TV Show Discussion Thread

It did. Loki ends up in a really interesting place for the character.

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I haven’t had a chance to watch anything Marvel-related since Endgame because the decision to kill off Tony Stark killed my wife’s support of the franchise and I don’t have means of accessing the rest of the franchise in isolation yet. Tell me, is this series actually taking one of the best villains Marvel has in its slate, both MCU and the comics, and giving him a redemption arc and making him a hero? And why is a Norse god wearing a suit all the time in the images for this show? The time he spent on earth was one thing when he was blending in, but now you’ve got the primary antagonist of the Thor side of the franchise wearing a suit, traveling through time like Doctor Who and acting as a hero? Even if it’s good storytelling, it’s a terrible direction to take a character who was best used as a serious antagonist. And please don’t give me that variant nonsense. Variants are what COVID has.

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The show takes place in an indeterminate amount of time after the scene in Endgame when Past Loki steals the Tesseract the heroes were meant to borrow for a bit.

Loki gets arrested by the Time Police for doing something he wasn’t supposed to, and he’s thrust into a mind-boggling world that makes him question how the universe works and how such an immense power has remained hidden to him for so long.

(I say “indeterminate” because they jump around a lot, and the passage of time isn’t entirely clear in the TVA.)

Based on what you’ve seen, I will say the show does a great deconstruction of Loki’s character, makes him face his own insecurities and shortcomings, and allows him to change in ways you might not expect.

But overall, even so far for me, he’s still got that nugget of classic Avengers Loki. He knows how to be menacing, crafty, and make his own secretive plans, and especially throughout Season 1 there are plenty of moments that’ll keep you on your toes regarding what’s going on inside his head…
Tom Hiddleston slides back into his villainous, vain persona so well.

The show itself is really cool and mostly self-contained so far. It has impressive practical sets, great special effects, tight cerebral writing at times, and a dedicated cast who play wonderful parts.

And wait, what do you mean by that? It’s not entirely correct. They already gave him one by the end of Thor Ragnarok/ beginning of Infinity War.

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That was just in regards to making peace with Thor and finally getting clout with the rest of their people. I never took it as Loki actually turning over a new leaf. I expected him to slide back into mischievous, criminal behavior by the next movie, and while he technically did, it just happened to be against Thanos.

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Aw man, really hope they renew the Captain Laserhawk show for another season.

It’s a fun action show with an equally fun, gripping dystopia plot!

And it ends in a bloody massive cliffhanger! Characters either dead or on the brink of it, and clearly a tease for some sort of continuation… Fingers crossed!
Also, it’s just very stylistically cool. The animation studio did a great job mixing anime, various styles of pixel art, and even some weird digital-filter-over-live-action actors for quite a few scenes in episodes 4 and 5…

Also also, the show was just 6 episodes! They were fun, but man, it was a short ride. I need more! Especially of the cool little bullfrog!

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I’m getting reminded of Aeon Flux with the animation in this.

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Looks like they’ve really improved the visuals and effects in this season compared to the last.

Also, good that they’re finally experimenting with their release schedules. Smaller shows like this with standalone episodes that have a super tight 9-day release schedule is great!

Very excited for what seems to be a “Happy Hogan saves Christmas” a la Die Hard lol. Woohoo, Jon Favreau leading man episode!

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Gosh… the Scott Pilgrim series is getting really meta now. I’m 5 episodes in, and wow, this has been a wildly unexpectedly fun twist on the comic series.

I’m a little sad it’s not the fully-animated adaptation of the original story that I’m sure plenty of fans have been waiting to see in motion, but boy, this is quite an interesting ride, for both fans of the comic series and the film.
It seems to play off expected and iconic moments from the series in new ways.

Young Neil is surprisingly my favourite character so far lmao. He’s SO freaking dumb but so adorable. :sweat_smile:

A couple of the line reads feel a little off, given how this show is animated energetically – and it’s a japanese anime production too – (some “passionate/energy-filled” animation frames lack that same energy from the English cast, but so far the whole team is doing a really great job at revisiting their characters.

Kieran Culkin is the perfect, immaculate embodiment of Wallace Wells. He’s still got it.

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The first of the Doctor Who 60th Specials are out now, and I quite enjoyed it!

It’s very fun to see David Tennant back in the role, in modern 2022 London, trying to solve a new mystery and help the human race out of a jam.

I stopped watching the show many years ago after I’d finished the Matt Smith run and Netflix took it off their catalogue.
There’s a neat little recap at the start of the episode where David and Catherine in-character as The Doctor and Donna, recap their lives to the camera, to fill you in on the plot thread from over a decade ago, where – long story short – #10 had to block Donna’s memories or she’d be overloaded with knowledge and die. And if she ever remembered the Doc or her Space adventures again, she’d die.

There were a couple character relationships and other bits I had to clue myself into with regards to who Tennant Doctor knows and what’s been going on with Donna, but overall it’s a good new start with some fun continuation for the fans.

Getting back into the series was fun with this.
David is suave as ever and rocking an awesome blue trenchcoat.
The episode centers around an alien crashlanding on Earth being pursued by two rival factions.
The Alien itself is very cool. It’s called The Meep and has a big ET vibe. It’s very cute and thr CGI/Puppet work was great. I honestly couldn’t quite tell if it was digital or real, it was very smooth.

There’s also an overarching mystery surrounding why the Doctor has his Tennant face again and why he’s been thrusted back into Donna’s life again as if by fate.
I hope this ends up being a great mini-adventure with the two of them again.

Go watch the special, it’s fun! Two more for the next two Fridays!
Internationally on Disney Plus now too! I hope they get the old series back too. I wanna re-watch some and catch up on the stuff I’ve missed!

