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The All-New TT: Television Time Mini Reviews

jpfriction

(He, Him)
i have many of the same thoughts as you but overall i did not enjoy the series. for me the biggest stumbling block was them trying to create Lore and Grounding The Addams. in the 90s movies, everything exists for the sake of a joke, you're not supposed to think too hard about the logistics, you're just supposed to roll with it. but Wednesday is like, "oh no, gomez might have committed a murder and that's bad, and he might go to jail for that and that's also bad" and "Wednesday goes to an Edgar Allen Poe Ghoul School For Babby Monsters, but everyone thinks she's weird for being a goth, and so the Addams are still considered weirdos even amongst the Weirdos," and you have Wednesday herself acting like the 90s movie character where she talks about serial killings and being macabre and whatnot, all while she's trying to stop a serial killer (and like, one of the worst of her actual actions is sending mouse traps to an editor who didn't like her book), so it sort of deflates the character from being a fun part of an ensemble to a really dorky edgelord teen who we're supposed to think is the coolest badass around.

jenna ortega did a good job, but oof the material.
Well, I mean, she did set a bunch of piranhas loose on the swim team.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
So I recently noticed my TV was offering me a three month free trial of AppleTV (maybe it’s available to everyone? Dunno. Also claimed it was ending soon but who knows if that’s true) so we jumped on it since there’s several things on there we wanted to check out.

First up was Severance, which we ended up binging straight through in a weekend. Good stuff. Very creepy, characters who grow on you, lots to chew on. If anyone here has seen it and wants to toss around wild theories lmk. looking forward to another season.

Next on the docket are probably Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and maybe checking out the new Shrinking and the Kate Beaton kids’ pony show, though we probably won’t blow through any of those so quickly.
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
Pachinko is also very worth watching, though I don't know about doing so in a hurry; its pretty dense and in like 3 languages.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
So the second half of episode 2 started picking up and I ended up thinking that season 3 was about as good as the previous, albeit with underlying arcs that stretched believability more, a bit more contrivance. I'm assuming season 4 is in the works and hoping that will be the last one because I highly doubt they can stretch the concept any further, however much fun it is to watch Karl Urban call superheroes c**ts.
I think the show is generally better than the comic, but they also cut out a ton of stuff. In the comic, the Boys spend the first several arcs going after various superhero groups, with the Seven in the background as the biggest threat. It's understandable why a show would focus on a smaller group of characters and their development, but it also makes it easy for the conflicts to get repetitive fast.
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I've been watching Great British Baking Show: The Professionals. This is going to sound mean, but I guess I know what GBBS would be like if they sapped all the charm out of it.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
I've been watching Great British Baking Show: The Professionals. This is going to sound mean, but I guess I know what GBBS would be like if they sapped all the charm out of it.
I had a feeling it would be like this. The best part of GBBS is the cast of regular degular people! Making a show about folks who are already professional bakers seems like it misses the point entirely.

On the other hand, Cunk on Earth has been pretty delightful. My girlfriend and I are three episodes in and wishing there were way more than just five.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
On the other hand, Cunk on Earth has been pretty delightful. My girlfriend and I are three episodes in and wishing there were way more than just five.
Have you already watched Cunk on Britain? I think you can find the full episodes on YouTube. There's also Cunk on Shakespeare, which I really enjoyed, but it's just one episode.
 

zonetrope

(he/him)
Yellowjackets is about as close as I've ever come to recommending a Showtime show without reservations. It's trashy, fun, and creative, and the section set in the present day features some great performances from vintage '90s actresses (Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis).
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
Have you already watched Cunk on Britain? I think you can find the full episodes on YouTube. There's also Cunk on Shakespeare, which I really enjoyed, but it's just one episode.
Nope, this is the first I've ever heard of the character (series?). Will have to investigate further.
 

Lakupo

Comes and goes with the wind
(he/him)
So the second half of episode 2 started picking up and I ended up thinking that season 3 was about as good as the previous, albeit with underlying arcs that stretched believability more, a bit more contrivance. I'm assuming season 4 is in the works and hoping that will be the last one because I highly doubt they can stretch the concept any further, however much fun it is to watch Karl Urban call superheroes c**ts.
The show runner Eric Kripke has said his plan is for at least five seasons, and they've still got a few comic arcs left to adapt, so... there's a bit more of a ride left!

