Random TV Show Thoughts

[mnkykungfu]

Pacific Rim: The Black (2021-2022)
This offshoot of the Pacific Rim movies is set in the Australian outback near Sydney in a future that seems pretty dominated by the giant monsters known as "kaiju". There are 2 seasons of 7 episodes each that bring the story through a definite complete arc. They were released about a year apart, and since another year has passed and there's no Season 3, I guess that'll be the end for this particular story, though certainly they could explore the characters and a few mysteries more.

The story centers on an older brother and younger sister whose parents are "jaeger" pilots - giant robots built to fight the kaiju. The parents run off in their robot to get help for a small colony of apocalypse survivors, but we pick up on the kids many years later and the parents have never come back. Their fate hangs as a specter over the entire series, but the immediate plot is the discovery of a buried jaeger training module that the kids can pilot. The lil sis of course wants to run off and look for mom and dad, whereas the older bro feels the need to be more responsible and use it to defend the isolated little colony they have carved out. You can guess who wins, with tragic results.

The show looks pretty great, and there are just enough surprising small elements to make it feel less tropey and more mature than the lion's share of anime. The 2nd season of the show starts heading into areas that feel pretty far afield from the Pacific Rim films, which is probably why it didn't get renewed, but overall the voice acting is pretty good and the character work is strong. It's a solid watch for fans of post-apocalyptic stories and giant robo tales, although (slight Spoiler) I found it frustrating that they never really manage to turn their jaeger into an impressive fighting force. The series is definitely more focused on the human side of things, and isn't much of a "hero's journey", both to its benefit and disadvantage.

 

[WilliamRedRobin]

Has anyone else noticed this thing Netflix Originals have been doing where they're all letterboxed with the top and bottom of the frame made artificially blurry?
I'm sure there's a fancy film school name for it, but it looks so ugly to me.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Primal (2020 + 2022)
This gem of an animated show consists of 2 seasons of 10 episodes each, about 22 minutes per episode. They fly by, but I'd advise a "pleasure-delaying" strategy rather than binging, as one of the things that's so great about the episodes is how much of an antidote they are to all the other typical TV series....

The basic premise, established over the first couple episodes, is centered on two main characters: a nameless kinda-Neanderthal man credited as "Spear" for his characteristic weapon, and a nameless female kinda-T-Rex credited as "Fang" for her single snaggletooth that pokes up from her right front jaw.

Spear and Fang occupy this sort of mythical "Hyperborean" world a la the Conan stories where dinosaurs and monsters and primitive beings and sometimes even magic and gods all co-exist and interact. It's a hard, ruthless, kill-or-be-killed land that often punishes compassion or relaxing for even an instant. Survival of the fittest is the rule of the day, and that can take many forms, but the upshot of it is that both Spear and Fang find themselves alone in the world, and after sharing a common enemy, they strike up an odd sort of cooperation for mutual survival.

Where this goes over the course of the series is not static, and has a number of surprises. It's amazing how much story can be told in such short episodes, and with almost no actual words said in the entire series. The episodes are at times frightening, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and inspiring. It is some of the finest work in a career of fine work from director/writer/storyboarder Genndy Tartakovsky and his team, who made Samurai Jack, the original Clone Wars shorts, and the underrated Sym-Bionic Titan. This is MASTERFUL visual storytelling with many episodes taking the time to sink into a vibe, dedicating long minutes to portraying quiet, tense landscapes, or bucolic, primitive beauty.

The series also pulls no punches, and is absolutely not for kids. It may at times be so brutal and bloody that even adults will find it hard to watch. It's an action-packed show that fans of old samurai films and new action-adventure movies will likely love. Almost every episode has a bespoke score that is amazing and moody and evocative as well, created by Tyler Bates (Fight Club) and Joanne Higginbottom (also Samurai Jack).

