.

[yourlibrarian]

It was nice to see Mr. Clarke get a bigger role alright, but yes, a huge group. Yet one person was left out of that finale which I found surprising. I guess it makes sense, as she was too recent to really fit into this big "everything we've gone through" sort of ending. But it stood out to me. And yes, the finish really did go on and on, but I can see why given all the characters and the way different age groups were at different points in their lives. And there's such a big fandom for the show, I'm sure they all wanted to see a goodbye for their favorites.

Yes, I wondered if Demon Hunters would disappoint given the enormous hype, but I was satisfied with it. I thought they did well, the pacing was pretty good. I'm never that big on the big CGI-style final battle scenes, but otherwise it was a good mix of characters, humor, and fight scenes.

[yourlibrarian]

Continued on with the weekly watches and finished the Dark Side of the 90s episodes with one on Robert Downey
and SNL.

Also finished S6 and S7 of Outlander, though I really only watched the first 2 eps of S6 before being fed up with all the trauma and skipping to the final episode of the season. I found S7 a much better watch.

Department Q was also a bit much in its first two episodes but I finished the season and liked where it ended up. I'll be curious to see a S2. Same with Three body problem which also has another season coming.

I tried 2.5 episodes of Dead Boy Detectives and decided it's just not for me.

Am currently partway through S1 of The Empress and almost finished with the current season of Bridgerton, though another will be arriving next week.

Watched a few episodes of House of Guinness, we'll see if I stick with it.

Watched 3 eps of The Residence and will finish it, perhaps this week. Also in S3 of The Diplomat, looking forward to more.

I was planning on a month of Netflix but will probably do a second one. I'm not sure we'll finish what we've got going this week, plus there are a few other shows I wanted to try out that I haven't gotten to yet.

[alchemicink]

I've been watching the new season (season 6) of Miss Scarlet on Masterpiece, which has been fine so far but not hitting the highs of previous seasons for me yet. I think most of the problem so far is cast turnover, because the newly introduced characters aren't nearly as interesting as the ones who left in the previous season. But I'll still stick it out and see how the rest of the episodes are.

I'm also watching Starfleet Academy and I'm loving it so far, to be honest. I just really like school settings 😅 and I'm interested in getting to know all the characters. (Jay-Den the Klingon is my favorite so far) I thought episode 3 was a bit weaker than the first two because it's more worldbuilding and character work than plot. But... it's also just episode 3, so I'm not mad about it. I had fun watching it!