There is no one like Rian Johnson making Benoit Blanc movies.
His influence naturally yielded many copies. But none understood what made his films so great.
„The Residence“ started very well, and it had a great central character. But the series format demands dragging out the story, and after two hours you get the impression that any conclusion would have to be more clever than it ever could be to justify the wait.
But isnt america awesome!
Fuck, i hated that ending
The Sandbaggers ‘Special Relationship’ (last episode of the first season) - as bleak and as cynical as it gets*. After the initial setup I was constantly thinking how Burnside might wiggle out of the stranglehold. This I didn’t see coming.
Another episode with incredibly strong writing, keeping the tension up with a minimum of action - and when it finally comes it kicks like a mule. Also really showing the dramatic potential of the M-figure (though Burnside isn’t M; he’s middle management coming from the ranks of field personnel and was a Sandbagger himself before he became section chief).
*And a cautionary tale about workplace relationships and why one best avoids them, just as an aside.
Just watched the second season of Halo, sad to end it like this…But: I want to see Pablo Schreiber as Batman. He looks like he could rip the new Superman to shreds with his bare hands!
And he should have been Jack Reacher, too…Alan Ritchson is very good but he is just too pretty for it (and not tall enough 
)
I loved Hannibal, so more would be brilliant!
Aha?
For international outreach you need to release your streamer outside of the US…can see why your company is having money problems.
I’ve just finished The Assassin on Amazon Prime. A retired assassin attempts to reconnect with her estranged son while they are caught up in an international conspiracy.
This was a lot of fun, a mix of globe-trotting, action, intrigue, with a wonderfully dark sense of humour. The ever-reliable Keeley Hawes is great in the lead, and Freddie Highmore is suitably awkward as her son.
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025 documentary featuring Sarah McLachlan and other musicians who were part of the Lilith Fair tours, shown on CBC’s Documentary Channel): It’s hard for me to believe that there are many who have no idea what Lilith Fair was. It’s also hard for me to be reminded that, in many ways, we are living in regressive times.
The very reality of Lilith Fair, whose rosters were made up primarily of women, made me think we were at a point when no one would doubt the power and commercial viability of female musicians. Yet, listening to the vapid questions McLachlan and the others fielded during press conferences made me realize that it wasn’t such an enlightened age then, either.
It’s frustrating to see where we are now, compared with where we seemed to be going then. McLachlan has a lot to say about that, and how she came to a place of speaking out, rather than politely taking the path of least resistance, as she’d been raised to do. Her reentry into the music scene with a new album, Better Broken, is well timed. I’m glad she’s still taking a stand.
ALIEN EARTH
So I am not eating my hat again.
While this show has intelligent ideas, I was bored from the first episode onwards due to the basic misunderstanding of what the first movie made so special.
You can pour on philosophical discussions on it, you can rethink the characters and make them younger, you can expand on the alien being, you can even transfer it to Earth.
But you still end up with people being hunted by a monster.
And the length of a tv show just drags this out.
Despite all the attempts to refreshen the formula it still boils down to the same, only reheated ad nauseam.
The first sequel was great because Cameron understood he can only expand on the Ripley character and the funhouse horror. The second sequel worked only because it brought Ripley‘s character to a close.
Anything else is just IP zombiefication.
The New Avengers S2E2 Angels of Death.
I’m visiting my parents at the moment, and last night, after flipping through the channels, my dad settled on this particular episode.
Although I have an awareness of The Avengers/ New Avengers, this isn’t something I usually watch. I’ve caught bits and pieces over the years, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever watched a whole episode start to finish. I gather the plot, which involved a health spa killing key government workers while making it look like natural causes (and forcing them to run a deadly maze) is a normal day on the job.
What really struck me about this particular episode was the cast. The ‘Angels of Death’ included Caroline Munro, Lindsay Duncan and Pamela Stephenson. They would have been early roles for Duncan and Stephenson, but Munro had appeared in a bunch of Hammer Horrors, and the episode aired in 1977, the same year as The Spy Who Loved Me.
The Avengers came a looooooooong way in the course of its run (Steed originally wore the spy uniform of suit and trench coat until the shoestring budget of the first season forced Macnee to supplement his own wardrobe, including the bowler and brolly early on). After being paired with a succession of civilian partners the final season of the original run introduced Tara King, a junior colleague in The Ministry.
For The New Avengers the producers made that two junior agents working more or less directly for Steed as their boss. Episodes could entail a broad range of themes, from traditional Cold War shenanigans to continuations of original episodes (those robots, again) to Nazis keeping the brain of Hitler ready for re-use. The first episode ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ features Peter Cushing in a suitably horror-themed adventure. And of course Joanna Lumley once played Jessica Van Helsing in one of Hammer’s last Dracula films.
