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Up Pompeii


Ooooh! Titter ye not, Missus! Titter ye not!

Frankie Howard leads the way in this classic, innuendo riddled sitcom from a simpler but still fitlhy era. A class in how to skirt the bounds of good taste with impeccable plausible deniability.

One Playhouse, 2 series and one movie. What a lovely way to spend one’s birthday!

Well, please yourselves.

It definitely has its root firmly on the stage and bawdy penny theatre shows.

Definitely helped by the other players being largely deadpan. Kind of like Police Squad! in that regard, but with lots of fourth wall breaking instead of a straight front man.

Punisher: One More Kill

Marvel does The Raid. 45 minutes of killing and yelling
Still Good

Spider-Noir

Better in Black & White. Nic Cage has never had this much fun in a role and it shows

The Boroughs
Alfred Molina and Geena Davis are fantastic. Interesting miniseries, good ending.

Mating Season
Only watch it if you REALLY loved Big Mouth/Human Resources

Stranger Things, Tales from '85
I watched Mating Season rather than this. No regrets

Because I am single, in my 40s and will do pretty much anything to procure a lady of my own. I am now watching every single episode of:

Arrow. The Flash, Supergirl, DCs Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and something else I was told to watch.

Started with Arrow (the show with the highest kill count of any hero team ever, I'm in season 5 and I know our heroes have easily killed over a million people).

The show is really inconsistent. Some episodes feel dark and grim, while others lean heavily into comic book tropes and goofiness.

I am glad I'm actually watching it. It's still better than 99% of the Marvel TV shows that are being cranked out today.

Not bad for a CW show from the 2011-2019 era.

Well, I have to get back to watching.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Because I am single, in my 40s and will do pretty much anything to procure a lady of my own. I am now watching every single episode of:

Arrow. The Flash, Supergirl, DCs Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and something else I was told to watch.

Started with Arrow (the show with the highest kill count of any hero team ever, I'm in season 5 and I know our heroes have easily killed over a million people).

The show is really inconsistent. Some episodes feel dark and grim, while others lean heavily into comic book tropes and goofiness.

I am glad I'm actually watching it. It's still better than 99% of the Marvel TV shows that are being cranked out today.

Not bad for a CW show from the 2011-2019 era.

Well, I have to get back to watching.

You were told that this is how to attract a woman?

Continuing adventures in Up Pompeii.

Onto series 2 and it’s getting so much filthier and sillier.

And I’ve come to realise just how influential it was, even into the Alternative Comedies of the 80’s and 90’s. Frankie’s fourth wall breaking is of course hilarious, but is then seen again (including him being mentioned in a line) in the Bottom Live shows, usually Rik haranguing the audience, and both of them mocking the production values of their own show.

And it helps create a nice evolution of comedic styles remaining the same, even as you could get filthier and more violent down the years.

For instance. Bottom had swearing and quite vindictive slapstick, where the smacks and wallops are intentional rather than comic incompetence. Swinging a cricket bat at someone’s nethers (aha, missed both my legs!) rather than the old yardstick turn stuff.

And it all remains so, so funny,

ccs wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Because I am single, in my 40s and will do pretty much anything to procure a lady of my own. I am now watching every single episode of:

Arrow. The Flash, Supergirl, DCs Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and something else I was told to watch.

Started with Arrow (the show with the highest kill count of any hero team ever, I'm in season 5 and I know our heroes have easily killed over a million people).

The show is really inconsistent. Some episodes feel dark and grim, while others lean heavily into comic book tropes and goofiness.

I am glad I'm actually watching it. It's still better than 99% of the Marvel TV shows that are being cranked out today.

Not bad for a CW show from the 2011-2019 era.

Well, I have to get back to watching.

You were told that this is how to attract a woman?

Wait... it's not?

They wouldn't have lied to me, would they?

The Boys season 5

Up front, let me say that damn near every actor involved in this show was pretty damn good. Anthony Starr and Karl Urban carried the show and had either of them been lesser actors, the product wouldn’t have been nearly as good. All the rest of the cast were adequate as well.

But this show ended in its 5th season with an uneven whimper. The shock value of the series wore off arguably 3 seasons ago, and it just became repetitive and banal. I never read the source material, so I don’t care how far it wandered from it, but this final season definitely lacked focus and felt like the showrunner had already moved on to his next project. Almost GoT season 8 style ‘let’s get this over with’ vibe to it. But at the same time that it felt rushed, it was also mostly boring.

