What TV shows are you watching?

[Ceridwen]

I have just started watching the show "Lucifer". I wasn't even aware of the show until a friend recommended it. So far, I am finding Season 1 very entertaining. I noticed in the credits that Neil Gaiman helped to create the characters for a DC comic. The show has some really good humor.

Just finished this. The character of Lucifer is based on the Lucifer created by Gaiman for the Sandman comics, and then appeared in his own spin off series. I absolutely loved the first five seasons, wonderful humour, great character growth, thoroughly enjoyable, looked forward to each new episode. Tom Ellis and DB Woodside as the angelic brothers were fabulous together, and all of the regular cast were in fact, quite good.
Was deeply, horribly disappointed by the final season. It had a few moments, but over all the story fell down and we eventually began to look toward each new episode with trepidation. Someone screwed the story pooch, and the feeling with the conclusion wasn't so much satisfaction but a feeling of being cheated.

[Cyrus The Great]

I haven't seen season 5 yet. I'm sorry to hear that it went downhill. I will still watch it though.

I really enjoyed the angelic brother interactions too. Really, I loved all the characters, but my favorite was the therapist. That actress is hilarious!

[Ceridwen]

Season five was excellent, loved the wrap, it was season six that was too contrived imo. Instead of building on what they had they brought in a mcguffin and build a story around that. As I said there were elements that still worked, just not the main story line, to me it felt like a cheat. Yeah, love Linda, she and Chloe have an illuminating convo about Lucifer in season 5, and they do pull out some big guns that are quite fun.
I'm really going to have to look into their playlist too, some really fine music on the sound track, including the stuff Tom Ellis and the rest of the cast actually cover. It was like the soundtrack to Chuck, kept discovering new stuff to listen to, as well as classics. Its always worth it to figure out what Lucifer is playing it's usually apt; King or Pain, Unforgiven, Knocking on Heaven's Door, etc.

[Cyrus The Great]

I like the music too. I have been wondering if Tom Ellis can actually play piano? When his hands are in frame with the rest of him, it looks like he really knows what he is doing. I enjoyed Lesley-Ann Brandt's cover of "Wonderwall". It got me interested in Oasis again.

[Ceridwen]

Yeah, I wondered too, so I checked. He plays the trumpet, french horn, and guitar - apparently he played in youth orchestra as a kid, and although he can pick out a tune on the piano, he doesn't play well enough to accompany himself on Lucifer. So he can fake it well, but there's a stand in accompanist on the show, but the singing and dancing is him. And if you like the music, watching season 5 is a must, more of it there

[Cyrus The Great]

I have been watching "The Originals" season three. I think it is the best season so far. The story has been kicked up a few notches with characters who can kick Klaus's ass, which always amuses me.

[Ceridwen]

Ghosts. A BBC production, if follows Alison and Mike who come into Button Hall with the death of a distant relative, it's a large country house is serious disrepair, but populated by a collection of ghosts who died on the site over the last 20,000 years or so. At first they want the living couple out, but when they try, they create a situation where Alison can now see and hear them, and things change for all of them. All of the ghosts are needy in various ways, but then so is Mike. I quite like the plague victims in the basement, they rarely move beyond the plague pit, but they do seem to have a keen grasp of boiler repair after all those centuries watching it done. It's pretty funny and worth the time to watch - pleased that a new season has been announced.

[Ceridwen]

Just finished the US adaptation of this on CBS as well, and found a number of bits that were actually better than the original, and everybody seems quite a bit more personable. I'd say it edges out the original.

[Cyrus The Great]

Ghosts sounds like a fun show. Maybe I will try it out.

[dubiousbystander]

Ceridwen, I'm finally all caught up, and I agree about this US adaptation having things better than the original. The thing I could pinpoint easily was the fact that every time they started to get ahead in the UK one, another disaster happened.

Twohe plus points of the U.S. one were the Alexa episode, and the kindness and compassion Sam showed for Stephanie.

[Cyrus The Great]

I watched "The Originals" season 4. The story continued to be very well written and acted. At the end of the season, the main characters had to scatter to the four winds, so to speak, after each of them absorbed part of a very evil spirit who was once a powerful Native American witch. I will be watching the fifth and final season soon.

[MarlyM]

Resident Alien, it's quirky, funny at times but hoping they don't ruin it with too much with PC stuff.

[n107]

I typically watch videos while working, so I'm currently cycling through the following:

Star Trek: Voyager
All of Us are Dead
Highlander (naturally)
Farscape

Aside from the Korean zombie thing, I'm clearly stuck in the past.

[Cyrus The Great]

I love Farscape!

[Cyrus The Great]

"The Originals" season 5 (final season) was very good overall, but I was disappointed that several of the main characters died. Characters in the show, and the preceding series "The Vampire Diaries", have died before and been resurrected, but these deaths seemed pretty much final, so I am not expecting to see them brought back in the spinoff series "Legacies". However, there is always the possibility of flashbacks.

[LamBear*]

Got into "The Gilded Age". Kind of an American Downton Abbey knock-off. It's OK. Costumes and sets are wonderful.

Still into Yellowstone and quickly got hooked on 1883. Sam Elliott and Tim McGraw (with the beard)--nice.
Recently binge-watched the entire 10 seasons of "Friends". Never had seen them in sequence. I thought the reunion show was great and seeing those actors 17 years later makes me feel not so bad about not ageing well. Courtney Cox must have gone to Joan Rivers' plastic surgeon. Oooohh. Yikes.

