A Green Mushroom

The Crown is the latest Netflix Original that my wife and I checked out and we simply love it.  It's a show about Queen Elizabeth and Season 1 is all about her transition to Queen when her father dies. It deals with British monarchy, has a fantastic cast, and is really good drama.  I don't know how to sell it though.  I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of a way to explain why I like it. I don't watch a lot of straight up dramas.  I guess this isn't quite that, since it is a historical piece and seems to be historically accurate.  Maybe part of the appeal is being an American and just not having a Monarchy.  It seems so foreign and interesting. But part of it is just that the cast, setting, and plot are great. My only complaint is that there's only one season so far!  We finished it and immediately wanted more! If anything above sounds interesting you should most definitely check it out.

Luke Cage is good!  If you're on the fence about trying it out, you really should.  It might not be for everyone, but I think it's a great addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Luke Cage is all about Harlem, coming to terms with your past, community, and culture.  It's also about street level superheroes and gang warfare. Just as much as Jessica Jones or Daredevil, Luke Cage is about it's villains.  They get at least equal screen time to the main hero cast of characters.  This character development on both sides makes confrontations and payoffs feel like they have true weight. Overall, Luke Cage has just made me even more excited for Iron Fist and The Defenders.  I can't wait to see all these New York street heroes come together to form a rag-tag team.  There are some nods to this in the story, especially with a recurring crossover character from the other Netflix MCU shows. I still think Jessica Jones is the best season of TV Marvel h...

I don't really watch cartoons and haven't since I was a kid.  That's why it totally caught me off guard when I had a ton of people recommend the new Netflix Original Voltron series to me.  These are people I trust who know my taste, so I gave it a shot. And... I really liked it.  I didn't think I would, but I did.  I watched the entire first season that's available on Netflix right now and I'll definitely dive into a season two if they decide to make one. It's fun and it's a throwback to when I was a kid and everyone needed the color coded power to transform into better versions of themselves and then get giant mechs.  Although I was more of a Power Rangers kid and Voltron passed me by I still see enough similarities in this new one to truly enjoy it. I can easily recommend this show to anyone who likes cartoons, Sentai shows , or was a kid in the 90s.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

I don't watch a ton of documentaries but this one came highly recommended from a friend and I saw it on some "most underrated movies" lists so I thought I would check it out. The Barkley Marathons is really good.  It's about a crazy marathon that most people consider to be the most difficult marathon in the world.  It consists of five loops through a 20+ mile course in the mountains of Tennessee. It's an ultra marathon that's grueling and runs for 60 hours.  The participants have 12 hours to complete each loop of the course. Did I mention that the course is unmarked?  And mostly off trails?  So not only are you covering that distance, you're also navigating through the wilderness while you do it. When you get back to camp between loops you can take a break but you need to get back out there and get started on your next loop soon. I didn't know what to think going into this documentary but within the first 10 minutes I was hooked and throu...

I finally got through Season 2 of Agents of Shield.  It was tough. I really liked the momentum at the end of Season 1 but it felt almost entirely gone at the beginning of Season 2.  After struggling through almost ten episodes I decided to ask a friend if it was safe to just skip ahead. It was the best decision! After a few episodes it was obvious which direction they were taking the main storylines... they just needed to hurry up and get there! Episode 19 is where things really start picking up.  The main team is finally back together to run an interesting operation and then the episode ties into Age of Ultron also. At this point I'm starting to realize that Agents of Shield is best when it's tying into the greater MCU and at it's worst when it's biding time.  I really hope that Season 3 finally has better pacing when I give it a shot.

House of Cards season 4 gets the series back on track compared to season 3.  Where season 3 found the Underwoods in power... it didn't really know what to do with it and the season stagnated. Season 4 takes a few episodes to transition from that feeling to new sorts of intrigue and shifts in power and it's all the better for it! Claire truly gets to shine this season and she ends up being an even more interesting character than Francis.  I actually found myself wanting him in the show less so that she could be in it more. It's also nice to see all the threads from previous seasons start to pull together as the past catches up to the Underwoods.  And the season finale left me wanting more, which is always a great sign. After season 3 I didn't know if I would keep going with this show but after watching season 4 I know that I'll jump into season 5 as soon as it's available!

DareDevil season two is so much better than season one!  It's on Netflix and if you made it through season 1 you definitely need to go watch season two! Where season 1 was full of inconsistent pacing and quality, season two is good all the way through.  I really came away from season one feeling very "meh" about it.  I wasn't sure if I would come back for season two but a friend convinced me to at least give it a shot and watch the first episode.  He was so right. Season two picks up and gets moving so much faster now that we have all that annoying origin story out of the way.  At this point I realize I just hate superhero origin stories.  They tend to be boring and take way too long.  Season one was basically one long origin story.  Season two tells an actual story with the characters. Speaking of characters, The Punisher is super interesting.  I've never read about him before, I just kinda knew he existed.  This incarnation o...

