[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 31 October 2025 - 12:39 PM, said:

I'm here to report what might be a blasphemy to some...

Liam Hemsworth is a BETTER Geralt in THE WITCHER (S4) than Cavill was. I liked Cavill in the role, but I think Liam is just more at ease in the costume and character?

Also, the show feels infinitely more approachable?

Like I don't want this to be true as I know Cavill was championing the books/source material, and I know that they are diverging from said material...but even as someone who has read 4 of the books....I like this. A LOT.

Stop QT, stop before anyone notices you!
Haven't you seen what they're doing t anyone who likes Hemsworth???
My gods man, hide! Hide while you still can!

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 31 October 2025 - 02:08 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 31 October 2025 - 12:39 PM, said:

I'm here to report what might be a blasphemy to some...

Liam Hemsworth is a BETTER Geralt in THE WITCHER (S4) than Cavill was. I liked Cavill in the role, but I think Liam is just more at ease in the costume and character?

Also, the show feels infinitely more approachable?

Like I don't want this to be true as I know Cavill was championing the books/source material, and I know that they are diverging from said material...but even as someone who has read 4 of the books....I like this. A LOT.

Stop QT, stop before anyone notices you!
Haven't you seen what they're doing t anyone who likes Hemsworth???
My gods man, hide! Hide while you still can!

Right?

Everyone hated him upon announcement...I probably even said something....but having watched...he's just really great...and you can feel the production shift post-Cavill.

I dunno what to say, I like it. It's fun rompy fantasy TV whereas before it felt weighted down...I fell off in S3 it was so messy...this is a significant improvement.

[amphibian]

QuickTidal, on 31 October 2025 - 12:39 PM, said:

I'm here to report what might be a blasphemy to some...

Liam Hemsworth is a BETTER Geralt in THE WITCHER (S4) than Cavill was. I liked Cavill in the role, but I think Liam is just more at ease in the costume and character?

Also, the show feels infinitely more approachable?

Like I don't want this to be true as I know Cavill was championing the books/source material, and I know that they are diverging from said material...but even as someone who has read 4 of the books....I like this. A LOT.

I have had an extremely busy week and opened up Netflix to watch the first episode. I was too tired to get more than 15 min into the first episode (a me problem, not the show) and packed myself off to bed. In that fifteen minutes, I noticed a bit of unevenness specifically around Hemsworth and delivering lines. Sometimes he's quite decent and he moved alright in the bits of action I could see. I did think that his initial "mini break-up" with Yennefer on the small bridge next to a Roach was not well done and Yennefer out acted him easily.

The episode wasn't doing that great with things like visually setting up the actors for better delivery of the goulash joke or making Falka's crew seem interesting, which might mean that it was rushed or the episode directors aren't that good at little bits of comedy + danger.

I'm not making a snap judgement on Hemsworth based on that 15, so I'll watch the full season and see how it goes.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 31 October 2025 - 03:59 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Started watching Gen V season two... what a lugubrious slog. Very little of the humor, energy, or creative world-building that animated season one---so far.

Worse, it's boring, badly written slop... and the moderate charisma of the actors fails to make it entertaining.

Maybe good if you want to fall asleep... sad?

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 November 2025 - 10:30 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Apparently Gen V season two only gets worse... so I've bailed for now.

Amazingly the episodes I slogged through got good reviews from critics---probably because... well, I hate to use the term "woke", but it's very blunt and on-the-nose, beating the audience over the head with explicit, badly-written, cliche "woke" or "Nazi Maga" or anti-influencer-culture soundbytes, and a wearisome parade of humorless, unimaginative gross vignettes.

In order to be satire, it should actually be funny---or at least creative.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 November 2025 - 12:27 AM

[amphibian]

amphibian, on 31 October 2025 - 03:56 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 31 October 2025 - 12:39 PM, said:

I'm here to report what might be a blasphemy to some...

Liam Hemsworth is a BETTER Geralt in THE WITCHER (S4) than Cavill was. I liked Cavill in the role, but I think Liam is just more at ease in the costume and character?

Also, the show feels infinitely more approachable?

Like I don't want this to be true as I know Cavill was championing the books/source material, and I know that they are diverging from said material...but even as someone who has read 4 of the books....I like this. A LOT.

I have had an extremely busy week and opened up Netflix to watch the first episode. I was too tired to get more than 15 min into the first episode (a me problem, not the show) and packed myself off to bed. In that fifteen minutes, I noticed a bit of unevenness specifically around Hemsworth and delivering lines. Sometimes he's quite decent and he moved alright in the bits of action I could see. I did think that his initial "mini break-up" with Yennefer on the small bridge next to a Roach was not well done and Yennefer out acted him easily.