[Ceridwen]

Re-watching the run of Hornblower starring Ioan Gruffudd

[Cyrus The Great]

I watched a BBC mini-series called "Desperate Romantics". Prominent actors Aiden Turner and Raffe Spall played two of the main characters. The show is loosely based on the lives of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who were prominent artists and poets in 19th and early 20th century England. I learned about this show recently after I took an interest in the works of Christina Rossetti who is one of the more famous female English poets. Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelites and is portrayed by Aiden Turner in the show. Dante, aside from being a very talented artist and poet, was quite a rogue and a scoundrel! The show is sexy and funny for the most part, but has an element of tragedy with the suicide of Dante's wife.

[Andrew NDB]

Just got done with a big rewatch of all of Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. Starting the Treks over with Enterprise.

I watched "Star Trek: Discovery" season 3. A lot of stuff happens! Good action and excellent character development. This show reminds me of some of the best aspects of Deep Space Nine with continuing storylines, character back stories, and lots of development of characters and relationships.

Definitely... you and I watched very, very different shows there.

[Cyrus The Great]

Definitely... you and I watched very, very different shows there.

You have a good point Andrew. I went pretty light on Discovery S3 in that comment. But, the same day, in the Discovery thread I wrote in greater detail and with a more critical eye:

12-19-2021, 01:38 PM
I just watched season 3. Overall, I thought is was pretty good. I wondered about a few things though. This may seem trivial to most people, but I was very curious as to what sort of tree could grow so huge in maybe 1200 years or so as the one at Star Fleet Academy did? Is it an Earth tree or some sort of extra-terrestrial tree? I thought the explanation of "The Burn" was rather lacking. Somehow, a partially mutated Kelpian child, in his grief at his mother's death, caused all dilithium in the galaxy to go inert which led to most of the starships exploding. However, not all dilithium was effected as it was being traded on a black market for various goods and services. Also, the dilithium planet where the mutated Kelpian lived inside a crashed ship apparently wasn't effected by his psychic anti-dilithium scream. I had to suspend a lot of disbelief. Was "The Chain" composed of former Federation peoples? That seemed to be implied by them having suspended The Prime Directive. Anyway, I like a lot of things about "Discovery", but I would like to know more, or have things explained better.

[dubiousbystander]

I have been watching "The Last Bus", but am not all the way through yet. It's both creative and thematically dull. Creative because of the characters. Thematically dull because oh no the AIs have started disintegrating people! Or not. There's a thread of ambiguity and as I said, I'm not through it yet. It is pretty much the same as "The Mitchells vs. the Machines" but for live action. And this is all the plot of a megalomaniac. A blend of tropes and variations thereon just enough to make it fresh. Don't think I can explain well, trying to avoid spoilers in case someone else wants to give it a try.

[Cyrus The Great]

I just started re-watching the original series of "Dallas". Its been maybe 10 years since I last saw the series. So much that I have forgotten! It is still very entertaining.

[n107]

I'm currently watching Star Trek: Picard to remind me what it feels like to hate again.

The last episode of season 2 is released tonight in my region. Can't wait for it to be over so I can get started on loathing the approach of season 3.

[Cyrus The Great]

Do you really hate Star Trek: Picard? I found the story about Data's "mind" being recreated from a single positronic neuron to be quite ridiculous, but other aspects of the show were enjoyable to me.

[Cyrus The Great]

I watched season 1 of "Six Feet Under". I have never seen the show, but have heard about it for a long time. It was created by Alan Ball who also created the show "True Blood", which I really love. Six Feet is a lot different than what I imagined it would be, but I found it very interesting and enjoyable. There is a lot of character development and well written story lines that arc between multiple episodes. The show is set in a mortuary and each episode begins with a death.

[n107]

I have no idea how to reply to the comment you left on my post so I'll have to quote you here about Picard:

Yes, I really dislike the majority of the series. The writing is just extremely poor and riddle with plot holes. Most of the stuff that happens is done for the sake of creating a moment rather than to tell a consistent and logical story. To make matters worse, this is all being done while dragging some very beloved characters through the mud. Many of them behave nothing like the have been established and it goes far beyond the point of "they changed over time".

There are a couple of good and fun moments here and there but it's just shocking how terrible the writing is. But I can still manage to stomach it more than with Star Trek Discovery. I can't even watch that show anymore.

[Cyrus The Great]

Sorry, I should have quoted you above instead of commenting with a question. I think Discovery has a lot of issues too, but for the most part, I find it entertaining. Thanks for your reply.

[Ceridwen]

Been binging Chicago Fire so I have something to talk about with a big fan who I usually have nothing to to talk about with. What a soap opera! Must say I truly love the character of Otis, and Hermann is a representation of a bunch of guys I have actually known, so I'd say they have the characterizations down pretty well. These fir fighters do tend to color outside the lines quite a bit, like they don't have enough to do just being fire fighters.

[Andrew NDB]

Picard? Man oh man that was ghastly. "Better Call Saul" is back and I'm very much loving it.

[Cyrus The Great]

I just started watching the first season of "American Gods" based on the book by Neil Gaiman. So far it is pretty weird, with a number of scenes that seem like nightmares. But the enigmatic Mr. Wednesday played by Ian McShane is intriguing. I will keep watching, as I have a high appreciation for Neil's storytelling abilities.

[Ceridwen]

Watching The Almighty Johnsons. Its an import from New Zealand, and it has an actual original premise, something rare and precious in network TV. It's a couple years old, but as of the wrap of season two, it's quite entertaining. We'll have to see how the last season goes.

[dubiousbystander]

I've been watching Barney Miller again! Except it's not so much again. I can hardly remember any episodes, so they all seem new to me.

[Cyrus The Great]

Getting back to "Dallas" again. The South Fork mansion has just burned down (S6 cliffhanger)! J.R., Sue Ellen, and the kids are upstairs unconscious from the smoke. Whatever will become of them?

[dubiousbystander]

I'm watching Orville Season 3. Been rewatching Barney Miller, and All In The Family. It turns out I probably hardly saw any episodes of each.