Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)
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Four Seasons
(only 4 of 8 episodes watched so far but that don't matter for this kind of show)
The funny thing I read about this Netflix comedy is that it's Tina Fey following the Adam Sandler model. For those that don't know, Sandler has a production company and is apparently well-liked and is good friends with some of his old cohorts from SNL so has made a few movies that are not intended to be particularly good, but just easy to make productions filmed in a nice location casting his friends like Chris Rock and David Spade, serving as essentially a working vacation. You watch them if you like the cast and just want an easy pleasant diversion.
Four Seasons is that, but since my wife and I like her a lot more than Sandler we're checking it out and that's exactly what it is. Her friends here include Will Forte, Steve Carrell, Colman Domingo, Kerri Kenny-Silver (best known to Reno 911 fans), and an Italian guy who is better known in the theater world.
The premise is 3 couples that are friends and vacation together every few months (yes, they are of course rich) and navigating that while some personal drama happens. Each two episodes is a season which is kind of a funny structure, I mean they could have just made it four longer episodes but whatever.
If you like this cast you will like this show and if you don't then never mind. There are few funny moments especially thanks to the performers but there isn't really a lot of jokes- a few zingers but it's not about that, it's more the situation. Like how awkward it is when one of them wants to split with his wife and who decides to delay that reaction and how. Domingo for example plays a proudly bougie gay dude and his character works if you find him half as charming as he himself does (I do- like exactly half). Fey and Forte are the couple that is the most stable and boring and kind of take pride in that and we all know- or are- people like that.
This is prime streaming content- it's fine. It's the most fine show and honestly ain't nothing wrong with that because it's decently made, doesn't feel to cheap or insulting and not punching above its weight.
(only 4 of 8 episodes watched so far but that don't matter for this kind of show)
The funny thing I read about this Netflix comedy is that it's Tina Fey following the Adam Sandler model. For those that don't know, Sandler has a production company and is apparently well-liked and is good friends with some of his old cohorts from SNL so has made a few movies that are not intended to be particularly good, but just easy to make productions filmed in a nice location casting his friends like Chris Rock and David Spade, serving as essentially a working vacation. You watch them if you like the cast and just want an easy pleasant diversion.
Four Seasons is that, but since my wife and I like her a lot more than Sandler we're checking it out and that's exactly what it is. Her friends here include Will Forte, Steve Carrell, Colman Domingo, Kerri Kenny-Silver (best known to Reno 911 fans), and an Italian guy who is better known in the theater world.
The premise is 3 couples that are friends and vacation together every few months (yes, they are of course rich) and navigating that while some personal drama happens. Each two episodes is a season which is kind of a funny structure, I mean they could have just made it four longer episodes but whatever.
If you like this cast you will like this show and if you don't then never mind. There are few funny moments especially thanks to the performers but there isn't really a lot of jokes- a few zingers but it's not about that, it's more the situation. Like how awkward it is when one of them wants to split with his wife and who decides to delay that reaction and how. Domingo for example plays a proudly bougie gay dude and his character works if you find him half as charming as he himself does (I do- like exactly half). Fey and Forte are the couple that is the most stable and boring and kind of take pride in that and we all know- or are- people like that.
This is prime streaming content- it's fine. It's the most fine show and honestly ain't nothing wrong with that because it's decently made, doesn't feel to cheap or insulting and not punching above its weight.
I finished watching The Mentalist last week, a fairly basic cop drama that ran from 2008 to 2015. The hook here is that main character Patrick Jane (Australian actor Simon Baker doing a passable accent) was formerly a charlatan psychic who made the mistake of taking the piss out of serial killer 'Red John' on national TV and found his wife and daughter murdered for his words, now works for the CBI (an agency I thought was made up but isn't) basically as a vehicle to catch Red John to exact revenge. Using the skills he once employed as a charlatan to read the script and trap the criminal of the week.
