What are YOU watching?

[David Earle]

More JoJo. I just watched the epic battle between Josuke Kujo (JoJo 3) and D'arby the Gambler, which is the greatest poker game of all time.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

I am also thoroughly enjoying The Young Pope. I have no idea where it's going, but the gorgeous sets, the excellent acting, and the sheer cheek of it all are enough to keep me along for the rise.

[Pyroriffic]

Binge-watched the whole of S1 of The Expanse.

That's some pretty-looking sci-fi right there.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

What I don't get is why Netflix are showing it here when it was on SyFy in the US. But, yeah, a very good production worthy of the books.

[Pyroriffic]

We also watched both available seasons of 'Rick and Morty', which is just delightfully bonkers.

[Pyroriffic]

I'm watching Travelers on Netflix. Remain undecided at the moment, but it's keeping my attention, unlike some other shows which I abandoned after three episodes. This one has a good premise and relatively interesting characters so far, but I'm not convinced on the mileage of it. There's an deeper story to be uncovered, though.

I'm not a fan of the 'oh, stick with it, it gets better' approach. I prefer my shows to hook me in from the start. If it's not got my attention by the third episode, it's very rare I'll keep watching. In some cases I'll go back and try again. Same with books, really.

[Major Rawne]

Just started the final season of Enterprise. It's really quite cracking stuff.

[Xisor]

Just started the final season of Enterprise. It's really quite cracking stuff.

"Best, most-Stark Trekful season of all Star Trek" -what Xisor always says,

Extremely decent. (Except the last bit, and even then it's only a bad bungling of a good piece due to the cancellation.)

---

Myself, I'm almost done with TNG.

Just had the last Wesley episode, now having a Worf/Alexander one. It all feels a bit more mad than the solid 3-6 seasons, a touch more fractured... but then this season also has a lot more life for the Enterprise. Troi doing her exams, Data looking after his cat, "Lower Decks" (amazing episode), Worf looking after Data's cat, Picard going on ever-more frequent archaeological tangents, Geordi looking after Data's cat, Riker dating other people, Barclay looking after Data's cat...

The ship's alive, one of the biggest joys (and there were many, also sadness es and wry insights) in "Lower Decks" was an excellent opportunity to see the regular cast not just from other people's perspectives, but from the perspective of *other people in the hierarchy*, so seeing Geordi, Worf and Beverly not as chums, minions and sidekicks to the more useful cast (Data & Picard) or distractions from the oddly useless ones (Troi & Riker), but rather seeing them as people's bosses.

For Geordi and Beverly we've seen their odd little potions often enough before, but it was a deliberate look here. But Worf, however, was a strange delight. He's a hard-ass boring git, but there was something quite remarkably cultivating about him, like he was a bit awkward but still trying to forge a team. It was really cool.

---

Amusingly, one thing this watch-through has reinforced to me isn't just sympathy with Reg (though this viewing is the first time I've properly *got* the intent [if not execution] of his character), but with the other "useless" characters - Worf & Troi.

In more modern, harder but still visionary SF, I could see Troi an immense asset, not just offering insights like "he's lying" about the moustache-twirling, cackling man with horns and pointy red tail. Given genuine SF (as opposed to fabled/40-years-out-of-date-at-the-time-of-writing) psychology, rich detail and not mere buzzwords instead of culture, all that... The idea of her could have been executed brilliantly. Well, the idea of a psych-specialist being a senior asset on deep space research towns-as-starships . Of course, she's hamstrung by the shoddy legacy of Roddenbery (four boob, geez), so I take the good where I can find it.

Of course, with Worf, I find it a shame they didn't put more effort in TNG to exploring how the Federation could be genuinely convinced it's got a non-military military. Looking at it now, it's such a rich seam to mine... and shocking they didn't try.

Excited as I am to get deeper into DS9, I'm also dismayed that they 'compromise' the Utopia more than making it better thought out. Not a terrible thing, but in juxtaposition it makes everyone in TNG's Enterprise-D seem like naive, deluded hypocrites. I'd have preferred them to fix the contrast, rather than entrench it.