The two seasons tell a complete story with an ending point, and while it does come rather quickly after a fairly lengthy lead up, it's a gutsy ending that you could never see on an animated show that was made to sell toys. I hear that Tartakovsky wants to do another season telling other Primal tales from the same world but as one-off stories with various characters, and I'll eagerly await that. But for emotional investment, this arc is one of the best animated series ever, a true must-watch for fans of animation.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Narcos (2015-2017)

This is a show that when it first came out, every hipster and Libertarian and Suicide Girl and self-identifying "independent thinker" that I knew talked about it in glowing terms as a "must watch"! I think the reason for the initial rapturous response is that it tells the tale of the US Drug Enforcement Agency collaborating with the President of Colombia to try to reign in their runaway "narco-democracy", as spearheaded by Pablo Escobar. The show is told from the perspective of two DEA agents who are living in Colombia, desperately trying to find a way to get at Escobar in a city, if not a country, that views him as at least an equal authority to the government, and perhaps even a robin hood-type anti-hero. The tale of the drug trade is one of tracing money and power and corruption, and the DEA agents find that they often can't trust government agents, police, or political leaders any more or less than the "narcos" they're supposed to be bringing in.

Boyd Holbrook is the nominal lead of the ensemble cast at first, gradually being subsumed by Pedro Pascal as the series moves on. They both give strong performances but the series is very dry as a whole, except for Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar himself, who gets to chew the most scenery but is also pretty magnetic even in quiet moments. The series definitely loses something when the focus moves on from him, and it never recovers.

The production value is great though, showing a Colombia of the 80s and early 90s, and occasionally New York and Miami too, the major outlets for the cocaine. The style of the show incorporates a lot of real photos and video with voiceover at the beginning of most episodes to anchor the narrative in the real events that it's portraying. This undoubtedly becomes a bit of a history lesson, and from my recent visits to Colombia I can tell you that the portrayals on the show appear to be largely true. Colombianos don't too much like the aspects that were made more exciting for TV or compressed for time and simplicity, but honestly it seems like a really faithful adaptation compared to most "true stories" you watch. It's just that Colombia now is a much different place.

I'd say the first 2 seasons are well worth watching if you're into crime stories like Goodfellas or Sicario. There are a lot of memorable scenes and actors, most of whom are Latinos if not Colombianos. There's a good mix of Spanish and English on the show, but these seasons stay away from the relationship melodrama that can drive a lot of South American productions (like their own Pablo Escobar series). Here, there's more emphasis on building tension, some pretty explicit violence, and a decent amount of sex and nudity to go along with the drugs and partying. The 3rd season moves away from all this into something a bit more subtle, political, and honestly less compelling. It rounds out with a strong series ending though that validates the sense that "the War on Drugs" is all a shell game about backing power players for profit, by both local governments and the US. Narcos may make the best case yet for drug legalization.

 

[addiesin]

Primal (2020 + 2022)
This gem of an animated show consists of 2 seasons of 10 episodes each, about 22 minutes per episode. They fly by, but I'd advise a "pleasure-delaying" strategy rather than binging, as one of the things that's so great about the episodes is how much of an antidote they are to all the other typical TV series....

I feel that. I watched the first two episodes and needed a breather. They were excellent though, I will return.

 

[mnkykungfu]

His Dark Materials (2019-2022)
Hey, have you ever really enjoyed a Fantasy series and thought, "I wish someone would make an adaptation of this, only with a budget too low to realize all the fantasy, and with lots of extra writing put in to pad it out and dilute the power of the original story??" Well then have I got a series for you!

The original attempt at doing a film adaptation of the first novel in the trilogy, The Golden Compass, was a bit of a mixed bag. Certainly it was riding on a wave of new Fantasy films kicked off by LOTR and Harry Potter, and the budget and quality of the CG and such fell somewhere between those two. It wasn't bad and certainly they got a lot of the cast really right, it's just that the film was kind of killed by a thousand cuts from the studio. The director has detailed his struggles in even getting a version of the film that they'd release over many interviews and podcasts.

Perhaps I'd be kinder to this series if I didn't have that film to compare it to... but I do. And right away I was just thinking how much of the casting here is like budget UK versions of the great actors from the film (James McAvoy aside, though he's not really in many episodes). The problem is immediately apparent that in order to make this a TV series, they decided to write in a bunch of typical TV drama series BS that wasn't in the books, and it's all so very boring and tropey and melodramatic.