Like most cop shows it lives or dies on the chemistry of its cast and fortunately its pretty good. Robin Tunney (The Craft) plays Theresa Lisbon, the head agent and ergo den mother to this merry band of lunatics. Tim Kang plays Agent Cho, the straightest man to ever straight man anywhere: a great deal of comedy comes from Kang's pretty impressive deadpan. Rounding out the cast is Owain Yeoman playing Agent Rigsby who's a more straightforward tough guy cop but is also often the butt of jokes (being hypnotised, getting high). Last but not least is Amanda Righetti as Grace Van Pelt, agent newbie who eventually grows into the team's SME for cyber related matters.
The show is fine if you like these things and doesn't deviate too far from the formula except in one small way.
Like most cop shows it lives or dies on the chemistry of its cast and fortunately its pretty good. Robin Tunney (The Craft) plays Theresa Lisbon, the head agent and ergo den mother to this merry band of lunatics. Tim Kang plays Agent Cho, the straightest man to ever straight man anywhere: a great deal of comedy comes from Kang's pretty impressive deadpan. Rounding out the cast is Owain Yeoman playing Agent Rigsby who's a more straightforward tough guy cop but is also often the butt of jokes (being hypnotised, getting high). Last but not least is Amanda Righetti as Grace Van Pelt, agent newbie who eventually grows into the team's SME for cyber related matters.
The show is fine if you like these things and doesn't deviate too far from the formula except in one small way.
In the first episode, Jane states to Lisbon that he will, without hesitation or regret, kill Red John when he gets his hands on him. Now over the course of five and a half season eventually yeah, Jane gets him. And to my surprise, no Jane has not learned that murder is not the answer, that vengeance must give way to justice and kills him. Not even in a gun fight. Although Jane does shoot him its an injury shot but the climax of the episode is Jane putting both his hands around Red John's throat and strangling him to death, literally watching the light drain from his eyes. I was actually pretty impressed they didn't cop out on this.
Also, in the final season Pedro Pascal stars as Lisbon's final Not!Love Interest Marcus Pike and there is overlap between that season and Game of Thrones fifth season because while he's clean shaven in his first appearance by the time the decision is being made, Pascal looks (and even acts a little) more like Oberyn Martell and it stretches credulity a little for audiences that Lisbon would choose Jane over Pike. To their credit, once they go ahead with Lisbon and Jane being together, Tunney and Baker's chemistry is more or less the same, just openly affectionate, and they do it at the end of season six and the final season is only 13 episodes with the roughness coming from an understandable reality check that Lisbon's job is dangerous and Jane fretting over losing his second love.
Also, in the final season Pedro Pascal stars as Lisbon's final Not!Love Interest Marcus Pike and there is overlap between that season and Game of Thrones fifth season because while he's clean shaven in his first appearance by the time the decision is being made, Pascal looks (and even acts a little) more like Oberyn Martell and it stretches credulity a little for audiences that Lisbon would choose Jane over Pike. To their credit, once they go ahead with Lisbon and Jane being together, Tunney and Baker's chemistry is more or less the same, just openly affectionate, and they do it at the end of season six and the final season is only 13 episodes with the roughness coming from an understandable reality check that Lisbon's job is dangerous and Jane fretting over losing his second love.
The Seat: Painfully Decent / Great
The story of (Andrea) Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old who signed with Mercedes in Formula 1 to replace the exiting Lewis Hamilton, arguably the greats driver in F1 history.
I really wanted to hate this kid. He took the vacant seat at Mercedes that should have been open for my favorite driver (Valtteri Bottas) who was relegated to a reserve position on the team after getting the shaft from the worst team on the grid (Stake F1.) My sincerest hope was that Antonelli would fail, and in an act of desperation taken by a few teams the past couple of seasons to stop the "failure" bleeding, Bottas might be promoted to the car that netted him 10 wins several seasons ago. But after watching this 40 minute documentary, I see Antonelli as a kid achieving his dream, learning as he goes, and actually pulling some impressive results for his efforts. I stand by my guns; with Bottas out for 2025, I said I'd root for Oscar Piastri, the driver surprisingly currently leading the Driver's Championship (I said I picked a good horse,) and I still am, but a part of me will be watching Antonelli. I won't actively root against him for Bottas' gain, and will relish his successes.
