It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Last week, WHYBW pulled a sickie, thanks to the Covid vaccination giving me possibly the worst illness I’ve had in years. I’m better now, but not looking forward to number two in July… Thankfully, invalidity still didn’t stop me from watching TV, so I’m up to date with pretty much everything.
Debris (US: NBC) has continued to be pleasantly unpleasant. Although each episode still ends with some heartwarming proof of the delights of human nature, it’s usually accompanied by something horribly unpleasant and some Fringe cast-offs, such as (spoiler alert) a telekinetic/telepathic girl ramming a relative’s head into some metal shards to stop him using his own mind-control to get our heroes to shoot themselves . There’s also lots of distrust and backstabbing, and the effects of the miraculous space debris seem largely to be settling down on things passing through other things – with suitably biologically unpleasant results.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (Disney+) concluded with accompanying name change (no, no spoilers) in a slightly odd way, it has to be said. A magnificent speech and the bits in the Smithsonian were desperately moving, but the final half seemed more like an effort to set up about half a dozen spin-off shows and movies than a decent denouement. Plus for a show called The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there really wasn’t much Winter Soldier this episode.
For All Mankind (Apple TV+) also had a very moving as well as exciting season finale. Lots of soapiness in the preceding episodes that was very draining and slowing of the plot, but how can you knock (spoiler alert) Moon War! and its own outer space version of the Cuban Missile Crisis but in the 80s? Plus props for references to Space: 1999. All in all, not as good a second season as the first and everything sort of petered out with various storylines, such as Molly’s medical condition, but I imagine season three will pick that up. All I can say is, thank God we’re into the 1990s now. I’m so sick of 80s nostalgia and period pieces.
Last up, we had the return of Mythic Quest (Apple TV+). Not 100% inspiring this one, which I think was written by one of the cast members and saw our heroes and heroines return to the office after a year of Covid for their annual pick-me-up LARP party, only for it to go disastrously wrong. Some good chuckles to be had nevertheless and some nicely cynical moments. Also surprisingly big budget, as we entered actual fantasy sequences towards with some solid effects, and with a surprise guest voiceover by Anthony Hopkins. But I’m hoping the series-proper is a little bit more focused on the bad behaviour and the niceties of game design than this ep was.
But what did you watch?
