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[Il Palazzo]

I was never into horror stories. I still don't think I am. All too often there's an over-reliance on cheap tropes and jump scares. And the general mean-spiritedness in them I find off-putting. But now that I've watched almost everything Mike Flanagan has made, I think I'm in love with what he's doing with the genre.
To be sure, there's plenty creepiness to be had, but it's not there for its own sake. The goal is not to simply spook you and leave you disturbed. The horror facade is more like a background for emotional family drama, meditations on mortality, love, regret, faith. It's all wonderfully steeped in heartfelt melancholy.

I highly recommend Midnight Mass, or The Haunting of the Hill House. I've yet to see the other Haunting series (of Bly Manor), but by now I can confidently state that there's no way it will be anything less than stellar. It's all on Netflix. His feature films are great too.
You can see the actors are having a ball with what they're given. Wonderful performances all around.

[Il Palazzo]

And for a complete change of tone... Smiling Friends on Adult Swim is a thing. A weird, weird, weird thing.

[delphonso]

And for a complete change of tone... Smiling Friends on Adult Swim is a thing. A weird, weird, weird thing.

I caught a few clips from friends and yeah... I was sold and am looking forward to watching more.

[Folly]

I finished the first season of Showtime's Yellowjackets.

The premise is basically the same as The Wilds; a bunch of teenage girls survive a plane crash and are stranded in the wilderness for an extended period of time.
Pretty much every episode climaxed with dramatic music very slowly leading up to a reveal, which always turned out to be something disappointingly mundane. Like, the story would have been just okay if these scenes had been given no more pomp than they warranted. And I could have looked the other way if it was just a one-off things. But no; every single episode pulled the exact same stunt, and it quickly became vexing.
The first episode opened with a teaser for a dramatic event, before jumping back to a much earlier point in the story. Throughout most of the first season it felt like we were making our way up to that dramatic event. Then the season finale came, and we are only maybe halfway to that point in the story. That is not okay. Very bad storytelling.

Despite these complaints, the finale did include multiple surprising twists and mild cliffhangers, so I'll definitely be coming back whenever the already approved second season arrives. But I'm not happy about it.

[McTraveller]

I just tried to start Lost in Space.

Morbo says: Water does not freeze that way! Maybe if it was not turbulent and was supercooled. But not like that!

[King Zultan]

The original or the newer one?

[McTraveller]

The new one.  So.  Much.  Manufactured.  Tension.  I stopped at maybe 20 minutes into the first episode.

[Il Palazzo]

I stopped at maybe 20 minutes into the first episode.

Same reaction here. It's bad.

[hector13]

I am watching Elementary on Hulu, the Sherlock Holmes with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. Almost finished the first season, it is enjoyable, the myriad twists and turns the episodes take make them interesting from start to finish, but it does the typical American thing of having 4 times as many episodes in a season as it really needs to actually do any character development and deeper story stuff.

I also watched The Great a fictionalised telling of Catherine the Great’s rise to power and her tenure as Empress of Russia. It is, quite frankly, brilliant, and would urge y’all to give it a watch. There is minimal historical accuracy if that bothers you, but that would normally get on my nerves and it is easily ignorable as a result of the quality of the work otherwise.

[Il Palazzo]

I've been hearing glowing praise for The Great. But it's Hulu only, right?

[hector13]

As far as I’m aware it’s Hulu only, though the way it’s structured it seems like they expected it to be sold to commercial tv at some point. There are bits in it that look like points for ad breaks, if that makes sense.

[Vector]

I like Norsemen.

The Great is pretty good too, I got bored at some point and stopped watching. But overall, good.

[Rolan7]

Norsemen is really funny!  A couple characters are effeminate stereotypes, sooorta, but it's played in such a unique way that I even enjoy it.  Both of them have a lot more going on than just that.  There's a lot of gender role humor in other ways too, which is fun.

I recommend checking out at least a little of it to hear the English dialogue.  There's something strange about it, like an accent where the inflections are all off.  Someone told me that the english dialogue was spoken by the actors even when they barely know English.  I don't know if that's true, but that's what it sounds like - and it's a neat affect!

It breaks up the expected rhythm of every sentence like jazz or something.

[Scoops Novel]

M*A*S*H is great. That is all. Ah, except skip to the second season maybe. Gets DRAMATICALLY BETTER over time. Actually just dramatically better. Whatever, watch it.

[Vector]

M*A*S*H is great. That is all. Ah, except skip to the second season maybe. Gets DRAMATICALLY BETTER over time. Actually just dramatically better. Whatever, watch it.

Cheers, I agree on both counts.

Norsemen is really funny!  A couple characters are effeminate stereotypes, sooorta, but it's played in such a unique way that I even enjoy it.  Both of them have a lot more going on than just that.  There's a lot of gender role humor in other ways too, which is fun.

I recommend checking out at least a little of it to hear the English dialogue.  There's something strange about it, like an accent where the inflections are all off.  Someone told me that the english dialogue was spoken by the actors even when they barely know English.  I don't know if that's true, but that's what it sounds like - and it's a neat affect!

It breaks up the expected rhythm of every sentence like jazz or something.

Yes! I get a big kick out of the conversations that sound like "workplace talk." And honestly, the somewhat effeminate characters may be stereotypes, but they really are (imho) no better or worse than any other characters. I watch the show because I like Orm and Rufus hohohohohoho