Now, if Antonelli manages to beat Piastri in a head-to-head battle to win a Grand Prix, the dissonance might actually overload my brain, and I'll lose all passion for the sport bereft of Bottas...
The story of (Andrea) Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old who signed with Mercedes in Formula 1 to replace the exiting Lewis Hamilton, arguably the greats driver in F1 history.
I really wanted to hate this kid. He took the vacant seat at Mercedes that should have been open for my favorite driver (Valtteri Bottas) who was relegated to a reserve position on the team after getting the shaft from the worst team on the grid (Stake F1.) My sincerest hope was that Antonelli would fail, and in an act of desperation taken by a few teams the past couple of seasons to stop the "failure" bleeding, Bottas might be promoted to the car that netted him 10 wins several seasons ago. But after watching this 40 minute documentary, I see Antonelli as a kid achieving his dream, learning as he goes, and actually pulling some impressive results for his efforts. I stand by my guns; with Bottas out for 2025, I said I'd root for Oscar Piastri, the driver surprisingly currently leading the Driver's Championship (I said I picked a good horse,) and I still am, but a part of me will be watching Antonelli. I won't actively root against him for Bottas' gain, and will relish his successes.
Now, if Antonelli manages to beat Piastri in a head-to-head battle to win a Grand Prix, the dissonance might actually overload my brain, and I'll lose all passion for the sport bereft of Bottas...
The upcoming movie F1 may well be up your alley, assuming its not already out and you've praised it/torn it as many new assholes as required and I haven't noticed.
The Flying Doctors
This won't be a series retrospective because this is one of those long running fuckers. The show is a medical soap about the, very real and very awesome, Royal Flying Doctor Service set in a fictional Outback township of New South Wales called Coopers Crossing (filmed ironically in the Victorian town of Minyip). If you've ever seen a late 80s to early 90s medical soap you're going to see very familiar story lines (AIDS and homosexuality, women in traditionally male occupations, city culture vs. country culture, small town politics, etc) so the strength of the thing lays in a likeable cast and the reasonably unique hook of having to fly out to bum fuck nowhere and provide medical services: everything from day long clinics in remote farming or Aboriginal communities, to emergency medical response where seconds count with even some surgery of the meatball kind that would make . What's super interesting from the perspective of an internet generation seeing this is that the RFDS were essentially doing a version of Telehealth and remote schooling called School of the Air over radio long before COVID turned both into common or necessary things for everyone, since around the 1950s. And to my knowledge, School of the Air continues to this day just with wireless internet technology rather than UHF.
Its an interesting artefact of local television but it is very, VERY Australian so I don't think we ever got much international sale of the show beyond New Zealand and the UK.
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The Final We
I think this may be the weakest episode of the season so far. Half the running time is spent on Dina telling Ellie, who feels especially dumbed down here, what they're going to do and how they're going to do it. Ellie's actress is really dialing up the ADHD vibes here. It's Dina who can read a map, scan a frequency, triangulate a route (Ellie: "Something to do with triangles?"), pack a lunch, come up with a plan, make sure Ellie heard and understood everything by asking and making her repeat it like a good little student, take point, guide her while relaying her origin story, assess the threats and, in a surprise twist, foster Ellie's lust for revenge by reassuring her on the righteousness of their quest in a key moment of pussyfooting. Ellie is so unfocused and casual about the whole thing, makes you wonder why she's even there. Feels like she's just along for the ride. In any case it's all for naught: their plan fails instantly, nothing comes of it and the episode's more than half over already.
