If there’s one silver lining about this week, its that I’ve gotten my roommate into Mr. Robot.
We’ve been taking it slow, usually cause the show can get a bit “too real” in our already depressing week, but she’s still hooked by it. 4/10 episodes in, I figure we should be able to finish it before the school year’s up.
I just started Anatomy of a Scandal. Rupert Friend is at his best in it. Aside from the main scandal there is this interesting side story between one of the attorneys and a person I believe to be their former boss or possibly former teacher.
Polished off that Anatomy of a Scandal show. It was really interesting. The side story I hinted out turned out to not be very important but that is of no consequence bc the main story develops well.
I recommend it for anyone who likes political dramas.
Well, Better Call Saul’s final season has premiered, and I’m calling it: Before the end, it will be revealed that Kim was alive and married tot Saul still all throughout Breaking Bad, that’s gonna be the twist.
Otherwise, from last week, Killing Eve’s finale dropped and it pretty much sucked. Not that the two main leads didn’t get together, I was fine with that, that whole thing only made sense when it was one-way, not reciprocated. But those who died didn’t die in ways that served the plot or the characters (I can mostly be ok with that, because real life deaths are also sudden and pointless, so ok), and lingering plot threads and mysteries went completely unresolved. If Hitman 3 had brought down the big conspiracy in this disappointing of a fashion, the game wouldn’t have been nearly as much of a hit as it was. So many opportunities squandered.
I don’t know if I’m just jaded by how disappointing Space Force continues to be but Elite (also on Netflix) is so much fun! It’s a Spanish drama set in a elite private school for rich kids where the social ecosystem gets turned upside down when, through a series of potentially criminal events, a few poor students are admitted. Things eventually boil over to such an exact that one of the students is murdered.
It’s told in that flash forward/flashback style where the police are investigating in the present while the events leading up to the murder are played in place of testimony and interrogation. It’s full of the standard tropes of the genres in lives in but plays with them enough that it feels fresh and almost none of the characters are one dimensional. Except for one who is the typical evil bitch who stirs up trouble for the sake of stirring up trouble. Luckily, she seems to feature less prominently than most of the others.
I just finished episode 6 of the 8 episode first season and there was a really nice sequence where it gave about a third of the cast clear motives and the victim to be could feel their impending doom. The last few episodes especially have actually really explored how the future victim is self destructing and getting involved in a lot of things that don’t particularly concern them.
There’s more than just the murder; there’s an ensemble, each of whom have their own issues that then affect the lives of those around them. Some plot lines and characters are more interesting and fun than others and occasionally some things happen for little reason but generally everything builds well and has consequences. It’s the best kind of trash so far and I can’t recommend it enough!
(It didn’t do this for me but I’ve heard that sometimes the audio will default to the viewer’s native language. Do yourself a favor and watch it in its original European Spanish with English subtitles.)
(Also, beware if you’re turned off by sex in media; this show has quite a lot of it)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere in a few days. Won’t be available in the UK just yet, not until Paramount+ is launched here. But it does seem like that after so many Trek fans were burnt by Discovery and Picard, it seems like the hope is that this will be the Trek successor (some) Trek fans want.
They just released the opening titles today. Nice to have the famous monologue return.
Why were fans burned by Picard?
Welp, that’s it @Krikkit2021
Yeah, I wondered that too. I really enjoyed Picard season 1. I’m half way through season 2 at the moment and really enjoying it too.
After some quick, half-assed, internet sleuthing I found this (possible explanation):
Hardcore fans of the series are not happy at all, as it takes a drastically different approach than the fan-favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation series which first introduced Patrick Stewart who himself recently said the new series is not like the original ST: TNG.
Never been a fan of Star Trek (any of it) so I don’t know if that’s accurate or not.
I guess that the meteor did in fact kill everyone.
Anyway, not surprising. Netflix did that thing they do if you’re not a shiny limited series or Stranger Things and buried it and then blamed the show. To be a little fair, the show was a massive waste of potential and Star power. Just another reason they should just kept Santa Clarita Diet and Teenage Bounty Hunters instead… The ideas and concepts were at least as interesting as Space Force but they were far better executed and probably didn’t cost even half as much to make. Even though neither have “proper endings”, I still highly recommend watching both; they’re two of the best shows I’ve ever seen, especially on Netflix and, at least in their cases, the blame for their “failure” lies solely on Netflix.
Also, semi-related, but how do you link things in posts?
Just copy a link and paste it here. The forums then generate a fancy schmancy block of text with the title and a small summary blurb
I’m two episodes in and TBH, not liking it as much as season one. A lot of that has to do with the change in theme: first season’s deathloop mystery was more intriguing and interesting to me.
*EDIT
That didn’t take long. Quit watching midway through the third episode. Oh well. 
First season was great. Glad to hear it was renewed for a second season.
Ozarks last half of the last season is either out now or in a a few days. I’m excited for that. I have been loving that show.
Sonic Prime, the newest animated Sonic show, got a little bit of footage shown in this sizzle reel of upcoming animated Netflix shows. Looks fine, its only a couple seconds of footage. Will have to wait and see. I do think the interesting element though is that the voice cast has been confirmed, and it is basically a whole new bunch of actors. Apparently this is due to the series being made by WildBrain who are a Canadian company, and by Canadian law have to use a Canadian voice cast, at least from what I understand?
