Good TV (aka, the TV series spamthread), the second series

[Raid]

Given Johnson's public backstory, I wouldn't be surprised if people use his full name as a curse.

[Raid]

Santa Clarita Diet

I resisted watching this for so long because I knew it was cancelled before its time. Having now seen the whole thing, I can safely say the cancellation was a stupid idea because it was bloody excellent.

It's very much a comedy of errors; Joel and Sheila are middle-class suburbanites struggling to work out the ins and outs of brutally murdering people, and everyone bar maybe Abby and Eric are hugely incompetent. It's not even remotely realistic, but it's consistently hilarious and I'm struggling to think of a sitcom I've watched recently that's gotten more belly laughs out of me. The dialogue's witty, the actors have great chemistry, and it's a really fun concept. And best of all, it doesn't really end on a cliff hanger so I'd definitely recommend it. I'm not sure if the producers knew the show was being cancelled prior to filming the finale, but they manage to wrap up the most important plot lines, but it does have a hook for a theoretical fourth season if it were revived.

[Sly Boots]

Santa Clarita Diet

I resisted watching this for so long because I knew it was cancelled before its time. Having now seen the whole thing, I can safely say the cancellation was a stupid idea because it was bloody excellent.

It's very much a comedy of errors; Joel and Sheila are middle-class suburbanites struggling to work out the ins and outs of brutally murdering people, and everyone bar maybe Abby and Eric are hugely incompetent. It's not even remotely realistic, but it's consistently hilarious and I'm struggling to think of a sitcom I've watched recently that's gotten more belly laughs out of me. The dialogue's witty, the actors have great chemistry, and it's a really fun concept. And best of all, it doesn't really end on a cliff hanger so I'd definitely recommend it. I'm not sure if the producers knew the show was being cancelled prior to filming the finale, but they manage to wrap up the most important plot lines, but it does have a hook for a theoretical fourth season if it were revived.

Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, and it sucks it was cancelled.

[Drarok]

Ah, that's good to know. I've been recommended it in the past and had also been avoiding it due to cancellation.

I've watched a few episodes of Tudyk's other show, Resident Alien – it's alright, not massively grabbed me so far.

[Achtung Englander]

Blake's 7 series 1 (Forces TV / Britbox)

Some of my earliest memories as a child was Blake's 7. I recall Zen, Orac, Avon and some of the characters from the later series but not Blake (Gareth Thomas) because I was only 4 at the time of transmission. By the time series 4 ran I was 8 and it was that last season I remember. It could have been the repeats as well. Anyway I was flicking through late night telly and came across Blake's 7 episode 1 from series 1, so I decided to watch it. I loved it because it just brought back being a child in my parents house in our "TV room".

I found out Britbox had a HD version, so I decided to sub. As someone who likes nostalgia, Britbox is pretty good as the TV shows of old are all remastered in HD and it great seeing Miss Marple and Brideshead Revisisted in very good quality.

So Blake's 7 has an a budget of about £4.50. The sets are laughably bad. The 70s special effects are cringeworthy but by god, this is an excellent show. The acting is brilliant, you can tell the actors really believed in the project and that is thanks to the excellent scripts. So although the production values are seriously shoddy, its saving grace is the show itself. The characters and dialogue are sublime. Avon is one of the best TV characters written.

I will watch the remaining 3 series between other shows.

7.5/10

[Sly Boots]

Given Johnson's public backstory, I wouldn't be surprised if people use his full name as a curse.

So I started S3 tonight (I've been whipping through them lol), and realised it was this season that Prime originally started me on, and as I was still getting deva vu from some scenes in episode 3, I have to conclude I watched it in ignorance for a lot longer than I'd previously assumed

It's great, though. And makes a lot more sense this time around.

[Animalmother]

The Book of Boba Fett ep 5.
Well that was the most Star Wars thing ever made...

Spoiler

I think it had something from every film is the series

[Animalmother]

All of Us Are Dead
Another South Korean zombie series! Only watched first episode and it's a bit slow to start with too much teenage drama but it is pretty good. Once the zombie stuff kicks in it's all go.