We get our first taste of Seraphite atrocities in a mishmash of Jesse's arrival, that arrow scene in the overgrown park and that other ritual lynching scene. Then we rush through a recreation of the Nora chase, culminating in the spore-tastic basement where Ellie suddenly crosses over to the dark side for a bit of torture and murder. Here's how the scene fails the game: instead of refusing to show it, the camera keeps cutting back to Nora getting thwacked, leaving nothing to the imagination while also not showing anything particularly brutal. In the game we saw Joel horribly brutalized, and we can hardly imagine what Nora's murder looks like. Here we see just enough to get desensitized to it. Same problem as the Isaac/Seraphite scene.
So Ellie is portrayed as kinda dumb and unfocused and not terribly driven, and the violence loses its edge, and everything must be overexplained. See when I was playing the thing it just occurred to me that the Seraphites were a grim version of the Amish, living off the land, shunning technology and being extremely religious and isolationist. But the show needs to have the characters openly make the comparison, even though realistically it would never occur to them because neither would know about the Amish, especially if you're a scout/survivalist years into the post-apocalypse who doesn't understand "triangulation".
I think this may be the weakest episode of the season so far. Half the running time is spent on Dina telling Ellie, who feels especially dumbed down here, what they're going to do and how they're going to do it. Ellie's actress is really dialing up the ADHD vibes here. It's Dina who can read a map, scan a frequency, triangulate a route (Ellie: "Something to do with triangles?"), pack a lunch, come up with a plan, make sure Ellie heard and understood everything by asking and making her repeat it like a good little student, take point, guide her while relaying her origin story, assess the threats and, in a surprise twist, foster Ellie's lust for revenge by reassuring her on the righteousness of their quest in a key moment of pussyfooting. Ellie is so unfocused and casual about the whole thing, makes you wonder why she's even there. Feels like she's just along for the ride. In any case it's all for naught: their plan fails instantly, nothing comes of it and the episode's more than half over already.
We get our first taste of Seraphite atrocities in a mishmash of Jesse's arrival, that arrow scene in the overgrown park and that other ritual lynching scene. Then we rush through a recreation of the Nora chase, culminating in the spore-tastic basement where Ellie suddenly crosses over to the dark side for a bit of torture and murder. Here's how the scene fails the game: instead of refusing to show it, the camera keeps cutting back to Nora getting thwacked, leaving nothing to the imagination while also not showing anything particularly brutal. In the game we saw Joel horribly brutalized, and we can hardly imagine what Nora's murder looks like. Here we see just enough to get desensitized to it. Same problem as the Isaac/Seraphite scene.
So Ellie is portrayed as kinda dumb and unfocused and not terribly driven, and the violence loses its edge, and everything must be overexplained. See when I was playing the thing it just occurred to me that the Seraphites were a grim version of the Amish, living off the land, shunning technology and being extremely religious and isolationist. But the show needs to have the characters openly make the comparison, even though realistically it would never occur to them because neither would know about the Amish, especially if you're a scout/survivalist years into the post-apocalypse who doesn't understand "triangulation".
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The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 5
Another kinda nothing episode, consisting of Ellie and Dina kinda wandering around, speedrunning through sections of the game, like the Stalker section and the first encounter with the Seraphites and seeing a hanging. Oh, and Jessie shows up.
I mean, this all happens in the game, but without the game's breath and pacing it ends up feeling like it didn't matter at all. 'Oh hey, we're in a room with Stalkers, but I guess that's over now. Oh look, some cultists are hanging a dude... Moving on.'
And it's getting very obvious how Ellie is just kinda stupid now so that Dina will appear more competent. It's like the inverse of the pointless love interest, where the love interest has been given so much of the brains that it's hard to imagine the main character not tripping over their own shoelaces without them. Seriously, how did this Ellie get away from David?!
