Binge Watching into the New Year Once More

The holidays and chilly weather and being at home meant there was ample time to get in an excess of television watching around our house.  My wife described the post-Christmas time after our daughter went back to school early to hang out with friends (more compelling than hanging with the parental units when you have your own apartment) as hibernation.  We probably ate too much, slept too much, and watched too much TV.  But it was nice have that option.

My new TV graphic… AI generated

So this was what we ended up watching… not all of it in that time frame, but around that time frame.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Paramount+

We had Paramount+ subscribed for a while and it is the home of all things Star Trek the way Disney+ is the home of all things Star Wars and so we gave this version of Star Trek a shot.

And it is pretty good, which is a tough call because it basically sits directly ahead of Star Trek the original series in the timeline of things, which weighs on it heavily.  The only Star Trek I was ever really all in on was the original series and mostly because there wasn’t a lot of choices for science fiction on TV in my youth and it was in perpetual re-runs.  I like Pike, I like the younger versions of the original series cast, I like knowing where they end up and the hints thrown in around that, and the end of season one made me go back and watch the corresponding original series episode.  Good, worth the effort for original series farts like myself, though it is a bit whimsical at times… not that the original wasn’t.

Halo – Paramount+

We watched this last month and I barely remember anything beyond Pablo Schreiber played Master Chief, which is the only thing I know about Halo, that there is somebody called Master Chief in the game.  He represents the power of The Covenant… who are the bad guys? Or are those aliens the bad guys?  Is there some point here about shades of bad vs good?  Also there is an AI called Cortana, which for a game published by Microsoft seems a bit on the nose.  Basically, the whole thing went in one ear and out the other for me, which isn’t a strong recommendation.

Loki – Season 2 – Disney+

Man, I really liked the first season of Loki.  I as much as called it a Disney attempt to make Umbrella Academy in the MCU, but I was good with that and Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson were so able to carry that through.  So I was all set for season two.

And then I guess Disney figured what we really needed was to try and turn the series into Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, right down to grabbing Short Round for the cast, and then turned it into an unwatchable mess of paradox problems.  I am going to admit I only made it through episode four… but I was done with it after episode two but just hung on hoping for it to get better.  It did not.

The Crown – Season 6 – Netflix

We’re into the dull and petty years of the monarchy now.  Elizabeth coming of age was interesting.  Prince Philip in his age of dissatisfaction was mildly interesting.  Princess Margaret was glamorous and always interesting.  But the kids, the boomer royals, what a dull bunch they turned out to be, and they divorced at about the same rate my parents generation did in our family.

This time around we see Diana die, the royal family cope, Charles get remarried, and Kate Middleton’s mom pretty much launch her daughter at Prince William in an unflattering yet tedious crusade to latch on to the royal family.  Nobody came out of this final season looking good. I think the whole series peaked when Elizabeth called Margret Thatcher a cunt. (That never happened, but I wish it had.)

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – Apple TV+

The TV series background story for what was going on from Kong: Skull Island through to Godzilla vs. Kong with Monarch, the shadowy government connected organization that discovers then covers up the existence of these titanic monsters.  Neat.  Fills in some gaps.  Cool, and convincing, to see Kurt Russel’s younger self played by his son.  Pretty compelling, looks good.  I suppose I am not completely invested, but for a series that answers questions I am not sure anybody was asking, it is pretty good.

Slow Horses – Season 3 – Apple TV+

This show is so well done.  Granted, I am the ideal audience.  I have read the books recently enough that I get a lot of the context, but not so recently that I remember all the details so I can still be surprised as I am reminded how things turn out.  Season three is no exception.  It is also just six episodes long, which is exactly how long it needed to be so you’re left wanting more rather than feeling like they padded things out a bit just to hit a contractual obligation for eight or ten episodes.

The Brothers Sun – Netflix

I am going to unfairly compare this to Slow Horses above when I say that this was a great six to eight episode series… stretched out to ten episodes.  Art is as much what you cut out as what you leave in.  I enjoyed it, the cast was very good, but there were some points after the first three episodes where things began to drag.  But I did have an urge to get churros when it was all said and done.

Loudermilk – Netflix

I like Ron Livingston, I kind of like the setup this show has, and I was hoping it would scratch a bit of the Brockmire itch in me as Sam Loudermilk, a former music journalist and now an acerbic recovering alcoholic substance abuse counselor deals with the world around him without much of a filter.  And it gets there at times.  I laughed.  Just maybe not enough.  We made it through season one and gave it a break, wondering if it gels more in season two of just continues to skirt the edge of genius without quite getting there.

Only Murders in the Building – Season 3 – Hulu

The problem here is that the show has established a pattern so, in order to not simply be a repeat tale, they need to break that pattern to get viewers invested in a new season.  Or that is my theory of the thought process that generated this season’s story arc.  Anyway, things swing between too familiar to feel fresh and too eager to subvert expectations to feel comfortable… I know, a tough path to walk… so it never quite grabbed me.  Good at holding the “whodunnit” reveal yet not great at making you care once you get there.

Hell on Wheels – AMC+

This five season series follows the construction of the transcontinental railroad.  But the legendary figure of Thomas Durant, played by Colm Meany, wasn’t enough to carry things, so they turned one of his historical subordinates into a former confederate officer looking for revenge for the murder of his wife, which leads him to Hell on Wheels, the name of the wild array of camp followers than sprang up around the westward progress of the railroad.

There are actual facts about the building of the railroad included in the series.  There is also a lot of mud, local drama, and made up stuff such that for a good two seasons in the middle I kept asking my wife, “Are they still building a railroad around there somewhere?”  I wasn’t particularly engaged and might have let it drop after season two, but my wife was into the soap opera of camp life so we ended up all the way to the end of season five and the driving of the golden spike. (I have seen that spike in real life up at Stanford University.)