Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)

[Xprimentyl]

The Rescue: Fucking Great / Great

Documentary covering the rescue of 12 children and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018.

I remember this ordeal, but all news gave me was "13 people trapped for 17 days," then "13 people rescued after 17 days." it was a feel good story insofar as I was glad all the people were rescued, but I had no idea the effort that went into this nor the complete selflessness of the many integral people involved in making it ultimately possible. Literally private citizens from other countries that cave dive as a hobby had to step up where marine military were ill trained and do the impossible. This is a must watch; for anyone who lacks faith in humanity, please watch.

 

[gorfias]

The Rescue: Fucking Great / Great

Documentary covering the rescue of 12 children and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018.

I remember this ordeal, but all news gave me was "13 people trapped for 17 days," then "13 people rescued after 17 days." it was a feel good story insofar as I was glad all the people were rescued, but I had no idea the effort that went into this nor the complete selflessness of the many integral people involved in making it ultimately possible. Literally private citizens from other countries that cave dive as a hobby had to step up where marine military were ill trained and do the impossible. This is a must watch; for anyone who lacks faith in humanity, please watch.

How did you see it? A streaming service?

 

[Xprimentyl]

How did you see it? A streaming service?

We used Disney+'s National Geographic streaming option.

 

[gorfias]

We used Disney+'s National Geographic streaming option.

Thanks! Hope the missus will watch with me tonight.


EDIT: Wonder if this has anything to do with the typhoon they had that is the basis of the movie, The Impossible. That was a blast. Naiomi Watts and Tom Holland star. Came out like 2012.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Thanks! Hope the missus will watch with me tonight.
View attachment 5277

EDIT: Wonder if this has anything to do with the typhoon they had that is the basis of the movie, The Impossible. That was a blast. Naiomi Watts and Tom Holland star. Came out like 2012.

Please do watch; it's quite incredible. And I'll have to hunt down The Impossible in kind.

 

[gorfias]

Please do watch; it's quite incredible. And I'll have to hunt down The Impossible in kind.

That was something. Near impossible to get my wife to sit down and watch something. My daughter says, "I hate documentaries". They both zipped it, sat down and watched with me, loved it. I'm wondering how much of that was real footage vs. dramatization. Cuz, lotta the time, we're watching guys struggling through the water and I'm asking myself, who is also traveling in this water AND filming.

Spoiler

Very sad that they did lose one Thai Seal

 

[Xprimentyl]

That was something. Near impossible to get my wife to sit down and watch something. My daughter says, "I hate documentaries". They both zipped it, sat down and watched with me, loved it. I'm wondering how much of that was real footage vs. dramatization. Cuz, lotta the time, we're watching guys struggling through the water and I'm asking myself, who is also traveling in this water AND filming.

Glad you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I wondered the exact same thing, and concluded a lot of it had to have been dramatization. As they're constantly referencing how difficult and treacherous the dives were, I can't imagine they'd have risked another person's life just to film let alone complicate things with an extra body in the way. I think the only actual footage was stuff on dry land and perhaps the phone footage taken by the actual divers, like the stuff when they first found the boys.

Spoiler

Very sad that they did lose one Thai Seal

And it's made even sadder that we was a retired Seal who was volunteering for this operation.

 

[Gordon_4]

Glad you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I wondered the exact same thing, and concluded a lot of it had to have been dramatization. As they're constantly referencing how difficult and treacherous the dives were, I can't imagine they'd have risked another person's life just to film let alone complicate things with an extra body in the way. I think the only actual footage was stuff on dry land and perhaps the phone footage taken by the actual divers, like the stuff when they first found the boys.



And it's made even sadder that we was a retired Seal who was volunteering for this operation.

Wait a second; aren't these the guys Elon Musk went off about on Twitter while this was going on? I seem to remember the self-elected Tech Pope opening his mouth and his brains just vomiting out of his mouth about this whole thing.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Wait a second; aren't these the guys Elon Musk went off about on Twitter while this was going on? I seem to remember the self-elected Tech Pope opening his mouth and his brains just vomiting out of his mouth about this whole thing.

