What Are You Watching

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Karellen

It has been a very, very long time since a tv show has made me angry!! And I mean really yelling at the screen and mocking the show for the stupidity of the scene, storyline and characters. But Star Trek Discovery certainly has me doing that.

First let me explain WHY I am forcing myself to watch it, though watching it is a bit loose a term, more like skipping through the episode and watching a 50min episode in about 10-15 minutes.

Why... because in a moment of weakness, and coerced by the sale, I purchased the first 4 seasons on bluray in a Buy 1 get 1 free sale, which coincided with a 20% discount on all Blurays sale. So they were fairly cheap, much cheaper than their usual $39.99 price. Hey, it's Star Trek, why not, I thought.

So here I am with these blurays that contain one of the most frustratingly stupid shows of the decade. This is Days of Our Lives masquerading as a Star Trek show.

This show is just emotional diarreah.

The positives...

1. Great look and feel of the show. Beautiful CGI work.

The negatives...

1. Mostly a cast of annoying characters/actors, and I hope to never see them in another show that I watch.
   
2. Ship crews no longer need to meet any basic health and fitness requirements. Looking like an overstuffed pork sausage ready to burst? no problems, you are on the crew and quickly promoted for being an all round nice person.

Anybody else seen this poor excuse of a Star Trek show?

Hi:

Well, all I can say is it sounds as though you saved my butt...this is precisely the kind of stuff that I loathe. This whole trend, the past few years--all shows are designed for teens, practically pre-teens, and all their emo BS is enough to make you scream. I mean, this bit about how "someone lied to me!" (to wit, the Umbrella Academy, the October Faction (name?), with two over-entitled children running the entire household, with parents APOLOGIZING to them, for not having raised them to know (insert deep dark family secret here), as if babies or children or even young teens are able to process that sort of crap...this other stuff around the "lying" and the crap with "OMG, I have to STOP WORK and emote (Instagram, TikTok, whatev) to talk about how OMG, I have to work 40 whole minutes and I'm gonna die!"

I mean, WTF?? WTF?? Who does that? After all, pop culture is a reflection of real culture so...I won't watch this for "entertainment" because obviously, I don't find it entertaining at ALL. (Nor would I for 10 seconds put up with that in my office...oish.)

I am so pathetically grateful I have the crew that I have. Don't anybody tell them that I said that. I can only barely afford to pay them nearly what they are worth!!!

Hitch

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Quirky, confusing (in a good way) and quite well acted. Nothing earth-shattering by any means, but compared to some of the other drivel out there, I quite like it.

Do they ever explain how the ranch got Abbot's name? It was in his wife's family for 100 years, he didn't show up until 1968.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

Do they ever explain how the ranch got Abbot's name? It was in his wife's family for 100 years, he didn't show up until 1968.

From watching the 1st season, I vaguely remember the Abbott family adopted Royal so he already had the name. Marrying your adoptive sibling may strike some as a bit creepy.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

Do they ever explain how the ranch got Abbot's name? It was in his wife's family for 100 years, he didn't show up until 1968.

There's a lot of online discussion about that. We were never really told Royal's last name in 1886 (at least I don't think we were). I think it's entirely possible that Cecilia is a descendant of Royal's. Or that she's not an Abbott by birth either. Still very wibbley wobbley timey-wimey at the moment.

Spoiler:

Or she's from the future. I've never really reconciled what I saw in S1E2 (when Abbot fell in the hole and went to what appeared to be a near future where he'd died two years earlier) with the rest of the time-travel stuff.

[DiapDealer]

I've recently watched Sophie Rundle in The Diplomat and After the Flood-- both well done, I thought. And unlike many others here, I'm still enjoying Father Brown well enough after Season 11 (as well as S3 of its spinoff - Sister Boniface Mysteries) to keep watching. Must be the the soap fan in me, as I drew great enjoyment from S3 of Hope Street as well.

[cc_in_oh]

Finished Outer Range, kinda like Lost or Twin Peaks but without the interesting characters. Don't really care whether a S3 happens...

Then Cold Courage, a semi-coherent political "thriller" John Simm is usually OK but this story devolves into little more than blatant political pandering.

[Solitaire1]

I finally watched the first three episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks. Great series and the most enjoyable part of Star Trek I've seen in quite a while.

[mlewis78]

A few nights ago I watched Man in the Moon (first time). 1991 movie set in 1950s rural Louisiana. It was Reese Witherspoon's first movie. She was 14. I had recorded it in March on my public TV station.

[neil_swann80]

Dark matter was a fun ride. The screenplay for the series was written by the author of the book it's based on (Blake Crouch).

[Rumpelteazer]

We started with The Boys on Amazon Prime earlier this week. We watched the first two episodes and enjoyed it. So we'll be continuing with that.

[Hitch]

Okay so, I know, I know, I'm always always Dora Doom and I don't like anything, I totally suck.