You know what I absolutely did NOT want to see more of? A bunch of religious bureaucrats meeting each other in hallways and having faceoffs about who has more influence, all in hushed, properly-accented tones. Ugh, kill me now. And then on the other hand, you've got a world where literally every single person has a daemon, a sort of animal personification of their inner self, walking or hopping or flying around next to them. This is the most revolutionary, interesting, and core concept of the book.... and you see almost none of it on screen. At any given moment, there are maybe 10% of people with any creature near them. Most shots are just normal TV drama BS.

If you were going to expand anything from this series, to use it as an opportunity to dive deeper into this world, you certainly wouldn't spend more time on religious bureacracy, or on the normal, mundane life in the real England. It's shameless padding that adds nothing. You'd dive into what these daemons mean for people, into how a world like that works, into the differences from our normal reality. It's such a squandered opportunity in this show.

I hung in past the first few episodes primarily due to Dafne Keen, cast as the series lead. She's a very talented young actress and does great here. The show does also have some nice production in the sets, and a handful of strong supporting cast. However, even at the end of Season 1, I was looking online for "Does the series His Dark Materials get better?", and the internet assured me that it does, that each season gets better and that it has a very moving ending. Well, the internet lies once again, because I couldn't make it more than a couple episodes into Season 2. It's just more of the same, more padding with BS that's nowhere in the novels, even less in the series that looks fantastical and just lots more crappy writing.

It never ceases to amaze me how many productions think that in adapting a really popular thing, they can write a better version of it. You've already got the blueprint right there. Only change what's absolutely necessary. I highly advising skipping this one.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

His Dark Materials (2019-2022)
Hey, have you ever really enjoyed a Fantasy series and thought, "I wish someone would make an adaptation of this, only with a budget too low to realize all the fantasy, and with lots of extra writing put in to pad it out and dilute the power of the original story??" Well then have I got a series for you!

The original attempt at doing a film adaptation of the first novel in the trilogy, The Golden Compass, was a bit of a mixed bag. Certainly it was riding on a wave of new Fantasy films kicked off by LOTR and Harry Potter, and the budget and quality of the CG and such fell somewhere between those two. It wasn't bad and certainly they got a lot of the cast really right, it's just that the film was kind of killed by a thousand cuts from the studio. The director has detailed his struggles in even getting a version of the film that they'd release over many interviews and podcasts.

Perhaps I'd be kinder to this series if I didn't have that film to compare it to... but I do. And right away I was just thinking how much of the casting here is like budget UK versions of the great actors from the film (James McAvoy aside, though he's not really in many episodes). The problem is immediately apparent that in order to make this a TV series, they decided to write in a bunch of typical TV drama series BS that wasn't in the books, and it's all so very boring and tropey and melodramatic.

You know what I absolutely did NOT want to see more of? A bunch of religious bureaucrats meeting each other in hallways and having faceoffs about who has more influence, all in hushed, properly-accented tones. Ugh, kill me now. And then on the other hand, you've got a world where literally every single person has a daemon, a sort of animal personification of their inner self, walking or hopping or flying around next to them. This is the most revolutionary, interesting, and core concept of the book.... and you see almost none of it on screen. At any given moment, there are maybe 10% of people with any creature near them. Most shots are just normal TV drama BS.

If you were going to expand anything from this series, to use it as an opportunity to dive deeper into this world, you certainly wouldn't spend more time on religious bureacracy, or on the normal, mundane life in the real England. It's shameless padding that adds nothing. You'd dive into what these daemons mean for people, into how a world like that works, into the differences from our normal reality. It's such a squandered opportunity in this show.

I hung in past the first few episodes primarily due to Dafne Keen, cast as the series lead. She's a very talented young actress and does great here. The show does also have some nice production in the sets, and a handful of strong supporting cast. However, even at the end of Season 1, I was looking online for "Does the series His Dark Materials get better?", and the internet assured me that it does, that each season gets better and that it has a very moving ending. Well, the internet lies once again, because I couldn't make it more than a couple episodes into Season 2. It's just more of the same, more padding with BS that's nowhere in the novels, even less in the series that looks fantastical and just lots more crappy writing.

It never ceases to amaze me how many productions think that in adapting a really popular thing, they can write a better version of it. You've already got the blueprint right there. Only change what's absolutely necessary. I highly advising skipping this one.