I guess I'm not bothered by the artificial status quo that much since so much of the show is just so bonkers and over the top as it is. I thought season 3 was pretty good, and it generally did a better job of weaving all of the character arcs into the story... it did feel like it kind of saved a big chunk of the special FX budget for like two specific episodes though, that's the contrivance that sometimes gets me, even though I understand why.
So I recently noticed my TV was offering me a three month free trial of AppleTV (maybe it’s available to everyone? Dunno. Also claimed it was ending soon but who knows if that’s true) so we jumped on it since there’s several things on there we wanted to check out.

First up was Severance, which we ended up binging straight through in a weekend. Good stuff. Very creepy, characters who grow on you, lots to chew on. If anyone here has seen it and wants to toss around wild theories lmk. looking forward to another season.

Next on the docket are probably Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and maybe checking out the new Shrinking and the Kate Beaton kids’ pony show, though we probably won’t blow through any of those so quickly.
Severance is amazing, especially the season finale, that was the absolute tensest thing. Definitely looking forward to season 2.

I've probably said it before, but Mythic Quest has one standout episode in each season. The rest of the show is... all over the place and kind of dumb.

All of the stuff they made up for Foundation with Lee Pace is great but it apparently adapts the stuff from the books so poorly that it inverted the meaning. But Lee Pace is great!

Ya know what, you're probably better off with Lasso and For All Mankind for your trial period.
 

Lakupo

Comes and goes with the wind
(he/him)
I'm not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure that was the point?
Maybe! The Foundation showrunner is a little crazy, he says he has an 8-year plan, and I'm like, "Good luck getting past three!" So, off-the-wall decisions like turning a pacifist solution seeker into gun-toting warden, maybe not so surprising.

Just Write made a video a month ago on how it misses the mark for a lot of reasons, which I mostly agree with. (like, there's just so much tech introduced in the show, it can't grapple with all of the ramifications of it) But again, Lee Pace, great! All of the stupid plot happening around Salvor Hardin, dumb! Like, you can't believe someone wrote it down and then filmed it, dumb.
 

zonetrope

(he/him)
I feel like the social commentary in Severance would be more scathing if it were more of a Brave New World equivalent of the same idea, where the work environment isn't so on-its-face oppressive and it was less obvious to the innies that they're living in hell. But that's basically asking for a different show, and the one they gave us is rad.
 
Maybe! The Foundation showrunner is a little crazy, he says he has an 8-year plan, and I'm like, "Good luck getting past three!" So, off-the-wall decisions like turning a pacifist solution seeker into gun-toting warden, maybe not so surprising.
The way I see it, I just think the entire idea of psychohistory, and The Foundation's entire premise is based on a lot of pretty dubious, classist, potentially racist ideas about how humanity works, and I thought it was delightful that the show seemed to pretty much rip into and actively disprove the ideas that the books - from my understanding - were writing about.
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
I've been watching Great British Baking Show: The Professionals. This is going to sound mean, but I guess I know what GBBS would be like if they sapped all the charm out of it.
You say this as if there was any charm remaining after Mel and Sue left
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Severance is amazing, especially the season finale, that was the absolute tensest thing. Definitely looking forward to season 2.
The season finale of Severence is the sort of thing that reminds me why I watch TV. It’s just such a satisfying hour of television and payoff for sticking with the show.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
The way I see it, I just think the entire idea of psychohistory, and The Foundation's entire premise is based on a lot of pretty dubious, classist, potentially racist ideas about how humanity works, and I thought it was delightful that the show seemed to pretty much rip into and actively disprove the ideas that the books - from my understanding - were writing about.
From what I read, for the author of the books, it doesn't seem like he put too much thought into the idea. He was on the way to his publisher to discuss new ideas, had none, and suddenly, because he was a History hobbyist, the idea of "Fall of the Roman Empire, in Space" came to him.

Not to say he didn't put much thought into it, but I think it was mainly a fun idea to toy around with. Which is probably also the reason, why his later stories break with the base idea, and have other groups actively interfering with the development of the Foundation. Simply because the idea of a "hero", in this case a state, who couldn't fail, bored him, but it was so popular that he couldn't stop writing.

I would have prefered to show to go with this, but still keeping the anthology format, with different moments being essential to the survival of the Foundation. Without it being focused on the action of this one, very specific person. Simply because I considere this Hero trope, of the one, single person, to be the only one able to save all of Humanity, to be not only horribly tiresome, but also actively bad. It's not how humans work, and it's not what we should teach people all the time. It's frustrating that the stories we tell always act like it is.