Yep, he was talking about how he's going to build a super-cool submarine to rescue them, and while he was waffling people actually cared enough to rescue them for reals, so Musk called one of them a pedophile, then got his team to downplay calling a hero a pedophile because he did for real something Musk was talking about doing.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Wait a second; aren't these the guys Elon Musk went off about on Twitter while this was going on? I seem to remember the self-elected Tech Pope opening his mouth and his brains just vomiting out of his mouth about this whole thing.

I have no idea, but the man did name his infant child like it was an android in Star Wars, so wouldn't surprise me.

Yep, he was talking about how he's going to build a super-cool submarine to rescue them, and while he was waffling people actually cared enough to rescue them for reals, so Musk called one of them a pedophile, then got his team to downplay calling a hero a pedophile because he did for real something Musk was talking about doing.

Huh. What a gigantic piece of shit.

 

[Hawki]

Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks (3/5)

Eve is better than Flux, but then, eating dogshit would be better than Flux. TBH, I think this episode was made on a budget, considering how it's confined to the one location (and a warehouse at that), but at the least, it's better than what we had recently.

Anyway, the Doctor and her companions end up in a storage site on New Year's Eve (because Chibnall still won't do Christmas episodes, the humbug), along with the person on shift, and a customer. However, a dalek (later revealed to be 2 daleks after after the Doctor. They kill her and her companions, but then events reset. Sort of. Everyone recalls what happened, but they have less time. For instance, the Doctor arrived at 11:52, but the loop resets to 11:53. When they die the next time, the loop restarts at 11:54. They then realize that they're in a time loop thanks to the TARDIS, but it can't sustain it, hence the shortening of minutes. As such, if the TARDIS loop reaches 12:00, they're done for, so they have to find a way to beat the daleks, who are not only also aware of the loop, but have rapid-fire death rays now (which are kind of awesome).

Honestly, it's a pretty good setup - Groundhog Day with killer robots. That said, I kind of got lost as to how and why the good guys win. That, and Dan is still completely useless, and Yaz is crushing on the Doctor...honestly, that isn't too bad, really. I can't say it came out of nowhere, and it's not the first time it's happened (see Rose, Martha, and Clara), so there's that. Also, I have a feeling that the whole "time is catching up to me" is to this series of specials what "he will knock four times" was to the Tennent specials, only...well, thing is, Chibnall isn't Davies. So we have a decent bottle episode, but compare it to something like Waters of Mars for instance. Chibnall can write individual episodes decently, but so far, "decent" is what we've had at best. At worst...well, see the last season.

Anyway, it's okay, but, yeah. It's "okay." Better than Revolution of the Daleks, so there's that I guess.

 

[Agema]

Cowboy Bebop (Netflix)

Live action adaptation. Stylistically, it's moderately interesting. It's well acted. The action is perhaps a little slow and over-staged for my preferences, but acceptable. It both looks like plenty of money was spent on it, but feels cheap (SFX akin to a British SF production). At core, however, the series is dragged down by a series of cliched characters and plot that leave a core lumpen ordinariness that would always limit it: for instance, there's a flashback episode which is approximately 100% pure, boring trope from start to finish.

Apparently, so I've heard, it's been cancelled. I am not surprised given Netflix's tendencies to drop things easily, although it could probably have merited longer. Although it is limited, I still quite liked it overall. It had some pizazz and strengths, and there's an awful lot of things worse that plod grimly on past their time.

 

[Agema]

Doctor Who, season whatever it was in 2021.

Oh god, what a dog's dinner. This is surely the worst season of the new Doctor Who. There are these bad guys, and a load of guff about Time and something called The Flux, and everyone runs around in a jumble of plot, with a jumble of companions, and oh thank god it finally ends and my watching duty is done. I can't really even tell you much about it. The Sontarans are very prominant, and some people with blue and purple skin growing crystals out of their heads, and some guy who materialises snakes. What was it all about, I just didn't really follow partly because it was a mess, and partly because it was sufficiently boring that I struggled to concentrate. The current head writer, Chris Chibnall, is departing after a few specials this year having dragged us through probably the worst three seasons of the revival, and I cannot say I'm sorry to see him go.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Watched that colorized WWII documentary on Netflix with dad. They had some pretty amazing footage, and yet with their really shitty editing, the true scale and horror of these clips would often be lost. The series ended with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and hoooo boy did they really do their best to make America look as blameless as possible. Reminded me why I can no longer tolerate war documentaries, they're always choking on some USA dick.

