Ottis

In many ways, it’s basically Chuck, but in a different setting. I’ve watched 4 eps so far and enjoyed it, even had a few laughs.

The monsters and the mythology are great, really enjoy learning more about that. The “family” stuff continues to be grating. Having Keiko realize how much time has passed and her dealing with that realization was good. Having her then decide not to return because “my son grew up without me” was ridiculous. Especially since that discussion delayed their departure.

Ok, so “Axis Mundi” explains the overall mythology behind the show’s world. Interesting (especially when you FINALLY move away from uninteresting character backgrounds). Still, I am amazed at how nonchalant the military is at being around and calling Titans. This isn’t an atom bomb test. These things can turn and move and attack. And they set up chairs and a gallery?

Not much of this makes sense, least of which is the entire Reacher Gang deciding to sit around and wait for Jane to pop up gaming online. Really? All of them? i know the books, and therefore this show, are simplistic. But this is verging on just bad. I can enjoy a formula, if it is done well. This isn’t that.

I’m in the ep about “the real May.” Whooooooooooo caaaaaaaaaaaares? Geez. Who approved this pacing?

That was bad. The least professional hitters ever. They seemed like moonlighting college students. And taking out Reacher at a public funeral in NY? OK, so they said the bad guys were desperate, but that was amateur hour. Also, does Reacher’s voice and demeanor seem more sophisticated in a suit? As for Russo, he is a NY cop, and illogically belligerent about being manly is part of that trope.

Agree on the first part, though the show didn't present the city as having parts that were being reconstructed and parts that weren't. It appears that whole section is just restricted, for no logical reason aside from the fact authorities are doing it. On the second point, it doesn't matter what the episode was about. All sorts of details go into the theme of every ep. If SF had been painted purple, with no indication of why, that would be something to ask about as well. Note: I did go back and watch the 2014 Godzilla movie since I first posted about this. It appears in that movie the authorities are claiming radiation, but there is actually no radiation. Maybe that is happening here? Though the guys patrolling it had no radiation gear. I dunno, maybe it only bugs me. That all said, I don't understand this Godzilla. In the movie, he hides out in less populated areas for decades? We see him in Japan, and then decades later in Africa. Somehow he moves around the world and no one sees him? And he is what, hibernating? Is he eating anything? So confused on what Godzilla is. Agree. She's a brat.

That's the MO from the books. They are all written very plainly, almost stilted, I suppose to mimic how Reacher thinks. And there is a long red herring "investigation" and then a twist at the end. They are great beach books. It's tough, because we don't care about these new characters. THEY all clearly care about each other, and the series is trying to catch us up. But it isn't giving us much reason to care beyond the fact Reacher cares. Need something at risk, or in danger, besides themselves

If a natural disaster happens, unless it happened, say, a week ago, then very soon after it there is work going on. Debris is being cleared, materials are being brought in, might even have local residents wandering in or camping nearby. So, why is it cordoned off like it is radioactive, instead of being worked on like it normally would? There is zero sign of any activity other than guarding wreckage. That doesn't make sense. I admit I don't know the timeline, but it seems unlikely GDay was a week ago.

Lots of one-joke skits in this one. Problem is, getting the joke takes a fraction of the time of the skit… which goes on and on. I liked WU joke swap. I didn’t laugh at much else. I don’t even remember the two skits before the cat skit. I like Eilish, but weird song choices.

I think one character said it had been a year? I don’t recall if Tokyo and SF were hit the same year, but Tokyo has signs up, a campaign and procedures in place. That takes time. In any case, it wouldn’t be finished, of course. But why does it seem to be cordoned off?

Teacher has become too muscular. Too stiff for some of the things he needs to do. He was lucky the carjacker wasn’t watching him. Also, those dealers were really slow on the draw. This season has started slow. But glad it’s back.

