Current TV Boxset Addiction

[Mardroid]

Star Wars: Rebels - Season 3

A nice continuation of the series.

[spoiler] An interesting showdown between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul which I'm sure irritated a lot of fans for not being the big epic fight these things often are. I actually thought it was a good brave decision however to do something different. Much as I liked the fact they did more with Maul's character in the spin-off cartoons, I often felt that his resurrection undermined Obi-Wan's victory in The Phantom Menace. Well, this rectified this, and managed to be kind of sad and poignant too.[/spoiler]

Oh and a couple of geek thrills: [spoiler]Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Tie Defender! I had quite a bit of fun piloting that ship and the Tie Advanced* in the Tie Fighter PC game a couple of decades back. I seem to remember a craft similar to the Advanced appeared in Season One, although it wasn't quite the same as the game version. The Defender design looked like it was replicated pretty much exactly from the game.[/spoiler]

*[spoiler]Not to be confused with Vader's ship, which is also a Tie Advanced of a slightly different model number.[/spoiler]

[/geek-mode]

[Professor Bear]

All the geeky fanboy complaints I saw about Obi Wan/Maul seemed to center on Ezra's presence ruining things, or at least diluting the finale they never got in Clone Wars.

Missions - available to view for free on Amazon Prime - is a low budget French take on the "we're going to Mars" subgenre of tv sci-fi, but not as dull as National Geographic's Mars, probably as it has an actual story: an international coalition led by a white billionaire* set out to be the first humans on Mars, but an accident before launch kills the ship's psychologist, and by the time they get ready to land on the planet they find that the Americans have pulled a nuclear drive out of their arses and made planetfall two weeks earlier.  The Yanks are apparently all dead and their last act was to record a message begging not to be rescued as it's far too dangerous, then the mysterious deaths begin to happen, the malfunctions, and the ship becomes trapped on the surface without fuel or power.  That's episode one, it's only twenty minutes long, and you've got nine to go.
The story is entertaining, the effects and production surprisingly good for something whose episodes reputedly have one ten thousandth of the budget of Star Trek Discovery, and it looks a bit like a new Dr Who episode, only better because it has naked French ladies in it.  Well worth a watch if you like old-school tv sci-fi.


* Because as everyone knows, only white billionaires can take us into space.

[Keef Monkey]

You've just sold me incredibly hard on Missions, sounds absolutely positively my cup of tea. It'll be next on my watchlist now (I've got a couple of episodes of the first Clone Wars season to watch and then I'll be squeezing something else in before hitting season 2).

[Smith]

Series one of Black Mirror is okay,outside of the first episode,which is terrible tbh.But now I got all those David Cameron memes. ;-)

Last man standing is the best sitcom I saw in a while.So far,done with season 1.

[Professor Bear]

it has naked French ladies in it.

You've just sold me incredibly hard on Missions

[Proudhuff]

Altered Carbon is coming to Netflix! yah! loved the books.

Also starting into PKDs Man in the High Castle on Amazon and most recent Vikings ....

Totally recommend Minhunter too

cheers Jim!

[pictsy]

I watched Gravity Falls not long ago.  Pretty good kids show and a surprise from Disney.  I don't think it is what I would traditionally have assumed were 'Disney values'.  Nevertheless, it was of a consistent quality.

Rick and Morty...  I finally caught up with series 3 and then rewatched the first two.  It was still good, but maybe not as good.  I don't get why Pickle Rick became a thing.  The episode was fine, but it wasn't the best.  The standout episode for me was probably "The Ricklantis Mixup" with the focus on the Citadel.

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex.  I just really like watching this and it's been long enough since the last time I watched it.

[Mardroid]

I've read quite a bit of positive stuff concerning Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I've yet to see any of it, but I'd like to sometime.

I quite liked the first animated film of Ghost in the Shell. I found the sequel rather pretentious and boring however. I'm curious what the series will be like with its episodic format.

