What Are You Watching

[cc_in_oh]

Halfway through S2 of the Danish show Acquitted. It's pretty good but following in the footsteps of The Killing and Broadchurch in "reopening" S1's apparent resolution, and I know a lot of watchers hate that. All the suspects are back in the frame.and new angles to the case keep popping up.

It's a PBS Walter Presents if you want to check it out.

[ownedbycats]

Star Trek S3E01: Spock's Brain

This one's a definite stinker. It also gave me very strange dreams when I watched it back in November.

It starts off well. The Enterprise is chasing after a spaceship, then a mysterious woman suddenly pops onto the bridge and does something with her wrist remote thingy. BOING! Everyone passes out.

Attachment 205990

Anyways, everyone wakes up on the bridge. Spock is missing, and Dr. McCoy is insisting that Kirk get down to sickbay, RIGHT NOW, because, well:



I love how DeForest Kelley delivers such ridiculous dialogue like "his brain is gone!" with such conviction.

Anyways, a lengthy segment of them tracking the ion trail of the mysterious spaceship, then deciding to beam down to "planet six." Which is later referred to several times as Sigma Draconis Seven. Yeah, that kind of sums up the episode.

After a while hanging out on Sigma Draconis 6.7 and getting into fights with cavemen, McCoy beams down with the brainless Spock.





They leave Mr. Chekov and the two redshirts behind on the surface. They decide they might as well get comfortable.



Later on, we get such amazing dialogue as:

Kirk: What is this place?
Woman: This place is... here.

And this:



At one point, they manage to contact Spock's brain on the communicator. Who promptly admits that "there is a definite pleasurable experience connected with the hearing of [Captain Kirk's] voice." Oh, okay then.



At another point, the women leave, leaving the cavemen guarding the prisoners. They also conveniently leave all their equipment in the room.

Kirk: This fellow is keeping us from our property.
Scotty: Isn't there a way to correct that situation?
Kirk: I certainly think that science might provide an answer.
McCoy: It does, Captain.



(Okay, this part genuinely made me laugh.)

So eventually, the plot leads up to sticking Dr. McCoy into a futuristic hairdryer in order to give him the knowledge to re-implant Spock's brain.

"Of course. Of course. A child could do it. A child could do it!" Of course, he starts forgetting halfway through, so they re-connect Spock's speech center so he can direct his own brain surgery. Makes perfect sense.





His hair is fully intact afterwards. Dr. McCoy regrets re-connecting his mouth.



... honestly, it's kind of a fun episode if you don't take it too seriously.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Jordan5

My beef with Brenda is not her race (Heh--I'm African-American. And up until S10, FB did extremely well with POC characters and themes about racism.) It's that she has been given no other life except to trail around after FB, get lectured/condescended to by Devine about poise/charm (*snort* Bwahahahahahahahahahahah!) and generally act OTT for no reason. And saddling the actress with that accent is hardly helping matters. She and Devine represent yet another disastrous S10 problem: the guest casting was goofy at best, horrible at worst. S11 is better, but not nearly up to the show's previous high standards. Ah, well, given the endings of a couple of this season's eps, the show may not get to an S12. Unless TPTB want to sabotage it even worse...

Oh, dear, I watched the first two eppies of Father Brown. It was like a twofer of awfulness.

There's something I can't talk about, it would be spoilers, no matter how clever I am about trying to not let the cat out of the bag, but they've added something that I already dislike and I know I will continue to dislike even MORE.

The Devine/Brenda dynamic is not improved and you're right, Brenda has no...real existence. She's not even a great foil that's an empty shell; she's just...there.

And we got to see Sister B too. GODS, after I suffered through epi 1, I get her in epi 2? For the love of...well, not heaven.

NOT a happy camper. (I never took to Bunty, tbh. Just...couldn't warm up to her. I don't know if that makes me an old stick in the mud or whatever, but I just...she always made my teeth grind a bit.)

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

I'm binging Northern Exposure at the moment. I loved that show when I was younger. I still really enjoy it, but the dynamic has changed dramatically for me. The characters I loved most back then (Joel Fleishman and Chris Stevens), I almost cannot stand now. Characters I barely paid attention to when the show aired are what keeps me watching today.

[Jordan5]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Oh, dear, I watched the first two eppies of Father Brown. It was like a twofer of awfulness.

There's something I can't talk about, it would be spoilers, no matter how clever I am about trying to not let the cat out of the bag, but they've added something that I already dislike and I know I will continue to dislike even MORE.

The Devine/Brenda dynamic is not improved and you're right, Brenda has no...real existence. She's not even a great foil that's an empty shell; she's just...there.