I road this series with my kids a couple of years ago and we started the series. Like you we kind of lost interest midway through season two. I’m unclear from your review, though, if you did manage to push through and watch the third and final season?

 

[asterixsmeagol]

I was really excited when they announced the series and thoroughly enjoyed the first season. The second season was ok, and the third was a boring mess. But honestly that's pretty much the trajectory of the books too. My only real complaint with how they handled it was that the effects seemed to get worse every season, and they kind of messed up the characterizations of Azreal and Coulter in the last season.

9/10 for the first season, 7/10 for the second, 4/10 for the third.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Sounds like maybe your scores reflect how much you liked the trajectory of the books...? Personally, I loved all the books, though I initially hated the bait and switch of focusing on Roger and then shifting focus to this Will guy. But then he won me over... whereas in the series we're stuck with Will's boring background story throughout the first season and I just wanted it to end.

I road this series with my kids a couple of years ago and we started the series. Like you we kind of lost interest midway through season two. I’m unclear from your review, though, if you did manage to push through and watch the third and final season?

I quit after season 1, then went back for a second try and quit at season 2 episode 3. I just couldn't take the stupid writing anymore in all the added bits in our reality. Life's too short and there's too much truly great TV out there these days.

 

[Jrzag42]

My mom finally started Twin Peaks. She called me earlier asking why nobody thought to wear gloves when dealing with dead bodies. Now she's texting me that Agent Cooper is hilarious. I can't wait to see how this goes, I hope she doesn't end up hating it (our tastes don't always align), so far she seems to be enjoying it.

 

[Jrzag42]

My mom finally started Twin Peaks. She called me earlier asking why nobody thought to wear gloves when dealing with dead bodies. Now she's texting me that Agent Cooper is hilarious. I can't wait to see how this goes, I hope she doesn't end up hating it (our tastes don't always align), so far she seems to be enjoying it.

She's in the middle of season 2 now, I feel so bad. "This feels like two completely different shows!"
I told her that it's worth it cuz the final episode is great, but I don't actually know how well she'll respond to the peak Lynchian ambiguity that this and the rest of the franchise entails. She's never going to listen to another recommendation from me again...

 

[Gaith]

Me: Ooh, the complete Miami Vice Blu-ray set is on sale for $30! Should I buy it?!

Brain: You've never watched Miami Vice once in your life. You've never wanted to watch Miami Vice.

Me: Sure, but what if I did want to? And suppose it weren't available to stream when I did?

Brain: You'd watch something else; something better.

Me: This is 113 episodes. That's only twenty-seven cents per episode, in high-def Blu-ray.

Brain: Of which you'd watch... three? Four? Before losing interest forever?

Me: 5508 minutes. That's like 46 Raiders of the Lost Arks.

Brain: It's nothing like Raiders of the Lost Ark at all. And breakfast at the hospital costs $5 every morning. Imagine skipping breakfast for six consecutive days, just to watch three or four episodes of Miami Vice, tops.

Me: Huh. Put that way... yeah, it doesn't sound that great. We probably shouldn't. Without breakfast, my day is off to a bad start, even once. Six consecutive days of that would be terrible.

Brain: Good. I'm glad you're starting to see sense.

Me: Okay.

Brain: Okay.

Me: ...

Brain: .

Me: ...

Brain: ... Yes?

Me: ♪ ♪ I can feel it coming in the air tonight... oh, lawd... ♫

Brain: You cut that ou-

 

[bionicbob]

Me: Ooh, the complete Miami Vice Blu-ray set is on sale for $30! Should I buy it?!

While Miami Vice is iconic, it also devolves after season one into mostly Style over Substance. But there are gems in each season, and at that sale price it might be worth it just for the Greatest Hits episodes?

Or just buy Michael Mann’s vastly superior CRIME STORY.

 

[Gaith]

^ What, a series set in drab Chicago, rather than pastels-and-blazers "Mee-AH-mee"? No deal!

... But, the kicker is, I don't even like cop shows!

 

[mnkykungfu]

While Miami Vice is iconic, it also devolves after season one into mostly Style over Substance.

*E-volves

@Gaith your post is the very epitome of this thread title and has embarrassed me with my full-on reviews selfishly dropped here. I admire the creativity, good sir, thanks for that!