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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.

Charming, refreshing, and inventive recontextualizing the film more than anything starting off as something familiar and ultimately being able to stand on its own. By extension watching the Edgar Wright film compliments this series really well since it’s kinda a sequel.

Without going into spoilers the show gets very meta and while the show tells a completely new story subverting expectations. The events of Scott Pilgrim vs The World happened.

Very pleased with the eight episode series.

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I’m currently watching Batman: The animated Series again, its so damn good.

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Fun TLOU cross-promotion thing!

I’m gonna need all y’all Scots to go to this bar and take pictures for me lol :laughing:

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i was a huge doctor who fan around 2007 (shortly after the series was rebooted) and kind of fell off halfway through matt smith’s series… watched this on saturday and truthfully it didnt hit the same way it did when i was younger. initially i thought the messaging was a bit heavy handed and the dialogue was clunky but i can excuse it since it’s for kids (and it’s obviously going to be expository since it’s the first special). hoping the next two are a bit more suited to me but im more looking forward to ncuti’s debut anyway, just hope i can get something out of the show as an adult

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I agree, it wasn’t perfect and some aspects felt heavy handed or overly whimsical as its kinda meant for younger generations, however I enjoyed it as a nostalgia-trip again and reintroducing myself into it all.
(The London cracks sealing themselves was proper silly though)

I haven’t seen the show since the 50th anniversary special, so I don’t know how the writing’s been since then, but I know RTD hasn’t been writing it till now.

I liked the representation he put into the script and most of it felt very natural and touched on some important aspects of those characters. (The conversation Donna and her mum have about Rose going by different pronouns felt shockingly real. (At least to me as a cis white man :sweat_smile:) and I liked the the wheelchair UNIT analyst and her “don’t make me the problem” line in a scene)

However I think his attempt to tie some of that into the plot/lore of the show felt pretty terrible.
The whole “Binary, binary, Non-Binary” moment and the whole “just let go of the metacrisis” were big head-scratchers in terms of “oh, okay, I guess we can go with that” to just… problematically misguided? Like, it implies that this magical space force absorbed into Donna years ago ended up “turning” her child into a non-binary trans girl – or binary trans girl? It was a little unclear given all the details before.

Anyway, all that said, I enjoyed it and it felt like one part of a 3-hour movie essentially. I’ll still gladly watch the rest, can’t wait to see Wilf’s last appearance and NPH as an upcoming villain.

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If last week’s Who Special was just “good” then this week’s was FANTASTIC.

We get a really nice mystery and lots of tension in an abandoned spaceship.
We get plenty of super-enjoyable acting and energy from Tennnant and Tate.
We get an awesome heartwarming ending with Wilf!!

Got a little bit more insight into the Doctor’s character since we last saw them. I’m not caught up on the lore, but really? Is he not from Gallifrey? And what’s with The Flux? Sounds like a really sore spot, like he wasn’t able to save half the universe from it or had to make a horrible choice he regrets. I know it has something to do with Whitaker’s run so, yeah…

Some of the CGI in this episode was a little wonky at times, but I can forgive it since the story itself was great!
Reminds me A LOT of Midnight, a classic David Tennant episode of Who that also has a lot of chills. Good job RTD for recapturing that.

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We finally saw the John Wick TV spinoff “Continental.”

It was entertaining and I like learning a bit more about the John Wick universe, but it wasn’t great and I still don’t fully understand a gold coin :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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assassin money. Hitman Merces.

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I just found out Eccleston to Capaldi Doctor Who is on Amazon Prime Canada!!

When the heck did this get added WOOOHOOO I guess it’s time to start a rewatch!

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Watched the three Doctor Who Specials, you can easily tell where the budget went on this one and it’s clearly with the third and final Special.

All I can really say about them is that it’s kinda a mix bag. If you have issues with Tennants Era as the character then you’ll have issues with these three episodes. If you have issues with very on the nose writing then you’ll of course have issues with these episodes aswell.

The BBC and by extension the writer of these Specials Russel T Davies effectively ended the original Series of Doctor Who with there being a sense of finality while starting up something completely new with Ncuti Gatwas, portrayal of the character which again you’re either gonna love or hate.

Another thing I want to add is they do something completely new that strays from the normal motions of a Doctors “Lifespan” and because of that I have a feeling this is just so they can keep an open door incase things don’t pan out for Gatwa’s tenure as the character so they can pivot back to a said portrayal of the character.

In general these Specials have their highs and their lows. Seeing Tennant again is always a good time even if it’s just fan service since he’s generally regarded as the fan favorite, but that’s just a testament to who he is as an actor.

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Finally got a chance to watch the last season of Reservation Dogs. It’s probably my favorite of the half-hour dramas pretending to be comedies, not least because it doesn’t forget to be genuinely funny.

The last episode was a bit too “Let’s wrap everything up” for me, but then I rarely like endings. The prior episode, however, where Elora finally meets her father (Ethan Hawke) is low-key terrific and subtly moving. One of the best episodes of the year.


Also watched the new Monk movie. It’s a serviceable case that does what it’s supposed to: let you spend some time with familiar characters. It’s very much in the “If you enjoyed the show, you’ll probably enjoy this, even if it’s a bit unnecessary” camp.

Not all of the comedy lands–we’ve seen Monk annoying people with his obsessiveness before and it had gotten old by the end of its original run–but Monk has always had one of my favorite depictions of loss and grief and it nails that side again. And, dear lord, I had forgotten just how dark the show can get. (Spoiler: very, very dark.)

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