Foundation could still be about how a group is actively working, to steer this other group. I know that this is it's own problematic idea, but it's not like you could not also critizise this concept, of a group in the background trying to steer things.

If nothing else, I just wished it was less action-y, and simply an anthology. The Cleons were the best part of the show, and I think there was nearly no action there.
 
Without it being focused on the action of this one, very specific person. Simply because I considere this Hero trope, of the one, single person, to be the only one able to save all of Humanity, to be not only horribly tiresome, but also actively bad. It's not how humans work, and it's not what we should teach people all the time. It's frustrating that the stories we tell always act like it is.
You say this like the show is doing this, but to me it honestly feels like it’s doing the exact opposite?

The entire Cleon dynasty is this idea, and we’re continually seeing how it’s an idea that is broken/unresponsive at best, and a horrifying perversion of humanity at worst.

Harry Seldon is also this idea, where one singular man can decipher the future and guide it like a god. But he’s continually proven wrong in the show in little but important ways, and the model of his plans look grotesque and ignore individuals and their needs, the deeper the show explores them.

Harry’s designs has his apprentice girl being this singular integral hero-tool to help shape his plan, but he completely miscalculates her and she finds his plans horrifying, to the degree that it throws a giant wrench into things when she rebels.

Her daughter, the Warden, is also positioned as the singular hero, and yet all of her successes are only achieved because of countless others who work along side her to help as a community.

I think the show is pretty flawed in many ways, but I think there’s some interesting nuance to the scenario and how it portrays and discusses it’s themes.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I vaguely remember that the Cleons were counterpoints, I think. It's months since I binged it, so I already forgot many of the details. But there is a reason, aside from the action-y parts, that the Cleon story was my favourite. I think I wrote something about this in my post about the show, back then?

Harry Seldon is also this idea, where one singular man can decipher the future and guide it like a god. But he’s continually proven wrong in the show in little but important ways, and the model of his plans look grotesque and ignore individuals and their needs, the deeper the show explores them.

Harry’s designs has his apprentice girl being this singular integral hero-tool to help shape his plan, but he completely miscalculates her and she finds his plans horrifying, to the degree that it throws a giant wrench into things when she rebels.

His apprentice was the one I mainly thought about. The idea, that she very specifically, is necessary for the whole plan to succeed. It's just so very counter to what psychohistory is in the books, and to who Seldon is, too.

This gets somewhat rambly, might repeat stuff from the books you already know, and might reduce statistical methods a bit too much (while wording explanations badly), but I hope what I want to say comes across. In short, I just think the show doesn't understand how Psychohistory in the books works, and interprets Seldon in a very different way from the books. A change in interpretation I don't care for.

See, if you only have read the Foundation Trilogy (or maybe even only the first part), Seldon seems to be this all-knowing oracle, appearing at seemingly random intervals, and acting like he has everything planned out. I can't tell, what about the stuff that was later elaborated on was somewhat in Asimovs head from the start (honestly, probably not much, I think he just rolled with that basic idea he had), but it is made clear that Seldon is simply the person who thought about the idea of Psychohistory, and had then a team of mathematicians, historians and psychologists to work on it.

I will probably mangle, or at least explain badly, some statistical concepts. Sorry if I do, the basic ideas should be correct. I hope.

It's not like Psychohistory is something that you can use to perfectly plan out a course through the future. It is basically not that different from something like a linear regression, where you try to find a correlation between x and y (while, hopefully, remembering that correlation is not causation). It's a model, that uses existing data to extrapolate. If you find a correlation, you might be able to say "if x develops that way, y might, with a good chance, develop that way". The idea with psychohistory is just that, maybe, you can do the same thing with groups of humans. The basic idea is the same.

Psychohistory takes a ton of data, about which factors created which situation. With all this information, Seldons team could then play through different scenarios, to find out what they could influence to reduce the amount of time, until a new, strong Empire (or some other intergalactic body) could arise. In this case, it was simply to make sure that you have a group of people on Terminus, far away from the center of the Empire. This group would then be in a situation, where certain things would happen. But never perfectly sure, just with a certain probability.

