What TV/Netflix show are you currently watching? (Megathread)

[Cartagia]

Fourth season of Harley Quinn has a lot of really great moments and finishes pretty strong, but I couldn't get invested in Ivy's story for half the season.  Wasn't a fan of how little Harley and Ivy were together along with the lack of King Shark, but they finally realized just how one-note Clayface is.

[kamikazekeeg]

Invincible Season 2: Part 1 - Season is going great, always a bummer to get only half a season, but looking forward to the second half.

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix - So this is way more awesome than I was expecting.  I was expecting more of a parody show at first, lots of fun, ridiculous, edgy crossover stuff with Ubisoft properties, but it turns out to have really decent character and story stuff? Like this isn't far off in a lot of areas from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.  Sure, it's more jokey and tropey, a prominent character is Rayman of all things and some of what is going on is definitely edge for edge sake, but it is pretty good, has a lot of fun with its properties as there's Rayman, Far Cry, Beyond Good & Evil, and more.  I'm sure some folks will take offense with some action taken with certain characters, but it shows they are willing to just go nuts with whatever they have.

[Cartagia]

I watched the entirety of Reservation Dogs this week.  A truly incredible show that had me alternating between laughing so hard that my stomach hurt and sobbing uncontrollably.  Up there as one of the best series I've ever seen.  Truly astounding.

Blue Eye Samurai - Reminded me a lot of Lone Wolf and Cub as well as Ghost of Tsushima.  I don't think it's breaking any new ground with its story, but it really tells the hell out of the one it has.  Also some stunningly gorgeous animation.  Especially episodes 5 and 6.

Finally got around to watching The IT Crowd. It's really bizarre, in that it feels like a britcom from the 80s, and in some ways that is what makes it really work.  The biggest problem is that the character of Roy is an old school misogynistic proto-incel.  It gets less pronounced as the series goes on, and the show gets better with each successive season, but it made it really hard to enjoy the show at first.

Took a month or so, but I slogged through John Carpenter's Suburban Screams.  The idea of making  a series of high production value reenactments is an OK one, but you've got to get real actors.  Watching awful performances for 45 minutes wasn't that fun.

[pzeke]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always - This was corny and cheesy; the acting felt like plywood in some places or straight over-the-top in others; the choreography was a tad messy; and the CGI part was risible; but man, I freaking loved every minute of it. These were the Rangers I grew up with, and while it was a letdown not having Austin and Amy, although understandable given the circumstances, watching this took me back. Overall, there's no doubt that it could've been better, but it was still a nice special with a good story and dialogue, serving as a great send-off to Trini (Thuy) both as an homage and seeing the character's legacy continue through her daughter. The tribute/memorial at the end—taken from Season 2 of the original series—where Kimberly (and Zack) sang "Down the Road" was very emotional, and then seeing "In loving memory of..." truly hit hard.

And speaking of down the road, I guess now we wait for the next special within a decade or so, where somehow Rita returns anew, managing to seduce Tommy back to the dark side, where we end up getting another kind of/sort of similar outcome, the special this time titled "Forever & Always". Or we'll just have another Fast and the Furious–type deal where, like Brian, Tommy retires to be with his family, which doesn't seem that far-fetched, and it was somewhat alluded to in this special, not to mention that JDF eventually retired playing the character.

[Cartagia]

I've watched the first two seasons of Succession over the last week or so.  It's really good, and has-been steadily increasing in quality as it goes along, but I'm not feeling that it's one of the best shows of all time yet. The acting is uniformly incredible and it has incredibly natural feeling conversations and dialogue, though.

[kamikazekeeg]

Started binging through "Dark Side of the Ring", the documentary series all about darker aspects of the wrestling world.  It's a hard watch at times with some of the stuff they deal with.  I got through all of Season 1, and jumped ahead abit in Season 2, as a two part opener centered around Chris Benoit was probably gonna be too much nastyness to deal with in one session. 

It's an interesting watch, a lot of elements I know as I've been watching wrestling on and off since the 90's, years of stories, online videos, a lot of this is I've picked up in one form or another over the years.  A lot of sad stuff, a story or two that have a darker elements but are just exploring a character, such as with Randy Savage or just crazy stuff, like the episode on New Jack is insane, that's a literal insane psychopath who should never have been in wrestling, what a nutjob lol

[oldgamerz]

I like movies I just don't like chucky.

[Cartagia]

Third season of Succession continues having impeccable performances and amazing family dynamics, but it's starting to feel like several plots are just going around in circles.  Especially Kendall's.

Succession's fourth season is easily it's best, with one of the episodes being one of the best acted things I've ever seen.  I love the characters and I love the performances, but I've basically never been able to get invested in the whole "Who is gonna win?" plot, but this season is where I got the closest.

[kamikazekeeg]

Binged through the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen and what an insane season this was.  With Attack on Titan done, I feel like this is the show that's picking up the mantle of like that top tier anime bringing in wild animation, characters, and story.  Once you get through the flashback story at the beginning, this entire season is practically one long action scene with some of the craziest choreography I've seen and not just well done visuals, but interesting and unique situations to those fights.  There's destruction ranging from city wide to an absolutely sick, small scale, fight within a subway bathroom.  There's never a fight where it drags or feels too long or too repetitive, it's all good.  That's such a rare happening in tv show anime.

