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One of my favourite factlets is that Mr Frakes normally wore a beard, but shaved for the show.

He rocked up to rehearsals for Season 2, and was told to keep it. By Gene Roddenberry himself. Who considered it suitably Nautical.

And my it is a glow up as I believe the kids say.

Of course it would be some time until we got the completely unnecessary in-show explanation. I mean, I have a beard because shaving every morning is a pain in the balls.

Yes I keep it trimmed and shaped. But that’s a quick run with a razor maybe twice a week.

Power of the Doctor

Seems memberberries and noise is all you need these days, very very poor and our Jodes deserved betterer

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet Of Curiosities

Firstly, let me quality this by saying at time of writing I haven't myself seen the whole series. But given that it's an anthology series, I feel I've seen enough to judge the overall standard even if subsequent efforts may wander a little (as anthologies often do.)

GDTCOC is in essence a horror spin on The Twilight Zone, especially in its modern Peele incarnation, right down to a brief introduction at the start of each episode by the man himself. But unlike American Horror Stories which will invite inevitable comparison, there's little camp on show here, the horror is played with a pretty straight (vampire) bat.

The production values are excellent, the stories are strong and we're at the perfect time of year for the consumption of something like this.

Don't sleep on it.

Transformers War for Cybertron

Dunno why but getting back into Transformers after XX years.

W4C is lavishly animated, has some good plotting and themes but is let down by a slow pace (how can a 6 episode season drag?) and a voice actor for Optimus Prime whose idea of sounding gravitas is... to... talk... real... slow... with... many... pauses...

Plus it's set on Cybertron and everyone is all busted up, which is cool theme wise for the veterans a million year old war but again makes things drag and be dreary. A show about robot toys who turn into robot cars and fight and fight should not make me feel the sads.

Second season is slower. It seems like they spent half the season fighting Scorponok.

Never did bother with the third season. They added the Beast Machines or whatever they were called, and that never appealed to me.

And because Horror isn’t just for the Big Screen? Courtesy of BritBox, I’ve been warning Hammer House of Horror.

There are some pretty decent tales of terror in this anthology series, and of course some guff.

Absolutely worth a watch if you get the chance.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Second season is slower. It seems like they spent half the season fighting Scorponok.

Never did bother with the third season. They added the Beast Machines or whatever they were called, and that never appealed to me.

How in the name of the Matrix can a 6-episode season drag?

Well they managed it somehow.

Sure is pretty though.

Maybe if I change languages it will improve?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Maybe if I change languages it will improve?

It's funny you should mention that. After season 3 of the original G1 Transformers, the production diverged.

The American side went on to make Rebirth, which was an awful 3-part "season" that spent more time introducing a 100 more toys characters rather than telling a story. The Japanese side made Headmasters, a series that very quickly did away with the status quo (Optimus dies again 7 episodes in, Hod Rod/Kup/Arcee go off on a quest) and replaced them with characters similar to the American one, but more fleshed out. It got an English release with one of the worst dubs I have ever heard in my life (it's actually hilarious in places), and changing the language to Japanese made it better (other than the kid voicing Daniel, who is hard to listen to).

Sadly in the office today. But when I get in? What We In The Shadows will be going on.

Oh yes.

I Hate You

The guy who wrote Friday Night Dinner essentially does a gender swapped Peep Show with updated cultural references and lifestyle changes.

Suffers a little from 1st season syndrome, in that everyone is finding their feet and not necessarily everything that's tried is working, but given the pedigree of the writing and the tried and tested format of "2 dysfunctional 20 somethings flail blindly through life" there's no reason to think this doesn't have what it takes to become one of C4s great comedies.

Patchy and uneven so far, but shows potential.

Taggart

Broadband Internet has been out since Thursday morning, so reduced to plundering my DVDs. Putting it to best use bingeing Taggart.

For a show that long continued after the sad passing of its namesake’s actor it remains pretty good.

And as with pretty much any Scottish Production, each episode often includes a game of “spot who went on to become properly famous”.