 

[Dedtoo]

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Netflix)

It started off strong, with a weird world, strange people, strangeness in general, in a good, fun way. Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf was unexpected, but he does the role damn well. Watched season 1 and half of 2 in a few days. Then I quit, because I felt it was just the same over and over again. (Which was how it was in the books, apparently.)

 

[Hawki]

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Netflix)

It started off strong, with a weird world, strange people, strangeness in general, in a good, fun way. Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf was unexpected, but he does the role damn well. Watched season 1 and half of 2 in a few days. Then I quit, because I felt it was just the same over and over again. (Which was how it was in the books, apparently.)

The books effectively follow a formula from books 1-7, in that it has the formula of "children turn up at place, Olaf turns up, no-one believes its Olaf, Olaf is found out, escapes, kids go elsewhere, rinse and repeat). Books 8-13 change around a bit though - they're more contiguous, formula has changed a bit, arguably become a bit more 'meaty' in terms of theme. I'd say that 7 is the transitional point, in that it starts with the formula, but it's darker in tone, and ends with the kids striking off on their own.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Watching The Brink on HBO. It's trying to be Dr. Strangelove but seems to be taking its made up geopolitical crisis with a little too much severity and just isn't very funny or scathing and generally it's not very interesting to look at. The positives are a 25 minute runtime and watching Tim Robbins & Jack Black clearly enjoy themselves in their roles (both are producers and Robbins even directs one I think)

 

[Gordon_4]

Watching The Brink on HBO. It's trying to be Dr. Strangelove but seems to be taking its made up geopolitical crisis with a little too much severity and just isn't very funny or scathing and generally it's not very interesting to look at. The positives are a 25 minute runtime and watching Tim Robbins & Jack Black clearly enjoy themselves in their roles (both are producers and Robbins even directs one I think)

I had a very good time with The Brink. The episodes were breezy and the characters had a lot of good chemistry. I’d have liked a second season but probably no more than that.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Dexter: New Blood. Was a fun watch but boy did this season fly.

Logan’s death was kind of a weak plot device, and it also kinda bugged me Dexter didn’t even say it was an accident or unintentional, etc. But to theorize for kicks, Angela ultimately would have known Dexter didn’t kill him because the other blood spatter analyst (who Dexter himself thought commendable enough) would have proven that pretty easily. Apparently this is how they always wanted to end the show and in a way I agree, but on the other hand the finality of it feels sad and more disappointing than season 8’s ending.

It really should have been a two hour finale because as-is it felt rushed and somewhat of a disservice to the character as pretty much everything else about his past was left to speculation, but I suppose it no longer matters. I hope they don’t continue it somehow as a spin-off or something, but can’t say I wouldn’t at least want to check it out if they did.

4 out of 5 ketamine needles.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Docu-series by Adam Curtis covering many aspects of the rise and optimism of technology along with contended, often, usually concerning political, psychological and social factors. The guys work has a way of grabbing your attention one way or another, and has a consistent ear for a variety of music to which blends symbiotically with a visually entrancing collage of archive footage and a direct yet calm voice over. A lot of, often undertold, polictal history being broken down into a format that is both engaging, creative and appearing effortlessly to community dense subjects to a wider audience than most could ever hope to achieve is an impressive and respectable skill.

First episode covers Ayn Rand's history and influence mainly;




Invasion (The rest on AppleTV)
Well, damn. It ended. I was getting into this! There had better be a second season that explains a couple of questions I be having. Aliens were at least somewhat visually unique and looked like something you probably shouldn't stroke or hug, even if they do look weirdly cute from a distance.