Category: Television

Once again I'm late to the party.

Being the STAR WARS fan that I am, it wasn't like I didn't want to see The Mandalorian. I did. But much like my situation with Star Trek: Discovery, I didn't want to see it enough to pay for a monthly subscription. But Verizon once again came through, and with a free one-year subscription, it's giving me the opportunity to catch up.

I'm only five episodes in, but it's ticking all the boxes and OH. MY. GOD. This is what the last six Star Wars movies should have been. Now I understand why people have been raving about it.

I remember when I first heard that CBS was bringing out a new Star Trek series a few years ago. Immediately my heart sank because it was going to be subscription only. "Fuck that," I thought. I like Trek, but not that much.

I've been a fan of the franchise since the late 60s when it first appeared on our small, 19-inch television at home. It was one of the few shows my dad would let me stay up past my bedtime to watch. My level of fandom precludes me from calling myself a trekkie or even a trekker, but that doesn't mean I'm not engaged with that universe. I'm enough of a fan that I've seen all the episodes of all the series (with the exception of Deep Space Nine and Voyager, both of which lost me about halfway into their runs) often enough that I can turn one on and within seconds say, "Oh, it's that one." But I've never been to a Con, met any of the actors, or have I ever owned any memorabilia beyond a couple plastic model kits of the Enterprise (the ones with the lights that never worked) and a couple other trek-related gifts given to me over the years.

I enjoyed the J.J. Abrams reboots as well as the oft-maligned Star Trek: Enterprise, a Trek some 35 years after the original, that my dad and I still enjoyed watching together.

A combination of things ultimately led me to buy a subscription to CBS All Access. Firstly, Ben and I cut the cable cord and took up streaming various services a couple months ago in an effort to cut expenses. Secondly, this all happened around the same time CBS announced Picard, and that was one I definitely wanted to see, what with The Next Generation being my favorite series of the franchise. Since we had to get All Access in order to see Picard, we bit the bullet and subscribed.

Shortly thereafter we started Star Trek: Discovery, and I have to say that in spite of a rather slow start, I've grown to love it. I appreciate how they pay homage to the original series, but have put a new coat of paint on the tech and the stories themselves, and (despite the lens flare it inherited from Mr. Abrams) I think It's beautiful. I know some fans loathe it, and my personal beef at this point (which may be explained at some point) is that if they have all this tech (mycelial drive, 3d holographic projectors, touch displays, and a plethora of other goodies supposedly in place and well integrated into life years before the events of the original series, what happened? Where did It all go? On the other hand, I can just sit down and enjoy it for the eye candy it is and imagine Kirk and crew utilizing the same tech.

I just finished binging the first season of Tell Me a Story on CBS All Access, and I have to say, it was one of the most satisfying bits of storytelling I've seen in quite some time.

When I initially read the premise of the show I didn't see how any of it would work, but somehow the writers pulled it off.

Highly recommended if you have CBS All Access.

Going to give it a short break and then jump into Season Two.

But next up, Star Trek: Discovery.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, we've cut the cord with cable and have gone to streaming services. At this point I don't know why it took me so long to agree to it.

Apple TV was the gateway drug. It's free for us at the moment, but what enticed me to check it out was one of their initial "signature" shows, For All Mankind. When I first heard of this, I thought it was going to be a docudrama of Apollo 11 and our trip to the moon. Being the space nerd that I am, this was enough to get me interested, but when I found it it was going to be an alternate reality show where Russia first planted a flag there, well..sign me up!

For All Mankind proved to be everything I'd hoped it would be, presenting an alternate reality where not only did we not abandon the moon, but we were on our way to Mars in the 1980s. I can't wait for Season 2.

Unfortunately, nothing else on Apple TV has piqued my interest.

We were already subscribers to Amazon Prime and Netflix, so it was only a matter of adding Hulu and Philo to get everything we'd been watching before, still at a net savings to what we were paying for cable.

Some of the other things I've binged in the last few weeks:

Lost in Space Season 2  (Netflix)

I desperately did not want to like this reboot, but I have to admit I enjoyed Season One last year. I grew up on Lost in Space; my parents' preferred discipline being to deny me access to the show the particular week I misbehaved. That's how much I was into it and why I was expecting so much from the reboot. At first I was put off by the story and ahem—gender—changes in this new version, but came to embrace them as the story developed. Dr. Smith is no longer a bumbling buffoon; she is now an outright psychopath and her expert manipulation of the people around her is frightening. Also, the robot—and in fact the fleet's propulsion and guidance systems—in this reboot were not made, but rather found. This change has produced the backbone and the ultimate arc of the story.

To be honest, Lost in Space plods in places (I found myself fast forwarding through most of the first three episodes of Season 2), and a lot of times you're left shaking your head with "WUT?!" but overall I enjoyed both seasons and I'm looking forward to the third.

Messiah (Netflix)

Not at all what I was expecting and not something I was initially drawn to, but I needed something other than Louis Rossmann (yes, I'm that big of a nerd) videos to watch at lunch. The story quickly drew me in, and while precious few questions were definitively answered by the end of the first season, it left me wanting more. Just when you think you have things figured out, the writers throw you a curve ball (especially during the last 15 minutes of the last episode after all evidence has pointed to the lead characters lack of divinity) that you're left questioning everything you've come to believe.

The Expanse Season 4 (Amazon Prime)

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster Amazon took up this production when the original series was canceled by SyFy. (It's rumored that Jeff Bezos was a huge fan and was instrumental in Amazon's acquisition of the property.)

