Topic: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?

[6pairsofshoes]

Somehow, I can't credit the frequent conspicuous appearance of Miller Lite on that show to cinéma vérité.  Call me a cynic, but I just chalked it up to product placement.  Given the hispanic ethnicity of most of the characters, you'd at least expect to see a little Dos Equis once in a while. 

I fully understand that the show is primarily aimed at an english speaking demographic, so I can give a pass to the fact that the characters all speak English most of the time--I don't think the show would do as well with subtitles.  A little more funding for second languages in elementary schools would help rectify that.  I still regret that I didn't begin studying spanish until I was in 8th grade.  I can follow the conversations most of the time, but still, I feel hampered. 

[8ullfrog]

Starting with season 6, they're really starting to do more behind the scenes features on the program with SG-1, I dig it. I mean I doubt they'll keep being as in depth as the first disc, they essentially broke down how they did all the effects shots and it was great.

I really want the giant pool they used for the... wait that would be a spoiler. poo. Anyway, they shot an episode with a giant pool, it's like an entire warehouse filled with water. Olympic size swimming pool eat your heart out.

If I was rich, I wouldn't want a yacht, or fancy cars, or anything like that. I'd want on demand fast food, bedroom with it's own bathroom attached, and this warehouse pool.

[goldshirt*9]

Rugby world cup

[8ullfrog]

I'm not sure why I'm still watching Titans, but this one was particularly bad.

Like Adam west batman bad. Deathstroke has Robin tied to a bomb, can richard Grayson save him in time? Find out next week, same bat time, same shitty streaming service!

[6pairsofshoes]

Mayans MC is predictable, but still good.  A fine cast, including some real skin crawling bad guys.  I've basically run out of TV to watch besides that and SG1.  It reminds me of visits to the video store where despite the hundreds of films, I could rarely find anything I felt like watching.

Eziekiel has a negative trajectory and it's just gotten worse.  We see corruption and a slow sinking into amorality among several of the main characters.  That does seem to be a motorcycle club that would put some teams of Navy seals to shame, though.  Brilliant strategists, despite their crap taste in beer.

[8ullfrog]

I have that feeling with xmovies, so much to choose from, so little I actually care for.

I'm up to 7 on SG-1, if that isn't a spoiler, it goes to 10, then there are two films.

The last episode on the first disk, ORPHEUS, had weird load errors that crashed VLC. I've noted it in my review. I've been dutifully punching them into notepad so they're nice and ready if you choose to catch up. I've noticed several episodes that just drag like golly, and I would not blame you for not enjoying them. And like, three that are absolute gems.

Apparently my dislike of that last episode of titans must deepen, they've pulled the same loathsome trick they did in 1988 - They've put Jason Todd on the block of a public opinion poll.

I'm guessing it's a DC universe members poll, as I can't find it. back in 88 it was a 900 number. Vote if the kid lives or dies. 88 killed him.

Hah, all my bitching and I absolutely enjoyed this episode. The only sour note is that they once again ended the episode on a cliffhanger.

The dog who plays Krypto is a talented actor. A very different take on Lex Luthor's father here, and we get an answer on Robin's survival.

Only for Superboy to get gutshot. With kryptonite bullets no less. I imagine a through and through would be painful, require a long period of healing, but be survivable.

If those things were hollow points, SB is bent.

[8ullfrog]

Ah, it was a TV shooting. Two small bandage squares, and a hospital bed. If your shirt is missing, you're half dead.

Jorah the Andal is a foul mouthed ghost of Bruce Wayne. (Bruce Wayne is alive)  He does the Battousi on stage with two strippers.

Titans jumps into the nudity pool/

They did do the radiation bullet thing. The solution was pretty neat, I like when powers are used for things other than fighting.

They keep trying to circle back to this "five years ago" Jericho thing, and it's honestly the least interesting thing in the season. Deathstroke is about as fascinating as dry toast dipped in tap water.

I'm guessing the next episode will be an extended flashback sequence.

Once again, the dog is one of the best actors in the series.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm assuming that by "Jorah the Andal" you mean Iain Glen.  He's one of those talented British actors who seems to be everywhere.  We like to say, "that guy gets a lot of work" when we see actors like that.

