…I'd rather not publicly admit to watching.
Just once I'd love to see the outtakes from Texas Flip 'n Move where the potential buyers/paid actors touring the finished homes prior to auction blurt out, "WTF is this crap? What were they thinking?!"
I Saw This and Immediately Thought Of…
"Could it be?"
If you're a viewer (it's my guilty pleasure—don't hate me), and you don't know about this Reddit, you're definitely missing out. It is HI-larious!
Satisfying
We wrapped up first season last night and I have to say The Umbrella Academy is one of the freshest, most entertaining things I've seen on television lately. From the minds of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy is the story of a super-dysfunctional family of superheroes who have eight days to get it together and save the world. The story, the sets, the special effects…all are spot-on. And it's fun!. Check it out.
This is Unfortunate
Counterpart has been cancelled.
While disappointing, this does not come as a complete surprise. While I loved Season One, I found this past season terribly difficult to follow. I rarely knew which universe (Alpha or Prime) things were actually occurring in. Because of tech or architecture, it was easy to tell the two universes apart, but the lines blurred this season. It didn't help matters that the story itself had become so convoluted it would be difficult to follow in a single universe.
But all is not lost. Apparently Season 3 is being shopped to various streaming services.
On another note, I find myself being drawn into yet another Netflix series, The Umbrealla Academy. It's the story of an estranged and very dysfunctional family of superheroes being forced to come together in the wake of their father's death in order to prevent the end of the world.
We Are The Borg
You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
A couple months ago Ben started watching Star Trek Voyager reruns on Netflix. It's obvious from his encyclopedic knowledge of the episodes that it hit his life about the same time TOS did mine. I was never a big fan of Voyager, and I finally have up on its original run sometime after the third or fourth season. It wasn't the storylines or the acting; it was the fact that it relied way too heavily on technobabble when they couldn't come up with any other explanation of why something happened.
I have to admit however that I got caught up in the show this time around. It started out as background noise while I was doing other things, but started capturing more and more of my attention. The technobabble wasn't as distracting as I remember (perhaps because our own lives are now peppered with it), but as we enter our viewing the seventh and final season, something else is annoying the ever-loving fuck out of me: the doctor. Did one of the writers have a hard-on for Robert Picardo? It seems he's become the focus of every other story.
But I digress. I came here to discuss the Borg, not the hologram.
In Voyager we learned a lot about the Borg, but the fundamental question remains unanswered: who are they? Where did they originally come from? Okay, so they're a big bad hive mind that goes around gobbling up civilizations across the galaxy, but why?
As an acting coach might say, "What is their motivation?"
Some fan fiction posits they came from or are the biproduct/source of VGER (Star Trek: The Motion Picture). I propose something else entirely, although how exactly it would work remains unclear: we are the Borg. Whether they came from the future or via an alternate timeline that breached our own.
Even if this doesn't fit into the Star Trek universe, I can still easily see our civilization spreading out into the Universe, not as peaceful emissaries and seekers of knowledge, but as rapacious beasts, harvesting whatever we come across in the name of progress and—most importantly—capitalism. I can see us becoming the Borg. We are the alien invaders that figure so prominently in our entertainment. Our current civilization is obsessed with acquisition and control. How is that not unlike the Borg, and if you take it to its absurd conclusion?
And why are there no non-humanoid Borg? We know non-humanoid life forms exist in the Star Trek universe. Why do we not see them assimilated?
And for that matter, has anyone ever seen a Ferngi Borg?
I posed this question on Twitter some time ago, and Sean responded by citing a specific instance where a non-human Borg was featured and pointed out that humanoids in this galaxy are so prevalent because they all descended from a single "seed" deposited by some ancient, unknown species and one would assume that seed included the original Borg.
I also just watched an episode with an assimilated Klingon. But in both cases, these were still humanoid. I'm talking about a distinctly non-humanoid Borg, say for example, a Xindi?
Are they simply not interested in anything that walks on more than two legs? Is it because it's more cost/resource efficient for their implants to be "one size fits all" (as long as it's humanoid)? I doubt we will ever get a definitive answer.
I Approve Of This Message
Ryan Murphy has revealed that he isn't done telling the story of the residents of Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies…and I am overjoyed at the news.
After Apocalypse wrapped, I went back and rewatched Coven, simply because I'd forgotten so many of the details that ended up figuring prominently in the latest installment of the anthology. I enjoyed Coven when it was originally broadcast, but after Apocalypse, I think I love it, counting it the second-best season of the series (Apocalypse being the best.).
Unintended Consequences
For those of you who've seen the final episode of AHS: Apocalypse…
I beg to differ on the point of Cordelia not getting sick. According to AHS canon, when a new Supreme rises, the existing Supreme must die. Since we know Mallory proves herself to be the next Supreme, Cordelia will–at some point–have to die.
