Thursday, April 25, 2019

New TV shows!

I didn't have a chance to get a third movie in this week.  I'm about a third of the way through NCIS season 2, season five of Arrow, season 4 of The Librarians, and nearly finished with seasons 3 of The X-Files, season 2 of The Orville, and season one of The Umbrella Academy.  Last night, Tyler and I did finish the brand new A Discovery of Witches, based on the book series by Deborah Harkness.  And I finished watching season one of Will and Grace

As you can see, that is a lot of television which is why I almost never review it.  It takes up so much time, even with no commercials and the ability to binge watch. 

Will and Grace was one of those 90s shows that my parents weren't interested in and I had very little awareness regarding.  I don't know why, but I had seasons 1 and 2 on the server so I thought I'd go ahead and give it a shot.  (Maybe Christy?  I think she watched it.)  I'm pleased to say that it still mostly holds up.  There's a lot of humor based on old LGBTQ+ stereotypes but the core relationships between Will, Grace, Jack, and Karen are worth watching.  It's currently streaming on Hulu.

A Discovery of Witches starts out pretty slowly.  It's only eight episodes, though, so when it picks up it does so with breakneck speed.  Tyler kept asking me questions because I had read the book series but it was so long ago that I barely remembered anything.  I ended up skimming through the novel to try and answer some of the topics alluded to but not covered in depth.  Which is not to say you have to have read the book beforehand.  He enjoyed it perfectly well without any of the extra information.  Since it is very new, I will give the overview of the plot.

Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) is in Oxford doing research on alchemy when she accidentally calls forth a book that had been considered lost for centuries.  All of a sudden, magical creatures are swarming all over her trying to get her to call the book back for them, including Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), biochemist and 1500-year-old vampire looking for answers as to why the species of witches, vampires, and daemons are declining, and Peter Knox (Owen Teale), a witch looking to use the book to destroy vampires forever. 

If you have the patience, it's available on cable from AMC and BBC America with commercials.  If you are not patient, it's available through Shudder or Sundance Now as add-ons to Amazon.  Shudder is a streaming service I've been thinking about for a while now so it was worth it to me to go ahead and start shelling out $5 a month for all the horror my little heart can stand.  If you're not ready for that kind of commitment, you can use the 7-day free trial to binge and then cancel.

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