Media, Quarantine Brain

[thistlechaser]

I think I've finally adjusted to this "new normal". Before the whole virus thing, I hated going shopping. I'd rather scrub the toilet than go grocery shopping. Then suddenly we couldn't go, each trip out was risky, and going to the grocery store was like going on an exotic vacation. This weekend I needed some things, but I realized I really, really did not want to go shopping. Not because of the risk, but just because I hate shopping.

On top of that, I've also started reading again (YAY!). Together I think these two things mean I'e settled in to how things are now. It's really strange that it took two months, because working from home is my dream.

TV

The Good Fight is such a perfect show. It's got all the thoughtfulness, amazing writing, and politics of West Wing, though it's more character-centric. Also, the politics are smaller (law firm vs US government), but the spirit is still the same.

Very sadly I'm almost caught up on it. The episode I watched today was right when the quarantine had started, and there's a very nice (and sad) clip at the end of the show of all the cast and crew explaining why the next ep would be delayed, then they all sang together. It made me sniffly, not just because it was a nice thing for them to do, but at how different things were two months ago. They were all so positive and I'm sure had no idea that two months later things would be worse.

Once I'm done with The Good Fight, I'm going to watch The Good Wife. It's supposed to be nearly as good. It's set in the same world, just follows different characters.

Love, Death, and Robots is SO FRICKING AMAZING. An anthology, animated. Each ep is only 10-17 minutes long, but EVERY SINGLE STORY is so good! If you like sci fi, check it out. A couple of the eps are a little gory for me (animated at least, so not as bad as if they were live action), but it's still really, really worth watching. I'm halfway through the season.

Tour of Duty When I was a kid, this was my favorite show. Set in the Vietnam War, it followed one group of men and how they had to cope with things there. My cable TV access is about 10 channels, most of them just the basic broadcast one. I have a few odd channels though that only play old old reruns. One of them is H&I (Heroes and Icons). I hadn't heard of that channel before getting this really basic TV package. Most of the shows are from the 60s-80s, but it includes some gems like Tour of Duty... and Star Trek. Six nights a week it shows a three hour block of Star Trek, TNG, and then DS9. So happily I'm rewatching The Next Generation and Deep Space 9. On the seventh night it shows a block of war shows, including Tour of Duty.

I really hadn't thought that Tour of Duty would hold up. I loved the show 30 years ago, my tastes have changed in so many ways. TV has changed in so many ways! But happily this show really does still work for me. How could it not? "Average" men put into an awful situation: a timeless story. Plus, watching it now, there's lots of interesting information about the war and life back then.

I love the themesong so much, too. (Let's see if I can remember how to embed a video into LJ...)

Also still slowly watching: Community (couple eps a week), Major Crimes (one or two eps a week).
Dropped: Picard (I didn't hate it, just didn't hook me. Watched 8/10 eps I think.) Battlestar Galactica (Rewatch, maybe will pick up again when I have less to watch? On season 1, ep 10.)

Comments

[jeane nevarez (from livejournal.com)]

My husband and I watched Love, Death and Robots a while back. Some of it was great, some of it just didn't do much for me (the more violent ones particularly). It was fun though!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most of the violent ones were less of a match for me (except the one about Sonnie, the beastie fighter). The Dracula one was my least favorite so far.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

We watched the Community online table read last night that they did for charity and I was crying I was laughing so hard by the end. I've been putting Community on in the background while playing Animal Crossing at night, good wayt o wind down.

I can't remember if we watched all of Love Death and Robots - I know we watched the two that were based on John Scalzi stories because he tweeted about it which is what alerted me to the show in the first place. There was one we watched that was really graphic and since we tend to watch shows while eating, I think that bumped it down the list LOL. But what we saw was good. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Community is perfect for that. Winding down, being calm, cheering up. I use it when I need a break from heavier, more serious shows.

I still have the last four eps of Love Death and Robots to go, but people tell me they're all kind of gory, so I've not been rushing to see them. I know one of the two Scalzi eps were good, but the other was the Yogurt one. On the surface, that one was too silly for me, but then I read reviews that said it was an AI story, and that made it make SO much more sense. The yogurt just standing in as an AI system.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Now that I finished the series, I looked up the writers of each of the Love, Sex, and Robots ep. I was wrong! Turned out the other one Scalzi wrote was Alternate Histories, which I really didn't like at all. So both his eps were kind of a miss for me.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I thought he wrote the one with the three robots?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah ha! He wrote three, not two. Yes, Three Robots was one of them. Three Robots, Alternate Histories, and When the Yogurt Took Over.