Moody and Atmospheric
Netflix does it again.
As we often do when nothing catches our eye on cable, we pick up the remote and say, "Netflix."
Sometimes even that comes up empty, but a week or so ago we started watching Bodyguard. I was initially reluctant to dive into it because the subject matter didn't pique my interest, but once I started watching it gripped me. It's one of those dark British dramas whose inscrutable characters, subtle soundtrack, and saturnine cinematography immediately drew me in.
Bodyguard is the story of Sgt. David Budd, a war veteran who helps thwart a terrorist attack, and is then assigned to protect the Home Secretary who was a major proponent of the conflict he fought in. Sgt. Budd harbors a secret and carries with him a host of conflicts and issues that must be addressed, but not until circumstances force him to confront his demons does he finally find peace.
I give this one a 9 out of 10 stars only because of a couple gaping plot holes that were never fully addressed. It's only a six-episode season, but worth every minute.
And Richard Madden (Sgt. Budd) is very pretty too.
Fourteen Iconic Quotes From the AHS: Apocalypse Finale
Whenever you're in a room with the American Horror Story witches, you're all but guaranteed of hearing some fucking amazing burns, but this season's finale really outdid itself. These surely raised welts on their recipients…and had me screaming like a schoolgirl!
Did I miss any?
"Purple is for Royalty, Dear…not Middle Management."
God, I love Myrtle Snow.
AHS: Apocalypse has wrapped up, and I have to say—despite a few hiccups along the way, this was in my opinion, the finest season of AHS so far.
The series been—for the most part—enjoyable. That being said, I couldn't make it through last year's Cult (perhaps its themes struck a little close of home with the arrival of the Orange Menace in the White House) and stopped watching about four episodes in. I thought Freak Show and Roanoake were the weakest from a series standpoint, while Murder House, Asylum, Coven, Hotel, and Apocalypse were the strongest.
[spoilers ahead]
The hiccups in Apocalypse I referred to concern Mutt and Jeff, along with the last ten minutes of the final episode. That episode in particular would've been much so stronger if they'd just left those ten minutes off altogether, leaving the now Apocalypse-free future open-ended,
Apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way. Regarding the ending (and a ton of other unanswered questions), Digital Spy opined:
Ever since season one, it's been established that the Antichrist can only be conceived through the union of a living woman and a dead man, so how did Emily (Ash Santos) and Timothy Campbell (Kyle Allen) give birth to Satan's spawn in the new timeline? We've known for some time now that their DNA is "perfect" or special for some reason, but they're not that special, right?
The only explanation that seems to make any vague kind of sense here is that their so-called "perfect" genetics are perfect precisely for the job of conceiving the Antichrist and the Cooperative knew this all along. While this still flies in the face of everything we've been told up to this point, such a theory does help tie up some of the loose threads that were created by their very existence in the first place.
If this is true, then it's likely that them meeting again in the new timeline wasn't a coincidence either. Through some demonic manipulations from behind the scenes, Satan was able to use Emily and Timothy as a contingency plans of sorts, encouraging them to create a replacement Antichrist in the event of Michael's death.
So is the future simply to play out again and again as a battle between Satan and the witches?
Still an incredibly satisfying season, and I can't wait to see what Ryan and Brad come up with for next year, although if there isn't another season at all, this one left it on a decidedly high note.
I am Loving Sabrina
LaLa- LaLa
"This is My TARDIS."
Brought tears to my eyes. I am loving Ms. Whittaker in this role.
Awesome
Preach, Sister!
I Approve Of This Message
For those of you who have been living under a rock (or simply aren't fans—WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!) the eleventh season of the "rebooted" Doctor Who had its worldwide premiere yesterday with a new Doctor and a new show runner. I was excited for these changes before I saw last night's premier, and I'm even more excited now having seen this first episode.
In the interest of transparency, I'm completely unfamiliar with Ms. Whittaker's previous work, so I don't know if what we saw last night was her normal acting persona or if she'd been studying David Tenant's Doctor intensely after landing the role. But OMG…the facial expressions, the vocal inflections…she's at least initially coming off as a female Tenant, and I'm okay with that because—as Ben pointed out—we need a fun, joyful Doctor again.
I immediately came to care about these characters, and while in seasons past it's taken me quite a while to warm up to new Doctors, this time I was all in from the get go! She's—as they say across the pond—brilliant!
Myrtle, I Respectfully Disagree
Don't Blink!
