What Are You Watching Now? - 2021

[muggle not]

I finished watching the Final Season (4) of Goliath on Amazon last night. I enjoyed all 4 seasons. Billy Bob Thornton played his part well I thought. Season 4 was about Opioids.

[poppy]

I've been watching John Mortimer's Paradise Postponed from 1986. Includes some excellent actors ... Michael Hordern, Annette Crosbie, Zoe Wanamaker and a favourite of mine, Richard Vernon.

[Marie H]

Re-watching The Mandolorian (S1 E1) on Disney+.

 

Hoping that The Book of Boba Fett is as good as The Mandolorian. Boba Fett starting streaming on Disney+ on December 29th 2021. 

[Raven]

Back on Netflix for a bit, to watch the first (and only, as it turns out) series of the live action version of Cowboy Bebop.

 

I am a big fan of the original anime; I think it's one of the coolest cartoons ever made (up there with Akira) and I had concerns about how this was going to translate, but overall I think they got it mostly right.  

 

The casting, look and feel of the show are all right, where it stumbles is that I think the plot went in a little too heavy, a little too fast. 

 

I won't go into much detail but in the original cartoon the focus is on story of the week type adventures, which are usually light-hearted, action-packed romps.  There is very little time spent on going into character backgrounds, but more of that does come in as the cartoon series goes on.  In this series they have switched the main focus of the show to the character's back stories (and main characters in particular) and as the series goes on it gets heavier where I feel it should have been a bit lighter and a bit more fun (at least for the first series).

 

I think all of that could have been addressed in a second series, as I think the basics have otherwise been covered well, but Netflix announced last week that they have pulled the plug. 

 

Hey-ho.  

 

I'd still give it 7.5/10.

 

As I had a week left on the subscription I thought I would watch the first episode of the first series of The Witcher, just to see what it was like, and I ended up watching the whole series over two nights!

 

I have read the first two books in the series, which are two collections of short stories; with the third book being the first proper novel.  This series basically covers the first two short story collections, with some back story on some of the characters that I am guessing comes from the later novels.  

 

I enjoyed this, overall. 

 

Again, a good cast and it looked and felt right (the only character I had quibbles with was Dandelion, because I didn't find him as annoying in the books as he was on screen, but Joey Batey was still likeable enough in what is the comic relief role). 

 

It's a dark series though, with a lot of violence and novel ways of killing people off, so not one for the squeamish or faint-of-heart (also a surprising amount of flesh on display, too!)

 

I will watch the second series at some point - which drops this Friday - but I want to read the next book before I do that.

 

9/10.

 

[Marie H]

Prime video for Star Wars The Bad Bunch, which is so much better to watch than the Clone Wars imho.

 

Episode 4 - 6 of The Wheel of Time. WOW! Though episode 4 was the most spectacular one!😍

 

 

 

[Marie H]

Watched last 4 episodes of series 1 of animation of Star Wars The Bad Bunch. Enjoyable, and much better than the Clone Wars series (I’m only on series 2, so far)

 

Hopefully the new The Bad Bunch series 2 will be in early-ish 2022, probably after the The Book of Boba Fett starting on December 29th.

[Raven]

4 hours ago, Marie H said:

 

... much better than the Clone Wars series (I’m only on series 2, so far)

 

 

I have it on good authority that The Clone Wars gets much, much better as it goes along.

 

Looking forward to a bit of Boba Fett on Wednesday.

 

[muggle not]

I am on a binge watch. I started watching The Longmire Series the first week of January and have watched 4 1/2 seasons so far. I have read all of Craig Johnson's books in the series and although the books are better than the TV version I am still enjoying it.

[Marie H]

Watched 4 episodes of The Book of Boba Fett, and I’m not a great fan atm. Especially I found Episode 4 was dissatisfying, when many have thought it was spectacular. I have difficulty with the acting of Temuera Morrison, or maybe he has been given some very clunky lines. The Disney effect with some so-call “comedy” skits are there, and they are as bad as ever.  

 

 

I hope that E5, with the hope of the return of The Mandolorian helps things. Otherwise TBoBF is a curate’s egg, for me.

[timebug]

Currently watching 'The Hunters' and 'A Discovery of Witches'. 'The Hunters' of the title are a group of elderly former Holocaust survivors,with a few younger associates,who are hunting down former Concentration Camp Staff who are all rabid Nazis, and despatching them with summary justice.

