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

[kamikazekeeg]

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.

I still need to watch the finale, but yeah, they kinda flubbed it abit.  It's not bad, but I think they struggled to make a lot of the drama work with the modern crew.  Anytime it was in the past, or it's with Kurt Russell or the Monarch stuff, it's good, but the girlfriend plot offers up very little and I never was super big on the siblings.  They are okay, but it was a struggle to keep engaged with them since they don't add a lot to what is going on in an important way, despite being the focal point of the story.  I don't want to say they are "passive" throughout, they do figure out things, but it really feels like they are just along for the ride most of the time.  At least that's how it felt.  It didn't help that I wasn't a huge fan of most of the original songs either.  The covers fared a bit better.

[pzeke]

Like the rest of the MonsterVerse, with the exception of Godzilla and maybe Skull Island, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was just as disappointing (for the sake of not saying that it was crap). It's always nice to see Kurt Russell, but that clearly wasn't enough.

I like movies I just don't like chucky.

[Cartagia]

Black Bird is a very solid true crime drama mini-series that stands out mostly due to some really incredible performances. It's one of Ray Liotta's last roles and he's just utterly heartbreaking, while Paul Walter Hauser was able to say his lines faster than Jamie Taco and won an Emmy.

Schmigadoon! is a musical comedy satire series on Apple TV+ that watched before my trial runs out. I think the first season benefits from a solid single style, but the second season had songs that felt more thematically linked through the episodes.  Pretty fun overall.

[kamikazekeeg]

Finished up Hazbin Hotel and I think it's a lot of fun.  It's goofy and edgy as all hell, but it has fun animation, and some of the songs are very catchy (I've listened to Loser, Baby at minimum two dozen times lol).  Don't even really have any particular negatives other than I think 8 episodes is a smidge short.  8 for episodes that are 40 minutes plus in other shows isn't so bad, but for episodes that are the more average 25 minutes here, this season goes by real quick.  Not that they don't hit on all the characters and such that they need to, but a couple more to round things out could've been nice. 

Oh well, looking forward to more.  Hopefully they pop these seasons out faster as it took awhile to get this show.

[Cartagia]

I haven't watched Hazbin Hotel, and I've still listened to 'Loser, Baby' several times.

Finished Nathan Fielder's The Curse.  Dense and complicated, and not at all afraid to not be for everyone.  It can be a difficult watch but if Fielder has ever interested you, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Third season of 12 Monkeys is probably the most consistent overall, but the show really feels like it is spinning its wheels sometime, having character motivations just go round and round and ending up back in the same place.  It's also not nearly as clever as it thinks it is with all of its time travel.  Maybe that's just because I watched Dark already.

[kamikazekeeg]

Finally finished my rewatch of Hunter x Hunter (2021) and it still bums me out there isn't more.  It's understandable why, the mangaka has had what sounds like debilitating health issues, so the manga goes on hiatus alot and there isn't a lot of manga to adapt.  I do hope he's able to finish it someday though, as I think this is a great series.  I don't know how the anime compares to the manga, I glanced at the old late 90's anime attempt they did and it semeed like it started very differently, so a lot maybe has changed, but I like the story. 

It starts out very traditional shonen, training/test arcs, then a small tournament arc, but then the whole series drastically shifts once they get to Yorknew City (Goofy name lol) and the story gets way darker, more brutal, and that sets the tone for the rest of the show.  Greed Island kinda brings it back into a more standard Shonen formula, but still some intense aspects, and then it gets to the Chimera Ant arc, which is dragged out a tad, but has some fantastic story stuff.  Gon goes through a lot, but I think this arc does the most for Killua, who I think is the best character in the show.  He has the most depth of the main cast and sees the most personal growth.

I do recommend this series, it's a lot of episodes (Though not as much as something like One Piece or even Dragon Ball Z, and it's better paced than both), but it's a solid bit of Shonen anime and I'd say it's a top 3 favorite in terms of shonen series for sure.  At least we are getting a Hunter x Hunter game soon, I just hope it's a decent fighting game and not some bland arena fighter.

[alligo]

I watched The Vince Staples Show and it's not bad for a TV debut, it's a shame it's too short.

The heist scene and the park are excellent 
There is even one of my favorite music in the show : Summertime in LBC 

[Cartagia]

True Detective: Night Country is fine.  Better than season 2, I think but not as good as 1 or 3.  It focused a bit too much on interpersonal drama over the mystery for me, and the actual resolution came a little too out left field for my tastes.  Same with it leaning a bit more overtly supernatural than the previous seasons. 

[koemo1]

I watched the first episode of Avatar on Netflix. I thought it was pretty good

[Cartagia]

Topped off the 10th season of Murder, She Wrote.  Ridiculous plot twists and silly stories keep creeping in more than before, but is still pretty entertaining overall.

