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

I liked it, but could definitely see why people wouldn't. I heard something about the showrunner saying to his directors "remember that you aren't directing an episode of TV, try to think of it as directing an hour-long pretentious art movie", and they REALLY leaned into that in the third season.

Which is fine with me - I like pretentious art movies! - but probably less fine for people who wanted it to be as cohesive as the first couple seasons were.

My problem with Hannibal always was that if these lunatics spent more time trying to plot their getaway and less time planning exotic poses for their corpses, they would never get caught. And I could never get that thought out of my head as they searched for a killer that somehow managed to turn a barely alive person both into compost and a field for some sort of weird lung mushrooms.

Where are your priorities, killer? Getting away with murder is even more important than the elaborate deaths.

The Watch

Ok/Decent. As usual for things that changes things up there was a lot of furore over the swapping of genders and the way it was sold in its pre-release trailers and screenshots by moving discworld Into a more apparent ‘cyberpunk’ setting with a bit of attitude. It really did make a lot of people angry. To be honest Those ‘concerns’ were a bit unfounded. I recognised all the characters whether they swapped genders or looked different from illustrations. I felt at home with them. I think at its heart it attempts and sometimes succeeds in tapping into the humanity in Pratchett’s work. I can see quite a lot of people new to Pratchett’s work falling for these characters and the show having a bit of a cult following. So in that regards it’s a bit of a success. The setting was fine. It’s looked more back street Asia rather than ‘cyberpunk’ too.

As for the show it’s has its moments but is mostly comfortable/passable entertainment that I enjoyed spending time with, even if it isn’t mindblowing. It uses guards guards as it’s template. It’s probably not as funny as it aught to be but it does have that anarchic British sensibility about it even if it doesn’t always work. I think with Hitchhikers and previous Pratchett adaptations it’s hard to transfer the witticisms and humour in the books to the screen. I havn’t seen Going postal in a while but it is certainly better than the other Sky adaptations, and I think the foundations are there for this to become something actually rather good. For better or worse it’s BBC doing Discworld. I enjoyed it but could be more.

3/5

Zoo S2/3

Repeats of the first series but shitter.

4/10


Prodigal Son

I like murder mysteries where the detective has a super power. This one looks the part but there is something missing.

6/10

I’m forcing myself to watch season 4 of Handmaids Tale. It’s very strange after watching all of The West Wing and then Mad Men and hard not to think of June as Peggy.

It definitely falls into standard BBC drama guff. I did the first 2 - might continue, might not. 

Back to Life Series 2 10/10

Even better than the first series, and with added malevolent Ade Edmondson. Amazing cast, brilliant writing, funny and beautiful.
Fantastically show-stopping use of the word 'cunt' in episode 3.

Perhaps half a point off for the 90 second catchup at the start of every episode, when it is 6 x about 25 mins so most people will do it in a few nights, but I'll round it back up to 10 anyway.

Bruiser

Old sketch show starring Matt Holness, Martin Freeman, Olivia Coleman, Robert Webb and David Mitchell that was pretty much their first proper tv thing. Two of them look very young, three look exactly the same as they do now. The sketches mostly hold up. Its very similar to Mitchell & Webb Look.

7/10

I finished S1 last night. 7/10. Bonkers but very watchable. I'm not immediately hooked but still want to watch.

Umbrella Academy S1

Really enjoyed it. Was not immediately predictable which is always a bonus and kept it interesting.

9/10

Loki - 8/10

I've always loved the character since that "mewling quim" line, so was bound to enjoy this really. Hiddleston is great as usual and the supporting cast are on point.
6 episodes is an absolutely perfect length for this kind of thing. Doesn't really have a chance to run out of steam.

Toast is so good. Can't wait for the new series.

Yeah, big fat full stop on season three. It has a proper ending so I dont think they could continue it if they wanted to.

Britannia S2 + S3: S1 didnt really grab me, so I didnt bother watching the second series until I caught an episode while flicking around and though 'oh yeah, I should watch that'.

Anyway, yeah, its really good. It ramps up the crazy about 180% and just lets rip. Would recommend even if you were lukewarm about the first series.

8/10