2/5 stars.

I kinda like the finale.

Ok, the final season is uneven.



But…that last episode?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But…that last episode?

Spoiler:

Seeing Homelander stripped of his power, and be the biggest, whiniest little female dog was Chef’s Kiss. No final heroic stand against overwhelming odds for him. No going down swinging. Just a sad, hollow, pathetic example of a man that for the first time in his miserable life, can’t rely on sheer power. Even before Kamiko does her thing? We see he’s actually not a very good fighter. Because he’s never had to become one.

And I thoroughly enjoyed the metaphors at play there.

While Homelander needed to die a violent and humiliating death, this is also a prime example of how the season was rushed.

I’m doing it again. Another episode of Eastenders. There’s something psychological and possibly jommetry behind this.

But I do wonder if I ever told Mum and Granny you can see my office, more or less, in the opening titles.

Watched the first episode of Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat and it looks like they're shaking things up a bit and seem to be leaning into dark comedy (at least in the first episode at least) with things such as the Fang Gang (a group of regional vampires) and that drugs do affect vampires (we get to see this from Lestat's point of view - trippy!) and a bit of breaking the fourth wall (Lestat's making a documentary film, much like This is Spinal Tap). I'm looking forward to how this season plays out.

Dr Who Christmas Special cancelled, and Russell “Member Berries” T Davies has quit.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Dr Who Christmas Special cancelled, and Russell “Member Berries” T Davies has quit.

Really? Is this the end of Doctor Who as we know it?

Maybe they'll let someone unrelated take over and refresh the series... or just let the fields lie fallow for a couple years.

Yup.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c621ln7vx7qo

Ncuti was a terrific doctor. But lumbered with too much T Davis rubbish.

I’d love to see it return to its serial roots, but I doubt.

It so needs to heavily retcon a lot of the crap they have added.

Widow's Bay - unexpectedly (had zero knowledge about it bar one random recommendation) a very solid mix of comedy and horror. Really worth watching.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
It so needs to heavily retcon a lot of the crap they have added.

Honestly at this stage it just needs a full reboot.
The big question though is if they'd be bold enough to reboot it and stay faithful to the original (so the Dr would start out as a very old man); or if they want to keep going with what they've changed it too now and kind of go their own way.

It definitely needs to stop trying to do away with the Time Lords. It really didn’t add anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and please. No more restarting the universe. Once was more than plenty on its own. Then you did it again. And I think again?

The great frustration has been whilst individual episodes have been terrific? The arcs have always been a bit of a damp squib. Especially the ending.

As I've said before the problem is that they've basically had too much DC/Marvel influence in the writing of new seasons.

It's all the very same tropes and constructs we see with superhero writing; all the way down to the random re-sets that don't really link to lore but to cultural elements they want to push more than anything else
Basically they don't want Dr Who they want "DR WHO" the americanised comic hero to save the universe.. .then the other universe then the multiverse!

Original Who had some big stakes; but it was very much a case of "monster of the week" format with a few semi-long stories that might be 3 or 4 episodes connected together. Most of the BIG events were saving the Earth for the most part. A few larger storylines; but he was never this huge fabled hero of the universe that the newer seasons have tried to shape him into. In fact barring the Daleks, for the most part other races never heard of Dr. Who; in contrast these days everyone seems to have heard of this great warrior of Time.

They definitely need to scale it back.

I am of course biased, as I’m old enough for Peter Davison to have been my first Doctor, though Sylvester McCoy is my Doctor. And so it’s those original serials which set my expectations.

But even if we stick with season arcs? Just do it better. Dial the stakes back some. And most definitely knock it off with the Dishy Doctor stuff.

For me? Go more Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi. They’re my favourites of the modern Doctors. Even if Smith’s did kick off the universe resetting stuff. See earlier comment about Ncuti being a terrific Doctor saddled with dreadful and unsatisfying arcs.

Honestly scaling back is greatly needed. If you look at the old Who and even old comics as well a lot of the stakes were just way smaller.

The likes of Batman and Spiderman were mostly dealing with bank robbers and cat burglars - Dr. Who mostly dealt with small scale starting invasions where a few individuals seek to create a gateway; or tackling other planet problems at the very top; but always on small scale approaches

Big invasion forces were the things of movies or very rare events. In some ways CGI is an issue because it lets them have whole armies invading all of London on a weekly basis. In some ways it spoils it because you lose that sense of "it could all happen in the background of the real world" when half of london is blown up every other week.