Violent bullying in Korean schools must be a really rampant thing as nearly every show I've seen depicts it in some way.

[Raid]

The Book of Boba Fett ep 5.
Well that was the most Star Wars thing ever made...

Spoiler

I think it had something from every film is the series

It's pretty funny that the best episode of the series so far had basically nothing to do with the rest of the series.

Spoiler

That was fantastic for fans of the Star Wars as a franchise. I know we got a decent bit of Mandalorian lore in the second season of Mando, but I don't think we ever saw the Empire's purge,

I'm also a fan of the N1 Starfighter, so getting to see one in a series with vastly better CGI than Episode 1, and a custom hot-rod version at that, was fairly special.

And a BD unit! I was wondering if they were going to bring any elements from Jedi: Fallen Order into the shows - there was a point in the season finale of Mando that I thought Cal Kestis was going to be the Jedi that turned up (there really aren't many Jedi alive at that point), but I'll happily settle for the adorable droid design.

[Raid]

The Legend of Vox Machina (Amazon Prime)

I just started watching Critical Role this week (I've only watched the very first episode so far, I reckon I'll be caught up by 2050) having finally run out of Oxventure and its spinoff, so figured I'd give this new adaptation's first episode a shot to get a bit of an image for the characters (the artwork used to introduce everyone is blurred out in the Youtube videos due to licensing). It's pretty decent, not in the same league as Arcane, but with a pleasing art style that's reminiscent of the two Avatar shows. It's a little odd to see that style applied to a very adult show (lots of swearing, gore and implied sex), but it works. The script isn't quite as good as I was expecting, being a little obvious, a bit traditional for these character archetypes, but as it's presumably based on existing characterisations made up on the fly by a room of D&D players, and perhaps a bit unfair to criticise at this stage.

I did have to look up why the character I was most looking forward to seeing animated, Tiberius the Dragonborn Sorcerer (having played both a sorcerer and a dragonborn in our forum D&D games) wasn't present. Apparently there was some drama a little way into the first campaign, and afterward Orion Acaba seems to have not been the most pleasant of people, so he's just been written out.

On Critical Role itself, how long does it take for them to improve the production values? It's clearly a recording of a Twitch stream because I guess online D&D recordings hadn't really taken off by that point, but the audio quality is really poor and it can be difficult to make out what some of the players are saying. I tend to watch these things while I'm on the exercise bike, and it'd help to have something a little nicer to look at and listen to (it helps keep my mind off the fatigue). Would you say it's worth sticking with the Vox Machina campaign, or should I just skip to the second? I've read that they're fairly separate in terms of characters and stories.

[Sly Boots]

The Legend of Vox Machina (Amazon Prime)

I just started watching Critical Role this week (I've only watched the very first episode so far, I reckon I'll be caught up by 2050) having finally run out of Oxventure and its spinoff, so figured I'd give this new adaptation's first episode a shot to get a bit of an image for the characters (the artwork used to introduce everyone is blurred out in the Youtube videos due to licensing). It's pretty decent, not in the same league as Arcane, but with a pleasing art style that's reminiscent of the two Avatar shows. It's a little odd to see that style applied to a very adult show (lots of swearing, gore and implied sex), but it works. The script isn't quite as good as I was expecting, being a little obvious, a bit traditional for these character archetypes, but as it's presumably based on existing characterisations made up on the fly by a room of D&D players, and perhaps a bit unfair to criticise at this stage.

I did have to look up why the character I was most looking forward to seeing animated, Tiberius the Dragonborn Sorcerer (having played both a sorcerer and a dragonborn in our forum D&D games) wasn't present. Apparently there was some drama a little way into the first campaign, and afterward Orion Acaba seems to have not been the most pleasant of people, so he's just been written out.

On Critical Role itself, how long does it take for them to improve the production values? It's clearly a recording of a Twitch stream because I guess online D&D recordings hadn't really taken off by that point, but the audio quality is really poor and it can be difficult to make out what some of the players are saying. I tend to watch these things while I'm on the exercise bike, and it'd help to have something a little nicer to look at and listen to (it helps keep my mind off the fatigue). Would you say it's worth sticking with the Vox Machina campaign, or should I just skip to the second? I've read that they're fairly separate in terms of characters and stories.