The Devil's Hour

I'm not typically a fan of British police dramas. Too frequently it's angst ridden middle aged men in dirty raincoats wrestling with their regrets about how their work has ruined their personal lives before some unlikely coincidence wraps the case up in no time at all. In the rain.

Thankfully, The Devil's Hour isn't that. At least, while it has elements of that, it isn't the focus.

The show opens on a handful of apparently disparate elements with the promise the viewer will eventually discover the link. Firstly, Lucy, a social worker struggling with life as a single mother to Isaac, a troubled little boy who, while clearly wildly different from other kids his age, has no formal diagnosis to explain why. Ravi, a homicide detective who can't handle the sight of blood, called to investigate the violent death of a man who appeared to have no enemies, and Gideon, who we meet in a police interview room in flash-forward, alongside Ravi and Lucy, providing the tease that something will bring these three together.

This is a really, really, solid show. Peter Capaldi arguably steals it as playing Gideon allows him to delpoy the trademark wild eyed stare more than any other role I've seen. Jessica Raine carries it though, the whole story pivots around her character, and she carries the weight of that effortlessly.

There's little to criticise though, from writing to acting to cinematography, the show feels premium from start to finish. It even manages to take what for many might be a somewhat well trodden path and do something fresh with it, which I'd argue hangs together as well or better as any attempt I've seen in some time.

Making the fairly basic assumption that a mystery thriller with a hint of supernatural is an appealing prospect, there's absolutely no reason not to put The Devil's Hour near the top of your watch list.

Watchmen

It started weird and got weirder, but I really enjoyed it, it felt like a proper part of that universe and not just a lazy tie-in.
It's a pity there doesn't appear to be any plans for another season because it would be interesting to see where the story goes from where it left off, plus more would be fun.

Transformers: Earthspark
The first 4 episodes just went live for UK Paramount+ and I really enjoyed them. Like any Transformers tv show (besides those really bad Netflix ones), it's very obviously designed for kids. However, it also has the benefit of being a show for people who grew up with the G1 cartoon to watch with their young un's similar to Star Trek: Prodigy.
Now I'm not quite at that point in life but as a lifelong TF fan, having a modern show with obscure characters is always fun. I mean one of the first baddies we have, Hardtop, is a toy-only character from TF: Cybertron mixed with a Timelines comic plot line to tie him to the other baddie, the classic conman (ha) Swindle.
So far it's taking story points from IDW's first TF comic run, characters from all over TF history from Headmasters to G1 originals, and mashing it together with some genuinely good human characters. I'm excited for the rest of the season.

Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock

Reading/following this guys works were always a guilty pleasure of mine. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in ancient civilizations lost to time and such, so he was right up my alley. Don't buy into much of his theories, but its fun to speculate.

I mostly enjoyed the visuals of sites that I've never seen too much of, like the big structures on Malta, and the large cavern system(s) in Turkey. It got kind of "samey" after like the 3rd episode(of 8), but it was great background noise for painting mini's or playing some Warhammer 3.

I'd recommend to anyone who also enjoys "lost civilization" pseudo-science type content. Hancock is somewhat of a blowhard, but it was still interesting.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Transformers War for Cybertron

Dunno why but getting back into Transformers after XX years.

W4C is lavishly animated, has some good plotting and themes but is let down by a slow pace (how can a 6 episode season drag?) and a voice actor for Optimus Prime whose idea of sounding gravitas is... to... talk... real... slow... with... many... pauses...

Plus it's set on Cybertron and everyone is all busted up, which is cool theme wise for the veterans a million year old war but again makes things drag and be dreary. A show about robot toys who turn into robot cars and fight and fight should not make me feel the sads.

Finished it with the last season Beast Wars/Transformers cross over and wow, it got worse.

I mean unless you're really into your BW lore and time travel and alternate timelines this is just gibberish. And the ending includes both a deus ex machina AND foreshadowing a villain for a sequel that will never come. Two of my least favorite things in all of fiction!

