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What TV are you watching and how would you rate it? [Revive from FRDB]

For All Mankind. 10/10

Ronald D Moore has nailed it again. It's a slow burn but totally worth it. I devoured Harry Turtledove's books when I was younger so this is an easy yes for me. Alternate history where the Soviet Union are the first to land on the moon and as an extra fuck you made certain the first woman to land on the moon was a cosmonaut as well. I wouldn't say the show is science fiction but more Engineering Fiction (if that is a genre)

Beacon 21. Nope. Just nope.

I think Lena Heady is a pretty average actor who has been lucky enough to land some good gigs. She's basically the Brit version of Ryan Gosling in my opinion. The show is as bland as a tofu sandwich, the dialogue is cringe and I couldn't give a fuck about to two main characters.
 
Fargo Season Five 8/10 so far

After going sideways in season four (Chris Rock the mob boss just didn't work.) Fargo is back on track in season five.

It stars Juno Temple as Dorothy "Dot" Lyon who is trying desperately to hold on to her new life after running away from a bad marriage to libertarian Sheriff Roy Tillman played by Jon Hamm who does not recognize the dissolution of marriage. Sheriff Roy employs Ole Munch (Sam Spurell), Roy's son Gator (Joe Keery) and a motley bunch to bring Nadine Tillman (Dot) back into the family fold. Well, there is also Dot's mother-in-law Lorraine Lyon played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, a ruthless billionaire who made her fortune in the debt collection industry. While Lorraine has no love for her daughter-in-law, she is not going to sit idly by and watch her son's happy life be disrupted.
 
Just watched the last episode of Succession, brilliant. Given the ending had more to offer, I had hoped for a season 5 but it looks like that's not on.
 
Watching The Expanse again. The show is just incredible, even another viewing into. The one thing I found funny is that Season One has a few hints regarding what will happen in Season / Book 5. But then the plot wanders away from it.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Watching The Expanse again. The show is just incredible, even another viewing into. The one thing I found funny is that Season One has a few hints regarding what will happen in Season / Book 5. But then the plot wanders away from it.
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That might have something to do with season 1 coming out the same time book 5 was released (2015) and the writers being involved in both.
 
Reacher Season 2. 3/10

All the tropes of the first season with even less character development or meaningful plot. I reckon there's a 50/50 chance Dean McKenzie's character will appear in the last episode as a plot twist seeing as they made a big point about him dying in a car accident years ago. The "take a drink after Reacher headbutts someone" has been replaced with "take a drink every time Reacher chokes someone".

Hey Reacher, have I ever told you that you're a shitty Mary Sue and the internet owes Daisy Ridly and Brie Larson a huge apology?
"Not nearly enough"
 
Patooka said:
Reacher Season 2. 3/10

All the tropes of the first season with even less character development or meaningful plot. I reckon there's a 50/50 chance Dean McKenzie's character will appear in the last episode as a plot twist seeing as they made a big point about him dying in a car accident years ago. The "take a drink after Reacher headbutts someone" has been replaced with "take a drink every time Reacher chokes someone".

Hey Reacher, have I ever told you that you're a shitty Mary Sue and the internet owes Daisy Ridly and Brie Larson a huge apology?
"Not nearly enough"
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You're not wrong, but I still enjoy the show. The main guy does a good job with the oversized role. I don't know the books but unlike the movies, they made this more of a a comic book like the Marvel Netflix shows, with a superhero without superpowers unless you count a perfect memory. But he's still invincible, and so is Neagley.

And that attempted throwaway about McKenzie's death was too conspicuous so yeah he'll be back somehow. If not to save the day this season, maybe it will turn out to have been a murder that they will have to solve next season.
 
I'm a few episodes into the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 9/10

I'm an "old school" Trekkie, having grown up watching reruns of what the kids today call "The Original Series" or as we called it...Star Trek. I never really got into The Next Generation, really liked Deep Space 9, thought Enterprise squandered a great concept, but I missed the old "Kirk, Spock, and McCoy fighting, blasting, and quipping their way across the universe" vs Picard pontificating every adversary into oblivion. I wasn't impressed with what I saw of Discovery, was disappointed with the Picard series, but this one?

It is very, very good. Production values are great, casting and acting is top notch, and they've somehow managed to distill the multiple iterations of Trek into one show. The action and humor of the original. The optimistic "the Federation isn't perfect, but we're trying" spirit of Next Generation. The story arc and "not everyone gets along" vibe from DS9, it delivers on the "what was this all like before Captain Kirk?" of Enterprise, and Anson Mount makes you wonder "is this what the original series would have been like if it starred Jeffrey Hunter instead of Shatner?"

It is also (so far, for me at least) the most emotional Trek. There have been a few moments that have moved me in a way the old shows never did. Like when
the doctor had to let his daughter go, Hemmer's sacrifice, Spock realizing his feelings for Chapel when he thought he'd lost her, and La'an mourning the death of alternate timeline Kirk.
It's...consequential. Space is dangerous, and there's not always a happy ending, but there is hope for the future.
 
Just finished the final season of Banshee. It's about two levels above the camp of the 1960's Batman television snow without the writers realizing that.
 
Fool Me Once, 7/10; Streaming on Netflix and stars Michelle Keegan as troubled ex army helicopter pilot Maya. A psychological thriller/mystery that has quite a few twists and turns. It all kicks off after Maya is walking home with her husband and her husband is shot and killed during a robbery. Not long after, Maya is watching a recording of the nanny cam and her dead husband is clearly seen in her two year old daughter's bedroom. After doing some digging around Maya discovers that her deceased sister was murdered by the same gun that killed her husband. And off we go down a dizzying array of twists, turns and red herrings. It's annoying that the producers stretched this out to eight episodes as six would have suffice. The final episode and conclusion was a bit over the top but for the most part the series was in fact quite entertaining and engrossing.
 