This show is hugely uneven while still being entertaining, thanks largely to Kelsey Grammar and his on screen buddy, Alan. The Good: Frasier himself, and his trademark pretentiousness and deep-voiced sarcastic comments. The show overdoes it at times, but generally Frasier's dry humored observations, even of himself, are fun. The Good: Alan is really becoming a more complex character. He has apparently never cared much about consequences, and now he is of an age that he will take risks because, well, why not. And yet he loves Frasier, and clearly wants to do the right thing for others even as he acts silly. The Middling: Freddy. I love that Freddy chose a different path in life that he loves. As a parent, I don't understand why Frasier has had such an issue with it. It's not like Freddy became an addict. That said, all the drama over this, especially from Freddy, who seems irretrievably scarred by most aspects of his past, is irritating. Freddy needs to grow up. The Middling: Harvard. Yeah, it is Frasier's dream. The show would have been better had he settled for Boston College, with hopes to get to Harvard. The Bad: The nephew. What is the point of this cartoon character? Neither Frasier nor Freddy should have to put up with him. The Bad: So far, all of the males have ranged from pompous to clueless, with lots of negatives in between. Alan may be the least toxic male here, with his benign silliness. The women, OTOH, are all capable survivors, usually outsmarting the men. We need to see a fuller representation of those two groups. We thought the same of Neuwirth, and it wasn't the gray in the hair. It was her entire manner and delivery. I kept expecting her to announce she was sick. Honestly, have not noticed Kelsey Grammar is frail. Older, sure. Not frail. He did quite well in the ep where he crawled on the floor of the classroom. Yes, indeed. As I noted above, he needs to grow up. "Go ahead and welcome us to Jurassic Park" was mine. Agree. They could cut the nephew entirely. And I really, really hope they don't have a whole thing where Freddy actually does love the woman next door, and she him, and they each have to deal with their guilt.

I thought the ending made no sense. If the aliens were only observing, why no crystalization? If it was only a test, why did they actually make it to Mars? I thought the ep should have stuck with the dilemma of whether to go or stay on Earth and whether their choice was a good one. Adding the aliens was unnecessary.

Am I missing some background? Why is the show spending so much time on the Randa kids, the fact the dad had two families and various peoples’ reaction to it? In a show about Godzilla and monsters? I don’t care if he had a cult and a compound with a harem. Move on. So a large part of damaged SF has been cordoned off and there is no effort to clear and rebuild it? Is there a reason for that? I feel like this show has a backstory I don’t know, because the way people are acting makes no sense to me. Isn’t there an effort to find and prepare for more monsters? How many are there? What actions help? What do they want? How does humanity thrive in a world with these creatures? Stop with the flashbacks about “who loves me.”

I didn’t like him in “Girls” either, where he was … a NY hipster doofus. Not sure what his actual background has to do with how he comes across on the screen. For me, all of his performances have come across as entitled and sulky. Last night he seemed more mature and settled.

Better than recent episodes, because they went for some silly. "Beep Beep" was fun. And the "old friend who is a sex predator" was pretty good, especially when they brought in "Big Filthy." The "Trying to get pregnant" skit started strong and then meandered away from a point. Were they supposed to be dumb about biology, or were they so woke they couldn't talk normally about it? The Santa chocolate is SNL's latest attempt to recreate Schwetty Balls. They had all the pieces, but for some reason they chose to have the hosts be appalled and try to block it instead of have everyone act unaware of the resemblance and take it further and further. If they had done the latter, they might have had a classic skit on their hands. The airplane baby sketch was promising as well, but I thought they should have played it more as "what a baby thinks and we can actually hear say on a plane" instead of "look, a weird baby." Still, I appreciate that SNL got weird in this one. Definitely made me engage more. I've never been an Adam Driver fan, he is basically a NYC hipster doofus that could be the most miscast role in Star Wars history (part of the reason why his prior SW Undercover Boss skit worked so well) and always seems to be the same guy. But he seemed more mature here, and more settled. I kind of liked him as host this time aorund. I didn't understand the Julia Stiles dance thing at all, but I love Julia Stiles.

So the whole point of The Boys/Gen V is basically the same as the Marvel mutants vs. humans battle from X-Men? The main difference being that the "professor X" school in Gen V is actually run by someone trying to kill mutants, not protect them? Oh, and sex. Kind of disappointed in that. I much preferred the "what happens if superheroes are assholes" approach that launched The Boys. Not sure they had to evolve it into a civil war. A better approach might have been to explore why parents agreed to dose their babies in the first place, and the pressures and motivations that led to it. There was a little in the flashbacks about how parents reacted when the powers were frightening or went wrong, but there should be a lot more to mine there. He didn't explode heads, did he? Didn't he just incapacitate the student, stick one of those oval devices in the student's mouth and then detonate it? You have to get close to the supe vs. use the device from afar.