Dudes I'm just hear to watch giant robots punch each other. If your plot involves three Megatrons, two of whom are from alternate futures, then it's time to rethink things.

 nels1031 wrote:
Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock

Reading/following this guys works were always a guilty pleasure of mine. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in ancient civilizations lost to time and such, so he was right up my alley. Don't buy into much of his theories, but its fun to speculate.

I mostly enjoyed the visuals of sites that I've never seen too much of, like the big structures on Malta, and the large cavern system(s) in Turkey. It got kind of "samey" after like the 3rd episode(of 8), but it was great background noise for painting mini's or playing some Warhammer 3.

I'd recommend to anyone who also enjoys "lost civilization" pseudo-science type content. Hancock is somewhat of a blowhard, but it was still interesting.

Wow. TV companies are still willing to pay that d***head money for his utterly puerile Atlantis theories? I thought he'd slunk away years ago.

MarkNorfolk wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock

Reading/following this guys works were always a guilty pleasure of mine. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in ancient civilizations lost to time and such, so he was right up my alley. Don't buy into much of his theories, but its fun to speculate.

I mostly enjoyed the visuals of sites that I've never seen too much of, like the big structures on Malta, and the large cavern system(s) in Turkey. It got kind of "samey" after like the 3rd episode(of 8), but it was great background noise for painting mini's or playing some Warhammer 3.

I'd recommend to anyone who also enjoys "lost civilization" pseudo-science type content. Hancock is somewhat of a blowhard, but it was still interesting.

Wow. TV companies are still willing to pay that d***head money for his utterly puerile Atlantis theories? I thought he'd slunk away years ago.

Don't even get me started on that wee fanny. His whole rhetoric of Big Archaeology is hiding the truth is just laughable. It annoys me that utter controversial bollocks like that gets made but actual interesting archaeology programming doesn't.

I don’t mind wild theories in my teevee, just marry it to Sane Evidence to the contrary.

 nels1031 wrote:
Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock

Reading/following this guys works were always a guilty pleasure of mine. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in ancient civilizations lost to time and such, so he was right up my alley. Don't buy into much of his theories, but its fun to speculate.

I mostly enjoyed the visuals of sites that I've never seen too much of, like the big structures on Malta, and the large cavern system(s) in Turkey. It got kind of "samey" after like the 3rd episode(of 8), but it was great background noise for painting mini's or playing some Warhammer 3.

I'd recommend to anyone who also enjoys "lost civilization" pseudo-science type content. Hancock is somewhat of a blowhard, but it was still interesting.

This way leads to madness!

Warrior Nun, S2

More accurately Warrior Nun S1.5, the narrative more or less runs straight through from the last episode of the previous series. Theoretically there's a time jump, but that seems as much to hand wave away any small continuity issues because of Covid rather than contribute anything meaningful to the story.

It's very much business as usual as a result. If you liked the first one this is more of the same, there's nothing here to recruit anyone who's on the fence. That said, I do think it benefits from not having to carry the origin story for Ava, and the pacing of an already relatively short series is probably better.

The arc started in S1 is reasonably well wrapped up, but enough new and unresolved material is still in play to explore should a third season be forthcoming, but for those who hate to watch a show that is cancelled on a cliffhanger, it's probably safe to watch without feeling like you're going to be left wondering. To be fair, if S3 happens they've pretty well signposted what's going to happen anyway.

Overall, I remember feeling like it was this or Cursed that was going to get a S2 when both series (both featuring young female protagonists inheriting power) premiered together back in 2020, and while I think Cursed's debut was more flawed, I'm left wondering whether it wouldn't have done more interesting things with another season.

But we got this, and this is fine, but it's not a show that's going to attract too much water cooler conversation, just more hours of competent YA/YA-adjacent action drama with little to set the world alight.

The Watcher

Much to my surprise, this series is a contender for one of the best shows I've seen this year.

Based on a true story (extremely tenuously, but a true story nonetheless) we follow a family making the very traditional (and horror staple) move from the dangerous big city to the idyllic suburbs. This time the weirdness manifests in the form of a mysterious Watcher, a nebulous figure that largely interacts via the medium of menacing letters that imply that the family is under close observation.