Also, it's been there for a while in this show, but there's a lot of empty dialoge meant to just eat up time and fill out an episode. This was in Season 1 regarding nearly everything with what's-her-face played by Melanie Lynskey, it was in the previous episode with Isaac, and it's here again at the start when we see the two WLF talk about the spores. All they needed to do was have a quick scene talking about how the infection is now airborne. Instead we get this drawn out dialoge that we forget the moment it's over, along with the characters who just spoke.
There's a lot of characters running in this episode and it's very noticeable how the actors, specifically those for Ellie and Dina, are having a hard time hoofing it while loaded with backpacks.
The scene with the Seraphites feels weirdly acted. I know they're supposed to be weirdos, but something felt off about the actors line reading.
Nora looked really cool, and for that reason alone it sucks she had to die. As for Ellie killing her... On the one hand, the fact we haven't seen Ellie actually brutally kill someone yet in this season kinda helps. In the game by that point she'll have bashed in a myriad of skulls already, shotgunned limbs off, and viciously cut people's throats, so the game acting like Nora was particularly heinous really doesn't work. On the other, the episode shows but doesn't show the violence that Ellie inflicts. We see her swinging the pipe down on Nora's legs, but we never see the impact or the injury. It's edited in a way where we see it but it lacks all weight.
The final scene I actually kinda liked though. It's a bit on the nose following Ellie killing Nora, but it worked for me. Probably the only part of the episode I enjoyed.
Also, Shimmer's still alive.
Another kinda nothing episode, consisting of Ellie and Dina kinda wandering around, speedrunning through sections of the game, like the Stalker section and the first encounter with the Seraphites and seeing a hanging. Oh, and Jessie shows up.
I mean, this all happens in the game, but without the game's breath and pacing it ends up feeling like it didn't matter at all. 'Oh hey, we're in a room with Stalkers, but I guess that's over now. Oh look, some cultists are hanging a dude... Moving on.'And it's getting very obvious how Ellie is just kinda stupid now so that Dina will appear more competent. It's like the inverse of the pointless love interest, where the love interest has been given so much of the brains that it's hard to imagine the main character not tripping over their own shoelaces without them. Seriously, how did this Ellie get away from David?!
Also, it's been there for a while in this show, but there's a lot of empty dialoge meant to just eat up time and fill out an episode. This was in Season 1 regarding nearly everything with what's-her-face played by Melanie Lynskey, it was in the previous episode with Isaac, and it's here again at the start when we see the two WLF talk about the spores. All they needed to do was have a quick scene talking about how the infection is now airborne. Instead we get this drawn out dialoge that we forget the moment it's over, along with the characters who just spoke.
There's a lot of characters running in this episode and it's very noticeable how the actors, specifically those for Ellie and Dina, are having a hard time hoofing it while loaded with backpacks.
The scene with the Seraphites feels weirdly acted. I know they're supposed to be weirdos, but something felt off about the actors line reading.
Nora looked really cool, and for that reason alone it sucks she had to die. As for Ellie killing her... On the one hand, the fact we haven't seen Ellie actually brutally kill someone yet in this season kinda helps. In the game by that point she'll have bashed in a myriad of skulls already, shotgunned limbs off, and viciously cut people's throats, so the game acting like Nora was particularly heinous really doesn't work. On the other, the episode shows but doesn't show the violence that Ellie inflicts. We see her swinging the pipe down on Nora's legs, but we never see the impact or the injury. It's edited in a way where we see it but it lacks all weight.
The final scene I actually kinda liked though. It's a bit on the nose following Ellie killing Nora, but it worked for me. Probably the only part of the episode I enjoyed.
Also, Shimmer's still alive.
Doctor Who Season 2, Episode 5
The Story and the Engine
Just another mediocre episode. The giant spider thing was kinda cool, but beyond that, the episode was just...meh.
Where's the sci-fi? Where's the space? Where's the time-travel? You can go anywhere in time and space and you've been to earth three times out of the last 5 episodes, two of them were in the modern day. It's just getting boring now.