Nevertheless!

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Very impressed with the first episode of Taboo.

[Vivia]

I have been catching up on Adventure Time. Cartoon Network SE is on season 7. Some of the seasons were short and after season 5 they became really long, I got lost there for a bit. One of the reasons for me being more careful watching AT: It's ending with season 8.

One of the problems when I watch it, which isn't really much of a problem, it's that it's easy to overlook the main episodes. Much of them are whimsical fun and then in between we get the epic, all-weird, sometimes psychedelic plot-heavy stories. By this point I feel like I need to re-watch it again.

The Graybles side-stories completely flew over my head and in season 6 it's explained :

Spoiler: So the little dude is talking to us from the future as he tells the stories from his archives. And oh, by the by, he is an alien.

Freaking awesome.
The stories are weird and at times disturbing. Like, the story with Lemongrab, holy guacamole. It ends with Lemongrab eating his clone. It's so freakish and dark out of nowhere. The latest Grayble had a foreboding scene to what things are to come, not to mention that other brief hint. Wth.

The Lovecraft influences continues, very well restrained with Orgalorg, another freaking awesome side-story. It has some of the magic of In the Mountains of Madness, the sense of melancholy.
This is also carried in the Lich story, which might be the main plot. When it says "In the beginning there were only monsters" and it shows those kinds of monsters.
And that episode was completely misleading, starting with the Lich in his flesh form dancing until people cried with laughter. You blink, you miss it.
This culminates in season 6 Hot Diggity and The Comet. It's epic "cosmic horror" AND Finn's origin.

Spoiler: Finn was a comet.

Then we get to the Ice King that is a mix of fantasy/science fiction/Lovecraftian story. It's easy to dismiss AT as a kid's show, but there is so many dark elements that it gets quite disturbing from time to time. The Ice King character is a like that, he seems like a silly villain archetype, but his story is dark and complex. He has several poignant relationships, Gunter, Marceline the vampire and with his gf Betty. The Marceline connection makes her character much more passable, she is my least favourite character, I don't care for vampires, but I understand why she is needed with the Ice King.

In a distant past, a scholar finds terrible artefact from unknown world that dooms him. He uses sorcery/science to free himself. This is AT and magic and science are mixed into one. In the Land of Oo very few people know what certain magic or science do, much of the knowledge is lost, similar to the Dying Earth. Sometimes someone knows and things get fixed, other times everything goes wrong, and that's most of the time.
The Ice King's origin is sad, but in a way that makes it more melancholic in Lovecraft's style rather than the sentimental tragic villain. His past self even dresses like one of Lovecraft's characters.

His episode Broke His Crown is one of my favourites, it combines science fantasy elements, whacky sorcerer thing goes haywire inside the artefact that looks oddly like a matrix. There we meet former artefact wearers and they're a surprise.
Marceline and Bubblegum are the main characters in this because in many ways they're the only sane people in Oo. Yeah, it isn't Jake and Finn.

Then there is so many hints and influences, hidden trivia and what nots. You blink, you miss it.
Like, why is Evergreen bird-like and Gunter a reptile? Is this is a palaeontology thing?
The Dying Earth influence is another very strong one. AT characters are usually ambiguous and dislikeable, with very blurred lines between good and evil. Heroes and villains are more than what they seem.
No one really reflects on why things are the way they are. The wastelands, the bad lands, the ruins. It's really princess Bubblegum and Marceline that show awareness and willingness to remember history. There is an undercurrent of melancholia and cynicism throughout the series, a foreboding sense, the world is ending or it already did.
Why are there so many weird creatures and things? That's seldom explained.

Stories end in vague terms, in Twilight Zone style, not much is solved and sometimes things get solved in the wrong way. We get the creepy stuff, there are many of them; people getting eaten or killed, biological weapons, Shoggoth things crawling out of the darkness, "things" die freakish manners. The Bad Lands and Vapor Swamps freaked me out.
A lot of what happens is left in the dark, the Ice King is like one of the very few that gets a background.

