Stuff Wot I Watched
Dec. 4th, 2020 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
I've been meaning to make one of these posts for er... a very long time. There were things I had opinions on and wanted to talk about, like Devs and Picard, and then I procrastinated until it was long enough ago that it seems pointless. Anyway, this is what I've dabbled in more recently.
Raised by Wolves. In the distant future, humans gamble on two different ways to colonise another planet. But the factions that were at war on earth are bringing their battle to the new world too.
This series starts out weird but intriguing, and slowly leaks its information as the episodes go on, stitching together the backstory and character details. The cinematography is fantastic, and Amanda Collin is absolutely brilliant. She really captures an incredible alien-ness, utterly convincing as an android closely mimicing human behaviour, but never quite closely enough. As the story develops, it becomes more than just interesting and grows the needed emotional punch. And then after most things are explained and tied together, the last episode throws out a complete WTF and sets up a second series that will be as crazy weird as the first!
The Great. There have been four different series about Catherine the Great that I know of over the last few years. Hulu's take on her is almost entirely devoid of historical accuracy, and very big on lewd comedy. It is definitely funny, but there's also an underlying political seriousness and emotional heart to it. If you saw the brilliant film The Favourite for which Olivia Coleman won an Oscar, that's exactly the vibe running through The Great.
Bojack Horseman. I've been hearing the word about how good Bojack Horseman is for several years now, and finally got around to starting on it. The word was not wrong. I watched the first episode, and by the end I was laughing hard and saying, 'This is genius!' That is so rare with comedy. The Good Place grabbed me from the start, but Parks and Rec and Brooklynn 99 both had entire first series that struggled to find what worked before they got it honed.
What works so well for Bojack Horseman is that he is bitter and cynical and often horrible, but there's enough heart to him and enough occasions where he tries so hard, even if he fails, that you still feel for him, especially since the backstory makes it all so understandable. Funny, stabbing, vicious, but still with characters that make you genuinely care underneath. So hard to get the balance right, and so brilliant when it's nailed like this.
Schitt's Creek. Another series where I've been hearing much about how good and funny it is. We watched the first episode and we both hated it. I really don't like comedy where all the humour is about how awful these people are. Yes, I agree, they're awful, and I don't want to laugh at them, I want to slap them. It's the same reason I bailed on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which a lot of people seem to like. With Schitt's Creek, it wasn't just the fish out of water rich people who were awful, the locals (in the shape of the town mayor) were the worst kind of stereotyped hicks too.
So the SO got onto his twitter people and asked them when Schitt's Creek actually gets good. Like I said, some comedy takes time, and I'm willing to sit through a ropey first season if it's short. Unfortunately, the most common answers were that it gets good about season 3 or 4. I'm not willing to sit through that much pain. One episode is all Schitt's Creek will ever get!
Raised by Wolves. In the distant future, humans gamble on two different ways to colonise another planet. But the factions that were at war on earth are bringing their battle to the new world too.
This series starts out weird but intriguing, and slowly leaks its information as the episodes go on, stitching together the backstory and character details. The cinematography is fantastic, and Amanda Collin is absolutely brilliant. She really captures an incredible alien-ness, utterly convincing as an android closely mimicing human behaviour, but never quite closely enough. As the story develops, it becomes more than just interesting and grows the needed emotional punch. And then after most things are explained and tied together, the last episode throws out a complete WTF and sets up a second series that will be as crazy weird as the first!
The Great. There have been four different series about Catherine the Great that I know of over the last few years. Hulu's take on her is almost entirely devoid of historical accuracy, and very big on lewd comedy. It is definitely funny, but there's also an underlying political seriousness and emotional heart to it. If you saw the brilliant film The Favourite for which Olivia Coleman won an Oscar, that's exactly the vibe running through The Great.