Amazon's A League of Their Own series is pretty good.  Doesn't hold a candle to the movie and gets a bit annoying with some of the anachronisms, but I like that it covers completely different subject matter than the film.  You can tell that there were some production issues based on how the show changes gears and drops characters at weird times, but I think a lot of that was due to shooting at the height of COVID.

Season 13 of Archer is more of the same stalwart series.  I was glad they kept mentioning Malory even though Jessica Walter passed away, as too many shows just pretend a character never existed when they have to write them out.

I really liked the final season of Archer.  Very solid episodes and I thought Zara was a nice addition to the cast.  The finale was one of my favorite type of series ender - where the story is over, but you know that the characters continue on with their lives.

I've watched the first season of The Bear over the last couple of days, and I wasn't really feeling it at first, but it had completely won me over with the final two episodes.  It was 100% worth the slow-ish spin-up.

I thought the second season of The Bear was way better than the first.  It hits the ground running with more of a sense of purpose while opening up the stories of the characters, and letting the conflicts feel way more organic.

The Muppets Mayhem is a fun diversion featuring Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.  All of the muppet stuff is solid, but the human story is pretty underwritten. There are still some fun moments with the real people (Ben Schwartz is a major highlight), but there's a tonal problem, with the muppet bits being way more smartly and maturely written than the human stories and jokes. Closing song is a banger, though.

[kamikazekeeg]

Fallout - Binged through this and had a great time with it.  When it comes to adapting game properties, it is getting better, as we've seen with Super Mario Bros and Last of Us, but we also still have things like Halo and I was worried this would slip into that realm more, and as a fan of these games, that would've been disappointing, but I think they got it.  I think they nailed all the aesthetics, they embraced the period setting, and overall it feels like Fallout.  Story is very decent, all the actors in their roles do a good job, Goggins in particular is a standout, and I like that they didn't hold back on how messed up things are.  It's a bloody, violent, game, things can be kinda screwed up, while also being downright goofy at times, and that's all here.

I can't comment on how "accurate" it is lore wise, that sorta stuff doesn't bother me as much as long as they get the broadstrokes right.  It's possible they are retconning abit of New Vegas, but we won't know about that entirely till Season 2 I guess.  Highly recommend this show either way, whether you are a fun, or you just want a good post-apocalyptic scifi show.

[Cartagia]

Fallout - This really feels like an adaptation of a video game in a way that I don’t know anything else has achieved? There are health packs, weird power-ups, loot, side-quests, and the best part? It’s not ashamed of that fact.

The tone isn’t quite right. It’s like a 65%-35% drama comedy, when it should be closer to 55-45, though the balance does get a little better as the show goes on, and there's a few too many slow motion montages set to 50s hits early on.  Overall, though, I had a really good time with it!

I really liked the fifth season of Fargo, but there a few too many character threads that didn't really amount to anything. Was also not a fan of the more overt supernatural overtones.  Juno Temple as Dot is one of the best leads in the whole series, though.

[kamikazekeeg]

Anyone watch Black Sails? I'm half way through the first season and while I like the show when it's about pirates being pirates out on the high seas, I'm losing interesting in all the Nassau drama with Ms. Guthry and the brothel and all that.  So much of the first half of the season is just Nassau, something like 6 of the 9 or close to it, when what I want is just more piracy stuff.  It's not a bad show, just curious if it's worth sticking around for.

[Cartagia]

Getting caught up on Invincible, and while I like the show a lot, I can't help but feel nearly all of the plot points don't get enough screen time devoted to them. Plot points that feel like they're supposed to be thrilling or devastating just kind of float by because the characters only get a couple of lines leading up to them.

[kamikazekeeg]

Caught up with Dungeon Meshi myself (Delicious in Dungeon) and man this is a damn good show.  I was happy to have this and Frieren out together, because we are finally getting good fantasy shows that have no isekai elements to it.  The show is also incredibly well animated, funny, and the characters are amazing.  This is also one of the animes where from what I've seen of the different dubs, the english one in particular stands out more than usual as the reads some characters give sell the moment so hard. 

I also appreciate that while the show is very funny, this is a comedy primarily, it doesn't hold back on the violence and drama when needed.  It's similar to Frieren in that while it is a fantasy show, that does have threats to worry about, it's generally very slice of life feel, just happy to show very involved food preparation or spend a lot of time world building and talking about the fantasy creatures and getting to know the crew.  This also isn't like a Konosuba situation where it's kind of a group of idiots just managing to get by, they are all goofballs in their own way, but each one is actually very knowledgeable about something in particular, so coming together as a party creates a perfect team.