[Pyroriffic]

Travelers turned out to be worth sticking with.

Also, if you've never watched any of the Black Mirror episodes, do yourselves a favour and watch them. It's dark, uncomfortable TV that's really, really close to the bone.

[Vivia]

Continuing my Adventure Time musings:

So, AT won't end with season 8, but with season 9. Oh well, there were some wild rumours back in November.

Yes, Evergreen and Gunter were a palaeontology reference! One feathered, the evolved wizard, and his companion, the scaly dinosaur. Then the tiny pet lizard.

Season 7 is going on strong, some of the filler episodes are kind of meh. They come out random in regards of plot.
We're getting to find out several characters background in this season, I'm not so sure about them.

I'll gladly ignore Marceline's story-arch with the vampire clan or whatever. I saw it and I was totally bored.

We got to see Normal Man, instead of Magic Man, the evil trickster. The episode was pretty funny, I love the Mars world. And that story I have to re-watch because I seemed to have missed Betty's transformation and other important plot points. I have to be less lazy when I pay attention.

Another important story-arch is the story of Susan Strong. A few seasons back we discovered she had a cybernetic implant under her hat. Apart from Finn, she is the only other human around. Her episode wasn't impressive, it felt very clichéd when her implant came alive. It's been done a hundred times on Star Trek. We now know Susan Strong is connected to Finn's human origin.
It's easy to overlook the fact that AT isn't populated by humans, it's all about the weird creatures. I forget about it all the time.

Season 8:
The Fern story arch was pretty weird, again very random in parts with a creepy weird tale vibe. The grass demon was disturbing. I thought they went a little weak with Fern, what happened to the demon thingit?

The Islands mini-series is hardcore sci-fi. Humans are weird, they live in decaying pod cities. It isn't a big revelation, the land of Ooo have plenty of evidence that things went very wrong somewhere as the Mushroom War indicates. The Ice King was created in the era before the war.
The mini-series was mildly interesting, but the big revelation didn't feel inspired. It's the usual utopia-went-wrong and it's needlessly dark. It certainly wasn't worth the wait. Matrix influences, really? Really, writers? Sigh.
Finn's back-story is also rather unsurprising, I mean he was left as a baby. Yeah, I'm fairly certain that doesn't happen in the best of ways.

Best part, one of the islands was a bizarre place and had a person living there with odd animals. She spoke Swedish! That was a surprise.

I'm so happy season 8 isn't the last season, it would be such a bummer if it ended with the Islands story. It's such a different take from the rest of the series, it felt like a completely different show. It's different when they go sci-fi and dark in between episodes, then it becomes food for thought, it adds a maturity to the show among the whimsical aspects. AT main strength is that the serious undertones doesn't feel pretentious. The Islands story-arch felt pretentious and predictable. Yawn.

I wasn't paying attention, either. I hope we get back to the weird Land of Oo, I miss the Ice King, and as season 6 Graybles 1000+ showed that story is ending seriously bad, or will it?

[Xisor]

I'm heartily intrigued by AT - I never did give it a huge chance once it got going.

In other news:
https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/ ... -april-14/

---

Otherwise, I'm nearing the end of Season 2 of DS9 on my re-watch. There's a lot to enjoy, but also getting the further 'planet of the week' episodes that DS9 still has to get out of its system. It's got really excellent bits. Shimmerman gets a lot to do this season, and it feels like they used Auberjonois a lot, but didn't entirely give him much more to do than general plots for other people. Still, very enjoyable.

[Vivia]

Xisor, you should really give it a chance. It pays to keep close attention on the small details.