The episode wasn't doing that great with things like visually setting up the actors for better delivery of the goulash joke or making Falka's crew seem interesting, which might mean that it was rushed or the episode directors aren't that good at little bits of comedy + danger.

I'm not making a snap judgement on Hemsworth based on that 15, so I'll watch the full season and see how it goes.

Episode 2 is a legit good episode of a show. It's focused, the actors do a good job, and the scenes are allowed to be what they are (not too many cut aways etc).

Episode 1 is kind of a mess. There's too many tonal shifts, moments of clunky acting, and jumps between characters.

[QuickTidal]

Been re-watching CALIFORNIA DREAMS, which was the 90's show that used to follow SAVED BY THE BELL, that was less hokey and was about a group of teens who had a band and played at their local hangout spot. It's good, in fact it's better than I remember and definitely less overall hokey than SAVED BY THE BELL was...but the funny thing is how much they didn't know what the show wanted to be and how much it then changed over the seasons...

Like S1 it's about a brother and sister who have a band, they hang out in their kitchen with the other bandmates, their skeevy money-obsessed buddy who manages the band, and their parents (and younger brother who shows up like twice), and practice in their garage.

In s2 though, they decided to focus less on that family so the parents, and younger brother were written off without fanfare, and the sister moves to Rome for school by the 3rd episode....leaving only the brother (main singer and guitarist for the band) as the lead...and they get a motorcycle jacket wearing slick hair dude name Jake to join and be lead guitarist, so the brother becomes just a keyboard player eventually. They also bring in a new girl, an exchange student from Hong Kong who now sings and fills the spot of the absent sister and lives with the first kids family. They still practice in the first kids garage.

By season 3 Jake is now the lead of the band, and Matt (the first kid) has also moved away with his family (who haven't been seen since S1 anyways), so Sam (the girl from Hong Kong) no longer has a host family and a new student named Lorena whose family is rich take her in, and they also bring in the cousin of their skeevy money-obsessed buddy who manages the band named Mark who is nice and down to earth and is basically the standin for the first kid who moved away. They now practice in a massive space in Lorena's rich parents mansion.

Less changes happen in S4 and 5 as that is the pretty set cast for the remainder of the shows existence, and the two things that happen are the money obsessed manager friend is constantly the centre of plots to give his character an arc that makes him nicer, and Jake dates two of the women in the band (Lorena and Tiffany), and Tony the drummer dates Sam.....constant dating problems and hijinx ensue.

It's just a fascinating thing to see, like when SAVED BY THE BELL tried to fill the gap left by Jessie and Kelly leaving after they'd shot the graduation for half a season they brought in Tori, but that failed hard and everyone hated her....but a half hour later CALIFORNIA DREAMS changed their cast AND concept like 4 times in 3 seasons and it somehow worked.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 11 November 2025 - 04:46 PM

[worry]

Brother, I watched that show growing up too and couldn't have told you a single detail of what you just said from memory, aside from it vaguely being about a band. You didn't even say the word 'surfboard' and that's what I remember most.

[QuickTidal]

 worry, on 12 November 2025 - 04:40 AM, said:

Brother, I watched that show growing up too and couldn't have told you a single detail of what you just said from memory, aside from it vaguely being about a band. You didn't even say the word 'surfboard' and that's what I remember most.

Yeah, the hangout (Sharky's) was filled with surfboards and Tiffany's character build in Season 1 (and some of 2) was Surfer girl who can also play bass. Lots of surfboards.

[Abyss]

 QuickTidal, on 11 November 2025 - 04:43 PM, said:

... a half hour later CALIFORNIA DREAMS changed their cast AND concept like 4 times in 3 seasons and it somehow worked.

the niche this show (and Saved and Degrassi and surprisingly short list of similar shows) filled... early 90s tweens/early teens had very little on TV that even remotely channeled (pun intended) them... 90210 aimed older, Nik aimed younger and Disney TV wasn't a thing. The bar was very low.

[QuickTidal]

 Abyss, on 12 November 2025 - 02:36 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 11 November 2025 - 04:43 PM, said:

... a half hour later CALIFORNIA DREAMS changed their cast AND concept like 4 times in 3 seasons and it somehow worked.

the niche this show (and Saved and Degrassi and surprisingly short list of similar shows) filled... early 90s tweens/early teens had very little on TV that even remotely channeled (pun intended) them... 90210 aimed older, Nik aimed younger and Disney TV wasn't a thing. The bar was very low.

