Friday off-topic. Currently airing TV series

[fridi]

So are you a fan of TV series? Which of the currently ongoing ones do you follow? Which are your fave ones? Can you recommend one I should start with?

Over the top of my head...

House of the Dragon
The Rings of power
Stranger Things
Westworld
Raised By Wolves
The Umbrella Academy
The Wheel of Time
The Witcher
The Boys
Andor
The Book fo Boba Fett
Obi-Wan Kenobi
The Leftovers
See
Devs
Cursed
Tales From The Loop
The Handmaid's Tale
Timeless
Counterpart
The Last Kingdom
The Mandalorian
His Dark Materials
Tribes of Europa
Foundation
Beforeigners
Loki
Rick And Morty
Valhalla
Love, Death & Robots
Black Mirror
Knightfall

Comments

[abomvubuso]

I recommend Dark. Absolutely must see.

[mellowtigger]

I subscribe to only one streaming service at a time, but I've seen many of these titles. The ones that I recommend (in order of my preference):

Doom Patrol (not on your list, but I like it much better than The Umbrella Academy (which I also liked))
Beforeigners (great stuff, very much looking forward to the next season)
Raised By Wolves (great story and special effects)
The Handmaid's Tale (painful to watch, but as memorable as the story I read back in the 1980s)
Westworld (a better sci-fi tale than you'd expect from the title)
His Dark Materials (even better than the movie from a few years ago)
Black Mirror (bizarre and sometimes unpleasant, but unfortunately relevant)

[garote]

Seen:

The Rings of Power: Fun to revisit this world in cinematic form, but the middle episodes drag, and the entire series suffers from lackluster action direction. The camera is always in the most obvious place, shooting the most obvious thing in the most obvious way. For comparison, think about the opening sequence of The Two Towers, which is absolute visual poetry. Rings of Power is not a "must see" so much as "obligatory seeing".

Stranger Things: Focused and relatively low-stakes in the first season, and very charming. Worth seeing. Season 2 is a bit more uneven but more visually compelling. Season 3 is self-indulgent and bloated with too many characters, but still good. Season 4 ... Haven't felt compelled to see it.

Raised By Wolves: Intriguing for about half of its runtime in Season 1, with badass character design and a Lost-style central mystery that doesn't quite make sense. Worth seeing. Then it goes off the rails completely. Haven't bothered to start Season 2.

The Boys: Twisted and full of bizarrely satisfying moments, with tons of cool gross-out effects. Definitely worth seeing, but not healthy as binge material because the nihilism beats you down after a while.

The Book of Boba Fett: Underrated, I thought. I enjoyed it all the way through, even though it's basically a pulpy space western that doesn't stray from the very wholesome terrain that all Disney's Star Wars stuff is in nowadays. Zero sex, almost zero romance, bloodless violence, some light moral philosophizing, bonehead obvious Good and Bad guys, ... you know the drill.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: I kept wanting to like it more than I did. Drags in the beginning, and takes some questionable detours, but it delivers on the bad-ass confrontation you're hoping for in the end, and that redeems it.

The Mandalorian: Pulpy space western, yep. More humor than the other Disney Star Wars stuff. Keeps to a more episodic feel, which works well.

Foundation: Not really faithful to the book, but whatever. Good visual effects and some nice chewy sci-fi concepts. Weirdly uneven pacing and direction sometimes. Worth seeing.

Loki: Lots of fun. Glad we got to spend more time with Loki, even if the premise doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Worth seeing.

Rick And Morty: Some episodes just meander around in old sci-fi concepts while cracking modern jokes, but a surprising amount of the time the show builds on sci-fi concepts in ways that are downright impressive. Universally praised for its writing, and rightly so. If you don't know where to start, watch Season 2, Episode 4, and THEN start from the beginning of the series.

Love, Death & Robots: An uneven series, but when it hits, it's great. Worth seeing but not a high priority.

Black Mirror: Some episodes are dumb and predictable, others are excellent and will stick with you for months. Hard to tell what you're gonna get each time.

Can't comment, haven't seen:

House of the Dragon
Westworld
The Umbrella Academy
The Wheel of Time
The Witcher
Knightfall
Andor
The Leftovers
See
Devs
Cursed
Tales From The Loop
The Handmaid's Tale
Timeless
Counterpart
The Last Kingdom
His Dark Materials
Tribes of Europa
Beforeigners
Valhalla

Of these, I'll probably be watching "Andor" next. Maybe "Westworld" after that, and the rest I probably won't see.

Other things to consider if you haven't already:

For All Mankind
9-11: One Day In America
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Peacemaker
ZeroZeroZero
Dopesick
Hawkeye
And of course, The Expanse.

[asthfghl]

Impressive review, and very useful! I've now bookmarked some of these, thanks!

[abomvubuso]

+1 about The Expanse.

[kiaa]

For All Mankind - please tell me more about this one. What's your impression?

[garote]

For All Mankind: As it goes, it gets less and less about the premise and more about the various dramatic conflicts the characters have. I enjoyed Season 1, found Season 2 to be overstuffed with drama I didn't care about, and have barely made a dent in Season 3. There is one character in particular who gets way too much screen time in Season 2 just blundering through their personal idiocy, including an affair with a person half their age that bleeds well over into Season 3, and I'm rather sick of it. I don't know if I care enough to continue, even though I like the premise of the show and where it's going.

( From https://garote.dreamwidth.org/316999.html )

[fridi]

I think this is an awesome overview.

[asthfghl]

When do you guys have time to watch all these!?

[fridi]

An hour of this every evening, and you'll have watched about 20 seasons of anything over a year.