Essentially the show is a whodunnit (or whosdoingit) but is elevated by the time it takes to examine what a bizarre set of circumstances does to a family, and the frankly stellar set of weird and wonderful supporting characters played by some really heavyweight actors.

By taking the very simple but ultimately effective approach of flooding the viewer with a list of bizarre and plausible suspects the show keeps you guessing right until the end. Season 2 is already confirmed, but being a Ryan Murphy show it's not yet clear whether it'll be a whole new story based on the same idea, or a continuation of the current narrative. Either way, I'm in.

Gangs of London (season 1)

I literally only watched it because Colm Meaney's face was on it. And then... oh well, fortunately the story sucked me in. This is high production, good cast, good choreography, tight story, but I haven't finished the season yet so there's still time for it to go south.

The titular gangs of London are bit part players behind the number one gang, the Wallaces, who are trying to work out why the criminal underworld that they once owned is now trying to kill them all. These aren't your street thug gangsters. They drink champagne, build skyscrapers as a front and hire Danish special forces to do the disposal work. The action is a bit of a Call of Duty / Jason Bourne teenage boy's fantasy of how cool murdering lots of people would be, and that's by design; though the story shouldn't be seen as only existing to justify the tomato ketchup getting splashed around. The family interactions might not be as good as Succession but then the pacing of the show is very different and so far very enjoyable.

Wednesday (season 1)

Over all it was fun. I feel like for the most part the Addams family members were done well, not sure about Pugsley. I just can't say for sure about his character. The story was over all interesting and fun. The dialog was weird to me where it uses the current year gibberish about seeking or speaking ones truths, which I find mind-numbingly irritating. It felt like required speak injected by the writers room because reasons. Modern gibberish.
( Blanket language about "outcasts" as well, which is laid on with a trowel it's so thick.)
However, excluding that it was a fairly good time. I still dislike the majority of actors who seem to be from a pool of, I don't know, BBC extras a few of them are big names but the rest feel like DR. Who left overs to me.
Another positive is Wednesday being an Addams is the reason she is believable and I like that. You know she has had a particularly peculiar upbringing and it's the right tool kit for her adventures. You don't need a training montage to believe she can fight look at who her family is, of course she can fence or fight or whatever in most situations.

You might enjoy it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One last tough on the language. I do think we could say Wednesday was using those buzzwords and or phrases ironically and more as a smokescreen rather than take them at face value based on who she would say those things too and also as the rebellious youth she was in the story. A sort of manipulation on her part given her distaste for social media and I would imagine modern/pop culture.
Or that's just my head cannon anyway.

 warhead01 wrote:
Wednesday (season 1)

Over all it was fun. I feel like for the most part the Addams family members were done well, not sure about Pugsley. I just can't say for sure about his character. The story was over all interesting and fun. The dialog was weird to me where it uses the current year gibberish about seeking or speaking ones truths, which I find mind-numbingly irritating. It felt like required speak injected by the writers room because reasons. Modern gibberish.
( Blanket language about "outcasts" as well, which is laid on with a trowel it's so thick.)
However, excluding that it was a fairly good time. I still dislike the majority of actors who seem to be from a pool of, I don't know, BBC extras a few of them are big names but the rest feel like DR. Who left overs to me.
Another positive is Wednesday being an Addams is the reason she is believable and I like that. You know she has had a particularly peculiar upbringing and it's the right tool kit for her adventures. You don't need a training montage to believe she can fight look at who her family is, of course she can fence or fight or whatever in most situations.

You might enjoy it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One last tough on the language. I do think we could say Wednesday was using those buzzwords and or phrases ironically and more as a smokescreen rather than take them at face value based on who she would say those things too and also as the rebellious youth she was in the story. A sort of manipulation on her part given her distaste for social media and I would imagine modern/pop culture.
Or that's just my head cannon anyway.

