Whatcha Watchin' (Season 2)

I have never read the Foundation books, but to me it seemed like Cliff’s Notes, or like when they took the entire miniseries of Shogun and made it a two hour movie. The whole season seemed like a beginning-of-season recap of a previous season, just showing the high points. We covered, what, 200 years in 10 episodes?

Oddly enough, the storylines I started off liking and disliking totally reversed about 75% of the way into it. I will probably start season 2 when it comes out, but to me it it just wasn’t satisfying.

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I can’t predict whether I will watch. I’m shocked I made it to the end. I normally don’t have that tolerance for TV so who knows?

I wouldn’t recommend though.

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Studio Ghibli, the famous japanese animation powerhouse, gave us a lot of very good cartoons such as Totoro and Spirited away , but this time they failed miserably.

Earwig and Witch, their newest cartoon, has just debuted on Netflix. This was their first cartoon made entirely in computer graphics and it looked like those generic animations that we can found in discount bins. To make things worse, the story and characters are totally uninteresting.

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Yeah the first episode really hit out of the park for me. The pick for Jet was just perfect.

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I saw this one last night. Classified as a thriller, but I think “political drama” would have been more correct.

Loads of talented Brits, of course, but very well acted.

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My understanding of the books was that it was basically The Malloreon series without the sense of humour.

The Wheel of Time is explicitly calling out that this is a Fantasy Universe just like all the other Fantasy Universes because all Fantasy Universes are reiterations of each other, and, look, there’s magic and trollies and a Great Evil and a Chosen One and his companions, and they probably meet in a tavern where a strange old man offers them a quest. And because the Wheel of Time is always moving on as well as going around, then there are gratuitous differences and you’re just going to have to suck it up because that’s how it works. All this has happened before, only all the details are different. That’s the point.

I couldn’t really get into it either, for a similar reason.

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Huh, that’s a more interesting approach than I imagined, anyway. Thanks!

I would love for them to do Lord of Light or the Amber series

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Anybody watching or have watched Dark, a very interesting German series about time travel, parallel existence, good vs. evil, weird occultism and caves with black holes?

Fascinating. Can’t get enough.

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Yeah, good series, I got sick of it in the middle, but stayed with it and was glad. It pays off well.

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I am hooked. Got a bit weak when pin pointing an event to change the course of time but I’m going to finish it. Well acted, well shot, unusual locations and the dubbing was good.

Need more of these efforts!

Surprising to see Sylvester Groth who played a creepy Nazi in the Man From Uncle movie.

Dark was absolutely amazing.

ETA: While we’re on the topic of international TV dramas on Netflix, I cannot recommend Sacred Games (from India) enough either!

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It’s excellent from start to finish. Also, the music is great… and the opening sequence is wonderful…

Right up there with the ones for Six Feet Under:

Carnivale…

and House of Cards…

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I found that the sound “breathed” during the show’s action/sequences. Makes for a very environmental yet creepy experience. A bit horror movie like but with extra dimensions.

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My expections for The Witcher were very low, but it was actually pretty good

Wheel of Time looks derivative and pointless from the trailers, but who knows, guess I’ll have to watch it so I can have a legitimate opinion about the Next Big Thing

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Same here; I’m now looking forward to S2.

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Vikings (Just don’t ask a re-enactor about the costumes. Or the armour. Or the history. On the other hand, they do speak Old Norse, Old English, Latin, and in later seasons, Old French and probably Slavonic. Linguist squee.)

While the opening for Victoria is relatively simple, but that music makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time

Still, I think Carnivàle wins out of all of them.

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Two of my favorite openings:

Black Sails:

West World

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I love technothriller openings.

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Counterpart, and The Night Manager, too

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