5punk

Finished watching Dirk Gently, and I think it might be my favourite series of the year. Really hope they do another.

Westworld

I mentioned on Discord that this has just pipped Dirk Gently for my series of the year. It's superb. As with DG it also boasts an incredible soundtrack - two of my favourite pieces below, one an original piece, and one an interpretation of the Rolling Stones' Paint It Black (do not read the descriptions in YouTube as they contain spoilers).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iZ9JRVmJ5o[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwS9zh-NFz4[/youtube]

I did like they way they fit modern songs into it in a old-western style, it married well with the theme of the show and felt a lot like what they did in Bioshock Infinite.

I do take some exception to the track listing saying stuff like "Paint It, Black (as made famous by: The Rolling Stones)" - they did rather more than "make it famous", as they wrote and perfomed it I'd say they were entirely responsible for it, and the guy that opened a MIDI version and dicked around to make the orchestral version owes them a rather greater debt of gratitude than to mention them so incidentally, the cheeky little scrote.

Roman Totale wrote:Finished watching Dirk Gently, and I think it might be my favourite series of the year. Really hope they do another.

Thanks Roman, that's bumped it up on my watch list from 'Thing on my list' to 'thing on my list I'll probably watch'

Legion

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SZ3rMMYBLY[/youtube]

Sort Description: Legion (David Haller) is a marvel character from the comics who has both massively potent super powers and debilitating paranoid schizophrenia. In the tv show... he probably is the same? After one episode, this is unclear. Is it in the larger Fox owned X-Men universe? Unclear. What exactly is going on? Unclear. Its really, really strange.

Is it good though? Yes.

Emerald City

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRCKdYORpiE[/youtube]

Short Description: Its another retelling of the Wizard of Oz, this time done with a vaguely Game of Thrones asthetic. Its gritty and modern, with interesting twists like the Wizard being strangely against magic, and the scarecrow being a guy strapped to a cross with barbed wire after apparently being tarred and... strawed, who now has amnesia. The first episode isnt as gripping and thrilling as I think it wants to be, but it has me interested enough to push on to episode 2.

Is it good though? Maybe

Powerless

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQeG7u2MgEE[/youtube]

Short Description: This is a really interesting idea to me. Its set in the main DC universe, with Green Lantern and Batman and Superman and everyone else. But its not about them, its about the people you see in the background of the big fight scenes, running for their lives and screaming. Its a comedy, set in a company that is a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises who specialise in products to keep regular people safe from super shenanigans.

Is it good though? Oh fuck no

Legion is great - loved the dream dance sequence in the first episode. Second one on tonight!

Not seen Powerless, but I had a feeling it would be naff from the trailer.

Iron Fist - I went in with incredibly low expectations (it got mauled by critics), and actually didn't think it was that bad. I mean, it's nowhere near Daredevil standards, but I enjoyed it more than Luke Cage. The main character is a bit boring to be honest, but I thought the supporting cast were superb. In particular I enjoyed the characters of Colleen Wing and Ward Meechum.

Rick and Morty - I tried to get into this to see what all the fuss was about, but it just doesn't click with me. It feels like it tries too hard to be weird and random and a little bit edgy. To be fair I may have been put off by the fact that people on Reddit can't shut up about it.

The Expanse - have I not mentioned this already? Might have been in discord. Based on a series of books that I don't think I'd heard of before (though the name of the first one, Leviathan Wakes, is very familiar). Sci-fi and political intrigue, takes place in the local solar system, predominantly around the Ceres asteroid belt. Has a lot of nice, reality based concepts - people living in low grav develop weaker muscles and bones, ships have to flip over to reverse thrust when slowing down etc. Only issue I had was the sound - found it rather hard to understand what people were saying a lot of the time (so just like real life).

I didnt think Iron Fist was quite as bad as people are making out, but I certainly didnt think it was good. I think a lot of that comes down to two things: I thought the main character went past boring and into annoying bellend, and I found most of the supporting cast to be pretty uninteresting, with not a whole lot of depth to them. I didnt really understand the motivations of the bad guys either, it seemed to be a bit of a "we are doing bad things because we are bad guys, and we are bad guys because we do bad things".

Ultimately I'm not sure who it was *for*. If you havent watched Daredevil you would be better off watching that instead as it is basically a much better version of the same thing. If you have watched Daredevil you spend the whole time thinking "well, its no Daredevil."

Also, for a show that is supposed to be all about the kung fu the fight scenes were frequently not great.

Agreed on the Expanse though. Its a really good hard scifi TV show, and there are not enough of those in the world.

I too really liked the expanse, but I hope they get a better effects budget for the next season.

The People vs OJ Simpson

I never intended to watch this. I remember the car chase and bits of the trial, but I never had any compelling reason to watch a dramatisation of it. But people kept recommending it. And it has a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and 90% on Metacritic.

It is really, really good. I haven't quite finished watching it yet, but the quality throughout has been top notch. Very gripping television. I'm really impressed that (so far) no one has been portrayed as a one dimensional villain - you ending empathising with all sides. I mean, I still think OJ did it, but in a way that's not really the point of the series as bizarre as that sounds.



Line of Duty continues to be amazing. The end of last week's episode was jaw dropping, and I can't wait for the one tomorrow.

Finished the People vs OJ and it was amazing - definitely one of the best pieces of TV I've watched in a long time.

Latest series of Line of Duty just finished on BBC - it's so good! Surprised that seemingly so few people watch it.

Roman Totale wrote:Latest series of Line of Duty just finished on BBC - it's so good! Surprised that seemingly so few people watch it.

I do, but I never watch anything live and am now a couple of weeks behind, so it's difficult to talk about it as it's one that likes to have big surprises each episode.

Jessica Jones season 2

God what a chore to get through.