At the moment, aside from Star Trel Discovery (which has its own thread) I'm watching A Korean Odyssey and I've just started Black Lightning. Im only 2 or 3episodes into the former. It's a curious mix of supernatural horror and romantic comedy. Some of the ghost stuff is genuinely creepy featuring as it has, so far, the classic grey faced crawling girl with hair over her face* and possessed freaky looking dolls. On the fantasy side it borrows elements from the Chinese tale Journey to the West too. The outcome is certainly quirky and rather original (to me anyway). I think I rather like it, but i do find it rather corny and the humour a bit too OTT at times, but I'll stick with it for now. I seem to prefer the spooky mysterious stuff to Sun Wu Kong (Monkey) driving off ghostbuster style ghosts by punching the ground in a melodramatic way. [spoiler] I hope the main character shakes off the whole damsel in distress thing soon. She seems to alternate between self sufficiency and victim rather too much, but it's still early yet.[\spoiler]

Black Lightning: I enjoyed the first episode (although it's a bit cliche) but it's early days yet.




*Obviously a homage to Japanese horror like The Ring films. [spoiler]Here it ends up subverted for a bit of comedy as the initial spectre is actually rather scary.... "oh no! Ehy do you have your hair like that!" Says the terrified main character as the ghost bears down on her....then in the next scene she has the ghost girl sitting in a chair with her hair in pigtails with bright pink ribbons .  [/spoiler]

[Proudhuff]

I had a look at Black Lightning, but the Valley girl daughter was doing my head in... talk about entitled 

[Professor Bear]

Two episodes in and I'm pretty sure Black Lightning is utter trash.
Like other CW shows, it struggles to differentiate between diversity and exploitation, with some offensively bad stereotypes existing alongside offensively dated storytelling choices - but as with other CW shows, once you just accept them as the exploitative LCD horseshit they are, you'll enjoy them much more.  The name Greg Berlanti in the credits also gives me hope that while it's exploitative, it remains possible that it might correct its mistakes as it goes.

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Currently Watching

Hunted (Season Three) on Channel 4
Lethal Weapon (Season Two) on ITV 1
Wartime Crime (miniseries) on Yesterday

Currently Looking Forward to

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Season Five) on Channel 4
American Crime Story (Season Two) on BBC 2
Endeavour (Season Five) on ITV 1
The X-Files (Season Eleven) on Channel 5

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Forgot to add Star Trek Discovery (Season One) on Netflix

[Theblazeuk]

Watching SyFy's horror series Channel Zero. I think I prefer this to American Horror Story by about a 1000X though the budget is probably smaller by that factor. By no means without flaws, the ideas and the sense of unreality throughout more than make up for the missteps in continuity and logic at times. Season 1, 'Candle Cove', felt like two good ideas for a season mixed poorly into one by the final 'reveal' but the journey was slow, scratchy and sinister. Stepping further away from the original idea of a kid's show that everyone of a certain age in a certain place remembers but never aired (other than on static that said kids watched whilst parents marvelled at their imagination) was a mistake in my book.

Season 2, 'No End House', is so far (50% of way in) more akin to American Horror Story in its conceit of a mysterious 'haunted house' that leads through the Scary Door, but it's an interesting idea and again delivering a decently spooky sense of struggling through a broken reality.

Hadn't really heard much about the series so figure it hasn't done well, but I'd recommend it. Like I say, beats the #1 'Horror show' in my books.

[TordelBack]

Dark/Dunkel.  Four episodes into this German Netflix series - three of them in a single sitting - and I am utterly obsessed.  The Killing meets Lost meets Edge of Darkness meets Stranger Things, but not really like any of them.  Hope it continues to be this good,  and has an actual resolution,  but so far,  as episodic mystery/supernatural/pastoral noir TV it is as gripping as anything I've ever watched.

Damn, it's good.

(Although it does leave me wondering about how the police actually operate in Germany - some very odd things going on). 

[Tiplodocus]

Well another fine season finale for THE GOOD PLACE (Or me anyway). Very pleasantly surprised with how they find new directions for this show.