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

BrawlMan

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. i have the superpower of liking stuff independently from their author(s). Also, I find that both R&M fans and detractors take the series WAY too seriously, analysing continuity, psychology, character growth and arks. It's just tom&jerry. It's the adventure of some misanthropic scientist, doctor who meets basil fawlty, who's (like so many characters) very clever and very dumb, sometimes amusingly right and sometimes amusingly wrong, I don't know what people are expecting of it.
I can seperate works from the author too, but it still doesn't change the fact that there was big quality drop in writing and character development in Season 3 and parts of Season 4. And that Rick became nothing more than a(n even bigger) mouthpiece for Roiland and the writers opinions or views. Or just being edgy to come off as "enlighten" and the smartest person in the room. Some parts you're right, but other are Roiland and the writers loving the smell of their own farts, and dicking on their audience for things, the writers either promised or hinted at. Only to act like it's not their fault, when said show creators and writers were the ones to bring them up in the first fucking place. We have yet another case of another adult animated show where they got too arrogant and faaarrrr up their own ass.

I did even bother with Season 5, and went straight to the episode to finish up the Evil Morty and Cetiedil plotline for some closure. As for the reactions, while is on the fandom and haters going too far, the creators help in much capacity. They at least attempted fix or call such misaimed fandoms out, but a lot of the damage was already done. You're always going to have assholes embrace other asshole characters when they're not supposed. Even then, the writers shot themselves in the foot with Rick during a lot of Season 3, and parts of Season 5 & 6 from what I hearing. I honestly stopped caring long ago, and the writers, animators, and adult_swim can all have fun dealing with this shit.
 

Hawki

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Star Wars: Andor - Season 1 (3/5)

I'll be honest, I don't get the hype for this show.

I'm assuming everyone's already familiar with it, but basically, yeah. It's...fine, I guess? Sort of? Maybe? Certainly doesn't feel like Star Wars, what with its grunge (though Star Wars has been like that for awhile), or lack of aliens, or tone, or, well, anything, really. Not that not being like something is inherently bad, but the show hasn't given me anything to talk about, or at least, nothing that's really worth talking about.
 

Ag3ma

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Season 2 has a lot of filler. You'll know it when you get there. It's worth it by the end.
Season 2 of Twin Peaks was, famously, fiddled around with very heavily by the studio. I sort of get why: Twin Peaks was massively successful on initial release, but Lynch is hardly the most accessible creator and public attention began to drift, so they tried to put it back on a track. I think the heavy interference certainly put Lynch off staying involved.

But then the streaming era arrived, and someone gave Lynch & Frost a load of money and total creative control to make season 3 :D
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Ted Lasso, 3:11

Ted gets some good catharsis with a surprising but also not so surprising guest. Nice, and it culminates with an anticipated setup for the finale. One thing that was legit kinda surprising is how much they gross over the successes of the actual team. Literally it’s relegated to a single sentence by a commentator. The big question is, how will the championship game end?


Love and Death - Finale

Good. Skarlet Witch at her most violent, and emotional. The trial was the star, with convincing takes on both sides. The other shoe really drops when it does the, “where are they now” bit, and you realize how screwed up the actual events’ repercussions were.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Succession Finale

What a disappointment. And so close to the finish line.

Barry Finale

I liked this one actually. Though I still think the show peaked seasons 1-2.
 
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Hawki

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Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi (4/5)

Tales is a case of a series being greater than the sum of its parts. TBH, a 4/5 is probably a bit too high for the series, and if I did decimals, it would be more a 3.5. It might also help that having come off Andor (which I wasn't fond of), this was a refreshing change, with animation rather than live action, and mostly stand-alone episodes instead of one overall narrative.

Anyway, as the title suggests, the series deals with stories focused on Jedi, stemming from Ashoka's childhood, to the Empire period. Yes, Ashoka starts and ends the series, while the middle sections are mainly dominated by Dooku. On one hand, much of the dialogue is fairly stiff (though maybe that's appropriate for the prequel era?) and while the stories are arguably linked by subject, and more importantly theme, the lack of a single, unifying plot arguably doesn't help matters, even if I found it refreshing. Still, I appreciated the episodes, especially the Dooku ones. While Dooku's been fleshed out for ages via EU material, it's still nice to see added depth here when compared to the prequel trilogy, especially since said fleshing out occurs in his younger years. How on one hand, we see the inner darkness within him, whereas on the other, see his growing despair over the state of the Republic, Qui-Gonn's death, how he finally passes the moral event horizon, etc. It's arguably emblematic of the whole series - there's a moodiness that pervades almost the entire affair. It's not exactly "grim," but "subdued" is the word that comes to mind.

