Start your Friday with the new Always Be Watching Podcast. Each week Dan & Chris ask each other what they have been watching lately. This week they discuss:
- The Good Fight
- Trigger Warning with Killer Mike
- Star Trek: Discovery
- Kraft Punk’s Political Party
You can find the podcast today along with all of the previous Always be Watching podcasts here: http://alwaysbewatching.com/category/podcast/
Because I was heading off overseas, we had to record a couple of Always Be Watching podcasts in advance. And so, on this week’s episode where we discuss Star Trek: Discovery, we hadn’t yet seen the most recent episode in which it appears that the show is playing around with the origins of the Star Trek: The Next Generation villains The Borg.
This back-half of season 2 feels like the show has finally found its groove and grown-up into the show it will become. The way they’ve introduced the Borg speaks highly to that - a notion not lost on Devon Maloney at Vulture:
If any of this seems familiar, that’s because it’s starting to look a lot like the operating tactics of one of Star Trek’s most infamous villains. In all but name, Discovery viewers are very likely being treated to the origin story of the Borg. (While not for certain, it would be baffling, given the deliberate clues, for this not to be where we’re headed.) And while this birth might not line up perfectly with the Borg’s suspected canonical origins, of the many retcons in which Discovery has indulged — from its star being Spock’s adoptive sibling to the Klingon redesign to the arrival of Spock (Ethan Peck) and Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) — it’s the first one that feels purposeful, subtly introduced, and positively inspired. Giving the Borg a human origin story in 2019, now that we have 30 additional years of machine-learning innovation to plumb, would not only prove that Discoveryis learning how to toe the line between gratuitous fan service and meaningful use of Star Trek canon; it would also give the franchise as a whole a welcome update.
Source: Vulture
Oh, this is actually really great casting - John Cho will play the lead in the Netflix live-adaptation of the anime show Cowboy Bebop.
Cho will star as Spike Spiegel, described as an impossibly cool bounty hunter with a deadly smile, a wry wit, and style to spare. He travels the solar system with his ex-cop partner, Jet, pursuing the future’s most dangerous bounties with a combination of charm, charisma
Source: Variety
I always liked the opening titles from the show:
YouTube Originals one success story was the Karate Kid sequel Cobra Kai. It returns for a second season. The trailer just dropped today:
A savage criticism of Killing Eve season 2 by Constance Grady at Vox:
What’s holding the show back in this new season is a certain amount of labored resetting. Much of the carefully built chaos that erupted at the end of season one is abruptly cleared away in this new season, as everything regresses back into simpler circumstances.
Characters who were fired quickly regain their jobs. Relationships that seemed on the verge of cataclysmic breakdowns pull themselves back into status quo. Almost nothing from season one that seemed as though it might carry consequences does in season two, and that means that the stakes of the show feel lower now than they did before. If no old threats are paying off, why should we care about new ones?
Grady is generally still enthused about the show, but I can say for my own tastes that resets like this on a show really bother me - in this current age of premium TV where we’re not looking for a status quo in our large, sweeping narrative stories, I don’t think there’s much excuse for this. We demand forward progression.
Source: Vox
I’m sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, but I actually liked the movie La La Land. So, word of Damien Chazelle’s new Netflix series starring André Holland has me enthused:
“The Eddy” will tell the story of Elliot Udo, a celebrated jazz pianist from New York City who now resides in Paris and owns a failing jazz club. Holland is starring as Elliot, who is described as “emotionally stunted” and “hiding from everyone.” Elliot is having an on-and-off-again relationship with the lead singer of his club’s house band. The story kicks in when Elliot’s 15-year-old daughter shows up to the club suddenly, forcing the pianist to overcome his weaknesses and learn to grow up.
Source: Indiewire
The BBC has a new series in the works about the final 6 months of Marilyn Monroe’s life. The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe will be written by Dan Sefton who recently wrote the medical drama Save Me.
Source: Radio Times
Jen Chaney at Vulture believes that You’re The Worst nailed its series finale. Did it though? Ultimately, it all depends on how you viewed the show. I think a lot (likely the majority) will be happy with the way the show played out and its message that a relationship can and should exist on its own terms. But, I always viewed the show more through the eyes of the shows bedrock character Edgar: he believed that Jimmy deserved better than the Gretchen character and that she would make him miserable in life. Throughout the course of the series, Edgar was shown time and time again to always land on making the correct decision.
Je suis Edgar.
Source: Vulture
And finally…
Sticking with You’re The Worst, here is creator Stephen Falk on the final episode of the show.
The main conflict is not between Gretchen and Jimmy, but Jimmy and Edgar, which is the heart of the show for me. Certainly it’s a rom-com and a love story, but I was never totally comfortable with the old trope of the rom-com sidekick. And I thought Edgar deserved a chance to get out of Jimmy’s orbit for good, and this was a way to do it. So it was a lot of different factors that went into planning the flash-forwards.
Source: The AV Club
