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

[lymond]

I've been watching this too. I haven't seen any of the previous seasons but my understanding each season is it's own self contained story so I just dove into the 4th season. Anyway, the first episode I thought set up a decent mystery but episodes 2-4 have been 'wheel-spinny' as you put it. Too much focus on each characters personal lives and not enough on progressing the actual case. Supposedly there's only two episodes left. I don't know how they're going to tie together all the loose ends of all the subplots other than 'evil spirits did it', or it was 'all just a dream', or something like that.

Season 1 is a classic must-watch

Did not catch the lastest episode last night...I may wait until the weekend to catch it and the next epi together.

Turns out that I had (and you might have?) heard her rather than seen her, because (Wiki sez) she voiced the lead, Mizu, in Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai.

(And if you haven't seen that show, I'd recommend remedying that if you can.)

Def in my Top 10 or more likely Top 5 of last year. Ms. Davis and The Bear were #1 and #2 giving the nod to Davis since it was newer. So glad Bear won an Emmy - so deserved.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Season 1 is a classic must-watch

Did not catch the lastest episode last night...I may wait until the weekend to catch it and the next epi together.

Note that ep 5 of True Detective: Night Country will be premiering on Friday night instead of Sunday night, to avoid the NFL Super Bowl.

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Episode 5 To Debut On Max Two Days Early To Avoid Super Bowl

Episode five of HBO's True Detective: Night Country will be available to stream early on Max to avoid a conflict with Super Bowl LVIII.

deadline.com

 

[Kyriakos]

Apart from everything else cool with the Maxx, he likes the Great Cornholio.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Ep 3 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith was fun enough. I could tell the difference in the direction, though. This one wasn't directed by Murai. Karena Evans. It doesn't look like I've ever seen her work before. Sharon Horgan kind of made me think of an Irish Connie Britton. Might have to see what else she's done. I think I heard Bad Sisters was decent, although I can't remember who told me that.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Harlots on Hulu. 18th C brothel wars in London. The debauched aristocracy tramples on the working class!

 

[lymond]

Harlots on Hulu. 18th C brothel wars in London. The debauched aristocracy tramples on the working class!

I watched a bit of the first epi a few years ago but found the music off-putting, so I stopped pretty quickly It does have very good reviews, but a lot of complaints about the music. I like my period pieces with period music. I don't mind an occasional anachronistic mood piece, but I had the impression that this music was almost constantly playing. I don't know, maybe I'll try again. Cast is great.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Ep 4 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, "Double Date"

Spoiler :

I didn't trust the other Smiths, right from the jump. The meet-cute in the open-air market was clearly a setup. Duping our Smiths into undertaking the mission they thought was unsurvivable was clearly their goal all along. But it seemed maybe a little too obvious that they'd [screw] our Smiths. A better twist might have been if the other Smiths hadn't done anything nefarious. You would have to write it in such a way that the audience could see the other Smiths not do something, which would be a little tricky. I suppose you could [screw] with the audience, by making the other Smiths more and more sinister-seeming, and our Smiths more-and-more oblivious, then just end the night with nothing bad happening. Then you leave the audience waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hitchcock's bomb under the chair, except the bomb never goes off. That might be too frustrating, I guess. It would be like a roller-coaster where you go up the long, slow incline and then you get to the top... and there's the exit platform and you just get out. I don't know if that'd be funny in execution, but the concept is making me laugh.

Anyway, I didn't trust the other Smiths, and when our Smiths were happily inviting them to the actual house that they really live in and making them dinner and everything, I was really questioning their tradecraft. We already knew that John doesn't take the whole secrecy thing very seriously, talking to his mom on the phone and calling out to his ex-girlfriend in a crowded market. But I expected better of Jane.

I love Parker Posey and Wagner Moura, though. I think Shining Girls (2022) with Elisabeth Moss was the first time I'd seen Moura; Posey of course has been an indie-movie fixture since the 1990s. I didn't like these characters enough to want to see more of them, but I'd watch Posey & Moura again in something else.

 

[Kyriakos]

There will never be another Alexander show like you, Alexander the Great show ^^

 

[Birdjaguar]

I watched a bit of the first epi a few years ago but found the music off-putting, so I stopped pretty quickly It does have very good reviews, but a lot of complaints about the music. I like my period pieces with period music. I don't mind an occasional anachronistic mood piece, but I had the impression that this music was almost constantly playing. I don't know, maybe I'll try again. Cast is great.

The story develops very nicely with interesting twists and turns. Music does not seem to play much of a part in the story, unlike in many others shows. I watched two more episodes last night and didn't notice music at all.