Head 'Hunter' is Al Pacino, who refused to do TV work for years, but has now seemingly had  a change of heart. A bleak and gritty series that would not be to everyones tastes, but I find it strangely compelling.

'A Discovery of Witches' is a strange one; I was gripped by the opening episode and stayed with it for series one. But as the series has morphed into something 'other' than the opening led me to believe, I may not make it through series two and three!

[Raven]

On 22/01/2022 at 5:25 PM, Marie H said:

 

Watched 4 episodes of The Book of Boba Fett, and I’m not a great fan atm. Especially I found Episode 4 was dissatisfying, when many have thought it was spectacular. I have difficulty with the acting of Temuera Morrison, or maybe he has been given some very clunky lines. The Disney effect with some so-call “comedy” skits are there, and they are as bad as ever.  

 

 

It has taken a while to get going, but I have been enjoying it and I think episode 4 pulled the different plot threads together quite well (I'm looking forward to this week's episode!).

 

I think a lot of people were expecting Boba Fett to be all bad-ass, but that would have just been a re-run of The Mandalorian, so I can see why they have gone the way the have, but is it a story that needed telling? This is all working to a very big long-term objective, though, that is going to cover all of the Disney+ Star Wars series they are making, so we'll just have to wait and see how it all fits together.

 

Due to being housebound with COVID I finished The Clone Wars last week.  Overall it's very hit and miss, but the last four episodes were very good.  Onto Rebels now, and nearly at the end of season one.  Seems to be aimed at a younger age group than The Clone Wars, but I think the individual stories are generally better!

 

[Marie H]

Episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett ….Din Djarin .
 

Loved it, but I was expecting some of The Mandolorian/Din Djarin, but not the whole episode!!  We never saw anything new of Boba Fett.

[Raven]

19 hours ago, Marie H said:

Episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett ….Din Djarin .
 

Loved it, but I was expecting some of The Mandolorian/Din Djarin, but not the whole episode!!  We never saw anything new of Boba Fett.

 

Spoilers!

 

Saw this yesterday before I had a chance to watch it!

 

[muggle not]

Suggestion. how about all of us mentioning where we watch a specific TV program, ie, Amazon prime, netflix, etc. That way i won't have to keep asking Alexa where to find a program.

[poppy]

I've been watching Midsomer Murders again, starting from the first series (Prime Video). I lost interest once Tom Barnaby retired so it's been good to be able to revisit these. I'm sure there'll be some I've missed along the way. 

[Marie H]

19 hours ago, Raven said:

 

Spoilers!

 

Saw this yesterday before I had a chance to watch it!

 

Whoops, sorry!

[Marie H]

Disney+ with 1S of Firefly (up to episode 4) - love this!  .

Also re-watching the first series of Castle. 

[Marie H]

Prime video Blacklist series 1, Episode 1. Intriguing, certainly.

[muggle not]

I binge watched all 6 seasons of Longmire (on Peacock) in Jan / Feb.

I also watched all of season 1 of the new Jack Reacher series in Feb (on Prime). It was a fairly good action type series.

Tonight I will start watching season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (on Prime). I have anxiously been waiting for the new season to come back. I rate this series a 5/5. I understand that new episodes of the series will be released on Fridays.

I have also watched 2 episodes of Yellowstone (on Peacock).

 

Maybe (all of the above) that is the reason I haven't been reading as much this year.

 

[Marie H]

15 hours ago, muggle not said:

 

Maybe (all of the above) that is the reason I haven't been reading as much this year.

 

[Marie H]

S2 E1 of Castle.

[Brian.]

On Netflix, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.

[France]

The Promise, a French thriller on BBC4. It's set near where I used to live and yes, there are some very strange people there.

[Brian.]

After loads of prompting from a friend of mine I finally started to watch After Life. I did the entire first season last night and it’s one the best things I’ve watched for years. It actually had me in tears at some points. 

[Madeleine]

I've finally done something I've been meaning to do for ages - signed up to Disney+ for the Mandolorian.

 

I tried watching Citadel on Prime but gave up halfway through the second episode - tripe, I don't mind well-made tripe, but found it hard to care about the two leads, and then 

Spoiler

they killed off Stanley Tucci's character - easily the best character and actor by a mile. That did it for me!