It’s interesting to me because it means we now have Roger Craig-Smith as Game Sonic, Ben Schwartz as Movie Sonic, and now Deven Mack as Prime Sonic. (Also makes Deven Mack - I believe - the second Black actor to voice Sonic, after Steve Urkel himself, Jaleel White.) Even funnier when you consider that Game Tails VA, Colleen O’Shaughnessey got to play Movie Tails, she won’t be in Sonic Prime, instead played (presumably) by Ashleigh Ball.
It’s also funny how Paramount wants to make their little Sonic Movieverse for Paramount Plus, but Sonic Prime is a big Netflix exclusive. This will be interesting. Hope we find out more about the show soon.
I… don’t think that’s true?
After a (brief) google search of different amalgamations of “canada voice actor production law”, I can’t seem to find anything that mandates Canadian productions to employ a Canadian team.
There is this page on the CRTC website that implies Canadian productions can get greater funding bonuses from the government if it meets certain criteria, but nothing about a written law.
https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/cancon/c_cdn.htm
So, it may be due to budgetary restrictions, legal restrictions, or actor availability/contracts (it might be a union production and ACTRA would have first dibs, from what I assume.)
(I also find it interesting to note in my research that WildBrain is also working on a Degrassi reboot for HBO Max, due out next year. Cool cultural touchstone, is all.)
Doesn’t Canadian law also require employers to provide maple syrup and hockey sticks to their employees?
I’m going by second hand information from another forum talking about this, so you maybe right. I’m not sure what the situation is, just something to do with the company being in Canada effecting things.
It is interesting. Sonic Boom, the last Sonic TV show, just used the game VAs. And the TV show before that, Sonic X, was infamous because Sega decided to use the actors 4Kids hired to replace the entire English voice cast.
Finished various things recently, very good things.
Pam and Tommy
The Annapurna Television biopic about the infamous Tommy Lee & Pamela Anderson leaked sex tape scandal in the mid-90’s.
With Seth Rogen, Lily James, and Sebastian Stan leading, this is a very well-acted drama about how the tape came to be stolen, and all the fallout that happened because of it.
I’m not totally sure how much of the show is accurate or how much is entirely made-up (I’m assuming many of the scenes with Pam and Tommy are, as neither of them lended their support to this production), but overall it paints a very heartbreaking picture of one person’s actions (Rand Gauthier) snowballing out of control because of some simple revenge, that had far-reaching consequences for everyone involved.
Probably one of the first times I’ve seen Seth Rogen do a dramatic role, and he does it well. With his frustration and (misguided) anger of only taking revenge because of Tommy Lee’s vain construction plans, and later his pain and anguish for what he’s done at the start. Lily James plays a very fierce Pamela Anderson, and – from what small bit of Anderson I know – I think she really morphs into the role. She looks just like her, the accent is very accurate, and her performance in trying to rally against everything regarding its legality going wrong is impressive. I think she did a good job treating the role with care, and respect for what the real Anderson would have gone through.
Sebastian Stan morphs pretty well into an impulsive, obnoxious Tommy Lee rockstar. He gets some downtime scenes with Pam, and offers great believability in his interest with supporting his wife’s acting career, that eventually falls apart because of the way they’re treated from the tape.
I will say that the show treats the issue of the sex tape itself mostly delicately. There are few scenes shown from it, they all use Sebastian Stan and Lily James as recreations, and don’t ever show the act of their sex. Though it is described during depositions, and heard off-screen.
As someone who knew nothing about this controversy, and after some research afterwards, I think it was a good biopic that accurately portrayed enough, and what that situation might have been for all parties involved.
Peacemaker
I still can’t believe they greenlit and filmed this thing before The Suicide Squad even came out. Well, they made a great choice, because this is a great companion piece to the film.
It follows John Cena’s Peacemaker, and picks up where THE Suicide Squad ends, with him in the hospital, recovering from injuries, and not yet out of Waller’s grasp.
As you continue on, you get a heavy fleshing out of his character, his friends and family, the agents Harcourt and Economos from the film, and new addition Adebayo.
James Gunn’s wacky (sometimes juvenile) humour fits this character and series very well. With characters doing strange humorous tangents, Peacemaker and his pretty-crazy pal Vigilante being juvenile man-children, and some crazy, sometimes ridiculous violence.
The show also has a LOT of heart to it. Mainly revolving around Peacemaker, it shows a lot of his backstory, his really-easy-to-hate white supremacist father, and provides a great character study on Peacemaker – someone who is very patriotic and macho in nature and design, has had some very toxic ideals drilled into him, and through the power of friendship and exposure to the outside world, learns to grow, learn, and question himself, what he believes in, and what his father has done to him.
John Cena is a great actor. It took me a long while before I finally said “YES”, fully buying into his performance and acting chops, but I believe it. He’s got it. Comedic timing, improv skills (the bloopers are really interesting), weight, and emotion.
Can’t wait for what Season 2 might bring. Love those characters.
(I am sad that they turned Detective Song into an alien halfway through the show. Damn. She was entertaining, and I was invested into her arc, even if it was against Peacemaker’s mission. She played stoic alien pretty well, but I wish it wasn’t that. Also Murn died and I really liked that guy.)
I can’t say I’m familiar with him, so I guess I’ll have to reserve judgment until the next series starts…