It is unfortunately tainted by the fact that to accomplish this level of work with all their other projects, MAPPA is destroying their artists.  It's hard not to be impressed by everything going on, the artists are giving it their all, it just sucks to know how bad things are over there in Japan.  It's long been known that Japan works their artists to the bone, to the point that many either leave it or suffer from debilitating health and mental issues from the amount of work they are pushed into doing, but apparently MAPPA went above and beyond that for this show.  Hearing how widespread it is, there really has to be a point that the anime industry is likely going to see some sort of crash I feel.  They can only treat their artists as disposable for so long before something happens.

It's still a really damn good show though.  I'm curious to see where it leads as this is not a story I can call what is going to happen.

[Cartagia]

Dark Winds is a supernaturally tinged murder mystery set on a New Mexican Navajo reservation in the 1970s.  The first season is a brisk six episodes, and overall it's pretty entertaining. The lead is Zahn McClarnon, who is great in everything, but some of the supporting performances are spotty.

Second season of Dark Winds doesn't have as compelling of a story as the first season, but it does have two terrific episodes that are probably better than any in the first.  Not a perfect show, but I'll continue watching when the new season comes out.

[kamikazekeeg]

The show has a weird release schedule, so just gonna count Hazbin Hotel as it is with the 4 episodes out lol It's good, I was a fan of Helluva Boss and while the art style is clearly the same, the execution of the shows feel different, it comes across much more like a regular TV show, just with a lot more swearing.  Which is great, it feels like it has a stronger story focus because of that, where Helluva Boss can be kinda all over the place with the plotlines it wants to deal with.  A couple very catchy songs which is nice too.  I will say, it took me a short bit to get use to the new voice actors, only a few stuck around from the pilot, but gotta say, Keith David as one of the characters is always welcome, I can listen to that man in anything lol

[dhaabi]

Since I've mentioned Nathan Fielder's works in the past, I'll also mention how I've finished watching his latest collaborative series The Curse. For a decade, he's played a terribly socially awkward character to the point where you question if that's his actual personality or not. With The Curse, some of those elements continue, but he was largely playing a different kind of character this time, which was so off-putting as it's almost a total contradiction to the persona he's taken on publicly for so long. This time around, he's clearly acting, where before it was (and perhaps still is) ambiguous.

The show isn't all about Nathan Fielder, as he's only one of three main cast members. Together with Emma Stone and Bennie Safdie, they bring this awful social presence that perfectly combines humor, cringe, and disgust in this scripted drama. I'm not divulging any specifics or really anything substantial about my thoughts because, to be honest, I'm still processing this strange project. At the same time, I think it's best to experience it blindly. I've really enjoyed reading discussion threads elsewhere about the series, though.

I'll also mention how The Curse is only streaming on Paramount+. I opted for a free seven-day trial and cancelled. When you try to cancel, an extra two free months are applied to your account, and you can still cancel with all that credit applied.

[Cartagia]

Since I've mentioned Nathan Fielder's works in the past, I'll also mention how I've finished watching his latest collaborative series The Curse. For a decade, he's played a terribly socially awkward character to the point where you question if that's his actual personality or not. With The Curse, some of those elements continue, but he was largely playing a different kind of character this time, which was so off-putting as it's almost a total contradiction to the persona he's taken on publicly for so long. This time around, he's clearly acting, where before it was (and perhaps still is) ambiguous.

The show isn't all about Nathan Fielder, as he's only one of three main cast members. Together with Emma Stone and Bennie Safdie, they bring this awful social presence that perfectly combines humor, cringe, and disgust in this scripted drama. I'm not divulging any specifics or really anything substantial about my thoughts because, to be honest, I'm still processing this strange project. At the same time, I think it's best to experience it blindly. I've really enjoyed reading discussion threads elsewhere about the series, though.

I'll also mention how The Curse is only streaming on Paramount+. I opted for a free seven-day trial and cancelled. When you try to cancel, an extra two free months are applied to your account, and you can still cancel with all that credit applied.

I've been waiting on this to finish its run so I can binge the whole thing before I cancel my Paramount+ account.  I've been interested ever since I heard the talent involved.  It might be the next thing on my list after I finish Monarch.

Took a short detour and watched Bodies on Netflix. Solid little murder mystery series with a genre bent.  It gets off to great start, with an intriguing story and compelling mysteries, but lises momentum towards the end because once things start falling in to place the endgame becomes pretty obvious.

[kamikazekeeg]

Binged the last 2 arcs of Demon Slayer to catch up and overall it's pretty decent, though after watching Jujutsu Kaisen, that show is definitely taking shonen series to a new level.  Good action, some decent story stuff, though the Entertainment Arc has cemented how much I don't like Inosuke and Zentisu.  They haven't grown as characters much at all, and are really only there as comedic relief and occasional badassery. 

Sure, the show is more specifically about Tanjiro and Nezuko, but there are characters that get introduced within these arcs that get more character growth than those guys do.  Inosuke is still slightly less obnoxious than Zentisu, simply because Zenitsu is just what I hate most in anime characters, which is the crybaby coward who is also kinda pervy.  A double whammy for a crappy character...yet he's weirdly popular from what I've seen, I don't get it, maybe it's a manga thing and he becomes less awful later lol

[Cartagia]

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters - I'm a little torn on this, because I really loved all the bureaucracy of monster hunting and monster response plans, but the family drama stuff was mostly a big whiff.  They should have done the either secret sibling story or the ex's real identity story, but not both as they create a really saggy paced middle of the season.