Agents of Shield is a weird series for me.  I really wanted to like it when it came out.  I watched the first handful of episodes but it completely failed to captivate me.  I drifted away around episode 6 or so. I just came back to the series and finally picked up where I left off.  A lot of people I trust told me that it gets better but you have to give it time. This is very true.  Around episode 16 the show starts tying into the events of Captain America: Winter Soldier where Hydra has infiltrated Shield and basically destroys Shield from within. Before this, the characters started growing on me, but the plot was basically worthless.  It was super boring.  But, once Hydra makes their move and starts destroying Shield from within the plot picks up a lot.  Not to mention that you never know which one of the characters might be a sleeper agent. I still wish it were paced better.  The first half of the season isn't that great and th...

I don't know what I expected from Fuller House, but it blew away whatever those expectations were.  I had no idea if this show would click with me... but it definitely did. It's weird in a way because it's a 90s show made in 2016 through and through.  The production values and topics have been updated but the characters and the structure of a given episode feel straight out of the 90s. It's basically the same show as the original Full House... but somehow it works.  It just works. I was a TGIF kid.  If you don't know, TGIF was a block of shows that aired on prime time every Friday night.  Most people from my generation would tune in for at least one show in the block, if not all of them.  I remember many Friday nights ordering pizza and watching TGIF. Fuller House sees almost the entire old cast return to make cameos and be part of the story.  But the new main cast of the show are three of the kids from the old show (played by the same ac...

I've still been working through my list of shows to try and I've found myself bouncing off a few more after a couple episodes. Legends of Tomorrow I liked the premise of this one.  A team of B-List superheroes and villains from the current DC superhero shows team up to fight and enemy that is going to destroy the timeline.  It's a superhero time travel show!  The pilot had me interested and then the first few episodes after it completely lost me.  It got boring, and stuck in the 1970s for some reason.  If this gets critical acclaim later I might come back and check it out again but for now it's lost my attention. iZombie A cool premise of a zombie show where our zombie protagonist is perfectly functional in human society because she got a job at the morgue and can eat brains regularly.  The brains let her relive some of the memories of the dead person, as well as pick up their skills or quirks.  Unfortunately it quickly became a police proc...

After loving The Flash so much I thought I would check out Arrow.  I enjoyed the characters during crossover episodes so I thought it might be another show I would have fun with, especially since it's in the same universe as The Flash. Unfortunately, this is another show I quickly bounced off of.  After watching the first few episodes I moved onto a "best of" list and even then the show failed to grab me.  It takes itself way too seriously and tries to be dark and gritty... but mostly fails. I've determined that I like the characters and actors of Arrow as written by the team in charge of The Flash.  In the future, when it comes to Arrow, I'll be sticking to crossover episodes only.  But hey, I still really like what DC is doing with The Flash!

I marathoned The Flash Season 1 in three days.  I haven't had a show hook me like this in... I honestly don't know how long. In the first season The Flash is easily one of the best superhero shows I've ever seen.  Every single episode drives the overall season-spanning story arc forward.  And the show moves along at a really good pace within each episode as well.  Pacing is super important to me.  When shows get too slow I get bored, tune out, and give up on them.  That didn't happen at all throughout the first season of this show. It even ended on a cliffhanger that makes me really  want to jump into season 2 immediately.  So, I probably will. One of the coolest things about The Flash is how much fun Barry Allen has being The Flash.  It's not some grimdark angsty superhero like so often happens.  From the very first episode Barry thinks his powers are awesome.  He has fun with them while training and while saving people. ...

After really enjoying the pilot of Star Trek: Enterprise I was quickly let down by the following episodes. Although I have to say, I really like the show's intro that walks through the history of flight and space travel.  I know it gets a ton of hate too, but it's actually one of my favorite Star Trek openings.  It has some character to it. After not clicking with the first few episodes after the pilot, I did what I have with a couple other series lately... I looked up a "best episodes" list.  Doing so let me sample the best of what Star Trek: Enterprise has to offer.  And honestly, some of these episodes are just as good as any other Star Trek show. The problem is that there aren't many of them. Most of the best episodes in the series tend to break the normal formula of a Star Trek episode.  That's when you can tell both the actors and writers are truly at their best. It's kind of funny, I find myself once again drawn to some of the time tr...