Quote of the Day
Obviously, this show is a little out of step with its misanthropy. It's a little out of step with where we're at culturally where it's a time of great optimism and we're all just knocked out daily by the warm bath of humanity that we find ourselves in these days. [Pauses, and then reveals he was being sarcastic.] No, it's a fucking disaster. It's a fucking total disaster. And every time I turn on the news I'm provided with fodder for our discontent. I think our timing might have been exactly right on.
Listen, I'm surrounded by the wonders of the creations of human beings. I have children and [series co-creator] Lisa Joy and I are reminded daily of how much beauty there is in humanity. But yeah, you turn on the fucking news and it's a shit show. And I've been reading a lot of history this season, a little bit connected to the show, but also just following the train of things I'm interested in, and it's depressing to realize how familiar some of these problems are, right? It's like we just can't figure these fucking things out. We come back to them again and again. It's as if there's a flaw—and this is very much the premise in our second season—there's a flaw in our code and it follows us around. Wherever we go, there we are. And we just can't get out of our own fucking way. All the beauty and incredible things we brought, and we just consistently find a way to fuck it up.
Much of the dramatic storytelling across the ages has concerned itself with "how will we overcome?" and personal growth and change. At a certain point you gotta fucking call it. We're not going to fix this shit, we're not going to figure it out. But there's an opportunity for the things that replace us to do so. And that's the dream of every parent, right? That their child doesn't face the same things they do, that they make better choices? But there does seem to be a pattern of behavior that follows us, that history echoes from the past, the same mistakes, the same foibles. So you say: At what point does this fix itself? Or are we just stuck this way?" ~ Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of Westworld on HBO, speaking to Entertainment Weekly
Maybe this just mirrors my general mood these days, but it sounds right on.
"I Made Someone"
Squee!
Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge…
"You know, the old man himself hired me. So many years ago I can barely remember it. But he was very clear about my role here, about who I was supposed to be loyal to. I guess you could call it… my core drive. And this project the company started blurs the lines. You know? I'm just not sure who you're supposed to be loyal to in a world like that." ~ Ashley Stubbs, Head of Park Security letting Dolores/Charlotte know he knows what's going down here, Westworld (2018).
I squealed. The writing this year has been brilliant.
This season got off to a slow start, and I wasn't completely sure they would be able to match the excellence of Season One, but I was oh so wrong. IMHO, this season was equal to—if not actually better in places—than Season One.
It's going to be a long eighteen months until the arrival of Season Three…
To Boldly Go Where No Man…
…never mind.
Gratuitous Dan Stevens
I've been watching the very trippy series Legion on FX since season one. It supposedly takes places in the Marvel X-Men universe, but I've given up trying to actually understand what's going on; I'm just enjoying the ride. The visuals are stunning. The cast is exemplary. The main character, David, played by Dan Stevens, simultaneously doesn't push any of my buttons and at the same time pushes all of them and I look at him and think, "Ew," followed immediately by, "Hot dirty monkeysex. NOW."
Oh James…
Quote of the Day
This is just the tip of Shogun World's prick—an experience expressly designed for the guests who find Westworld too tame." ~ Lee Sizemore, Westworld Season 2, Episode 5, Akane No Mai
Right There With Ya, Tom.
Okay, I know the man is an actor, but this still seems pretty heartfelt.
Lucifer was one of those shows that I grew to love. But like Fox has done with countless other shows I've become emotionally invested in (I will never forgive them for Wonderfalls), they pulled the plug. At least this one made it three seasons.
I'm hoping it's picked up by Netflix or Hulu or Amazon, and we've heard some backchannel chatter from the cast members that we shouldn't give up hope just yet, so who knows?
The season ended with unanswered questions, but it was satisfying enough that if it truly must come to an end, it was a relatively good end.
Now We Know…
…the identity of the woman who was attacked by the tiger in Raj World.
Sunday Nights
"It Doesn't Look Like Anything to Me"
In the very first episode of Westworld, Abernathy, one of the robotic hosts, finds an old photo of a woman in a modern city. He is puzzled by it and shows it to his daughter, Dolores. Dolores looks at it and replies, "It doesn't look like anything to me," the standard response the hosts are programmed to give when confronted by anything that falls outside their narratives. (The fact that Abernathy didn't have that response is telling.) The next morning Dolores finds her father still sitting on the front porch of the house staring at the photo, ending with him having a total breakdown.
It turns out the photo was a stock image from Getty:
The woman in the photo was supposedly the character William's fiancee outside the park. Proving that the creators of Westworld pay attention to every detail, they apparently tracked down the model in the Getty photo and she made a cameo in the most recent episode:
Every detail is important in this series. Just sayin'…
Westworld Season 2 Explained
And you thought Season One was confusing! And we're only one episode in so far!