The Tourist, 4/10; Streaming on Netflix and stars Jamie Dornan in a action drama in remote part of Australia. Six episodes in total but the last two episodes are shit. The series starts off quite promising as Elliot Stanley (Dornan) has a car wreck which leaves him suffering from amnesia. He was actually deliberately run off the road. He awakes in an Australian hospital not knowing who he is or how he crashed. He discharges himself from hospital and goes about trying to figure out who he is. A clue in the form of a note he finds in his pants invites him to a meeting at a diner. He befriends a girl that works there and they exit the diner together and a bomb goes off in the diner. Elliot has a shady past and the pieces start to fall into place as a mental drug dealer and a compromised detective pursue him. There is some decent stuff in the first four episodes which are quite entertaining but then it all gets far too silly for the last two episodes.
 
Loudermilk (8/10, 8 episodes so far) - Recovering alcoholic and all-around asshole is also a substance abuse counselor. I’ve laughed out loud multiple times during each episode, which hasn’t happened for any recent show. I like dark comedy, so I’m sure that’s part of it. Some of the humor is crude, but the writing overall is quite good.
 
I have just started The Gentlemen, a TV series (described by Wikipedia as "action comedy" but might better be called "semi-dark comedy") starting with the premise of the same-named movie, both created by Guy Ritchie.

Succession -- one of the best TV series of all time and rather similar to The Gentlemen (TV series) -- is described by Wikipedia as "satirical black comedy-drama."

Both The Gentlemen and Succession dark comedys incorporate some slightly sophisticated slapstick. Both are excellent. They are in sharp contrast to Sopranos or Breaking Bad which strove to be epics, not dark comedies.

Ten out of Ten if you need a number. (OTOH I just started Episode 3 ... perhaps I'll lose interest.)
 
Narapoia said:
Startgate - SG1 Maybe 4/10, potentially higher if I give it more time.

Just to be clear I love SF, books, film and TV. I never watched a lot of Stargate when it was aired, just because it struck me as a relatively low budget cash is to a surprise hit film. I caught the first couple episodes and the odd one here and there over the years. Recently I have had a bit of time and thought I'd revisit the series. Wow - just watching the first few episodes (up to Ep4) has been really difficult. Can someone who is a bigger fan of this show please tell me if it gets better
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I've watched up to season 4 personally and it does get better, there are some well written episodes with some cool ideas. However been getting bored of it due to repeated "lost memory" plots and an episode where an alien of pure energy basically has intercourse with one of the team members without their consent. Yup, alien rape. That made me even less interested to continue.

Just realized this user has been gone since 2019 but hey I'll leave the post.
 
GenesisNemesis said:
Narapoia said:
Startgate - SG1 Maybe 4/10, potentially higher if I give it more time.

Just to be clear I love SF, books, film and TV. I never watched a lot of Stargate when it was aired, just because it struck me as a relatively low budget cash is to a surprise hit film. I caught the first couple episodes and the odd one here and there over the years. Recently I have had a bit of time and thought I'd revisit the series. Wow - just watching the first few episodes (up to Ep4) has been really difficult. Can someone who is a bigger fan of this show please tell me if it gets better
Click to expand...
I've watched up to season 4 personally and it does get better, there are some well written episodes with some cool ideas. However been getting bored of it due to repeated "lost memory" plots and an episode where an alien of pure energy basically has intercourse with one of the team members without their consent. Yup, alien rape. That made me even less interested to continue.

Just realized this user has been gone since 2019 but hey I'll leave the post.
Click to expand...
We've been watching SG-1. We're in season 7 now. It's staying steadily very good to excellent. There are more than a few mind possession or earth intrigue plots that we've endured but for the most part it's still about exploring other worlds/fighting the Goa'uld.
 
X-Men '97
8/10

A direct sequel to the 90's X-Men animated series. Probably not easy going into it without at least some familiarity with either the first series or the comics (which I have in abundance). The series has been excellent so far (6 out of 10 episodes aired) My only gripe with it is they are taking some big story arcs, ones that had years of development, and condensing them into half hour episodes.

The new series' creator said the plan was the first 5 episodes would be nostalgia, remembering when we were kids watching the original series, and the rest of the season would be time to grow up and face serious issues. Well among the fans that had been watching each episode as they are released, quite a few talked about being in tears at the end of episode 5. Simultaneously calling it emotional traumatizing and among the best TV they've seen. And I agree

For those unfamiliar with X-Men... why are you reading this review in the first place??? Ok, so they are a team of super heroes, but out of self defense. They are mutants, and trying to protect themselves in a world full of fearful bigots who would see them all killed. A kind of stand in for any type of bigotry/discrimination you want.

In episode 5 there is celebration going on as the UN is ready to recognize the nation of Genosha, a country rebuilt as a refuge for mutants everywhere. In the middle of the celebrations (and potential resolution of a love triangle) the country is attacked, thousands being killed

The series creator is a gay man who used to hang out at the Pulse night club, where a massacre happened. This episode reflects that, people who are discriminated against having a place where they can be themselves, be happy, only to have that illusion of safety shattered.

Last night's episode showed that Xavier is still alive. At the end of the original series he was dying, but taken away by his alien lover to try and save his life. Now his lover Empress lilandra is planning on marrying him, but interstellar politics is getting in the way. There is an assassination/coup attempt, but Xavier a kind of Superman moment when he shows how much he has been holding back. He literally schools everyone, pointing out the bullshit of how their empire is built on repressing all other species, which can easily be expanded to one race/nation others for their own benefit.
 
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