So, yeah. Decent little anthology series. Star Wars animated series rankings are below:

7) Galaxy of Adventures

6) Forces of Destiny

5) The Freemaker Adventures

4) Tales of the Jedi

3) Resistance

2) Rebels

1) The Clone Wars
 

Gordon_4

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - 10/10

I finished watching this with my grandfather on Sunday night. Now, Jean-Luc Picard is and always will be my favourite captain of Starfleet, warts and all. However, Anson Mount has taken the much respected but largely unexplored character of Christopher Pike (albeit with some baggage from Discovery) and turned him into the new benchmark by which all future iterations of the character shall be measured and a serious bar for any new captain to clear.

And he’s not alone; I sincerely wish Majel Barrett had lived to see her original role of Number One (before Riker made it cool) given the chance to live again and become beloved by fans new and old. Ethan Peck is also doing some serious heavy lifting as the Spock of a generation, a task that cannot be easy and he manages it with aplomb. The same goes for Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura, a character who has as great a (albeit different) legacy upon her shoulders. And Jess Bush puts a lot of fun and surprising emotional vulnerability in Christine Chapel, a traditionally rather thankless role. Lastly, while McCoy and Crusher are icons, Joseph M’Benga has, thanks to some powerhouse acting and a rather resonant character arc, earned himself a permanent home in my heart.

And it’s not just old characters with a new chance to breath, newcomers like Ortegas, Kyle, La’an and Hemmer make for a wonderful set of new faces - Ortegas especially is likely to end up sharing some name space with characters like Hoban Washburn and Jeff Moreau by the end of season two I wager.

The show also looks gorgeous, with the old Constitution class Enterprise looking the best she’s ever looked on any screen and a highly competent blend of her old school 60s trappings with undeniably modern design aesthetics. If this is the new canon going forward, and I hope it is, then I am actually excited to see what they do with the Enterprise B, C and D.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
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Dark

German series produced by Netflix that both serves as proof that there is still some creative talent left in Germany, and that that talent has to rely on foreign funding to actually get anything made. Written by Antje Friese and directed by Baran Bo Odar, Dark is a supernatural mystery centered around temporal and dimensional anomalies in the small town of Winden in Northern Germany.

I think early on Dark drew some comparisons with Netflix's hit show Stranger Things, with, from what little of Stranger Things I've seen, are probably a bit misleading. If Stranger Things tries to imagine a Twin Peaks style small town mystery filtered not through the authorial and directorial sensibilities of Mark Frost and David Lynch but invoking 80's Spielberg and Carpenter, Dark imagines what a similar premise might have looked like if David Fincher and Hideo Kojima tried their hands at it.

Dark is a byzantine time travel mystery that gets convoluted to the point of being barely comprehensible (unless you take notes, I suppose), chugging along its 4 dimensional set of tracks with a pace that, while not particularly fast, never bothers to stop or backtrack for those who've gotten lost trying to follow it. All while maintaining a mirthless tone that feels reminiscent of the dour fatalism the Scandinavians enjoy so much in their productions, where the only thing more uncommon in Winden than clear skies seem to be smiles.

While the ensemble cast eventually narrows down to two characters that could be considered the main protagonists and a handful of supporting ones, it is the kind of story where each person might technically be more than five different characters with conflicting and often times inscrutable goals, that, at least half of the time, they lie about.

So Dark just keeps expanding inward and outward, introducing more and more Kojima-esque flourishes like post apocalyptic futures, clockwork based time travel devices, a couple of secret societies with hermetic and rosicrucian aesthetics and lengthy musings about science and metaphysics that are... speculative, in the most generous terms.

Behind all of its sometimes rambling musings on time and inevitability, Dark is a series about accepting loss and the value of sacrifice. And more often than you might expect, the emotional weight of these themes pierces right through Dark's labyrinthine plot and lore to add genuine depth to all the mind bending complexity. The story of a father who dooms himself trying to save his son or of a daughter who ends up being responsible for the death of her father while trying to prevent it resonate, where the cosmic drama framing it all struggles under its own weight.

The fact that this comes together at all is due to the genuine skill of everyone involved. From its consistently highly cinematic presentation to some really impressive casting (Keep in mind, this is a show where most characters have to be portrayed by at least three different actors), Dark is a show that looks the viewer in the eye and says "This is prestige television we're making here, it's not our fault if you think it's silly".

All this makes Dark a wonderful production to make once, and never again. One of the more benign examples of what Germans are capable of, if you let them get away with it. Certainly a respectable accomplishment in terms of writing, directing, editing and casting. For the most part, also a compelling and engaging watch. But make no mistake, it is pretty ridiculous for what a completely straight face it keeps, even when it veers into pastiche territory. Still, it's definitely worth watching before, like, Christopher Nolan comes along to make a remake that drains all the emotion and creativity from it.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Ted Lasso, series finale

Probably the best ending I’ve seen since Breaking Bad, but for very different reasons. It’s one of those shows where it’d be nitpicking to find much critical fault, as it pretty much hit all the right feel-good notes with much heart, a side of hilarity and a dash of humility. Three seasons may seem too brief, but they ultimately said all that was needed.
 

