Sunday!
Whilst visiting Costco to pick up 55 gallon drums of wing sauce and wistfully looking at the 3-packs of 70-inch televisions, I noticed that they had seasons of DuckTales
So my “when I retire, I am soooooo going to watch this!” shelf just got fuller.
Anyway, when watching these the first time, I was surprised at the amount of care put into the quality. Most of the cartoons I grew up with, after all, were put together with the thought of “they don’t know any better” (Kwicky Koala, I’m lookin at you). Duck Tales had surprisingly dense plots (based on the surprisingly awesome Carl Banks comics), many of which were multi-part episodes (that required “previously on Ducktales”) that ran with the best tropes of the whole “amateur archeologists trying to get rich” thing. Action, adventure, thrills, comic relief, and lessons about stickin’ together.
Trying to put together a brief synopsis of Talespin, however, is something a lot tougher than I thought it would be when I started this post… so you take the characters from Jungle Book and put them in a 1930’s Art Deco city where Baloo runs an air transport business allowing for stories involving swashbuckling sky pirates, tension between Baloo’s being a small business owner and Shere Khan being a Lex Luthor giant of industry, and (chaste) romantic tension involving the new office manager.
Man, those were good shows. I can’t wait to retire.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
(Photo is “Movie Night“, taken by Ginny, used under a creative commons license.)
Finally watched ep.1 of Mr. Robot last night. Color me very intrigued for sure. I got shades of Fight Club, Pump Up The Volume (complete with the appearance of Mr. Happy Harry Hard-On, who has apparently had extensive plastic surgery, because there is no way that Slater’s face could still look that unlined); as well as, weirdly, Veronica Mars (another voice-overing lead, who justified their often very disturbingly-cavalier intrusions into the personal lives of others as a necessary corrective to a system tilted far in favor of the wealthy and powerful).
(No politics).
I’d like to see where they take the unreliable narrator thing – the protagonist is someone who appears to be struggling with mental illness and possibly delusions, and is self-medicating at least. This can contribute to the general atmosphere of paranoia, but it could also make for some neat ethical dilemmas and/or role reversals, if it turns out that his view of the world is not totally correct nor complete.Report
They delayed the finale, so we’re finally completely caught up. For me it’s worked really well, but it’s starting to lose R.Report
OK, I am three episodes in, and I am loving this. Best new show I’ve seen in a while, as long as it doesn’t go off the rails (fingers crossed). Add American Psycho to the list of cultural sources it’s drawing on, yet still managing to get a fresh feel from. Great cinematography and score, in addition to the acting and characters. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be using words like “dark” or “kinky” to describe a USA show, but here we are. The somewhat-similar in tone (and similarly-great visuals) Utopia S1 turned out to be a bit disappointing in the end; here’s hoping this one holds it together.Report
Awesome.
I think American Psycho was the first influence R. mentioned, though that might have been in later episodes, I can’t remember (we binged the first 5 in one weekend).Report
In episode 3 you spend some time with the E-Corp climber / presumed nemesis (can’t remember his name – wait, looked it up, HAH, it’s ‘Tyrell’, so let’s add Blade Runner to the list) who appears at this point to be a complete sociopath who will do anything to get what he wants – another P. Bateman with a perfectly-coordinated wardrobe (and he gets a compliment from another exec on the presumed brand of his tie).
I’ve seen some complaints about the show name, which people seem to think makes it a hard sell (people who don’t like TV robots may avoid it: and people that do like TV robots, may be disappointed), but I like it since (even if the fully-expected Tyler Durden twist doesn’t happen, and Slater technically remains the titular character) it’s still a good name for a show in which an alienated techie protagonist fears becoming the modern equivalent of a “Mr. Jones”/gray-flannel-suit type, and feels unable to connect with other people.
