Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Boba Fett and Cobra Kai

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

I’ve not actually been watching much TV this week, I’m afraid. New shows have arrived but, honestly, I didn’t fancy them. Apart from maybe Pivoting (US: Fox), but that was only on last night, so I’ve not had time to watch it.

I did watch the latest episodes of The Book of Bobba Fett and Cobra Kai. The former (episode two) shows us there’s going to be a dual narrative in these episodes, with us seeing how Boba Fett got to be bad ass on Tatooine, learning to do his thing and respect the ways of the Tuskan raiders (yes, I’ve probably spelt half of those words wrongly. Sorry Star Wars fans), in the past while the present day narrative sees him trying to establish his new criminal empire and take over from Jabba the Hut as the new ‘daimyo’. It was fine. Quite fun to watch, but nothing too special, mainly because two stories seem to have only half the impact.

Meanwhile, it was more of the same in Cobra Kai as we’re only up to about episode six or seven. Lovely Wife isn’t enjoying this season at all, after loving the previous seasons, so has told me I can watch the rest of it by myself ‘if I want’. But I don’t really want, so I might hold off until she’s ready. I see her point: there’s a lot more nastiness and bullying in this season compared to the previous seasons, which makes it a bit less fun to watch. But we’ll see.

That’s it, though. So here’s what I could have watched if I’d wanted to and why I didn’t bother.

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Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Squid Game, Cobra Kai, Hawkeye, The Mezzotint and The Book of Boba Fett

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to 2022 – 2021 again but done right, we can all hope. How was your Christmas break? Hope you managed to get one and didn’t get the dreaded lurgy (or one of the other minor lurgies that were doing the rounds).

You’ll be glad to hear – since you’re here – that TMINE actually had the chance to watch some new TV shows over Christmas. Some of them were even good.

There was only one regular still on the TMINE viewing list: Hawkeye (Disney+). The final episode of that was fun, but somewhat lightweight. Its highlight was a tear-jerking confrontation between (spoiler alert) Yelena Belova (Black Widow’s grieving sister) and Hawkeye. However, the script didn’t exactly let both barrels blast on that, and it didn’t feel like we were getting Jeremy Renner, the Oscar-nominated actor, so much as Jeremy Renner, the bit-part player from an episode of Angel, so the emotion largely came from (spoiler alert) Florence Pugh and all the good work that other entries in the MCU had already done.

What also should have been a highlight of the episode – the return of (spoiler alert) Vincent D’Onofrio reprising his Netflix Defenders role of Wilson Fisk – largely got ruined through poor characterisation, right down to that atrocious shirt. I’m wondering if he’s a parallel universe version, rather than the one we’ve seen elsewhere. But maybe it’s down to a problem that’s intrinsic to both comic book crossovers and the MCU that stems from one of their supposed strengths: the ability to have different tones and genres in different shows and movies. If you stick something from a grittier genre into something more comedic and family oriented, something’s got to change, and more often than not, it’s the grittier thing. That can work, but here, it largely undid more or less all the good work that Daredevil et al in terms of characterisation and plausibility – despite some excellent acting from the star in question.

Overall, though, while not ultimately as good on average as WandaVision, it had almost as many highs, was more consistent and more fun, and was still a lovely Christmas treat for us all to unwrap. Plus it did give us this brilliant double-act.

After the jump, though, let’s talk about those new shows. Squid Game (Netflix) technically isn’t a new show, since it’s been around for a while – to the extent that we actually tried it a few weeks ago but gave up. However, we felt we should give it a second chance, given how popular it is, and we made it all the way through to the end.

Properly new were BBC Four’s latest Ghost Story for Christmas, The Mezzotint, and Disney+’s latest entry in the Star Wars firmament, The Book of Boba Fett. And although we’ve only got halfway through it, let’s talk a bit about season four of Cobra Kai (Netflix) as well. See you in a mo!

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Firebite
Streaming TV

What (completely forgettable TV) have you (also) been watching? Including American Auto, Grand Crew and Firebite

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

Well, this is awkward. I’ve just written about all the TV I’ve been watching… and I’ve just remembered I’ve watched three other shows. Oh dear.