Seldon never is a master manipulator. Granted, he manipulates people around him, but that is on an individual level. He never thinks, that he can perfectly predict the future. He just tried to create a mathematical tool, that would give him insight and therefore show him a way to, maybe, help civilization not collaps for 10000 years, or something. The predictive power of his model might be too strong, but that is just a basis for stories, that Asimov found interesting. But Seldon doesn't guide anything, he just made a very specific change (creating the settlement on Terminus), as this gave the highest chances. He calculated everything from there, with the clear knowledge that there was a margin of error.

As mentioned, Asimov grew bored with this idea, and basically shot the idea that Psychohistory would ever work to pieces himself. First, by using the Mule, a mutant, as a variable with a lot of influence, but also something Seldon couldn't use in his model, as he had no data for it. Which was always part of Psychohistory - the small, but existing, chance that the model wouldn't work. Seldon himself knew, that there was no 100% chance for that.

Later, he introduced the Second Foundation, a small group that could manipulate minds and were always there to make sure that, if something wasn't going according to plan (so if we were in the 1% chance of failure of the model), the problem would be corrected. It is made clear, that the influences were very small, and that this was just the correcting force, to make sure the Foundation would stay inside the probability of success.

Further on, we learn of another force, that also did some manipulation of this type. And that is ignoring the fact that, as time goes by, the predictions get less accurate. Which makes sense, as the possibilities keep growing.

Point is, even in-universe, it is made very clear that Psychohistory is flawed and needs additional help.

Ok, I'm rambling here, and not quite sure if I even got to your point anymore. I guess what I dislike is, that Psychohistory simply isn't what the show thinks it is. It's not this way of predicting the future perfectly, but to make predictions with a certain margin of error. The model in the books might be too strong, granted, but the idea simply came first. Psychohistory was just a tool, for the author.

Also, it's possible that I simply dislike the way Psychohistory and Seldon are interpreted, because the end result is essentially the same. So, maybe I'm complaining about a different thing than I think. I still think, that this show should contain no action (it's boring) and that these big battles should happen off-screen. We can do a show without action, and if it's well done, people might like it. Stop boring me with this stuff, I don't care. But I'm starting to ramble again, sorry, going now. I hope I didn't write anything too absurd. But I spent too much time on this already, and don't want to erase it, so I'll just post it now, and hope for the best.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Pretty late to the Wednesday party but I recently finished it and enjoyed the series overall, though it makes a few inexplicable decisions.

Gotta agree with the general sentiment that the Addams Family works best when the characters are thrust among normal folks and the entertainment comes from the clash that ensues, so setting the series at Diet Hogwarts was a strange decision. Not to mention it raises other questions that the series won't address (not only are the Addams's NOT uniquely weird in the world, it implies they're even part of definable 'types' of outcasts. But if so, what is Gomez? We know Morticia has visions, passed to Wednesday, and even though Fester couldn't make the cut academically he clearly has electric abilities, but Gomez? He's just kind of a weird gremlin I guess? Does that count for Nevermore? Why was he there exactly?)

The greater mystery in the season was interesting, though it very quickly became obvious who the monster was around the time the gang went to the spooky house, when Love Interest A got 'attacked' by the monster but we never see it, that was basically giving the game away.

The big confrontation with the ultimate big bad was a bit dumb, but I do love a 'reluctant friends coming together' trope so I can forgive it. Not Wednesday delivering cheesy one-lines though, "Howdy Pilgrim." no more of that please she's better than that.

It occasionally got a bit too cheeky with its callbacks (the 'snap twice' password, Wednesday straight up being called 'kooky' and saying she preferred 'spooky', Christina Ricci's character saying she thought she and Wednesday were a lot alike and getting immediately shot down), but at worst these were eye-rolling.

The real heart of the show, though, was... well, the hand. Probably the best version of Thing yet. Helped that it was neither animatronic nor CGI (aside from digitally removing the rest of the actor's arm) so the other actors were interacting with a real, well, Thing.

Not a huge fan of Wednesday being put in a love triangle being part of the story, probably the biggest misstep besides the setting. Let Wednesday be Wednesday, don't try to shoehorn in tired old teen drama cliches.