I stumbled upon The Expanse on SyFy back in Season One and it drew me in. I'd never heard of the original source material, but from the beginning it was obvious that it was much more than another space opera. This was what I affectionately call "hard" science fiction, along the lines of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Moon. I was genuinely saddened when I first read that SyFy wasn't renewing it after Season 3.

The Expanse presents a vision of humanity's future in space, colonizing the solar system and our first encounter with undeniably alien intelligence. And as you might expect, those colonization efforts do not produce one big happy human family. The geopolitical aspect of the show is as engaging—and as potentially realistic—as the rest of the story.

The Gift (Netflix)

This one was a surprise. A Turkish production (with English subtitles), The Gift tells the story of…well…even as it finished up I was at a loss to fully wrap my head around exactly what and why things had happened other than to say, "Be careful what you ask for. It just may happen." Centered around the possibly as old as twelve-thousand years Gobekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey, The Gift explores both the practical and spiritual. It's part soap opera, part In Search Of (for those of you old enough to remember that series). The cinematography is gorgeous, and the male leads are hot, but as I said I'm at a loss to fully describe what I spent the last several days watching, but if you're willing to devote your time to it (being in Turkish you have to pay attention to read the subtitles) you won't come away disappointed. Confused, perhaps, but not disappointed.

…Ben and I are not the only ones who—despite the blatant racism, misogyny, and homophobia present in Supernatural (at least the early seasons; we still haven't gotten that far into it), there is a not so subtle homoeroticism as well.

I suppose that unsurprisingly goes along with the frat mentality of their target audience. "It's not gay if our dicks don't touch!"

Out of curiosity, the other night I googled Supernatural slash, and imagine my surprise. There's even a term for it: Wincest.

As George Takei would say… "Oh my!"

Now if they'd only get past their daddy issues and fuck for Chrissake!

All of the "boutique" shows I've been watching have wrapped up for the season (or the entire series).

Mr. Robot (series)
To be honest, I was kind of disappointed with the series finale. I'm still processing it to some degree, but it left me asking questions that will probably never be answered. Did any of the incidents portrayed during the past for years actually occur in real life, or were they just part of Elliot's psychotic break?

His Dark Materials (season)
Loved it. Unlike The Golden Compass movie from years ago, this time the story stayed almost perfectly true to the source material. They aren't shying away from the religious and spiritual underpinnings of the novels and I appreciate how Will's story (that doesn't actually appear until Book 2, The Subtle Knife) has been interwoven with the events of The Golden Compass. Excellent storytelling.

If I have a gripe, it's that the battle scenes seem a bit…sanitized for our protection and there is a distinct lack of daemons on screen. (Kind of ironic considering the creative force behind this production keeps telling us this first season is all about the daemons.)

For All Mankind (season)
This one kind of took me by surprise and was the sole reason I started exploring Apple TV. This has been a thought-provoking alternate-timeline history of the American space program. Spurred into action by Russia landing the first man (and woman!) on the Moon, the space program is jump-started and after landing astronauts—of both sexes—on the Moon, have established a base, and looks to be on the way to Mars by 1985! Of course there's a lot of family and personal drama taking place as well, which adds the certain emotional spice needed for an otherwise "dry" drama.

Definitely looking forward to Season Two next year.

The Expanse (season)
Brought back from the dead by Amazon Prime after being cancelled by SyFy after a three year run, the Expanse continues to be one of my favorite "hard" sci-fi dramas on television. It's definitely not one of those shows you watch as background noise; it demands your full attention to follow what's happening. I just got done binging the entire fourth season and it's only left me wanting MORE.

Watchmen (season? series? No one seems to know for sure.)
This is another show that can't be on as background filler while you're cruising the interwebs. I was perhaps at a disadvantage because except for the 2009 movie, I was unfamiliar with the source material and required a lot of dedicated paying-attention to the story to suss out what was happening. Even then I had to resort to podcasts to get a fuller understanding and appreciation of what the writers and producers were throwing us. It's a beautiful stand-alone story, and while HBO hasn't announced a second season, the story—while self-contained and satifying on its own—definitely left things open-ended enough that it could easily continue.

Guess I'm going to have to search out weird shit on Netflix or Amazon Prime now.

Last night I watched Episode 1 of HBO's new series His Dark Materials, based on the much-loved Philip Pullman novels.

His Dark Materials, a trilogy of books (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass) were my constant late night companions sixteen years ago while undergoing cancer treatment and unable to sleep. I was immediately drawn into the alternate universe and the adventures of Lyra and the rest of the characters she encountered on her journey.

I thought the feature film, which was supposed to be one of three (encompassing the entire trilogy), done 12 years ago, was good. Not great, but good. I felt the casting was spot-on, not only with Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel but also Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter. I was sorely disappointed at the ending, however, as it was at that point that the movie veered off from the original source material in an unforgivable fashion, and the remaining two books were never filmed.

This time, however, it appears HBO will not shy away from the controversial content of those two books that ultimately killed that first attempt to bring the story to the screen. His Dark Materials was marketed as a Young Adult series of books, but the themes addressed therein are decidedly adult in nature and have pissed off a lot of the sanctimonious religious types because they dare to question life, death, and religious dogma and control itself.

HBO is marketing this as another Game of Thrones or Westworld, already renewing it for Season Two, indicating they have zero fucks to give in regard to said sanctimonious religious types.

Last night got it all off to a good start, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the journey HBO is providing.

If you haven't read the books (and frankly, I need to read them again as it's been years), I highly recommend them.

And having never seen the show before, all I can say is:

SO.

MANY.

DADDY.

ISSUES.