So let’s do a quick extra rundown of those utterly unmemorable shows while I can still retain them in my mind. I should also point out that some utterly insane fool at HBO Max commissioned Station Eleven, the first episode of which aired last week:

‘Survivors of a devastating flu attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost.’

Are you f*cking insane, HBO Max?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaAG-SwEa7k
Continue reading “What (completely forgettable TV) have you (also) been watching? Including American Auto, Grand Crew and Firebite”
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Hawkeye, Hot Zone: Anthrax, Titans and Lost in Space

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

I’ve been goaded. Well, prodded really. There were some actual movie reviews last week, so I guess I’d better do some TV reviews. Apparently, that’s what TMINE’s supposed to be for. Tarnation.

Fortunately, I’ve been watching a decent amount of TV, so I won’t simply be doing shadow puppets for you and pretending that it’s a review for this last WHYBW of 2021.

First up, the return of two regulars, and then after the jump, we can talk about two new shows: Hawkeye (Disney+) and Hot Zone: Anthrax (Disney+)

Lost in Space (season 3) (Netflix)

Lost in Space (Netflix) is back for its third and final season… and I’m confused. Every season more or less is a build up to showing us how the Space Family Robinson got ‘lost in space’ with the evil Doctor Smith (Parker Posey). It then ends with them… ‘lost in space’. And then with the next season, it resets and we have to watch them get lost in space all over again.

Season two ended especially well in that regard. They’re on the spaceship, they’re there with the robot and evil Dr Smith, they don’t know where they are but they are in the middle of space, nowhere near anyone else or a planet that looks a lot like Canada.

Good build-up. Surely they’re not going to reset again are they?

Well, hot damn. Guess what? Season three starts with them all stuck on yet another planet that looks like Canada with all the other kids. Again. What the hell? Even if we hadn’t already had a show that’s almost exactly the same as that (The 100), why are we doing it for the third season in a row for Lost in Space?

I managed to watch about two episodes before I just gave up. I’ve now seen this story twice – I don’t need to see it for a third time. And can’t the whole family actually be in the same place together for so much as an entire episode?

Titans (US: HBO Max; UK: Netflix)

You probably won’t remember this – why would you? – but I made it through the first four episodes of season three of Titans back in September, then gave up as it was so horrid and all the characters I cared about got killed off.

Well, it’s comics, so guess what? One of them came back from the dead, it turned out, something I discovered this weekend, so I figured that as this was now on Netflix in the UK, I’d give it a rewatch from the point from when said character returns.

So… episodes nine through 13 of Titans are bad. Not outright terrible, but pretty close. It’s all meaningless, inconsequential namechecking of comic characters but none of the characters act like either themselves or even slightly coherently thought-out human beings (or aliens). The acting seems to have got a lot worse, too, and the fights don’t have that grittiness to them that they used to. What it does have is trite teen romances and outright sadism.

I would say that if I was looking for positives, seeing (spoiler alert) the Amazons, as well as Donna Troy and Raven again was great, as they were by far the most interesting characters and interpretations of DC lore. But it’s all just so comic-strippy, so lacking in any real depth, and actually downright silly at times that it just felt like I was losing IQ points watching it.

Plus how high-stake are your perils when at least half the cast have died and come back?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ttU1iKSpdA
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Ultraviolet
US TV

Things you definitely should never watch: the US version of Ultraviolet

The Channel 4 show Ultraviolet is a classic TV show. A slightly forgotten classic that’s now a horrifying 23 years old, but a classic. As I’ve explained elsewhere.

Minute for minute (sorry, Buffy, you had some wonderful episodes, but you had a lot – perhaps even whole seasons – that definitely weren’t wonderful), I doubt there’s ever been a better modern horror show (or at least modern vampire show) than Ultraviolet.

You can take my word for that, or you can just go and watch it on All 4.

What you absolutely should not do is watch the US pilot episode. It might have Idris Elba reprising his role from the UK show and Mädchen Amick from Twin Peaks et al. But that’s never going to be enough to make it any good.

See?