In this final season of Voyager it seems like the writers are finally having fun with the existing crew again.  I bet they feel confident that they can start wrapping up character arcs since it's the last season and it really shows. The characters all have moments that develop them further and it's great to see.  I love that two of the main characters, Tom and Be'lanna, finally get married.  It took basically the whole series, but that's ok.  They also get pregnant!  It's really good to see characters reach the completion of their arcs. It's great to slowly see the crew get more and more contact with Star Fleet as they get closer to home.  Some of my favorite episodes of the season were ones involving contact with Star Fleet after so much time apart. There's an episode where the Doctor gets to fight for his legal right to be acknowledged as a person and not an object.  While he doesn't get full legal acknowledgment as a person he does get leg...

I think that after writing this story for six seasons the writers are mostly out of new ideas.  There's a ton of reset TV this season. I was able to fly through this season because so many of the episodes were fast-forwardable or skippable. Again, new characters are shoehorned in where they aren't needed, like the Borg children.  It feels like they ran out of new ideas for the existing crew so the need to tack on extra characters to have it feel fresh.  Instead, I just don't care about the new characters. That being said, there are now some episodes that feel like they will lead to the conclusion of the series.  There's an especially cool one that mostly takes place in San Fransico.  There's a Star Fleet officer obsessed with re-establishing contact with Voyager now that they know the crew is alive.  In the end he's able to make contact for a minute or two and Voyager gets to trade ship logs and information with Star Fleet. By the end of the sea...

This is the first season of Voyager that seems full of pointless episodes.  This is where "reset TV" rears it's ugly head. A lot of TV shows in the 80s and 90s were set up so that they basically wrapped up every episode so neatly that you could watch it the next week without having missed anything.  Up through season 4 I felt like most of the Voyager episodes at least had some character development that pushed things forward each episode.  For season 5 this isn't true at all. There are so many episodes in this season that don't move the story or characters forward at all.  You can easily watch the cold open and then the last 2 minutes and still understand everything you needed to get out of the episode.  In a lot of cases you could safely skip the episodes entirely. At this point I'm committed to finishing the series but season 5 put a damper on my enthusiasm.  At least I know that there are only 7 seasons and then the show wraps up. It's not l...

I marathoned Parks and Recreation with my wife over the course of about a week and a half.  We had never tried the show but after watching the first few episodes we were hooked and flew through all seven seasons really fast. It's a really funny modern sitcom.  It's in the style of a lot of modern sitcoms where the people know they're being recorded for whatever reason and often look at or play to the camera.  The style is a bit of an acquired taste, but if you've seen it before you probably know if you like it or not. It's an ensemble cast of government employees, mostly in the Parks and Recreation department.  It sounds super boring which is probably why I never checked it out before, but the characters make it hilarious.  I finally see why everyone loves Ron Swanson. The seasons are also really consistently good.  It falters a bit in season 5 but manages to find it's legs again by the end of the season.  Even then it's not bad, it's jus...

Right near the beginning of the season some big changes happen on Voyager.  Kes leaves the ship in a blaze of telepathic glory that superspeeds the ship another 10 years closer to the Alpha Quadrant.  Right around the same time Seven of Nine comes aboard. Seven of Nine is a Borg who is freed from the collective and quickly becomes one of the most interesting characters on the ship.  She brings into question what it means to be human and how to discover your humanity after being raised without it.  The episodes that focus on her are some of the best of the season. There's also a lot of development between Tom and B'elanna.  It's the first real romantic relationship on the ship that we see consistently being developed.  This is the season where they finally come together and have an official relationship.  It's a nice common thread that keeps moving forward throughout most of the episodes in Season 4. Not to mention that the Doctor once again g...

Voyager is still going strong in season 3.  I don't have a ton to add to my initial impressions of the first two seasons, but it's worth noting that the show has remained consistently good.  I'm happy I've been able to find a Star Trek to enjoy... I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to recapture my ability to like the series. Season 3 finds the crew still on their roughly 70 year voyager home after getting flung into the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy. All the characters continue to develop but this season had particularly good episodes for The Doctor and Kes. The Doctor keeps evolving from his initial holo-programming and after one weird time travel episode he gets the technology to have a portable holo-emitter which allows him to finally walk wherever he wants.  It's used to great effect and he has some fantastic episodes.  I love seeing his personality continue to grow and I'm convinced that he's one of the best actors on the entir...

I needed a break from Voyager after flying through the last couple seasons, so I thought I would sample a few other things from my "to check out" list. Parks and Rec After hearing about this show for years my wife and I finally sat down and watched a couple episodes.  It took a few for us to get the style of comedy they're going for but now we're into season 2 and it's getting really good. Galaxy Quest After Alan Rickman died I heard this movie mentioned everywhere.  It's essentially satire and comedy about Star Trek.  It's ok, but not fantastic.  It's obvious that it's a late 90s movie.  I'm probably never going to rewatch it but I'm glad I watched it once. Stargate Universe This one was the biggest hit of the show sampling for me.  I watched the first episode and already I'm interested in the characters and the overall premise of the show.  If I wasn't specifically doing a sampler I would have immediately...