 

[Jrzag42]

She's in the middle of season 2 now, I feel so bad. "This feels like two completely different shows!"
I told her that it's worth it cuz the final episode is great, but I don't actually know how well she'll respond to the peak Lynchian ambiguity that this and the rest of the franchise entails. She's never going to listen to another recommendation from me again...

My mom just finished the original run of Twin Peaks as well as the movie. She just texted me, "This movie is terrible."
Can't wait to hear her thoughts on The Return. I'm almost tempted to tell her to skip episode 8, because I know she'll hate it. I have assured her that Albert and Gordon get plenty of screentime in the third season, I was really glad when she told me they were her favorite characters.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Disney's "Short Circuit" series (2020, 2021)
Disappointingly, not one of these feature Johnny #5.

This seems to want to sell itself as Disney making short standalone animated films a la the amazing shorts Pixar has been putting out since they started. In reality, few of these even approach the level of heart and creativity in most of Pixar's shorts, although most of them do try hard for that "what a twist!" ending.

The titles are Puddles, Exchange Student, Lucky Toupee, Just a Thought, Cycles, Lightning in a Bottle, The Race, Hair-Jitsu, Downtown, Jing Hua, Drop, Zenith, Elephant in the Room, and Fetch.
The majority of these are quite forgettable besides their on-the-nose names..."Hair-Jitsu" for example is exactly what you think it is. Really, the only noteworthy thing about them is that they're in a wide variety of animation styles, from cell-shading to Coco-esque to a very cool kind of "moving newsprint" style. I was going to write a sentence or two of detail about each, but when I found myself having to look them up on Letterboxd or Wikipedia to remember much about them, I realized that in itself spoke volumes. Each one has a short one-minute introduction from the director/lead-animator telling what the personal inspiration was for the story. A lot of them feel really meaningful, like this person could have had the inspiration to make the next Luca or Onward, or at least Turning Red. But you'd scarcely guess any of that from the limited amount of depth in the short itself. It feels kind of like a cheat to announce and explain the point of the story before showing each one.

These are generally overtly-messagey kids' programing that are probably a good mind-expander to get the lil ones exposed to different animation. I don't think they cross that age gap the way Pixar's (older) stuff does though. For something with more to it beyond the visuals, I'd check out the Love+Death+Robots series on Netflix.

 

[mnkykungfu]

The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008)

This was a short but sweet simply-animated series that in both visuals and story was a great tribute to the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Spider-Man comics. It only had two brief seasons, but within about 5 or 6 episodes you realize that this is not typical Saturday morning cartoon fare: there's an overarching story where characters grow and mature and developments have lasting effects to the status quo. The 2 seasons made cover a lot of the major early Spidey villains and supporting cast, but also work in key elements that popped up later in the high points of Spidey's mythology, the '80s and the Ultimate comics. We get to see the seeds for the Green Goblin, Hobgoblin, Eddie Brock, Black Cat love affair, Kingpin, and many more elements, and by the end of the season most of those have been paid off!

I love that if you pay attention to the episode titles, they’re all named after principles in various school subjects. The first three relate to Biology, the next three- Economics, the following three- Chemistry, and the last four in Season 1 are about Psychology…very fitting for the alien costume saga (which culminates in the birth of Venom). Disney+ lists all the episodes as one season, but there’s clearly a midpoint break and evolution, where Season 2 kicks off a new status quo and a new four episode arc (named after Engineering principles) and a new big bad: The Master Planner.

If you watch on Disney+, their final listed episode, “First Steps” is inexplicably out of order there and it makes a big difference. Narratively (and in original broadcast), it falls as #18 overall in the series, right before “Growing Pains” as the beginning of the “Human Development” class arc. The next three episodes are named for Criminology topics, and the final three episodes go all-in on a Drama class theme. It definitely feels like an odd note to end the series on, more of a waystation than a culmination, and it’s clear that creators Greg Weisman and Victor Cook had more seasons planned (3 more, to be specific!)