Bojack Horseman. I've been hearing the word about how good Bojack Horseman is for several years now, and finally got around to starting on it. The word was not wrong. I watched the first episode, and by the end I was laughing hard and saying, 'This is genius!' That is so rare with comedy. The Good Place grabbed me from the start, but Parks and Rec and Brooklynn 99 both had entire first series that struggled to find what worked before they got it honed.
What works so well for Bojack Horseman is that he is bitter and cynical and often horrible, but there's enough heart to him and enough occasions where he tries so hard, even if he fails, that you still feel for him, especially since the backstory makes it all so understandable. Funny, stabbing, vicious, but still with characters that make you genuinely care underneath. So hard to get the balance right, and so brilliant when it's nailed like this.
Schitt's Creek. Another series where I've been hearing much about how good and funny it is. We watched the first episode and we both hated it. I really don't like comedy where all the humour is about how awful these people are. Yes, I agree, they're awful, and I don't want to laugh at them, I want to slap them. It's the same reason I bailed on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which a lot of people seem to like. With Schitt's Creek, it wasn't just the fish out of water rich people who were awful, the locals (in the shape of the town mayor) were the worst kind of stereotyped hicks too.
So the SO got onto his twitter people and asked them when Schitt's Creek actually gets good. Like I said, some comedy takes time, and I'm willing to sit through a ropey first season if it's short. Unfortunately, the most common answers were that it gets good about season 3 or 4. I'm not willing to sit through that much pain. One episode is all Schitt's Creek will ever get!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-05 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-05 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-06 01:07 am (UTC)I'd be happy to give Raised by Wolves and Bojack Horseman a look, based on your assessment and copious praise I've seen of the latter, although Mr Robot was also similarly praised and I found it increasingly ridiculous. Acting was good though.
Will skip The Great. Making female rulers out to be sexbots and trashing their reputation is so commonplace, I refuse to watch yet another ahistorical take on Catherine. She was fascinating, but not for the reasons people usually have any interest in her.
We both like Schitt's Creek s1, and I've bought (though not watched) s2. There's potential for huge second hand embarrassment squick, but since, as you point out, all the characters are/start out as awful people, it doesn't really bite. It helps to know where it's going, and also to have been force-fed Green Acres and Gilligan's Island as a child. Both shows are big influences on Schitt's Creek. The writing is sharp and the acting very good. YMMV!
no subject
Date: 2020-12-06 06:25 am (UTC)But the acting was good, and we gave the second season a chance. And then it pulled the exact same stunt at the end as the first and it was just beyond the pale and we were done.
I liked Picard overall. Patrick Stewart is awesome in everything, of course, and I loved the concept of it - how the Federation screwed up, and bringing back Hugh Borg and showing the consequences of that choice and that it worked. I loved Raffi and Elnor, and Rios only a little bit less, and of course Seven absolutely fucking killed it. (Jeri Ryan was fabulous before Voyager and Voyager wasted her.) I loved Picard's self-selecting Romulan bodyguards. I thought Narek was a waste of space and too obvious as a plant, and his sister was just as bad, and sadly the great potential of the premise wasn't served well by the final episode, which was scripted to a formula.
I hated Alison Pill. I thought she was a lousy actor. And then I thought, maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was a thankless role, playing the dupe, who stupidly killed her ex because she was conned. And then I saw Devs, and there she was again, by some miles the worst actor in an otherwise seriously good cast.
I look at Alison Pill and I don't see a character, I see an actor trying desperately to act - and it shows up extra badly when she's doing it adjacent to Patrick Stewart or Nick Offerman. I've seen her in American Horror Story too, and she drags down absolutely everything she's in with her horrible mediocrity. She should be fired and never hired again, at least not as an actor...
no subject
Date: 2020-12-06 06:28 am (UTC)Don't hold back now, tell me how you really feel :)
I didn't like the character but didn't blame the actress. I guess I should have!
So glad I didn't waste time with Mr Robot s2
I wasn't keen on Seven as a character or Jeri Ryan, until I saw Picard, and then I got it. And now she and Raffi are officially an item :)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-06 06:47 am (UTC)