 

[Takhisis]

View attachment 684156

Apart from everything else cool with the Maxx, he likes the Great Cornholio.

It's also on Clueless, as if Cher couldn't be made any cooler.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's also on Clueless, as if Cher couldn't be made any cooler.

There's this too.

 

[EvaDK]

Drops of God

French limited series showing on Apple+. Follows the estranged daughter of a French wealthy wine collector based in Japan and her fight to claim her inheritance due to an insidious last will on the fathers part. She has to compete for the estate against her deceased fathers most prestigious student in the study and knowledge of wines; a young man with his own family secrets to deal with and there may be more that connects the two, than divides them as the story progresses.

Really enjoyed it. Took its time to get us to know the characters and learn not to judge them on first impressions alone. It is essentially a story about truly getting to know your family and not so much about the estate after all.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024) was very satisfying. Ep 6 "Couples Therapy" was the hardest I've laughed lately. Of course it's too soon to call it my favorite show of the year - Night Country being its only competition right now - but I expect it'll still be on my list by the end of '24. Trivia: The woman who plays Donald Glover's mom in the show is Donald Glover's mom.

---

Drops of God

French limited series showing on Apple+. Follows the estranged daughter of a French wealthy wine collector based in Japan and her fight to claim her inheritance due to an insidious last will on the fathers part. She has to compete for the estate against her deceased fathers most prestigious student in the study and knowledge of wines; a young man with his own family secrets to deal with and there may be more that connects the two, than divides them as the story progresses.

Really enjoyed it. Took its time to get us to know the characters and learn not to judge them on first impressions alone. It is essentially a story about truly getting to know your family and not so much about the estate after all.

I wanted to watch that while I was still subscribing to Apple TV, but the calendar got too crowded. Maybe next time.

 

[Kyriakos]

Of course it's too soon to call it my favorite show of the year - Night Country being its only competition right now

Hasn't that imploded yet? ^^ I gave up after ep1.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Hasn't that imploded yet? ^^ I gave up after ep1.

Night Country? I thought it stumbled a little in ep 4, but ep 5 was good. There's a lot riding on the finale - as I suppose there ought to be, for a show like this - so I'm withholding judgment. Knowing that this is a one-and-done season, I'm resigned to never getting a satisfying resolution or arc to most of the side dramas and supporting characters, but I suppose it's a credit to the show and the cast that I'm as invested in the myriad characters and their relationships as I am. The world-building in this series has been top-notch, far superior to season 1, imo. Season 1 was all about the one case that dogged the two leads for years. I was never super-invested in Rust & Marty. I have to look it up in Wikipedia to remind myself who any of the supporting characters were (honestly, I couldn't remember Woody Harrelson's character's name, either), and the Louisiana setting never 'popped' for me, it could've been anywhere.

 

[Kyriakos]

Imo the first four episodes of S1 were actually interesting. But it's obvious they hadn't thought about the arc, since the rest might as well had been a different show. Diagnosis: interesting fluke/sinkhole for better personal projections.
Those four eps are all people are talking about when mentioning the entire series

S4, on the other hand, started by jumping the shark, and I didn't like anything about ep1.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Imo the first four episodes of S1 were actually interesting. But it's obvious they hadn't thought about the arc, since the rest might as well had been a different show. Diagnosis: interesting fluke/sinkhole for better personal projections.
Those four eps are all people are talking about when mentioning the entire series

Seems like it, yeah. Another series that started off looking like an All-Timer and then sorta petered out: The Old Man (2022) with Jeff Bridges. That show never got the acclaim that True Detective did, rightly or wrongly, but I think the first 2-3 episodes were stellar.

S4, on the other hand, started by jumping the shark, and I didn't like anything about ep1.

Philosophical conundrum of the day: If a story jumps the shark right at the beginning, is that really 'jumping the shark'?

 

[Synobun]

All the replacement characters in Criminal Minds suck. The show is still holding my attention, but I'm over a season deep in having Prentiss and Rossi and they're both insufferable with no signs of improvement on the horizon. In the last episode I watched, there were several scenes of just those two characters interacting, and I tuned out completely. I want Gideon back. I don't really care about Prentiss's predecessor since they character-assassinated her anyway.

I still need to catch up on For All Mankind. And start Monarch, the new season of Halo, and School Spirits. I also watched a couple episodes of the new season of Foundation and it's been awfully boring.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I also watched a couple episodes of the new season of Foundation and it's been awfully boring

Where is it streaming?

 

[Synobun]

Where is it streaming?

Apple TV+!