I've been digging into all the creations of Weisman, from Gargoyles and Young Justice to his work on Rebels and various Batman series. The commonality is a real respect for the source material and for the slow play. These shows have flash and excitement and silliness, all the stuff that kids would gravitate towards, but they almost never write down to kids. The Spectacular Spider-Man spends as much time agonizing over dating life and personal issues as he does on which new supervillain is challenging him this episode. The characters have to deal with real emotional conflicts and aren't given pat, patronizing messages like "Just say no, kid!" I was a fan of The Amazing Spider-Man, the complex '90s cartoon on Fox, but this version is far superior, something that old skool comic fans will find a lot to love in. It's a real shame that we never got to see Petey graduate high school.

 

[mnkykungfu]

August is the month every year when I honor O-Bon by catching up on all things Japanese. This year, I dove back into some anime series-watching with a vengeance, and these were my brief takeaways...

Inferno Cop (2012)- This is an ONA series where each episode is like 2 minutes long plus a minute and a half of credits. It's an equal-opportunity-offender type of absurdist comedy done intentionally cheaply and badly. Absolutely insane; probably love-it or hate-it for most people. (Oh, and it's about a burning skeleton cop, obviously.)

The Faraway Paladin (2021)- Fortunately, this 12 episode series is getting a 2nd season, because the current structure is really odd; the first 3 episodes feel kind of like a little Fantasy coming-of-age film, then the remaining episodes take that character out into the broader world and lead up to a kind of "Stage 2 Boss". The focus of the show is so much about becoming more powerful and spreading the word of the paladin's goddess that it can't help but feel very video-gamey, but it's refreshingly thoughtful in its writing.

Ganbare Doukichan (2021)- Another super short ONA series that's kind of office-romance fluff in Japan. Solid but forgettable.

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990)- I actually watched a fanedit of this old Fantasy Adventure series that cut out all the hated filler episodes and made it a film trilogy. It feels at times like a bit TOO much was cut, but I was happy to catch up with this Neon Genesis Evangelion precursor.

Macross Frontier (2008)- This is maybe the best-received version of this franchise (even the original wasn't immediately a hit) but I found it a bit lacking... At times it's an almost exact remake of that series, only with a less interesting male lead but a really interesting female 3rd lead. I would've never have guessed I'd be more interested in the "aging pop starlet" sub-plot than in the main "robot space jets vs aliens" story. But I was. Great music!

Nobunaga Concerto (2014)- A kind of cheaply-animated short series that doesn't really have an ending, despite rushing nearly to the end of Oda Nobunaga's life. This is a fairly light, comedic take on a time travel story to feudal Japan, and there are some clever bits but it's hard to recommend with no resolution.

Psycho-Pass 3 (2019)- The third season of this big Sci-Fi Cop franchise is the shortest yet, with the final episodes basically being converted into a movie. It's a frustrating watch because it jumps ahead 7 years from the last season, switches to mostly new characters, and keeps teasing you about a huge event that changed everything and everyone but instead covering some other over-plotted, underwritten story with these new guys. I kind of wished I would have skipped right over it to the "prequel" follow-up.

Welcome to the N.H.K. (2006)- This was the gem of the month, and immediately shot up into the ranks of my all-time favorite anime series. It stars a Japanese shut-in who is a total loser that lives on his parents' money while surfing the net and getting mired in depression, paranoia, and conspiracy theories. The show is the process of him trying to overcome mental illness, grow up, and learn how to interact with people like a normal human being instead of a cringy incel. And it's a comedy! I loved how fearless it was, how it balanced serious topics with absurdist humor, and all the little slice-of-Japanese-life jokes. It will not be for everyone though.

Best Animation: Macross Frontier. Best Sound: MF. Best Voice-Acting: Welcome to the NHK. Best "Cool" Characters: The Faraway Paladin.

 

[catferoze]

Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990)- I actually watched a fanedit of this old Fantasy Adventure series that cut out all the hated filler episodes and made it a film trilogy. It feels at times like a bit TOO much was cut, but I was happy to catch up with this Neon Genesis Evangelion precursor.

I keep meaning to start this but can't decide whether to watch the original series with a fanedit bridge episode that smooths over the jump from skipping those episodes, a fanedit film trilogy (probably the one you watched), or a fan-made hd recreation of the official Nautilus Story film trilogy. Your review makes me think I should start with the full series (minus a certain arc) to get the more complete story.