I AM wondering why they chose an OG Battlestar Galactica – type font for the title though. I like it (and the cinematography/design/font choices in general), I just can’t quite figure out what it is supposed to signify (if anything – maybe it’s just another sci-fi/robot nod like ‘Tyrell’ presumably is).Report
There may be a couple other Blade Runner elements, and the font will be explained, at least historically, in later episodes (I don’t think that’s a real spoiler, is it?).
I think the name is perfect, given Elliot’s struggles with feeling like other people.
One of my favorite scenes, which I believe is in the first 3 episodes, but might be in 4, involves Vera. When he confronts Elliot, and talks about his self-loathing. It was perfectly written, and incredibly well acted.
There is a later scene that is another of my favorites, but I know you haven’t gotten to it, so I will save it for later.Report
If you are referring to the scene with the dealer/rapist, yes, that was a good scene, as was the wonderful scene where Elliot manages to sweetly connect with his neighbor/dealer (of course, THAT is doomed, poor girl).Report
Agh, dangit, I just went to wiki to see the dealer’s name and spoiled myself on something coming up, which I pretty much knew had to be coming by the rules of TV drama but now I know for sure.Report
Have I mentioned that just like in real life, I am terrible with remembering names on TV shows? It takes me a very long while to get them down.Report
Ah, sorry. I should have said the dealer, as I’m not good with names either. But yeah, that’s the scene.Report
Eh, no worries, it was my fault.
I just realized there’s possibly another ’80s sci-fi movie reference here.
Elliot…wears a hoodie…has an absentee father…how does he feel about Reese’s Pieces?Report
So far, none of the other characters have extra long fingers with lambent tips. So far.Report
I forgot another Patrick Bateman moment: when Tyrell has (surprisingly explicit) sex with the admin assistant so that he can compromise his phone to learn about his professional rival, and during/just after it checks his pulse/heart rate.
“Just getting in a little cardio, along with my sociopathic sexual subterfuge.”Report
I keep waiting for him to talk about Huey Lewis.Report
And here’s how I know I’m hooked – for some reason, episode 5 wasn’t available on-demand, so I bought it, rather than lose momentum while waiting for a re-run to DVR.
Then, I stayed up too late watching episode 6, when I had told myself I was only going to watch 4 & 5. I’ll probably watch 3 more tonight.
Damn, this show is great.Report
Oh man, I’m so glad you like it.
The finale is tonight!Report
@glyph
Where is Mr Robot showing? Netflix, Hulu?
Also, have you ever seen Brick?Report
They re-ran episode 1 on USA and I DVR’d it, and the rest were (and hopefully still are) available on-demand on my cable system (and maybe yours, if you get USA)?
Brick rules.Report
Hannibal remained beautifully-insane, right to the very end.
I’m not going to lie – I’m kind of glad it’s over; even as a vocal fan of the show’s gothic psychological horror from the start, there have been times this season when I’ve said “Oh, come ON!” at the latest dream-logic plot twist or beautifully slow-mo’d blood droplet; and the gore has been, at times, tough to take.
But there has never been anything like it on TV before, and I think it’ll be a very long while before we see its like again. Beautifully shot, impressively scored (they lured Siouxsie Sioux out of her eight-year writing lull to collaborate on a Bond-ian number!), wonderfully acted, and very, very funny and fished-up. It’s been three indelible seasons of European arthouse cinema, somehow smuggled onto NBC.
It’s also the most homoerotic show that network TV has ever broadcast.Report
I love me some Hannibal, but I miss happy Bryan Fuller.
By the way, I’m still way behind. Did it actually get a proper ending?Report
It’s a definitive ending I’d say. Which is not to say there aren’t open questions (in particular, there’s a post-credits stinger that is pretty ambiguous), or that the ending is, uh….standard in any way.
Fuller’s doing American Gods next. If he keeps this up, he’s going to have one of the longest unbroken runs of high quality vs. low ratings ever (but seriously, kudos to NBC for running Hannibal this long and letting them get away with what they did).Report
People need to stop sleeping with people that are not currently their spouse or partner unless neither they nor the person they are sleeping with are not in a relationship.
