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What TV Shows Are You Watching? The 9th Is - Excuse Me - A Damn Fine Cup Of Coffee

Sommerswerd said:
Iwaju on Disney+ -- Delightful. The setting feels like Wakanda, but its Nigeria. So it's a fantastical technologically advanced version of Lagos, Nigeria, as if it were like Wakanda, minus Black Panther and the Avengers, etc. The nuances/differences in accents, language, music, culture are apparent if you are familiar with Nigerian culture, but would be easy to miss if you are not. Only a few episodes and easy to watch in a couple sittings with family. A pretty straightforward kids-as-heroes type story... with some notes of Big Hero 6.
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I haven't seen this one, but I do think Afrofuturism is an exciting genre. I've only dipped a toe in it, myself. The Black Panther movies, of course. Binti (2015) by Nnedi Okorafor. I've seen N.K. Jemisin called Afrofuturist, although nothing in the books of hers that I've read struck me as distinctly African. I haven't read Jemisin's Green Lantern comic, Far Sector, but I've been curious to check it out. I've also seen Colson Whitehead referred to as Afrofuturist, which seems like even more of a stretch to me. I've seen people refer to Parliament and Tricky as 'retroactively Afrofuturist'; I've loved both of them for a long time, whether we buy that characterization or not.

I'm less interested in kids' animation - although I did like Big Hero 6 - but if anyone finds (or already has) other recommendations in the subgenre, I'd be game. So far, it seems like it's mostly been confined to books and music. I'd love to see it appear more in film & television, if for no other reason than, if Black Panther is anything to go by, the potential for amazing visuals seems enormous. I could probably watch otherwise-generic movies or shows, if they had an Afrofuturist setting. Law & Order: Wakanda. Predator vs. Black Panther. Some time ago, Ryan Coogler was rumored to be developing a series for Disney+ that would feature the Dora Milaje, but with Marvel pulling up the drawbridges lately, I'm not sure we should be holding our breath for that.
 
EgonSpengler said:
I haven't seen this one, but I do think Afrofuturism is an exciting genre.
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I'd never heard that term "Afrofuturism" before, but I think it certainly could fit the series... although, like Wakanda, rather than a "future" society, the Nigeria depicted in Iwaju seems to be more like a present-day society, just far more technologically advanced, (I guess making it "futuristic"). I don't know whether that concept is included in the term "Afrofuturism".
 
Sommerswerd said:
I'd never heard that term "Afrofuturism" before, but I think it certainly could fit the series... although, like Wakanda, rather than a "future" society, the Nigeria depicted in Iwaju seems to be more like a present-day society, just far more technologically advanced, (I guess making it "futuristic"). I don't know whether that concept is included in the term "Afrofuturism".
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Like a lot of things, the edges are fuzzy. Sometimes it seems like any sci-fi or fantasy created by a Black artist gets called Afrofuturist, which I think may be too broad. It makes me think of the "Urban Literature" sections in bookstores of old. (I haven't seen the movie yet, but I think this is part of the premise of American Fiction, with Jeffrey Wright. There's that one line in the trailer where Wright's character holds up a book and shouts, "the Blackest thing about this is the ink!" :lol: ) As i say, I've read a few of N.K. Jemisin's books, and none of them struck me as Afrofuturist, per se. Colson Whitehead, even less so. Samuel R. Delaney and Octavia Butler have been retroactively called Afrofuturist (retroactively because the term is only about 30 years old). But maybe I'm splitting hairs. If sci-fi written by a Black author featuring Black characters is sufficient to be called Afrofuturist, then Jemisin's not just in the club, she's in the VIP section, and Butler has a wing named after her.

Movies and television haven't really broken through, I don't think. Black Panther, of course. It certainly looks like Iwaju qualifies. But again, I don't think it's merely sci-fi or fantasy by or about Black people. I don't think of Jordan Peele's work as Afrofuturist, nor anything Will Smith has done. I've watched They Cloned Tyrone, The Kitchen and The Changeling in recent months, and none of those struck me as Afrofuturist.

