Category: TV Shows

So much joy of watching House of the Dragon is derived from consuming post-show discussions and reactions. Reading tweets or memes about the unavoidable and uncomfortable viewer acceptance and rooting for Daemon and Rhaenyra’s relationship; hating on Alicent (worst ex-best friend ever) and Ser Criston (worst ex-one night stand ever); and name-calling Otto Hightower “Middle Finger” has been so fun.

It’s so awesome to hear the theme song blast on the living room TV every Monday night when we’ve rushed the kids to bed and savour 60 minutes or so of TV magic. 3 more episodes left and can’t wait!

On the other end of the spectrum is Rings of Power. I quit after episode 3.

Yes, it has a bigger budget and it is gorgeous on screen, but several sins were committed.

First, I can’t believe they cast the actress who played one of Barney’s most annoying ex-girlfriends on How I Met Your Mother as a major romantic character. It is so distracting! I still have residual annoyance whenever I look at her on screen. So kudos to Nazanin Boniadi for making an unforgettable Nora, but Bronwyn became a character I just don’t feel for. It’s also annoying that Bronwyn’s costume looks completely out of place because it’s the only sexy one?

Second, Rings of power is über slow and the show runners did a slow motion horse ride with Galadriel’s face in close up? It was like Ang Lee had directed the show. This was the final straw for me.

I feasted on quite a number of documentaries lately: Girl in the Picture, Our Father, Baby God, The Most Hated Man on the Internet and Paradise Lost (all 3!).

HBO’s Paradise Lost was absolutely above the rest. It was so disturbing, thought provoking and moving.

I only stumbled upon it because I was googling great HBO documentaries and an article came up saying HBO has been killing it since 1996 with Paradise Lost. So I immediately checked to see if HBO Go had it, and it did!

I was absorbed from the opening scene. I did not expect actual footage of the crime scene and images of murder victims. Not just that but three 8 year old murder victims completely naked and mutilated.

It was a strange coincidence, but I had saved a tweet just before watching Paradise Lost. The tweet had had 10 “laws” @philsophypath had picked that would improve your life. The documentary was proof of this one.

Damien Echols was unconventional and unorthodox. He dressed unconventionally and never hid his interest in magic or satanism. He lived in Arkansas surrounded by fundamentalist Christians. Damien was essentially punished for being himself.

It was so sad because I also discovered from reading Devil’s Knot that Damien was also just being a typical teen chasing skirts. He had a horrible ex who told him he looked nice in black and he got into minor skirmishes with local law enforcement because of her as well.

Police, prosecutors and judges just wanted public pressure to end and chose to kill 4 birds with 1 stone. Close the unsolved murder and get rid of the outcast/troublemakers Damien, Jason and Jessie.

Another reason the documentaries were great for me, was that it made me realize that I’m not very different from the people of West Memphis. Whilst watching the second instalment, I kept accusing someone else of the murders and only realised my accusations rest on my own biases when I watched the third.

So yes, highly recommended.

So sad that Michael K Williams was found dead yesterday due to a suspected drug overdose.

I binged the entire series of The Wire in a week with Jason during this lockdown. I hadn’t watched it before and always read that it’s one of the best TV shows of all time. So when I started watching it, it was with some skepticism that it could live up to all the hype and it absolutely did.

I started rewatching the whole series as I was watching it, and listened to hours of podcast discussions about the show with so much pleasure and I’m pretty sure I talked everyone’s ear off about the show.

It really isn’t fair to compare the series to Breaking Bad or Sopranos. Those were focused more on their main characters, what’s going on in their minds, the challenges they faced or overcame. The Wire was mind-blowing in the way it managed to show us the universe its characters were in.

At the end of the series, it felt like we knew the Game and Baltimore City. The series managed to do it with characters that weren’t one dimensional and had arcs that just felt realistic. Even though they had little screen time, the actors managed to make us feel vested in them and stir up our feelings, and Micheal K Williams is obviously one of them. Obama approved, OK?

Can’t imagine I would have loved the show as much without Omar Little whistling “Farmer in the Dell”, the courtroom scene, and his sheer presence or quotes.

“You come at the king, you best not miss.”

Omar Little