Whatchu Watchin?

[Jumpin]

1. Shrinking - Still watching and caught up, the last episode was great.

2. Dickinson - this one wasn’t my choice. It’s about American poet I’ve never even heard of, I was wondering to myself “How could this possibly be interesting?” But I think all the anachronisms makes it quite entertaining, kind of like A Knights Tale. The series is complete and is around 30 episodes long, starring Hailey Steinfeld (the voice actress who played Anna from When Marnie was There, at least that’s what I know her from)

3. Picard - I’m on season 1, it’s not so much a Star Trek than an Asimovian style science fiction story taking place in the Star Trek universe (and some elements of Blade Runner). It also delves deeper into Romulan society than any other show before, explaining the difference in look and attitude between the Romulans in TNG and TOS as being a racial-cultural thing. The Northerners being the rougher more militaristic ones we see in TNG, and the Southerners being the more human-like ones we see in TOS. There is also some racism, at least from the Southerners to the Northerners. If watching a Star Trek episode first, I’d say Offspring from TNG is the best one to kind of kick off the story, it also discusses events of Nemesis, but these are more to set up why Data isn’t there—and Synthetics are incredibly important to this story. The story of the first season was written by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon (known, outside of his films and writing for his criticism of the state of short fiction being dominated by the trend of plotless “moment of truth” stories). Anyway, without spoiling much, Picard starts with a mysterious girl arriving at his home, she’s hunted by the Romulan Tal Shiar, she has hidden abilities, additionally, it’s discovered that synthetic life plays a strong role in the story: synthetics had been banned by Star Fleet, and Picard had a difference of opinion which led to his resignation and loss of faith in Star Fleet. These are the elements of the ground floor of the mystery that they’re uncovering.

4. Star Trek Discovery - Just started this one, it’s much more a classic Star Trek style show merged with Battle Star Galactica feeling with the aesthetic of Star Trek 2009. Not much about this one, other than it seems to deal with the conflict between the Klingons and the Federation, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one that happened right before the events of TOS. This one is made by the guy that made Star Trek 2009. It’s less my style of show than Picard, but I like the whole cast. Despite the criticism of the show, I’m finding it more consistently good than any previous Star Trek series (except TOS, which I find is only held back by its low 1960s production values, but is great in almost every episode if you use your imagination a little).

5. Bob’s Burgers - A classic Simpsons style show with its own unique style of humour. I’ve seen hundreds of episodes, and the show is much more consistent than the Simpsons or South Park. Simpsons and South Park may look kind of the same, but the sorts of stories and humour seem to move with the times - Bob’s Burgers is fairly static where it is.

6. Paper Girls (EDIT) - recommended this one by the Kevin Smith podcast. Almost forgot it… this one is great! It starts off like Stranger Things, except is probably a little more reminiscent to how kids actually acted in the 80s (a little more attitude). One of the girls has the same style as Edward Furlong’s John Conner. It’s unfortunate the show was cancelled after 8 episodes. It was very well received by critics, but wasn’t popular enough. I think it’s great, has a very interesting setup, and I just saw something REALLY awesome stores in a silo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s basically the plan for this month.

I’m not overly familiar with Amazon. Is it similar to Netflix? As in a graveyard of unfinished shows?

Last edited by Jumpin - on 11 March 2023