AND, worse, I've been way for a while so you have hopefully all forgotten all that but now, I'm gonna remind you.

I thought it might be a bit pallid, but in desperation, I tried BritBox's "Good Ship Murder," which has come thereto in the last week or so.

OY.

I mean...this is really quite brilliant, in a capitalistic sense. Whoever developed this had the bleeding inspired idea of mooching all those "Created by the Chamber of Commerce" shows, like the OG of them all, Death in Paradise, to the Mallorca Files to Mrs. Volpe and so on, set the scene on a cruise ship that runs 'round the Med, go to 5 or 7 or however many cities, and have the Murder-She-Wrote-Murder-of-the-Week happen and the hero solve it. Okay. From a selling it pitch, I think that's brilliant, I do. They probably got gobs of cash, tax breaks and all that, from the various cities, countries, municipalities and so forth like Lisbon. BRILL, no argument.

BUT OMG is the show BAD. I mean, BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD. It appears to be an Aussie production but when you look at a great little show like Darby and Joan and then look at this debacle, you wonder if you've time-traveled back 40-50 years and GSM is the Love Boat of the 2024's. Complete with ancient, need work to keep my SAG card cast and all that.

Some dude is cast as the Lounge Lizard singer-cum-detective-used-to-be-a-cop and god help us all, he closes out each episode singing. His singing voice is about as good as my spouse's and I'm NOT KIDDING. This ain't Freddie Mercury reincarnated. it's not even Freddie's Big toe, reincarnated.

The casting--not kidding here--is almost like some Aussie production crew ran around the continent, went to all the local playhouses and snatched up any affordable "wanna be a TV star" actor/actress that they could find and cast them for Episode X. Seriously. Scads of much much older acting, er, talent too--which is to be expected with the whole cruise ship thing, I guess. The woman who played the center of the mystery in the Lisbon episode should actually be barred from ever appearing on stage or TV or film or ? ever again. Her scene inside a church is painful to watch.

The mysteries are pretty insipid. In fact, the plots are; the casting is abysmal and the acting is...woeful. Watch the second epi, set in Lisbon and see if you don't agree.

I am actually surprised by it. I know, that sounds awfully naive, I get it, I do. But it's...it's so bad it's surprising that somehow it escaped into the wild. You just don't expect it anymore; even the made-for-Sci-Fi movies of the week, shows, etc., are all a lot better than this. Quality-wise, this is up there with the old original Space:1999 episodes or the like. And I would say that S:1999 was far better and far more creative for its time. Is it telling that I would rather see Lady Penelope, in TAG, than this?

There are also pesky naggy things, like the fact that none of the shoulder epaulets (ranks) seem to mean anything or matter. Lower ranks give orders to higher. Cruise directors--in other words, entertainment directors--appear to be giving orders to the actual crew, the working sailors which we all know ain't real. The cops in one city welcome this retired Brit cop as if it's old home week and promptly allow him to work on the murder with them (yeah, right). Of course, there's a love connection between the lounge lizard (male) and the brand-spanking-new FIRST OFFICER who of course is a woman. (sigh).

I mean, if you're currently on heavy meds and you can burn up a few brain cells to try something out and you don't want to think AT ALL, hell, give it a try but...I have to say, I don't recall seeing anything quite this bad in a while. At first, I truly thought it was a tongue-in-cheek thing--but I don't believe it is. It's just that bad.

You've been warned! LOLOL...I wish I could find something and race back here and tell you all how great it was, I truly do...

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

It really is awful. I only watched the second episode because I want to see if it could get worse (it did)!

Luckily I cancelled BritBox again (I bounce between a combination of streaming services keeping my monthly total fairly constant) so I can't be tempted into seeing how awful it can get.

[pdurrant]

I'm watching the 4th series of the Umbrella Academy. Good fun so far.

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I thought it might be a bit pallid, but in desperation, I tried BritBox's "Good Ship Murder," which has come thereto in the last week or so.

Hitch

I saw the promo for it a while back. And even from the promo I could tell it would be sh**e. And me saying that is something, I'm very tolerant in what I can watch.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm watching the 4th series of the Umbrella Academy. Good fun so far.

My sister and I watched it earlier this week. Enjoyed it, too.

We've also now watched three seasons of The Boys. Before we continue we will probably watch the first season of Generation V, the spin-off. But I think we might take a little break and watch A Good Girl's Guide to Murder on Netflix, which apparently isn't as good as the book.

But my sister's on vacation for two weeks so I can now watch all the things she has no interest in. I could do that before, but only on my bedroom TV. I've no idea what to watch yet. I'll take inventory of all the things on my various watch lists.

I'm also working on Lego projects now that I have the dining table to myself. Today I started on the haunted house set and from tomorrow I'll put on Critical Role whilst working on the project.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm watching the 4th series of the Umbrella Academy. Good fun so far.

Same. I've had a lot of fun with this show. The 4th series coming out was one of the driving forces behind me juggling my services to re-subscribe to Netflix.