Saturday, September 23, 2023

It's Been a While So Have Some TV

I've been watching a lot of TV recently, so I thought I'd do a recap because it's been a while and I'm trying to get ready for 31 Days of Horror which is kicking off in about a week.

I tried to watch The Sopranos, consistently rated one of the best shows ever made, and I just couldn't get into it.  I just didn't care about any of the characters and I was annoyed by the whole thing.  A mobster reluctantly sees a therapist in order to work out the problems in his life.  Gave it three episodes and it just wasn't for me.  It's streaming on (sigh) Max.

I finally got around to watching season 3 of Riverdale and it was exactly the kind of trashy fun I was looking for.  Season 1 was a murder mystery, season 2 was a serial killer, so to keep upping the ante, season 3 features an evil cult and references the Satanic Panic, Dungeons & Dragons, Fight Club, and Silence of the Lambs.  I love that this show is unabashedly wearing its heart on its sleeve for the things it likes.  It's streaming on Netflix.

The Pretender is one of those very rare shows I wouldn't actually mind seeing rebooted.  It was made in the 90s and the plot is that a super-secret private organization has been training Very Special Children to model and predict events until adult Jarod (Michael T. Weiss) runs away and uses his chameleon-like abilities to right wrongs while trying to find information on his birth family.   The parallels to autism are very in-front and I like that his superpower is basically empathy.  It's streaming on Amazon Prime.

Tyler and I watched season 1 of The Diplomat and I fucking loved that show.  I'm super excited it's getting a second season, although in these uncertain times, that means nothing until it's actively in front of my eyeballs.  A career diplomat is prepared to receive an assignment to Afghanistan but is shocked to find herself transferred to the UK.  It's a wildly different posting that she is determined not to turn into a fluff piece, unaware she's being groomed for something larger.  It's streaming on Netflix.

Once we finished that, we started season one of The Bear on Hulu.  We're only about four episodes in but we like it so far.  A highly-acclaimed fine dining chef moves to Chicago to take over the sandwich shop bequeathed him by his dead brother and finds himself embroiled in all kinds of emotional entanglements as he tries to bring order and standards to the shop.

Tyler is a big Star Trek (star anything, really) fan and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came to us very highly recommended by our friends, the Ballards, so I (a casual watcher at best) strapped in.  I was very pleasantly surprised by how entertained I was, and we blew through seasons 1 and 2 before I even knew it.  I loved the musical episode so much.  La'an Noonien-Singh is my favorite and I would die for her.  The storybook episode?  My heart.  It's streaming on Paramount+.

On my own, I tried to watch Nip/Tuck because it was again highly recommended to me by my cousin, Christy.  I made it through three episodes but I could not get into it.  The misogyny was so built-in that I couldn't take it.  Two Miami plastic surgeons deal with professional and personal hijinks while trying to build their practice and manage their personal ethics.  It's streaming on Hulu.

I'm currently watching Secret Diary of a Call Girl season 2 on Tubi.  The video quality is bad -- it's extremely fuzzy -- but after a few minutes, I can just ignore it.  Independent escort Belle (Billie Piper) navigates managing her clients while mentoring a young protégée and trying to find a work/life balance between her persona and her real self.

And lastly, Tyler and I have been watching Ahsoka over on Disney+ (see, I told you about the star thing).  He watched Star Wars Rebels and has a much deeper knowledge of what the hell is going on between the characters but even as a neophyte, I found it easy enough to follow.  Ronin Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), former padawan to Annikin Skywalker, is trying to stop the Empire from regaining control of the universe and bringing back Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), who has been exiled to an unknown location.

So you can see that I've been very busy sitting on my ass in front of my TV.  All for you, readers.

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