Articles

TV • [34 items]

1883 (TV Series)
I enjoyed the series: good characters, watchable story, nice visuals, well-paced. But there are historical holes that annoyed me: it felt like one writer (let's call her Karen) kept injecting little woke things in the story that didn't help. So I recommend it with that caveat. If you can't suspend disbelief, or ignore some stuff, it will irk.

A Discovery of Witches
Melissa likes the Genre, so I've watched all the sparkly vampire type movies. 90210 meets time traveling witchcraft/vampires... and few demons. This was totally a romance novel (I could see shirtless Fabio on the cover). Girl meets boy and discoverers her powers, and a little beauty and the beast mixed in.

All in the family
This was a loved TV show, that had a "lovable bigot"... but it was really failed propaganda.

Ancient Apocalypse (2022)
An interesting Historical Pseudo Documentary that feels like one of the Ancient Mysteries type shows. People call it Pseudoarchaeology because he's combining evidence with speculation in ways that "the establishment" doesn't like. (Unless they do it). Interesting as entertainment, and fun hypothesis... weaker as pure science.

Baking Impossible (2021)
If you ever thought to yourself, I need to make a cake can be driven, or saw a drawbridge and thought, "I'd like to see a cake do that", and you want to see it in a competition reality show, then Baking Impossible is the show for you.

Black Mirror
Black Mirror is slang for a TV's only inherent value when it is turned off. This is a near-future British science fiction anthology television series (later picked up by Netflix). Each episode is a standalone story which examines unanticipated consequences of new technologies, often with a dark and satirical take.

Bosch (TV)

Bosch is an Amazon TV Series (2014), that's one of the best crime-dramas of the last few years. My wife and I binged watched it. It has an old school feel: tough guy Harry is ex-special forces, veteran detective, who sometimes bends the rules... but is fairly ethical outside of a few shortcuts. He's trying to right the wrongs of the world because he orphaned after his prostitute mom was murdered, and he was stuck in the system.

Cuties
The outrage got us to watch the Netflix show “Cuties“. It was played up as the poster film for kiddie porn. While I wouldn't recommend it (it wasn't very "good"), but it wasn't quite as bad as the hype either. Netflix may or may not be run by assholes, but compared to Pretty Baby, Lolita and things before it, it was pretty tame.

Daredevil (TV)

While I wasn't really a fan of the idea of Daredevil. Blind Justice was a movie in the same genre that I liked, and it felt like a rehash, though I suspect it's the other way around. And I taught Martial Arts, and the idea of the blind Master, who overcomes his disability, sort of never really clicked with me. But this one works: the film style, pacing, story, characters, acting, I'm good with it. Season 1 more than the rest.

Dickinson
I got Apple TV+ for free, so I tried the Dickinson show. This stunk on ice. 19th century period piece with modern vernacular, lesbian kissing scenes, progressive fiancé/BF that totally gets Emily's free-spirited 21-century feminist schtick. 90210 with more cheese and hitting every snowflake hot-button. I couldn't get past the first episode.

Dirty Money
Dirty Money is sort of a documentary, in the same way Joseph Goebbels made documentaries. As the Director/Producer Alex Gibney said, "Objectivity is dead. There's no such thing as objectivity. When you're making a film, a film can't be objective." He and Netflix didn't even try.

Get on your knees
Jacqueline Novak's off-Broadway, one-woman show about a self-important narcissist with strut of Drama Club Diva lecturing you on why oral sex was enlightening and empowering to her (despite not being that good at it). Overly long post-modernist drivel that Hipster reviewers loved. More mildly amusing if you can get past her hyper speaker style.

House of Cards
House of Cards: the Breaking Bad of Politics. And I'm not sure I mean that in a good way. I grew to hate all the characters on Breaking Bad, but I started out hating them on HoC. They don't get more likable. If you like watching people manipulate each other and behave badly, this show is for you.... or you could have visited my family during the Holiday's.

Lost in Space (2018)
A remake of a 1960's campy TV series by the same name. This is updated/modernized, and much better -- while keeping a lot of the basic tenets of the original. The episodes frenetic and continuous skin of the teeth last millisecond crazy saves grows tiring -- but the overall story (larger ARC) is quite interesting and far better than the original.

Man in the High Castle
The premise of "what if the Nazi's and Japs won WWII" is a fascinating piece of alternate history. The premise exceeds the implementation for season 1: which turned in a mediocre spy thriller with a different backdrop, but it got better over following seasons. It was still a little weird parallel universes thing. So it was good enough.

The Muppets
Once iconic, innocent puppets, saying silly/naive things, that were cute and adorable... then the creator died, Disney SJW'd them, ratings tanked. Now they are annoying little shits that annoy me everywhere. They should be fun, innocent, and preachy douchebags isn't fun.

Orange is the New Black

Orange is the New Black (ONB) was one of Netflix's early success series, that ran for 7 seasons, and is well liked by reviewers and viewers (96/82 on rotten tomatoes). While I generally liked the characters and writing, it gets a bit manic, woke and Social Justice preachy in the story. You quickly realize it is just it is just Lesbian Hogans Heroes -- and once you see that formula and propaganda, it's more a lecture than fun.