I want aliens. I want alien planets. I want to see the past and future. I just want something more interesting than what we're getting, and it's a shame because episodes 2 and 3 were genuinely quite good.
Next weeks episode is some song contest thing which is supposed to have graham norton in it, who I don't like, so I'm already writing that one off and hoping that at-least the final two episodes are good.
I'm curious to see if they keep the scene of Ellie killing Mel the same given she was pregnant in-game. That scene really stuck with me for awhile afterwards, partly because the camera lingered on the scene just long enough to make me uncomfortable.
Did they actually mention Shimmer being alive? I can't recall it being mentioned, but I might've just missed it
The Story and the Engine
Just another mediocre episode. The giant spider thing was kinda cool, but beyond that, the episode was just...meh.
Where's the sci-fi? Where's the space? Where's the time-travel? You can go anywhere in time and space and you've been to earth three times out of the last 5 episodes, two of them were in the modern day. It's just getting boring now.
I want aliens. I want alien planets. I want to see the past and future. I just want something more interesting than what we're getting, and it's a shame because episodes 2 and 3 were genuinely quite good.
Next weeks episode is some song contest thing which is supposed to have graham norton in it, who I don't like, so I'm already writing that one off and hoping that at-least the final two episodes are good.
The pacing feels off, and I think part of that is them making small changes to the story sequences. The core story is the same, but the path they follow is different and it keeps throwing me off. Still enjoying the show though, and I'm now adamant about my previous assumption about next season being Abby's pov is correct.The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 5
Another kinda nothing episode, consisting of Ellie and Dina kinda wandering around, speedrunning through sections of the game, like the Stalker section and the first encounter with the Seraphites and seeing a hanging. Oh, and Jessie shows up.
Nora looked really cool, and for that reason alone it sucks she had to die. As for Ellie killing her... On the one hand, the fact we haven't seen Ellie actually brutally kill someone yet in this season kinda helps. In the game by that point she'll have bashed in a myriad of skulls already, shotgunned limbs off, and viciously cut people's throats, so the game acting like Nora was particularly heinous really doesn't work. On the other, the episode shows but doesn't show the violence that Ellie inflicts. We see her swinging the pipe down on Nora's legs, but we never see the impact or the injury. It's edited in a way where we see it but it lacks all weight.
Also, Shimmer's still alive.
I'm curious to see if they keep the scene of Ellie killing Mel the same given she was pregnant in-game. That scene really stuck with me for awhile afterwards, partly because the camera lingered on the scene just long enough to make me uncomfortable.
Did they actually mention Shimmer being alive? I can't recall it being mentioned, but I might've just missed it
The problem is this show doesn't know what the hell to do when it needs to adapt the parts that are primarily gameplay. When the story gets to the theater what follows is pretty much 3 to 4 hours of Ellie being completely alone wandering around Seatle. And how are you supposed to turn that into an episode? So they cut all of that out, but that also cuts out a large portion of the scope of the story and setting. Just having Ellie run around abandoned streets and through empty buildings adds so much to the story without saying anything, and without that a narrative that's already quite simple and lacking any real emotional developement gets... well, exposed for what it is.
They didn't, which means that horse is still in the music store enjoying some grass.
Bad Thoughts: Ep: 1-6 Irreverent / Great
Comedian Tom Segura stars in a series of high-production, sketch comedy bits.
It's dark. It's funny. Hard to explain really. One minute, it's a flailing Country music star kidnapping fans to create trauma for his next big, relatable hit, the next it's his son going on a racist rant about his grandfather's stint in Vietnam in a school play. It's all over the place, but everywhere it goes, it's funny.
Comedian Tom Segura stars in a series of high-production, sketch comedy bits.
It's dark. It's funny. Hard to explain really. One minute, it's a flailing Country music star kidnapping fans to create trauma for his next big, relatable hit, the next it's his son going on a racist rant about his grandfather's stint in Vietnam in a school play. It's all over the place, but everywhere it goes, it's funny.