This might be an unpopular opinion.

But #8 Paul McGann will always be my favorite doctor, mainly because I listened to him through the empty years of no shows, when he was recording audio dramas.

Maybe they just need to let Dr. Who rest for a little and let the bad memories settle down.

Or bring back 2008's UNIT... We could really use a season 3.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly scaling back is greatly needed. If you look at the old Who and even old comics as well a lot of the stakes were just way smaller.

The likes of Batman and Spiderman were mostly dealing with bank robbers and cat burglars - Dr. Who mostly dealt with small scale starting invasions where a few individuals seek to create a gateway; or tackling other planet problems at the very top; but always on small scale approaches

Big invasion forces were the things of movies or very rare events. In some ways CGI is an issue because it lets them have whole armies invading all of London on a weekly basis. In some ways it spoils it because you lose that sense of "it could all happen in the background of the real world" when half of london is blown up every other week.

It also felt like the moral of the stories were overly simplistic.

Now, it’s not necessarily fair to select probably the best example of the original run? But the 4th Doctor, on Skara, before the Daleks are truly born as a species. Stood there in a corridor. Just two twisted wires away from, potentially, stopping the Daleks ever getting started in the first place. And questioning if he has the right. Considering the allies and peace that will flourish with each Dalek defeat. Questioning if what he’s about to do is truly the lesser evil. Because it is still a genocide.

And it’s kinda cool that he dodges answering that when he has to flee the location.

Or McCoy tearing Ace down to ensure the defeat of Fenric. Saying horrific, calculatedly awful things about her in her presence.

Yeah, it'll be a shame if this is it for Dr. Who, even though it hasn't been particularly good for a while now, I still enjoyed watching it.

Echoing what others have already said, if the show does come back, I would love to see it return to its roots. No more superhero Doctor saving the whole universe every week with their super special Companion/unrequited love interest, just let them be this eccentric alien hobo bumbling their way through time and space and getting up to shenanigans.
And also try and find a showrunner more interested in telling a good story than leaving their sticky hand prints on the lore.

(I'd also like no more "magic wand" sonic screwdriver, but I think that's 100% a lost cause at this point!)

We're currently watching Man On The Inside, with Ted Danson. It's good fun, Danson is charming as ever. He is an old chap with not a lot going on who gets a job as an undercover assistant for a private investigator.

First series is set in a care home and, just to give you fair warning, does go a bit heavy on impact of Alzheimers and so on. My wife found it quite a hard watch as we're going through that with her parents. Second series is in a university and (as far as I can see) is not likely to be triggering on that front.

To be honest? I think I’d prefer mini-series. Let each one be three or four episodes at most, and deal with a given situation/crisis etc.

Give the supporting characters a chance to grow and breathe. Let the alien worlds feel lived in. Just….take your time.

It can also help flesh out new enemies. I mean, when we literally look at The Daleks we learn about the titular nasties, their world, their rivals and their society. As well as their limitations.

When Davros comes along, he eventually gets four serials to chart his rise and fall and rise and fall and then fall again. It allowed him to feel more real and more threatening,

The Cybermen were seen to constantly improve their technology.

Now, that doesn’t apply to all monsters. Whilst the Weeping Angels debut remains an absolute masterpiece? Repeated visits made them pretty lame pretty quickly.

But yeah. Slow the pace some. Let the universe breathe. And should something resonate with the audience? Come back to that in due course. But only if you’ve a cool idea involving them.

I really lost interest during 11's run of increasing reoccurring characters and long form story arcs. The Doctor is always better as individual stories, if only because they don't really need that consistent of quality as long as there's some real classics. I know there's a desire to build a brand identity for it, but its just not a show that thrives when it gets hung up on its past. Its a show you tune into to discover something new.

Heck, all the modern Doctors are still around. Why not play with that?

Perhaps revisit Trial of a Timelord’s overall concept, but have the “memoirs” as new tales for certain incarnations, tying together into a wide tale.

That was something the Colin Baker era tried a few times (Revelation of the Daleks, Timelash, Trial of a Timelord) with, well, mixed results. But it is an interesting concept.

So, let’s say whoever is the next Doctor is put on trial, accused of fiddling in a planet’s affairs. Each episode or serial brings in a previous incarnation so we can see their actions.

Explore what it must be like to help a civilisation avoid a disaster, then because that disaster was avoided, having your actions and motivations questioned.