Ozark (2017)

If you liked being irked by the characters in Breaking Bad, you'll probably love Ozark. It feels like the pitch was, let's make Breaking Bad from a money-laundering family PoV. Some poor Educated Blue Staters (Chicagoans) have to deal with the backwater hick deplorable in the Ozarks. But the story arc is interesting, and it's well written enough that it hooked me, even if it never gets over looking down its nose at rural folk.

Pepsi, Where's my Jet? (2022)
An amusing Documentary on a "Win a Harrier" promotion by Pepsi, and the resulting lawsuit. Pepsi claims it was a joke, but removed disclaimers and made it look attainable. The side stories about the kid, his mentor, and scumbag Lawyer Avanatti all make the 4 episodes go by very quickly.

Real Time with Bill Maher

Golden Globes (2020)
At the 2020 Golden Globes, Ricky Gervais did a monologue that finally told the self-important Hollywood elites how the rest of the country (and world) see them and their sanctimonious speeches at masturbatory award shows. It was the best award monologue ever.

Roosevelt's: An Intimate History
Ken Burns disappoints with a progressive puff-piece. Teddy the Republican was almost all bad. FDR the Democrat was almost all good. And the complexities that made both 3 dimensional (instead of just caricatures), was all whitewashed off the series. I figured the format would allow PBS to do something deep and complex, it was just long and shallow.

Star Trek: Discovery
Half the crew is LGBT and the warp drive is powered by magic mushrooms. The larger story arc is interesting enough. The plot devices and smaller stories are often moronic and woke. You can tell the premise was, "Original Star Trek broke barriers, how can we do the same" with little regards to canon, consistency, or coherence.

The Boys (TV)
American a very dark, gory, anti-Corporate, cynical take on Superheroes, on Amazon Prime. Since the Superheroes were human, they'd come with human flaws (like egomania, gluttony, agendas). And of course, they would be controlled by their handlers/overlords, and the public manipulated through marketing. Interestingly fresh, boringly left thinking.

The Daily Show
American late-night talk show, that briefly became a cult icon for the pothead and far-left crowd. This is kind of a misnomer, since its ratings never competed well with other Late Shows. But for Comedy Central? It was still higher than much of the rest of the drivel. Stewart never claimed it was news, but his audience sure thought it was.

The Expanse (2015)
This is good ol' Sci Fi: where hundreds of years from now, the Earth, Mars and the Astroid Belt (and outer moons) are colonized but have divergent interests and histories -- and have become unique cultures. Throw something new (a catalyst) into the mix, and there's going to be some action. Good stories, characters, and sticking with their tech.

The Morning Show
It's a fictionalized story of Matt Lauer / Mitch Kessler (played by Steve Carell) getting caught in a MeToo scandal. It was a fairly mature take on a complex subject, and they didn't play Matt, er Steve Carell, as the caricature character they might have, and it brought up some reasonable discussions and was somewhat entertaining. Season 1 was worth watching, then Season 2 jumped the shark.

The Newsroom
While leftists often promoted "The Newsroom" by saying the opening monologue "is the greatest 5 minutes in Television". It's only great for proving what clueless tools they are. Virtually everything said by Jeff Daniels was propaganda, and that they didn't know it, reflects on bias in education and the media.

The Ranch

Netflix original series basically said "let's put the cast of 'That 70's Show' on a Colorado Ranch, and make fun of red-states". It wasn't the disaster I thought, for the first couple Seasons. Then Danny Masterson got "MeToo'd" over "rape", aka having sex with his sleeping wife a couple decades ago, and she stayed with him for 3 more years. And the series lost its tone and wandered for another season and a half before mercifully going to the slaughter house.

The View
A bunch of progressive bullies that beat up conservatives, and the audience is gullible enough to like it. Elizabeth, Meghan McCain, there's a series of token conservatives they bullied off. And more examples of Whoppi, Joy, etc., saying stupid, racist, nasty things. Lousy show with lousy humans, makes their viewing audience dumber with every viewing.

Upload (2020)
Upload is an American science fiction comedy satire web television series on Amazon Prime Video. Basically, 2033 humans are able to "upload" themselves into a VR afterlife of their choosing, and others can visit them. It's kind of a corny rom-com with murder mystery going on, that isn't that deep, but works better than many shows on regular TV.

Volkswagen emissions scandal
The first episode of Dirty Money was fascinating interviews with how the government stumbled on the truth after 7 years. But it doesn't explain the important stuff: why VW did this.

Walking Dead
Walking Dead Grumble Thread. Look I can suspend disbelief enough to watch a show about the Zombie apocalypse. Living in the bay-area, I saw them walking to the poll booths on Election Day. But I can't stand stupid people not adapting to their new reality. There's so many better ways to deal with walkers or biters.

Westworld (TV)
Placeholder for Westworld TV series. On my to-binge lists, but I hear lots of people who love it, but I'll have to see if I'm in the other group or not. From the few episodes I watched, it didn't hood me.