One of the things I watched while I was out was Centaurworld on Netflix.
As a warning: it’s weird, and it leans on the “goofy silly wacky zany fun times fart joke world” trope hard, especially at the beginning, but it does so mainly to differentiate the centaurs’ world from Horse’s world, which is deep in a gritty cataclysmic-but-still-kid-friendly war with a seemingly unstoppable force. (And yes, the main character’s name is Horse.)
If I had to describe the show overall, I’d say it’s essentially early Adventure Time levels of zany with late Adventure Time levels of narrative storytelling. It gets Very Serious for a kids show in places (they somehow managed to get away with a Y-7 rating despite all the war and baby orphans and literal episode-long suicide metaphors, so… content warning I guess?) while still managing to be fun the whole way through.
Oh, also, it’s a musical, and the songs are all extremely good and dangerously catchy.
Things I’ve learned from watching Eureka:
Being smart means you’re good at everything, and five people can cover any science knowledge necessary. “Smart” is all you need. Ingest an intelligence enhancing drug and suddenly you can understand everything you read, no training or real study needed.
Every time something goes wrong, someone will say “I didn’t mean for bad things to happen!” And that will be the end of consequences.
Smart people are inherently dangerous. They will do dangerous things in their pursuit of knowledge and those things must be stopped by the less smart. If you become smarter you will become a bad person.
The security personnel at GD are useless-you see them just watching as Our Gang rushes about. Maybe they are statues?
They need much better computer security. How many times can your system get FUBAREd before you air-gap it?
Plenty of people know the town exists, so just how is it a big secret? Where does the food come from?
Why aren’t there better shelter/evacuation protocols? An underground town connected to the regular one would make everything much easier.
The sherif can be asked to do anything, but apparently there is no “normal” crime in eureka.
Being in a couple is necessary for happiness. Preferably a heteronormative couple. Even the AIs should be seen as gendered.
There is an endless supply of old Jeeps for the sheriff to let melt, burn, explode, fall out of the sky, etc, etc.
Someone mentioned this show over a year ago when the CW attempted to air it but gave up after an episode. That’s too bad because, in hearing about it on a podcast, I started watching it on YouTube and have found it incredibly enjoyable.
It’s a “game show” featuring 5 comedians competing in a series of pre-recorded and often ridiculous tasks. Sometimes their solutions are brilliant. Other times whatever they do turns out to be compete rubbish. (Series 5 has someone who for the life of them just cannot accomplish much of anything well.) It’s hilarious and you just have to watch it to really “get” it.
My wife and I started with series 4 because it featuring individuals who were on The Great British Bake Off (although but concurrently), but now we’re going all the way back to 1. I don’t recommend starting with 1 just because they’re figuring out the show. 4 and 5 make great entry points, though.
Squid Game has me hooked. I’ve limited viewing to one episode per day, because each one raises a lot of questions. Also, the language options are excellent. I’ll probably watch the whole thing multiple times, to mix and match audio/subtitle choices:
While watching Netflix shows, I listen to audio in different languages from the subtitles. Some shows that only have English audio offer a variety of languages for the subtitles. For the first pass at Squid Game, I’m using French audio with Spanish subtitles. My plan is to repeat with combinations of German, Spanish, French, and English. It helps me to build vocabulary and try to catch where the subtitles don’t match the audio and what they could’ve used instead.
My ear for Korean and Chinese isn’t good enough to be able to multitask and look away from the screen while watching shows in those languages, but maybe one day…
Anyone watching “Maid”? Good stuff, never sure where it’s going. A little didactic at times, but it’s made (Maid) in Amurica, so that’s to be expected.
I’ve managed to get through the first episode, but only by hitting pause every 5 minutes or so to get up and walk around a bit. Way too triggering for me. Brought back all the feels of being helpless against everything stacked up against those without either money or support.
So, I guess in a way, what I’m saying is that they’re getting something right in how they’re portraying the title character!
Yes, understandable, I forgot to add that. I’ve been there in some ways too, and I think it’s effective at portraying what it can be like. But also effective at portraying it all in ways that encourage women to find help (however bad the help often is), and also to not feel bad if they’re not ready yet to search for help, let alone accept it.
To balance out the terrible news of the day, I’m watching the second half of the Leverage: Redemption season released earlier this month. On the bad side, it begins with a holiday episode ( too soon), but on the good side LeVar Burton is the guest star!
too soon), but on the good side LeVar Burton is the guest star! 