I also came to post about Wednesday. I finished it last night. I have to say I went in with low expectations for this but actually enjoyed it way more than i thought I would.

 warhead01 wrote:
Wednesday (season 1)

Over all it was fun. I feel like for the most part the Addams family members were done well, not sure about Pugsley. I just can't say for sure about his character. The story was over all interesting and fun. The dialog was weird to me where it uses the current year gibberish about seeking or speaking ones truths, which I find mind-numbingly irritating. It felt like required speak injected by the writers room because reasons. Modern gibberish.

I will defer to my daughter. She spent the weekend feeling sick, eating buckets of KFC (in that order), being wrapped up in whatever the most comfortable configuration was for each hour of the day and binging TV series. She enjoyed Wednesday, watched it in one go, thought it was fun but the dialogue was awful. I think the main attraction to both her and my niece is the character of Wednesday herself, and they could probably stick her into setting/series and it would be good for them. She did have fun laughing at how bad some of the other actors were, but thought the second-best actor was the roommate.

YAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSS!

Sir Tony Robinson is returning to Time Team. Possibly the single greatest educational show ever made by man.

It was a pretty significant thing for Wee(ish) Me. One site, three days. See what they can find.

Whilst greatly simplified for layman viewing, it absolutely wasn’t Dumbed Down. Sir Tony as presenter acted the Everyman. Expert pulls a find, and dates it. Sir Tony asks the questions on our mind “but how do you know that”, and a brief but factual explanation is given.

My favourite aspect, having watched it since it’s debut, is how they applied new and developing technology. And indeed following Sir Tony’s own growing knowledge.

It was such accessible Telly, and I still watch it on YouTube to this day. You should to. It’s completely bloody ace and if you don’t like you get in a bin.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet Of Curiosities

Firstly, let me quality this by saying at time of writing I haven't myself seen the whole series. But given that it's an anthology series, I feel I've seen enough to judge the overall standard even if subsequent efforts may wander a little (as anthologies often do.)

GDTCOC is in essence a horror spin on The Twilight Zone, especially in its modern Peele incarnation, right down to a brief introduction at the start of each episode by the man himself. But unlike American Horror Stories which will invite inevitable comparison, there's little camp on show here, the horror is played with a pretty straight (vampire) bat.

The production values are excellent, the stories are strong and we're at the perfect time of year for the consumption of something like this.

Don't sleep on it.

So far I have watched 3 episodes, and I think that is enough to judge this as a bit of a dud. Nothing really original story wise, and the stories are predictable, spend a good chunk of their time meandering around, only to remember that there is a time restraint and speed up to the conclusion... which just makes it feel poorly paced. None of these feel like stories, just a few ideas cobbled together... could be that getting old means that I have more or less seen these ideas done before.



If anyone wants to watch a good Anthology series watch Inside Number 9. Due to how good that show is, it will be what every Anthology series is measured against, and




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 nels1031 wrote:
Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock

Reading/following this guys works were always a guilty pleasure of mine. Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in ancient civilizations lost to time and such, so he was right up my alley. Don't buy into much of his theories, but its fun to speculate.

I mostly enjoyed the visuals of sites that I've never seen too much of, like the big structures on Malta, and the large cavern system(s) in Turkey. It got kind of "samey" after like the 3rd episode(of 8), but it was great background noise for painting mini's or playing some Warhammer 3.

I'd recommend to anyone who also enjoys "lost civilization" pseudo-science type content. Hancock is somewhat of a blowhard, but it was still interesting.

Watched 2 episodes.

Only good thing is getting to see impressive ruins I hadn't heard of before. Bad thing is listening to Hancock's gibberish. Would much prefer to see these stunning ruins without Graham Hancock talking about Atlantis.

I might watch it on mute and CC turned off.

Hanging With Dr Z

I saw a comment describe this show as “perfect Gen X humor” and I couldn’t agree more. Each episode is 8-10 minutes of comedy gold, with Dr Zaius hosting a talk show with guests like Weird Al and Bobcat Goldthwait that is half Johnny Carson half Space Ghost (but funny), telling jokes and spinning their Old Hollywood stories:

This video was the proof of concept:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4zRmj9GNPM8

There are a series of promotional shorts:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6YD5e8pLHaI

And an episode:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORV_tWGZwsM