I think the best, recent example of Afrofuturism in music is Janelle Monae. I think she pretty clearly embraced it, at least on some of her albums. I've seen Parliament and Tricky referred to as Afrofuturist. I could add Grace Jones, maybe. I think some Miles Davis has been pulled in, and Sun Ra seems like an obvious candidate. Afrika Bambaataa and MF Doom have been called Afrofuturist.

Afrofuturism also extends into visual art, but that's something I'm not at all familiar with, so I couldn't cite any examples.
 
Osaka Castle in 1614.


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Another great episode! I will have to go back and reread the book now. I last read it when it came out 50 years ago.
 
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Kyriakos said:
Hm, I tried to watch an Australian tv series, Mr. Inbetween.
Tldr: it is poor, peripheral and decadent.
Maybe the existence of so many Greeks in Australia has had a corrosive effect, but despite the epithets meaning other things at state level, culturally this looks to be more an Anglosaxon/Germanic brand ^^

(capitalizing epithets for peoples is really boring)
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Australians have some interesting nicknames for Greeks and Italians.

Caricatures as well.
 
Used to play the game on Playstation...



Twisted Metal is an action-packed Paramount+ Exclusive series based on the incredible Playstation game of the same name. The series follows a milkman with amnesia who is given a chance at a better life, but only if he can accomplish the mission of successfully delivering a peculiar parcel across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Starring the amazing Anthony Mackie as the lead along with the talented Stephanie Beatriz.
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3 Body Problem
The book was Meh cubed. The first episode (of 8) was Meh.
It moves a lot faster than the novel, mercifully.

Lame moment #1. The book on the shelf with Science on the spine to remind us she was a sciencing before she died.
Excellent moment #1: Adrian Edmondson has entered the game. Beautiful People just keeps on giving!
Excellent moment #2: Civ 137 announced. (No mention of 1upt).

Gets better and better. Much better than Shogun!

Great cast, but Sea Shimooka looks ridiculously out of place.
Some nice "shout outs" to Ender's Game and Larry Niven's idea of monofilament wire.
8/10.
 
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Comrade Ceasefire said:
3 Body Problem
The book was Meh cubed. The first episode (of 8) was Meh.
It moves a lot faster than the novel, mercifully.

Lame moment #1. The book on the shelf with Science on the spine to remind us she was a sciencing before she died.
Excellent moment #1: Adrian Edmondson has entered the game. Beautiful People just keeps on giving!
Excellent moment #2: Civ 137 announced. (No mention of 1upt).

Gets better and better. Much better than Shogun!

Great cast, but Sea Shimooka looks ridiculously out of place.
Some nice "shout outs" to Ender's Game and Larry Niven's idea of monofilament wire.
8/10.
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I read the first book of that, back in the day. It has many problems.
There was a Chinese adaptation, which has something like 2 million episodes ^^
 
Comrade Ceasefire said:
The US show (but with lots of actors from Westeros, UK).
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Yeah, show was developed by the GOT guys. Know nothing of the source but will check it out. Seems to be getting mixed reviews but a lot of complaints seem to be by book lovers. I’ll be going in tabula rasa so will judge from that perspective.
 
lymond said:
Yeah, show was developed by the GOT guys. Know nothing of the source but will check it out. Seems to be getting mixed reviews but a lot of complaints seem to be by book lovers. I’ll be going in tabula rasa so will judge from that perspective.
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The Chinese series is (if anything) loyal to the book.
Which btw had something like 2 non-Chinese (real world in the book) characters who are mentioned for more than a line.
 
Kyriakos said:
I don't remember that. Must be the Sophons interfering - or was this on the US show and not the book? ^^
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It's definitely in the book and judging by the trailers it should be in the show as well.

I liked the book a lot but it isn't big on characterization. The show, or at least the first two episodes, seems to have the same character depth and added a lot more characters which kind of left me bored at points. But it's been set-up for the most part and the most mindtrippy parts are yet to come. Episode 2 ends on a pretty awesome cliffhanger.
 
^The good thing with the Chinese series is that it takes its time to show the story.
The bad thing is that it really takes its time, so 20 episodes in the aliens were still just inferred :p

That said, in the book those aliens are presented very strangely. And I wouldn't call them believable.
 
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