He's got a reasonable range, also.  His Wikipedia page is pretty impressive to that end.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Glen
James Norton, who, on Grantchester, plays a dishy vicar with a penchant for the music of the American clarinetist, Sidney Bechet, is equally convincing as a psychotic rapist on Happy Valley.  The British take their theatre seriously and acting is a real craft across the pond.  We just like to watch them perform.

[smokester]

I've been totally glued to the Rugby World Cup since its commencement and it's really been thrilling.

I'm sad about Japan's elimination but there could still be a shock winner. Who knows?..

I'm talking about Wales, Goldie, not England!

[6pairsofshoes]

I've never seen a rugby match, except on tv.  It might be good to learn to play.  It's like Ur Football, right?

The Naval Academy in Annapolis has a rugby team.  They distributed bumper stickers that said, "it takes leather balls to play rugby" to advertise the team.

[8ullfrog]

You've mentioned Mayans a few times. Kurt Suter managed to get himself fired off Mayans, managed to call himself "an abrasive richard".

Like, if someone else said that, sure. I doubt many people enjoy working with richard Wolf. But saying that yourself? C'mon edge lord, you can write all the Marilyn Manson rape scenes you want, it just makes you look like a weirdo. And Marilyn Manson likes it!

[smokester]

I've never seen a rugby match, except on tv.  It might be good to learn to play.  It's like Ur Football, right?

The Naval Academy in Annapolis has a rugby team.  They distributed bumper stickers that said, "it takes leather balls to play rugby" to advertise the team.

There are 2 types of rugby: union and league. Rugby union is the real business end of the game and not for the faint hearted. Rugby league however, while less physical, is faster paced and can sort of be a rugby union "highlights" show.

I'm a union man myself.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm kind of a sports ignoramus.  So I went to Wikipedia to look it up.  I didn't realize that Rugby is the name of the school in Warwickshire where the current sport was established in the mid-19th century.  Lord only knows what they play in Annapolis.  There have been collegiate teams in the US since the 19th century and they have a collegiate rugby union (including women's teams) with intercollegiate divisions that compete amongst themselves.  But how their rules compare to those adopted by the two divisions in the UK is not clear, nor was I able after digging a while, to figure it out.

I got the impression that Union rugby in the UK was established among teams that paid their players so the business end makes sense.  It's not clear if there are different sets of rules or variations in play between them and league rugby.

[goldshirt*9]

I've never seen a rugby match, except on tv.  It might be good to learn to play.  It's like Ur Football, right?

To watch live is an experience, not always the game but the fan integration and friendly rivalry plus copious amounts of beer

[8ullfrog]

Jack Ryan Season 2 is much better than Jack Ryan Season 1. It's more like a movie. I feel like in the first season, aside from being the perpetually regurgitated Osama Bin Laden plot, you could see the seams, it was clearly a streaming production.

In Season 2, it's just the cars. These are clearly rental cars, whatever the hell they put them through. Bad guys get away a bit too much for my liking, stretching things out, but it is a fantastic season. I can't recommend the first season, and you're not missing much if you jump right in on 2, which is interesting.

There was a lot of speculation that a character in the first season was John Clark, they kill him off here, and I think it's a disservice. They already have to re-jigger the timeline, I don't get why this guy had to die.

Like, the event that really catapulted Jack Ryan into the public eye (In the original timeline) was when he saved Chuck and Di from Sean Bean. They changed it to a lower station guy in the movie, but I think that was a disservice, it was a hell of a thing having Chuck throw down with Irish terrorists at a dinner party in a thunderstorm.  The book stuff on how Jack Ryan had to decline a knighthood because of AMERICA was funny too.

Nowadays, they'd have to juggle that into being one of Chuck's sons!  I dare say both would fare a bit better than actual chuck in a firefight.

Then again, maybe the last episode will end horribly. I've liked it so far, but felt like a nasty twist is waiting in the wings.

Alright, I watched the last episode, and the nasty twist didn't end up what I thought it would be.

I really like that. A lot of shows tentpole show you what is going to happen, and spoon-feed the rest of the episode.

They didn't do that here.

Things did get a little Jingo, but when did Tom Clancy NOT?

All in all, I give S2 a thumbs up, when S1 was a thumb sideways. It was a promising season, but the bad guys were same old, same old. Here, we got a yarn worthy of Clancy.

And a dead man gets an executive producer credit.