Still, looking forward to where it goes for season 2. Hopefully they learn the right lessons from this first outing.

i have many of the same thoughts as you but overall i did not enjoy the series. for me the biggest stumbling block was them trying to create Lore and Grounding The Addams. in the 90s movies, everything exists for the sake of a joke, you're not supposed to think too hard about the logistics, you're just supposed to roll with it. but Wednesday is like, "oh no, gomez might have committed a murder and that's bad, and he might go to jail for that and that's also bad" and "Wednesday goes to an Edgar Allen Poe Ghoul School For Babby Monsters, but everyone thinks she's weird for being a goth, and so the Addams are still considered weirdos even amongst the Weirdos," and you have Wednesday herself acting like the 90s movie character where she talks about serial killings and being macabre and whatnot, all while she's trying to stop a serial killer (and like, one of the worst of her actual actions is sending mouse traps to an editor who didn't like her book), so it sort of deflates the character from being a fun part of an ensemble to a really dorky edgelord teen who we're supposed to think is the coolest badass around.

jenna ortega did a good job, but oof the material.
We just finished Wednesday. I didn't mind the setting, it's not really an Addams show so much as a small town murderteen magic school show, but also Wednesday Addams is there. They keep things mostly in the realm of old movie monster material, which is 100% in the Addams wheelhouse, and whenever an Addams shows up, they act how you'd expect them to act. They keep the heart of the franchise intact, in that the family is eminently functional and adore each other, even if that aspect is a teensy part of this particular show.

I do agree that the lore is kind of dumb, though. I was particularly annoyed at trying to frame a boarding school full of rich kids as a persecuted minority defending themselves against blue collar townies. When your main character has generational wealth you don't really get to play that card. I rolled my eyes when the flashback had Goody Addams all "we get along with the native folk" like oh see the Addams were good colonists, not like those mean bad colonists.

It's kind of just Fine overall, but Ortega reaaaaally elevates the material. Really great range for a character who has the same expression 90% of the time.
 
Velma wrapped up, and man. What a miserable series, lol.

Mindy Kaling sounds like she's bored and phoning in her lines the entire time. The jokes mostly fall flat. The entire show feels like it's written by Gen Xers who have no idea what high school/teenagers are up to these days.

But I think the thing that makes the show kinda unforgivably awful is that the show just seems to hate Scooby Doo haha. Like, imagine if you were watching a Scooby Doo cartoon, but The Gang were all as awful people as the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia characters.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I got about 3-4 episodes in, realized I wasn’t having fun, then decided I’d be better served digging into the decades worth of Scooby I haven’t seen. It’s just such a frowny face of a show.

The weirdest change is turning Shaggy into such a milquetoast nothing of a character. He’s one of the only parts of the franchise that’s never needed tweaking and they just threw out everything fun.
 
Shaggy isn't a bad person, unlike the other three. But it feels like they basically said "let's make him the exact opposite of who he normally is". So he's not nervous ever, he's strangely hyper-competent, very dependable, courageous, he hates drugs, he's an active go-getter, he's very eloquent and thoughtful, etc. The only real personality trait that he has, is that he's a massive simp for Velma. Like, a complete doormat of a human being for someone who treats him like garbage at the best. It's very off putting for both characters, because it feels bad to watch a character you like be such a humongous asshole to another character you like. Oh, also there's no actual Scooby Doo in this show either, so his bff is gone. Though there is very obvious plot devices to insert him in at a later date should they choose to do so.

To the show's credit, the ending of Season 1 seems to put a lot of the characters in a position where they could possibly transform into better people, and into the kinds of people we're more accustomed to. But if Season 1 was a success while raking the characters over the coals enough to merit a sequel, I can't see such a self-indulgent team of writers/Mindy Kaling doing an actual course correction because they clearly delighted in this kind of humor and taking the piss out of this concept.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I really enjoy Golden Girls, but damn, I really, really dislike, that Dorothy gets back together with Stan. He is awful, and she could do so much better (with someone else, or just on her own). Just frustrating, seeing how the show tries to bring them back together. It feels like he slowly whittles down her resistance, by acting like he is a decent, human being.

It's also what stuck from the ending, from when I watched it forever ago - that the show ends by them marrying again. Maybe I remember wrong (I hope so), but ugh, don't like.
 

Daikaiju

Rated Ages 6+
(He, Him)
Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur is like a modern SatAM cartoon with a decent budget, and I am here for it.
 

ASandoval

Old Man Gamer
(he/him)
It's also what stuck from the ending, from when I watched it forever ago - that the show ends by them marrying again. Maybe I remember wrong (I hope so), but ugh, don't like.

You're remembering wrong. Dorothy marries Leslie Nielsen. Her and Stan do reconcile theur differences in the finale, though.
 
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