Rate the last TV series you watched (full seasons only)

Talk of the 24 cougar reminds me that I recently watched Presumed Innocent, the Jacob Jillywell murder-mystery/courtroom drama. It started very strongly but got progressively worse the further it went on, with an ending that fell absolutely flat for me. It has some decent writing and is entertaining enough if you can switch your brain off. The cougar reminded me of it because this show felt the need to have a sudden and dramatic "OMG WTF!" plot development at the end of every single episode, many of which came totally out of nowhere, felt utterly contrived, and were often resolved in the very first scene of the following episode having made no real impact on the overall story.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (netflix)

The latest Netflix anime, and it does everything you’d expect it too. Tomb Raider works well in this style, especially being the more badass, brilliant at everything old school Lara than the terrified punchbag reboot Lara. Let down by the plot and all the other characters being pretty bland.

Its absolutely fine though. Textbook 7/10 stuff.

Traitors NZ (iplayer)

Its Traitors but in New Zealand. If you like the format already then this is more good stuff, if you don’t then I doubt this will convert you.

Probably UK because the contestants aren’t over the top career reality tv characters

Unexpectedly really enjoying the Halo TV series...!

I'm not so bothered by this, as I happily play eg computer games not knowing whether there will be sequels. And in olden days it was just TV.. and there's more great content than I can possibly consume anyway.

I guess depends a little in the potential cliffhanger at the end!

I'm not sure at this stage how much it is reimagining the halo history, although a few more episodes in there are some things I can't see how it is canon.

The production values are just really good. It looks fantastic on my LG G4 oled, with great lighting and bright HDR. And the CGI is more than fine, and at least not distracting.

To (r)each their own and all that, but I for the life of me can't imagine ever caring about a Halo story. Every game past the first one piled the lore on, and nothing ever really stuck for me.

I quite liked the Halo series. I wouldn't say I'll mourn the loss, but I'm mildly miffed at it stopping where it did.

I've only played Halo 1-3 and frankly checked out early regarding the plots of 2 and 3. Didn't feel any need to play the games after this.

I thought the series did a surprisingly good job of making the nonsense source material work. Especially the second season which did a much better job of preventing the covenant looking so jarringly cartoonish and wrecking the tone.

I'd have liked to see the third season given it seemed like the show was on an upward trend and was well setup to continue the story. Might have worked really well as a darker sci-fi horror.

Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (or revenge or something) -

A two hour movie hacked into six parts so it’s not a big commitment but, man, this sucked.

Covering the middle-ish third of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series but from the Zeon perspective, we get to see them gloating about how much the Earth Forces suck as they are genociding them, pull a shocked pikachu face when Amuro turns up and tears them a new arsehole and then heroically bugger off. It assumes you’re intimately familiar with the OG series and explains absolutely nothing about the context of the war we are suddenly dropped in the middle of.

And if you are familiar with the story, you know it’s a bit like retelling Indiana Jones from the point of view of the nazis and asking us to consider that they had feelings, too.

And aside from the garbage story, it looks like shit, too. Well, it does and it don’t. The only interesting thing about it is that the show is built entirely in the Unreal Engine so, for better or worse, is a 2hr video game cut scene. The sets look good but the characters look awful. The doctor in particular looks like a placeholder asset. Everything is also kind of juddery and badly animated which, as things look more realistic, is a problem.

And, fundamentally, anime just doesn’t look cool either IRL or in hyper realistic CGI. The designs look stupid and everything just seems less real, ironically.

I was looking forward to this, as a big fan of the original but it was just rubbish.

3/10

It looks cool when hand drawn robots do it, tho

I enjoyed it a lot but didn't put it right up there. Last episode was tremendous though

The Last of Us
Loved it, I thought they did great justice to the games and lore. I was unsure of the casting but have to say I thought both leads did a brilliant job. Looking forward to the second season...only I'm not if you get what I mean!
8/10

Yeah, I wish he could have directed the whole thing. He's not involved at all in S2.

Everyone Else Burns - S1

I'm late on this as the second series has just been released. It's pleasingly amusing albeit not laugh out loud very often. Really great concept carries it. Simon Bird is very good, and so is Lolly Adefope. Usually find her pretty wooden but she's great in this.

Looking forward to watching the new series.

7/10

Nightsleeper The Train That Couldn’t Slow Down (iplayer)

If Russell T Davies had written Speed on a train. Its a very silly but surprisingly compelling thriller. All the hacking stuff just seems like word salad and the stakes and twists at various points are all ridiculous but its pretty enjoyable brain-off kind of stuff.