Didn't realise Orion left Critical Role (I've watched a bunch of episodes from their first campaign, but not a huge bunch, and he's still in them so far). But I also didn't realise there was an animated show of theirs either, so shall definitely be checking that out.

Truthfully, I kind of ran out of steam watching CR... there's just so damn much of it it's a bit overwhelming.

[Wrathbone]

Orion Acaba... that was a whole big mess of a situation. The cast have never gone into specifics and flat out refuse to talk about why he left (although I think it's clear he was told to go), but there are a couple of things which seem to have been factors. The first is that he increasingly metagamed and outright cheated (faking dice results which other players noted) at the table, and after Matt Mercer supposedly had a word with him and told him it was becoming a problem, he flat out went bananas with it towards the end. He also made some seriously inappropriate comments in his last episode, one in particular which basically said Laura Bailey's Vex had given Tiberious a boner, which visibly enraged her husband Travis (Grog). It was a bizarre episode and it's not difficult to see why he was dropped, but a few months afterwards Orion explained that he'd been addicted to drugs related to his cancer at that time and he cited that as the reason for his weird behaviour. Trouble is, he then went even further off the deepend, scamming a bunch of people in a kickstarter project and badmouthing the Critical Role cast on a thinly-veiled alt-account on Twitter. He seems to have made peace with them now, but Tiberious has mostly been swept under the carpet in all subsequent CR material. I think he does briefly appear in a few of the comics dealing with the origins of Vox Machina.

I'll spoiler his last episode number in case you want to know:

Spoiler

Episode 27. It's a car crash.

As for the production values, I think it's around episode 50 that they get a new studio and a proper intro. They never anticipated any level of success, so they were playing catch up as soon as it became clear that it warranted a budget. As to whether it's worth it... short answer, yes. The long answer is that I started with campaign 2 and then went back and watched campaign 1, and I'm not sure if it's coincedence but I immediately clicked with 2 whereas it took a while for me to get to grips with 1. It doesn't help that 1 was a continuation of their home game so you're just dumped in the middle of things, but ultimately the characters are superb. Grog is one of the funniest and most endearing characters in all fantasy fiction (let alone D&D), Scanlan's songs are always fun and Percy... let's just say the Briarwood arc which the animated show is covering is Percy's arc, and it's so worth it. Almost forgot to say, of course I thoroughly enjoyed the first three episodes.

That's probably no help at all in terms of which campaign to start with. 2 is a much easier entry point with some really great and unique characters. 1 is more traditional D&D fare, but good grief does it have some highlights.

[Sly Boots]

I might jump into campaign 2 in that case, after watching that episode of course

[Raid]

Truthfully, I kind of ran out of steam watching CR... there's just so damn much of it it's a bit overwhelming.

That's a good thing in my case. I do a good 4 or 5 hours on the exercise bike per week at the moment, and I just can't find enough good TV to fill that time.

Thanks Wrath. I'll stick with the first campaign; I figured it had to be good if they made a fairly expensive animated series based on it. I knew it was episode 27, the brief description I read on what happened (which didn't go into as much detail as you posted) mentioned it.

[Mantis]

If you want another perspective, I really enjoyed the first season of Critical Role and have bounced off the second season several times because the characters just didn't seem to be as fun. I got into it in the end but ran out of steam around episode 60-something, it's just too huge to sit and binge endlessly so I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.

The first season has some really cool story arcs towards the latter half (you may recognise bits from the Chroma Conclave one ) and the final arc is pretty epic. You will not miss Orion by the time his final moments come. He begins to become very insufferable as the episodes go on to the point where certain members of the cast are quite clearly exasperated with him on a number of occasions and it is quite awkward.

I'm skeptical about the show and haven't watched the first three episodes yet as I've heard that it isn't particularly well written and tries a bit too hard to distill the players more adult humourous moments down as a kind of general level that the whole show is pitched at and I'm not sure how well that will play out in a different context.