Xprimentyl

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Ted Lasso, series finale

Probably the best ending I’ve seen since Breaking Bad, but for very different reasons. It’s one of those shows where it’d be nitpicking to find much critical fault, as it pretty much hit all the right feel-good notes with much heart, a side of hilarity and a dash of humility. Three seasons may seem too brief, but they ultimately said all that was needed.
Finished Ted Lasso yesterday as well. As much as I liked it, the final season felt really rushed, which is only odd because they had a 3-season expectation walking into the project; I can't imagine why they felt the need to hurry it up. But yeah, they said everything they needed to, I just wish we had more opportunity to explore it all with them. It felt like more happened off camera than on. Questions in spoilers below:

Why was Nate's arc so abrupt? I can't imagine the whole "guy's night out" incident would be straw enough to break the camel's back on a prominent and lucrative career.

Why wait until the final episode to paint Ted's ex-wife's new boyfriend/their couples therapist as the ostensible dick and suggest that she and Ted might have a reason to get back together?

The whole Keeley/Roy/"Jay-meh" love triangle was just starting to get good! And they left us with... what? That could have been an episode unto itself, but it dropped the mic on a contrived "woman empowerment" note that left two interesting characters flat on their face for the finale.

Why was Zava even a thing? He injected some interesting dynamics, but ultimately just... went away, leaving a huge fuck-all avocado in his wake.

And Rupert? His "ending" is what I buy probably the least. That much arrogance needed much more humbling than an uncharacteristic outburst they sent him off on.


All in all, I loved every minute of the show, but the last few weren't enough to satisfy me completely. Don't get me wrong, it was all great; there just wasn't enough of it which flies in the face of modern cinematic entertainment which can't help but oversaturate and overstay it's welcome with sequels, spinoffs, reboots, etc. until we're all just sick of it. Well done, Ted Lasso, for being a genuine diamond in the very thick rough. Anyone who hasn't seen it, you're welcome to the whole thing, and you're spared the agony of waiting a week between episodes. GO WATCH IT. 10/10
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Finished Ted Lasso yesterday as well. As much as I liked it, the final season felt really rushed, which is only odd because they had a 3-season expectation walking into the project; I can't imagine why they felt the need to hurry it up. But yeah, they said everything they needed to, I just wish we had more opportunity to explore it all with them. It felt like more happened off camera than on. Questions in spoilers below:

Why was Nate's arc so abrupt? I can't imagine the whole "guy's night out" incident would be straw enough to break the camel's back on a prominent and lucrative career.

Why wait until the final episode to paint Ted's ex-wife's new boyfriend/their couples therapist as the ostensible dick and suggest that she and Ted might have a reason to get back together?

The whole Keeley/Roy/"Jay-meh" love triangle was just starting to get good! And they left us with... what? That could have been an episode unto itself, but it dropped the mic on a contrived "woman empowerment" note that left two interesting characters flat on their face for the finale.

Why was Zava even a thing? He injected some interesting dynamics, but ultimately just... went away, leaving a huge fuck-all avocado in his wake.

And Rupert? His "ending" is what I buy probably the least. That much arrogance needed much more humbling than an uncharacteristic outburst they sent him off on.


All in all, I loved every minute of the show, but the last few weren't enough to satisfy me completely. Don't get me wrong, it was all great; there just wasn't enough of it which flies in the face of modern cinematic entertainment which can't help but oversaturate and overstay it's welcome with sequels, spinoffs, reboots, etc. until we're all just sick of it. Well done, Ted Lasso, for being a genuine diamond in the very thick rough. Anyone who hasn't seen it, you're welcome to the whole thing, and you're spared the agony of waiting a week between episodes. GO WATCH IT. 10/10

I think most of the soccer matches themselves were the most glossed over part of the season that I was like, “Umm, ok?” Where did that fifteen game win streak come from again? And apparently it was only a month since it’s about the same time Roy & Keeley broke up? Although I think both he and Jamie were greatly exaggerating the time span in their own favor for effect.

I guess the rest of it didn’t bother me too much. Bits and pieces of Nathan’s conscience were being glued together for pretty much the last half of the season, and he essentially knew in his gut by the guy’s night out that it would’ve ruined his relationship because it was obviously bait ala Rupert the way he acted around her. I think everyone screaming “WANKER!!” and broadcast around the world was a fitting end to his ego too lol. It spoke for itself in spades.

That said, it’s kinda the issue with limited runs for shows like this though. You want to see more of these various threads, but for what time they had to wrap everything up it was pretty effectively done. I’m just glad the big game itself got a decent spotlight in the finale.
 
