I actually preferred Ep 2+3 to Ep1. Maybe cos I’m remembering the book and kind of enjoying the plot from there?
I think the trollocs are pretty poor. When they are reasonably still they’re ok but the animation of them moving seems very jerky.
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My issue with episodes 2 and 3 where big jumps on the plot and a few irks:
Moraine telling one of them is the Dragon Reborn.
The White Cloaks armour, to call it something.
Shadar Logoth appearing so early. And if I remember correctly, an important character (that gives the dagger to Mat, or Mat gets the dagger out of him somehow) does not appear.
The ferry scene, did Moraine let the ferryman die?
I think the trollocs are far from flawless, I am just saying that they are looking better than I expected. I had low expectations, to be honest. Some are being exceeded, and some are not. But the slow pace of these episodes has brought me back to the feeling that I had often in the books, where things dragged, without really having dragged so much. Particularly with Perrin and Egwene.
That’s why I enjoyed episode 4 a lot more.
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Watching Nisser in an attempt to keep my Danish skills up.
Finished Midnight Mass* on Saturday.
It is a Mike Flanagan joint featuring the Mike Flanagan players. 
It is in line with his other Netflix limited series and if you liked them, you’ll like this. However, it is less spooky and more early Stephen King-style horror.
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I’ve neither read nor watched any Wheel of Time, but I saw a big poster advert for it today, except it seemed to say “Wheel Time” which I thought sounded like a bicycle shop. I relate this to you all in the hopes that it will catch on.
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One cannot watch a show without noticing similarities to other shows, whether the commonalities are in premise, theme, style, characters, plot, setting, etc. Sometimes they are intentional: The Orville wears its Star Trek roots proudly. Other times, its just a retread of material, like most half-hour sitcoms or the post-Buffy deluge of angsty teenage supernatural dramas. It is with that acknowledgement that I have to address Inside Job.
I would describe it as a mash-up of Rick & Morty and American Dad with a splash of Futurama (and not just the unmistakable voice of John DiMaggio). The first two are my wife’s short list of favorite shows and the last one is on mine. Inside Job never had a chance. I chucked a few times, but too much of it was just stuff I’d either seen before or saw coming. The parallels are simply too plain to ignore and it affected my viewing of the show.
For those unfamiliar with the shows referenced above, Inside Job is probably a really good show. It is just impossible for me to tell.
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Bluey, all Bluey all the time.
Mostly for the kids.
Mostly.
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60/40 split is still “mostly,” right?
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Are we the 40 or 60?
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That is for you to decide!
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Watched a few things this weekend, mostly at night after two intense weekend days.
First on Friday night went to watch the new Dune, that opened here in NZ only last Thursday. I did really enjoy it. Even with the changes made to the story, the cast was great, and the effects brilliant. The cinema we went to has vibrating chairs, and at some point when one of the ornithopters landed, my mate’s bottle of water fell rolling, which had me cracking.
Then I saw the second half of Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe on Saturday night. Quite enjoyable in the beginning, but predictable af. Besides the Skeletor / Prince Adam collaboration against Evil Lynn, that surprised me.
Then Sunday night I watched The Power of the Dog. Great performances by Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst, but I had the feeling that the story could have been told in two thirds of the time, if not even less.
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We’re watching Star Wars Rebels right now. I think we’re in Season 2 or so. Inching closer and closer to the original trilogy timeline. It’s been exciting to see appearances by named characters… like Lando, Leia and Ahsoka or even Darth Vader.
Last night’s last episode saw them go to Geonosis where there were ominously moon-like space stations in orbit and they had another meeting with their nemesis Agent Kallus
Some of the recent episodes were rather Trek-like f.e. the one where they accompany Zeb’s fellow Lasat’s to their homeplanet through some kind of space anomaly and the one with the space whales.
Mostly, I am following the development of Agent Kallus with great interest.
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I started an Icelandic mystery series called Katla. You find out very early that it is about doppelgangers so I don’t see that as a spoiler. One of the actors looks just like my neighbour.
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Thanks for the heads-up. I just added it to my list.
We just started Ozark. The key is whether or not it piques my wife’s interest away from her iPad games. It did in the first couple of episodes.
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After family encouragement I splurged on a subscription to Rakuten Viki
Mr. Queen is hilarious. The spirit of a disgraced male chef played by Choi Jin-hyuk gets transported into the body of a Joseon period queen played by Shin Hye-sun.
It’s an interesting mix of navigating palace intrigue while he’s trying to figure out how to get home.
I’ve also been watching Empress Ki, which at times feels like they’re writing a drama and then stop to read Ouran Highschool Host Club manga.
Telling Ki Seung-nyang (Ha Ji-won) to smile when really she wants to kill with her murder stick.
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Wheel of Time episode 6 finally delivered the Aes Sedai politics I’d been waiting for.
Episodes 4 and 6 in particular have been GoT-level good, which I assume is what they were aiming for. It’s growing well.
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First two episode of Arcane.
Watching shows like this makes me… depressed? Depressed. Because gosh is it ever good, and I could write like that if I had the time.
If I didn’t have to work at my game store job tomorrow I would watch the rest right now. Gosh it’s good.
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I am sitting on the fence with the series so far. Episode 4 was the best, but I can see how the creators are struggling to already throw in the politics and plots that lay on future books in the middle of series 1.
I am a bit puzzled about how they have skimmed the Caemlyn part of the story, yet they have spent over half of episode 5 with the struggles of a Warder that was not even other than mentioned in the books. I am still happy to watch, but if you diverge so far from the books (a la The Shining) I think it has to be for better reasons (improving the adaptation to a different platform, time of budget constraints) and I think none of this is happening here.
PS: In the vein of inclusions that are not in the books and are of dubious quality, how about the opening of episode 6: what father sends his daughter across a continent on her own?? What was he staying behind for??
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Oh, I fully agree on the “this change was just unnecessary” bits, starting from Perrin in ep1.
And I don’t trust them to be doing “We need this bit here, that bit later, because that’s what works on tv instead of in books” because I don’t think they’re anywhere near that competent. This isn’t a genius-level jigsaw where they bring in something AFTER Tar Valon instead of before and it makes more sense / emotional payoff to the viewers, because the writers clearly aren’t that smart. They have got it mostly right in terms of the spirit of the books so far though, and this is clearly an adaption with changes not a straight conversion of text to the screen, so I’m okay with it.
(I read at least 7 of the books. Some of them could do with big changes as books let alone onscreen)
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