In many ways it reminds me of the Moomins, it's a spiritual successor imo. The cute yet strange looking creatures, the melancholic mood, the absurdism, the dark humour, but also the silly humour, the Jungian dream landscapes. Tove Jansson drew many Moomin scenes with thick shadows and odd creatures hiding or spying from dark corners, it's quite unsettling if one thinks about it. I was looking at them on Pinterest, now that I'm an adult they take a new fascinating meaning.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Taboo was excellent TV. Wonderful period detail, acting, characterisation, and story. Left open for a sequel, too. The BBC at its best (it's on a par, if not better than, the-also-excellent The Last Kingdom). 'I have a use for you.'

I'm also halfway through the second season of The Borgias. Thoroughly enjoyable (if fond of twisting historical facts for entertainment's sake). I love Jeremy Irons: 'Turds? You go all the way to Spain and bring us back... turds?'

[Athelassan]

I watched Suicide Squad. God it was terrible. Not only rubbish but also boring. It's actually hard to think of a single good thing to say about it. It reminded me of Bad Boys 2 somewhat, although it's not quite as bad as Transformers 2 at least.

But speaking of Michael Bay, I have also been watching the TV show Black Sails and it's pretty ok. For a story that is fundamentally fictional and so takes some liberties with the course of historical events, it does nevertheless pay quite a lot of attention to historic detail, and it isn't afraid to go into a bit of technicality when necessary. I felt they could have done a bit more with Blackbeard than they did, but otherwise the characters are generally pretty strong too. The first few episodes are still heavy on the boobs and gratuitous violence in the way you expect from Starz, but it actually grows out of that pretty quickly.

Before that I also watched Boardwalk Empire which is really good. It's not too hard to view it as to some extent a prequel to The Godfather, and indeed a 1920s edition of The Sopranos - and I don't think it's embarrassed by those comparisons.

Ath

[Vivia]

Adventure Time musings:

Cartoon Network SE is the worst for watching AT; they show double episodes, one season 7 vampire mini-series and the second episodes is a random season 3 episode. Bah!
Well, at least we never lose track of the old episodes, and that's not a bad thing when it comes to keeping things fresh in mind.

I take it back when I said Marceline was my least favourite, I had totally forgotten about Tree-Trunks! What an obnoxious jerk of a character she is. She is meant to be a charming old lady, but omg, she is an oblivious fool that brings misery to anyone. I'm not sure she is meant to be a Forrest Gump with her American southern accent, but it's horrendous to listen to. If anyone deserves to be killed, destroyed, or eaten by unknown thingit it's truly her. I hate her episodes.
Lemongrab is another very annoying character, his episodes are freaky and not in a good way.


My favourite episodes

Season 1: Ricardio the Heart Guy, Trouble in Lumpy Space, The Enchiridion, City of Thieves, The Duke, Freak City, Gut Grinder
Season 2: Blood Under the Skin, Mystery Train, The Limit, Go With Me
Season 3: Hitman, Wizard Battle, The Creeps, Holly Jolly Secrets I and II, Ghost Princess
Season 4: Return to the Nightosphere, Hug Wolf, Sons of Mars
Season 5: All the Little People, Candy Streets, Time Sandwich
Season 6: Evergreen, Astral Plane, Graybles +1000, You Forgot Your Floaties, Orgalog, The Comet
Season 7: King's Ransom, Blank-Eyed Girl, The Hall Egress, Broke His Crown, Normal Man, The Music Hole

Anything with Lumpy Space Princess and Magic Man.

Fun facts (as I remember them)

• The crown of the Ice King comes from the north of Scandinavia
• In the haunted house episode The Creeps, BMO wears a mask with the face of the bear in The Shining film
• Finn's voice changes as he grows older, his weight fluctuates throughout every episode
• Orgalog is a penguin in his current form, a In the Mountains of Madness reference
• The Lich's lair, a place of darkness and pure evil, is a subway station
• The Lub-Glubs resembled small Shoggoths
• The creatures in the dark cave in The Other Tarts resembled Gollum
• Susan talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in T1
• Finn wears a white bear hat, Susan wears a black cat hat, the two human characters
• Finn summons his astral beast, a butterfly, one of his reincarnations
• Magic Man's brother is Glob Grod Gob, the Mars deity
• George Takei voiced Ricardio, he is really funny and creepy ( I miss the season 1 episodes)
• Ron Perlman voices The Lich (not sure I like it)
• Cuber finds it really amusing that people haven't had five fingers for "twenty blabillion glaybles"
• Billy, the legendary hero, is voiced by Lou Ferrigno (how cool is that!)
• Always pay close attention to title cards, they give hints that are only alluded to in the episodes

[Vivia]

My Adventure Time musings continues.