I’m listening Grey’s Anatonomy.
Up next is Richard North Patterson, to decide if I want to use Audible credits to get more of his books.
I’ve kind of stalled on Person of Interest, but hope to start up again soon.Report
I’m trying to square your first sentence there with… well… ANYTHING else in this post. What am I missing?Report
You’d catch it if you saw (or were more familiar with) Grey’s Anatomy.Report
So… season 1 of Ducktales, $9? Or, season 1 of Ducktales + season 1 of Talespin, $9?
That doesn’t seem… awesome. If I were in the market to own episodes of those series, I might pay nine dollars to own one of the series. Outright.
(It’d be Tailspin.)Report
It’s each individual season that is $9.
That’s, like, hours of entertainment for just nine bucks!Report
Yeah, a Disney cartoon season is over 60 episodes. For the first season, anyway.Report
Wow. Ok.Report
They run five days a week, so they have to have to churn a lot out at first. Followup seasons tend to be shorter because they have a stock of reruns.Report
Feel compelled to add: if I were in the market to own episodes of Tailspin, I might pay nine dollars to own the series outright. Still.Report
I’d pay $5 for Duck Tales, $10 for Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers, $15 for Tailspin, and $35 for Darkwing Duck.Report
I always thought DwD thought itself so clever. Tailspin was definitely my favorite.Report
DwD was clever unlike the pablum in Tailspin.Report
Shere Khan turned the cartoon into something wonderful.
He was the original Kingpin able to turn a clunky Daredevil show into must-see-television.Report
Yes. Best Disney villain until Owen (Xanatos’s guy), and then it’s close. And Owen had a lot more to work with.Report
I’ve been wrestling with Nelly Arcan’s Burqa de chair all week – painful to read but well worth the struggle. I also read a cute kid’s book called 11 Experiments that Failed, and I’ve just barely started Frankenstein. On vacation I read The Moonstone and three delightfully fluffy Mindy Klasky novels. Oh, and a neat bestiary/novel called Impossible Beasts. And many short stories from the giant ebook (3000+ pages) that tor.com did a few years back to celebrate their fifth anniversary – I’ll be working my way through that one for ages, I expect.
I’m watching Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell … before that some episodes of the second season of The Muppet Show… before that My Boy Jack.
Way behind on all my podcasts so I’ll probably be catching upReport
So, watched a few episodes of Jeeves and Wooster last night, can someone tell me why the two of them didn’t just quit acting when those were done? The chances of the two of them doing anything at that level ever again is just minuscule, so as the Romans would say “die now!” because it will never get better. Also watched the movie Your Sisters Sister. Not bad, worth checking out on a slow night, and at least it tries to do something new/interesting. There are some interesting and quite honest portrayals of grief in the beginning that are very well done and it is worth watching for that.
I seem to be in a start books before finishing books phase (not uncommon with me) and have picked up a history of the East India Company, Sommervilles The Irish RM and couple of tech books on boat repair and building.Report
Farewell to Dr. Sacks:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/30/oliver-sacks-dies-aged-82-eminent-neurologist-author-awakenings#img-1Report
I’m mostly reading Robbins’ pathology textbook chapters on cancer these days, to be followed up with hematology. I took a brief mental health break and started reading Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer, which is just fascinating. All of this will eventually work itself into a post. My prewriting is getting quite voluminous. Next up from me is the anatomy of the head and neck – maybe central nervous system too. I haven’t decided on the overall order.Report
I was watching “Galaxy Rangers”. I didn’t know what I was watching back then, but now I realize that it’s basically animated tokusatsu–like, Power Rangers, only about ten years before Saban got the idea to dub a Super Sentai show.Report
Sons of Anarchy is sooooo addicting. It’s literally all I’ve been watching for like two months and I’m almost to the end of what Netflix has available.Report