I also watched Angels of Death a couple of days ago, not surprising because it was and is one of my favorite series and I have a dvd box with the complete serie. When I was a boy we all, the guys from my school, try to watch it, I say “try” because it was way too late for us in the seventies and also it was seen as too violent, but we all wanted to be Gambit and wanted to marry Purdey sometime somewhere in the future.
I still like the serie a lot and I understand why I like it as a kid.
Magnee is still charming and powerful, Gambit has unbelievable fighting skills and is a sharpshooter and Purdey is still WOW! I still wanna marry her (not if she looks like Patsy from AbFab).
What I thought was unfortunate, even as a kid, was how we went from Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel, who was adamantly self-sufficient, to Linda Thorson’s damsel-in-distress Tara King. It felt like such a letdown. I was happy to see Thorson in later roles and realize that she was really quite good … just not ideal (IMO) for The Avengers.
I didn’t see The New Avengers (not to be confused with the Marvel series) until decades later. My husband was a Joanna Lumley fan and introduced me to the series. It struck me as being more lightweight than the original. I have since enjoyed Lumley in her travel documentaries.
The Avengers evolved through each season, starting out with two consecutive male doctors as partners, then the nightclub singer Venus Smith, until it largely found its legs with Cathy Gale. But it never stopped evolving and Thorson was a bold choice to follow Rigg, coming fresh from drama school. She had zero tv experience and was asked to shed weight for the part (as was Macnee, from 14 to 12 stone forcing costume department to take in all of Steed’s suits; sprightly Steed indeed). Plus, Fennell and Clemens were replaced, some episodes were shot, then the two were asked back and threw out the already shot work.
Over the next few months Thorson became a lot more comfortable in her role, but Tara King suffered from the start from the producers’ aim to make her not Peel. The writing was all over the place with her, supposedly a trained agent (as opposed to the civilians until then), yet initially more a damsel in distress before she would judo throw adversaries over her shoulder. And they made her a single woman and a bit more obviously in love with Steed than her married predecessors.
A lot came together with that season of The Avengers but the program sold well and was a strong money earner - but the US market was the make or break and the show was put against one of the most popular shows at the time and ABC soon decided they didn’t want more than that final batch of 33 episodes. Even with the earnings from all the other markets it was too expensive to produce and the spy thing had run its course already (although The Avengers was more fantastic-Kafka-spy by then).
That was the end of the original series - and its New Avengers incarnation would actually fare even worse with the economic climate of Britain in the late 70s. Even with the Anglo-French-Canadian coproduction, improved budgets and production values, the show ran into difficulties (proudly advertised British designer garb didn’t connect with the backers; proudly hired British vehicles failed to start), storylines weren’t considered racy enough, more sex and shots were introduced - but in the end the show simply fell through with the audience and ratings didn’t allow a further season. The New Avengers went out with a whimper.
In Germany ‘Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone’ was a huge success - but only the Peel and King episodes were bought and saw several reruns in the 70s. When news dropped there was a new show German audiences got to see only seven from the first batch of 13 episodes in the spring/summer of 1978, when the horse was already dead and buried.
Reception was lukewarm so no further episodes were picked up for dubbing. German audiences only got to see the entire 26 episodes in 1991 when private broadcasters demanded huge heaps of content to fill their 24/7 programming. It was hacked into handy pieces between ads for coffee and kitchen cleaners and broadcast with the Peel/King seasons on the Sunday morning circuit when rival stations showed cartoons. Only a few years ago one of our culture public broadcasters picked up the entire run from the earliest Keel episodes, dubbed them and gave them a decent daily slot during their summer programme.
Whilst i have it in my head, who has thoughts on Only Murders In The Building? Im lost, not in a bad way
USING A PHONE SO I CANT USE SPOILER TAGS
the Casino owership seems key but im not buying bridget jones did all of this to beat Brofeld and dude bro. I feel like im missing somesting…in a good way, its fun.
Haven’t started this season yet - although I must say that the previous one left me a little meh. It’s still something I want to watch. The obligation to prolong it season for season, however, has left its mark on the show.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 3)
This show, however, gets better and better. Season 3 is my favourite so far, offering compelling drama and laugh out loud comedy, with perfect actors and just the right mix of nostalgic kicks and innovative perspectives.
Really hoping the rumour is true that they will continue with a different take on the original series. The new Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty and Chapel already work extremely well in this one.
I somewhat agree, whilst I’m still enjoying it with its character dynamics and the format of inviting the audience to try and solve it, it does feel like a series that has an expire date that they are much closer to than they seem to think.