And we got to see Sister B too. GODS, after I suffered through epi 1, I get her in epi 2? For the love of...well, not heaven.

NOT a happy camper. (I never took to Bunty, tbh. Just...couldn't warm up to her. I don't know if that makes me an old stick in the mud or whatever, but I just...she always made my teeth grind a bit.)

Hitch

It's interesting--Boniface has some of the same character problems as Devine. The show expects us to automatically fall in love with them because they are so gosh-darned adorable and quirky and all-that. There are few things more irritating than writers who insist their characters are instantly awesome instead of consistently proving it.

Heh--I think I know what spoiler you're referring to, though there is so much here to dislike, I might be wrong. And, yeah, that's as fake and panto-silly as FB's current direction. Ugh.

Sheesh--how hard could it be to give Brenda some interests/inner life of her own? (Apparently almost as hard as giving Sullivan a decent love interest.) And the fact that Devine is _still_ condescending to her in the guise of giving her advice...

I liked Bunty. She at least had an interesting life outside of FB and brought some smarts and fun to the table. She was a bit full-on, but she had a lot more going for her than Devine or Brenda.

[Solitaire1]

Was watching a video recap on YouTube of the first five episodes of an anime where the main character is completely dateless because every girl he asks out turns him down. He's been rejected 100 times.

He goes to a Temple to pray for a solution to his dateless problem. A god appears and tells him that his dateless condition is due a mistake on the god's part. Unfortunately, in an attempt to correct the problem he ends up giving the young man 100 soulmates instead of one or two as he was supposed to. He keeps encountering soulmate after soulmate.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Unfortunately, in an attempt to correct the problem he ends up giving the young man 100 soulmates instead of one or two as he was supposed to. He keeps encountering soulmate after soulmate.

Polyamory!

[Karellen]

Just started on True Blood. Enjoying S01 so far.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Was watching a video recap on YouTube of the first five episodes of an anime where the main character is completely dateless because every girl he asks out turns him down. He's been rejected 100 times.

He goes to a Temple to pray for a solution to his dateless problem. A god appears and tells him that his dateless condition is due a mistake on the god's part. Unfortunately, in an attempt to correct the problem he ends up giving the young man 100 soulmates instead of one or two as he was supposed to. He keeps encountering soulmate after soulmate.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Polyamory!

At the end of the video he'd already acquired six girlfriends. Here's the video:

[poohbear_nc]

Watched Luther - the character Alice Morgan is worth the tedium of watching Idris Elba's testosterone fueled rages over and over and ..... I haven't seen pure evil portrayed in so madcap a fashion since Jodie Comer's Villanelle ... absolute magic

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Watched Luther - the character Alice Morgan is worth the tedium of watching Idris Elba's testosterone fueled rages over and over and ..... I haven't seen pure evil portrayed in so madcap a fashion since Jodie Comer's Villanelle ... absolute magic

No question Ruth Wilson made the show - Alice is a far more memorable character than Luther. I mean, how many heartless killers know that there are 2 trillion galaxies in the universe?

We're halfway through New Blood, another great Anthony Horowitz production.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

No question Ruth Wilson made the show - Alice is a far more memorable character than Luther. I mean, how many heartless killers know that there are 2 trillion galaxies in the universe?

We're halfway through New Blood, another great Anthony Horowitz production.

And Patrick Malahide was also terrific - the epitome of the soft-spoken deadly mob boss that could surprise you.

Just started watching Ruth Wilson's new series - The Woman in the Wall

[mlewis78]

Saturday night I watched Heartburn (based on Nora Ephron's book and starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson) from 1986. After that I watched Everything is Copy, the documentary about Nora Ephron by her son Jacob Bernstein (2016). Both on Max. I am online while watching TV, but my attention was on the TV for these two.

[poohbear_nc]

Watched season 1 of The Ex-Wife -- a twisty psychological mystery with marriages really going wrong ... unsure if there will be a season 2 but it did end on a cliffhanger scene (BritBox)

[Solitaire1]

Recently started watching a recap of Spy X Family on YouTube. It's about what appears to be a normal family, however that is far from the truth:

• The Father is a world-class spy and a master of disguise. The Mother doesn't know.
• The Mother is a high-level assassin who is an expert at the use of stiletto blades and is extremely strong and fast. The Father doesn't know.
• The Daughter was the subject of an experiment that gave her telepathic powers. Both the Mother and Father don't know.

It's set in an area of the world where two neighboring countries are engaged in a cold war with each other, utilizing spies and assassins. Originally, the family was formed just in support of a mission, but they slowly grew to be a real family.