I'll do my best not to flood the thread with endless posts about AT, there are so many things in the show that I only come to understand now after three years of watching. It took me at least two years to take the show seriously.

The episode Evergreen is so much more complex that I ever imagined after a second viewing. At the time I watched it I knew too little and since it took place in such different place I thought it was like the Graybles episodes, short random stories of the Land of Ooo, not a part of the plot so to speak. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. Wow, it's heavy.

My first viewing I thought, cool, an episode like D&D, maybe Forgotten Realms. In a fantasy world with fantastic creatures on a mythical journey to stop a comet millions of years ago. Talking dinosaurs who used sorcery, it was so cool. I have always felt AT has this madcap 1960-70s vibe to it, anything can happen, and this episode had a lot of it.

Spoiler: No, no, no.
No fantasy landscape. In fact, it's Earth millions of years ago, as the flying pterosaurs tells us. it's barren because that's how it looked like then. No grass existed.

So, what was the comet?

Spoiler: It's the K-T event some 65 millions years ago that changed the planet. In AT the Lich is connected to the comet, an evil force, just like Finn origin as another comet being.

So to the astute viewer it's evident that things might not end well in this episode. And it doesn't as it usually does in AT. Since this is AT things are not as simple as one might think.

The ending is so much darker than my first viewing suggested. First, it is the knowledge of what the coming catastrophe means. Second, it's the fact that it ended badly, it wasn't until Evergreen lied there that he realised what went wrong. It's dark because there was the psychological element of abuse, Gunter's change was upsetting. His similarities to the Ice King were creepy, it adds another layer to the creature that is the Ice King.

Spoiler: Evergreen looked like a feathered dinosaur, but not quite. He was an Elemental, a higher being. He had more in common with Sauron, in fact, and that he made the Ice Crown emphasis this. Similar to the Ring, the Crown gives power to the creator, but to normal mortals it's too much to bear, but unlike Sauron, Evergreen didn't create the Crown for evil, but to stop the comet. The Elementals were aware the evil presence of the comet, on what later becomes the Lich. Gunter as a talking dinosaur is just an AT detail.

Then on top of all of this, there is the connection between the comet and nuclear weapons, the catastrophe that lead to the land of Ooo. Both events brought change to the planet.

It comes full circle with the Ice King. What exactly did it do to him if Gunter acted the way he did in the end?
Then I realised, Simon, or the Ice King, lived during the Mushroom War and after. Like, holy guacamole, he had seen it all. As we saw in Broke His Crown,

Spoiler: he carries the memories of Evergreen, Gunter and the crown.

It sure changes the way we think of him as a magic loon that kidnaps princesses. In an awful way it's a small mercy to the Ice King that the crown makes him mad and forgetful. It's all very sad. Marceline hugging Gunter was such a sweet thing. *sniff*

One of the themes in AT is the constant presence of failure. We see it happen eons ago. People fail spectacularly and yet, things continue to move on despite everything.

[Chun the Unavoidable]

Good to see The Last Kingdom back, and still on form, too.

[Pyroriffic]

Guys.

Hey, guys.

What are we making of the adaptation of American Gods ? Anybody who knows me is aware that it's probably my favourite book and I was super-anxious. I'm enjoying it and the way it's deviated from the book without really losing the main story. Mostly, just now, I'm enjoying the increased story line for Mad Sweeney. That could in part be because of the casting, which I have to say, I think is exceptional.