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Xprimentyl

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I think most of the soccer matches themselves were the most glossed over part of the season that I was like, “Umm, ok?” Where did that fifteen game win streak come from again? And apparently it was only a month since it’s about the same time Roy & Keeley broke up? Although I think both he and Jamie were greatly exaggerating the time span in their own favor for effect.

I guess the rest of it didn’t bother me too much. Bits and pieces of Nathan’s conscience were being glued together for pretty much the last half of the season, and he essentially knew in his gut by the guy’s night out that it would’ve ruined his relationship because it was obviously bait ala Rupert the way he acted around her. I think everyone screaming “WANKER!!” and broadcast around the world was a fitting end to his ego too lol. It spoke for itself in spades.

That said, it’s kinda the issue with limited runs for shows like this though. You want to see more of these various threads, but for what time they had to wrap everything up it was pretty effectively done. I’m just glad the big game itself got a decent spotlight in the finale.
Lol, yeah, it is pretty suspect how little the games were featured in a series about a "fish out of water" American coach of an English football club, but I think that was very intentional. The series was never about the sport; it was always about the characters and their stories. That mentality saved the show from being relegated to a trope-y sports series with the inevitable "underdog wins the day" tale. It's telling that with rarely featuring the pitch and plays, people still tuned in, and the show about football that rarely shows football is a massive success.
 
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Ag3ma

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I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson Season 3 (Netflix)

Sketch comedy. If you've seen the first two seasons, this is much the same. Each episode is about 10-15 minutes with 3-4 sketches where someone does something stupid / crazy / wrong and then just refuses to accept the fact or take criticism with good grace, no matter how ridiculous and aggravating it is to everyone around. It's amazing how well it works - one of the best comedies around.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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I watched the series finale of Ted Lasso last night and I enjoyed the show, all of it, but it's a comedy and thus I really don't care about "plot" per se.
But something was annoying me about the show all season and I realized what it is- the show is very emotional and that is its appeal but a lot of the emotion is contrived and ill-defined. It sort of reminds me of Scrubs in that way. Like people start crying over the beauty of where they work? I can't explain it, it's just so freaking fake and stupid.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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FUBAR

Arnie’s back! Well, sort of. Yeah he’s doing a bit of True Lies stuff here but the whole thing has a very B movie feel. Maybe that’s intentional, but more likely just working within the budget available. It’s the sort of show where everything just feels serviceable at best. The action, the comedy, drama, etc. Even the supporting cast is hit and miss, but half of that might as well be the fault of so-so writing. There are some chuckle-worthy one liners that felt made for Arnold. His daughter felt like the most consistently good character in terms of performance and material given.

If it didn’t have Arnold, let’s just say I probably wouldn’t have bothered. Even as it is I was on my phone here and there. The finale shootout is laughably bad. Ugh so many camera cuts that make the editing seem AI-based. Looking forward to his Netflix doc a lot more.
 

Hawki

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Star Wars: Visions - Season 1 (3/5)

I really didn't like this much.

Basically, it's an anthology of Star Wars shorts done by Japanese animation studios. Conceptually, I like that idea - take an IP, have a bunch of people outside that IP work on it, Bob's your uncle. Sometimes that kinda works (e.g. Animatrix) sometimes it kinda doesn't (e.g. Halo Legends), but this is Star Wars, there's no way they'd screw this up, right? Well, they certainly didn't screw it up, but I wasn't that impressed with the overall results. I actually started doing individual reviews of the shorts, but already, I can't remember anything about a lot of them.

So, yeah. Pretty to look at, but there isn't much meat.

Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures - Shorts (2/5)

With my Disney+ subscription close to expiring, I'm left with stuff to watch that I can fit in the remaining timeframe. Ergo, that means shorts, and in this case, bottom of the barrel ones.

Maybe I shouldn't be too harsh - this is a show designed for preschoolers, so I'm as far from the target audience as I can get. By itself, it's harmless fluff, but if we evaluate this in the context of Star Wars as an IP, nothing makes sense. It's set during the High Republic era, which is an idea that I like, but we have a group of kids who already have lightsabers, who have access to a starship (piloted by a five year old), who get sent on missions by Yoda, and who deal with a pirate guy that I thought was a Nihil at first, but alas, is just a kid pirate. Who everyone fears, even as he, ahem, 'raids' the Jedi temple planet. Y'know, that place with all the space wizards with laser swords? THAT PLACE?

Really, I'm probably being too harsh on this, but I really wanted to avoid a bog standard 3/5, so into the "bad" pile you go, chums. Course, the actual series might be better, but I have neither the subscription time remaining for it, nor the inclination.

Anyway, usual rankings are below.

9) Galaxy of Adventures

8) Young Jedi Adventures

7) Visions

6) Forces of Destiny

5) The Freemaker Adventures

4) Tales of the Jedi

3) Resistance

2) Rebels

1) The Clone Wars
 
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