I'm wiling to say that it's a better shows overall than SAVED....it's SO much less hokey...it's still got goofy storylines, but nowhere near the nadir that SBTB reached.

[amphibian]

amphibian, on 06 November 2025 - 06:59 PM, said:

Episode 2 is a legit good episode of a show. It's focused, the actors do a good job, and the scenes are allowed to be what they are (not too many cut aways etc).

Episode 1 is kind of a mess. There's too many tonal shifts, moments of clunky acting, and jumps between characters.

Episode 3 is also very good. The only critique I have is that sometimes Ciri/Freya and Yennefer/Anya are acting with actors who are not as good as them (I don't think most of the Rats are great actors yet).

The witch mob scene was genuinely great and the Francesca tells the table story is peak fantasy storytelling in a form I haven't seen before.

Two out of the first three episodes have been driven, fun TV and the cast is strong enough to support the drop from Cavill to Hemsworth (who is actually a fine Witcher, just not the guy who was probably a perfect fit for the role from the beginning).

This is good TV.

[Tiste Simeon]

I recently watched The Americans and what a great show that was! Really intense and nuanced, made me think a whole ton after finishing it.

Needed a major change of pace after that so have been watching She-Hulk and nan that one is a hoot! Just so much fun!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Finished watching WoT. Was surprised by how goofy it was in places (though still enjoyable) and though one could quibble over some logical criticisms it's overall pretty good---fun, at least, with some great visuals, decent acting, and far more engaging pacing than the book.

Then... in the name of Virtuedumb, I marathon-slogged through the rest of Gen V season 2. It was terrible until around the last two episodes, which iirc were actually decent grimdarkish superhero fare, with some engaging gory action and decent twists---though still almost entirely unfunny. And there were some other good parts. Maybe enough for a three hour movie. Not an eight hour slogfest.

Now I'm trying to force myself to finish season two of The Rings of Power but it's so bad and such a tremendous waste of money it makes me want to hurl my screen across the room and oh yes procrastinate by posting here.

Tiste Simeon, on 18 November 2025 - 06:40 PM, said:

I recently watched The Americans and what a great show that was! Really intense and nuanced, made me think a whole ton after finishing it.

Needed a major change of pace after that so have been watching She-Hulk and nan that one is a hoot! Just so much fun!

You island hedonists... watching TV for fun? And when you're not even torturing yourself with electrodes?...

[Tiste Simeon]

 Azath Vitr (D, on 19 November 2025 - 01:24 AM, said:

 Tiste Simeon, on 18 November 2025 - 06:40 PM, said:

I recently watched The Americans and what a great show that was! Really intense and nuanced, made me think a whole ton after finishing it.

Needed a major change of pace after that so have been watching She-Hulk and nan that one is a hoot! Just so much fun!

You island hedonists... watching TV for fun? And when you're not even torturing yourself with electrodes?...

Jokes on you, I also electrocute myself for fun!

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 19 November 2025 - 10:53 AM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 19 November 2025 - 01:24 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 18 November 2025 - 06:40 PM, said:

I recently watched The Americans and what a great show that was! Really intense and nuanced, made me think a whole ton after finishing it.

Needed a major change of pace after that so have been watching She-Hulk and nan that one is a hoot! Just so much fun!

You island hedonists... watching TV for fun? And when you're not even torturing yourself with electrodes?...

Jokes on you, I also electrocute myself for fun!

i would totally electrocute Tiste for fun.

[QuickTidal]

First two eps of IT: WELCOME TO DERRY are solid, very VERY much in the vein of the movies (which makes sense considering it's the same creative team, same filming location ect.), if a little more gruesome at points...

mild spoilers for my opinion on what's going on...

Spoiler

I think that the first ep offing two ostensible Proto-Losers, and how much attention to the number of them needed to stop Pennywise in the movies/80's/2000's, that this group of 1962 Proto-Losers will fail for that reason, there is also racial tension, mental health tension, and the Shining's Dick Halloran experiencing whatever it is about Derry that scares him enough to send him to the Overlook Hotel later in life to hide...

it's not nearly as "Goonies-meet-cosmic-horror" as the movies and regular IT story from the novel..but that's to be expected...so far it's excellent TV and I'm excited to see where it goes.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Yesterday, 03:14 PM