The producers of Lost did it because of the cliched "we care more about characters." Lost took off during the first season due to the mystery of the island and the "smoke monster." I think the people behind the show were caught unprepared, and so fell back to "character." They started talking about that as season two approached, and then for years they would give back story on each survivor on the island, a ridiculous and annoying process that reached its zenith with an entire ep about how one guy once got a tattoo. Anyway, Monarch already has an interesting present. And there are ways to let us know about past relationships today without going to the "X years ago" well. I should check to see if anyone on the Monarch show staff worked for Lost. I'm not sure what Kurt Russell was trying to do with the aviation fuel. The monster would feed on it. Was it supposed to explode, and that would be bad? How would he know?

This fourth ep reminded me of the worst of Lost. You would be following an at least mildly interesting story, and then suddenly we would be tossed to “one year ago” and a ridiculous flashback to a fight with a spouse or parent. It would be boring and overwrought and eventually we would get back to the interesting story, after wasting 15 minutes. I hope this isn’t a sign.

I’m out, too. Dot’s character makes little sense, Juno is wrong for it and when you go to the Home Alone crap including a drawn-out scene where the henchman is about to open the attic and your mind immediately guffaws “oh yeah, watch the sliding ladder hit him, har har” AND IT DOES, this is all lowest common denominator stuff. I turned it off after Rick Moranis insisted on trying to open the electrified window. This was boring and bad.

And it is a comedy impression, for Pete’s sake. The point isn’t to sound as good as the original. If the poster meant that it just made them think of Cass, that’s fair. But most skits make viewers think of whoever they are parodying.

I was talking to a neighbor this morning who randomly said this same thing, to which I agreed. That was one of the least funny eps of SNL I have watched, and I have been around for almost all 49+ years. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't funny. Emma Stone, who I at first didn't recognize, was fine. That and the fact that they missed blurring one vast member partway through. She was visible in her flesh-colored wraps. The skit was one-note and dull, IMO. I don't understand why they are struggling so much, given how few shows they do each year now (they did 24 the first season, they did 18 last season). Their best shot at being funny seems to come from parody skits of pop culture, but they seem to always choose politics now (which is rarely funny now, given reality) or weird trends that are mostly NYC. Most of the repeating characters are obnoxious. I've always liked SNL's absurd skits that make you go, "What in the world?" But they do very few of those. The best skit they have done in years, IMO, is the George Washington "weights and measures" one from a few weeks ago. We've seen Noah in concert. The female members of our family love him. I suspect it has, at least in part, something to do with his "Jason Momoa" look. He i talented, though, and far better than the "musical" acts we often see on SNL.

Perhaps surprisingly, I don't disagree with your read on each situation - it could be true, or not. That's part of the problem of Ted Lasso the show. It's careless with details other than Look at Ted Emote, and situations like his ex-wife's engagement or how to be with his son are just plot boulders to be moved around for Ted's benefit. Another read might be that after all the glimpses we saw of Michelle with her new guy, his quick disappearance at the end was jarring and unclear. And after all the scenes we saw of Ted wanting to be with his son (and vice versa), and both of them embracing travel. the UK and Richmond, AND all the money Rebecca promised Ted if he stayed (which would be a choice of schools for his son as well as travel back to the States as desired), AND Beard staying, that there was more than enough benefit there for Ted and his son (heck, and maybe Michelle) to stay in the UK. And while he may have been more comfortable in the US, he seemed plenty comfy in the UK, so if he had a preference it didn't seem large (there weren't, for instance, older relatives in the US who he pined to see). The show gave us what it is: Good ol' Ted, headin' home, to ... something. Yay?

This reminds me of a Mod Squad episode (the original series in the 70s) where the cop boss went to a high school to talk to jaded kids on career day. And in his talk, he preached the importance of observation to be a successful cop. A smart ass kid challenged him, asking him to answer several questions about minute details around him without looking, like what time the stuck clock on the wall reads, and what color tie a teacher is wearing (the teacher wasn't wearing a tie - zing!). And the cop nails every one of the details, without looking. I would definitely notice if the street signs were different in my neighborhood, even if I knew the way. But aside from that, with visitors and deliveries and people walking dogs and who knows what else happening each day, *someone* should have noticed. It was the ep that showed behind the curtains a bit for the season. It seems like every Fargo season has that ep, though I agree that in prior seasons it was more subtle than a time jump to the 1500s. Well, there was the UFO. I don't think he sounds at all like Christopher Walken. Much more like The Swede in Hell on Wheels.