Invincible Season 4 Overview: March To War

Summary, it’s finally here the big war for the Galaxy.

Season 3 spent a lot of time teasing this and season 4 was supposed to be where they delivered. Whilst hopes were for perhaps a full season of war action, we got plot lines about Debbie and her boyfriend moving in together, Eve’s abortion and a long subplot about Mark being sad he killed someone. Can you say filler.

The war stuff we got was good though it didn’t go into it as much as we would have liked and it seemed to be over with much too quickly.

The season ends with the promise of more to come with Rex/Rudy returning from the other dimension even more evil than before, however, we are leaving this season with a sigh.

There was a lot of good here but a lot of filler too.

Overall, goodish

3/5

Pros.

The war

Setting up Rex/Rudy

Less relationship drama

Cons.

Filler

The war is disappointing

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From Season 4 Overview: Slowing Down

Summary: The Man In Yellow now living amongst the residents causes chaos as things escalate.

The issue with this season are two fold, firstly as has been documented in other seasons there was a lot of filler. Secondly, the stakes just weren’t that high the finale didn’t see any major character deaths and it just felt a bit disappointing.

In terms of the search for answers and events advancing the wider plot there was more this season than there had been in previous seasons so that’s good. However, even here it isn’t as much as you’d like to be.

Things are starting to ramp up for the final season which really can’t afford any filler, but there is a worry there will be more of it.

Overall, the filler and bloat is really starting to harm the wider positive aspects of the show.

3/5

Pros.

Some answers

The monster scenes

Sophia makes things more interesting

Cons.

The filler/bloat

It feels a bit disappointing

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Clarkson’s Farm Season 5: Bittersweet

Summary: Jeremy and co are back to show you the highs and lows of farming.

This was a surprisingly emotional season of what is normally easy comfort viewing, from the TB stuff to the news of Jeremy Clarkson’s continued ill health the last few episodes of the season pack a hell of a gut punch.

However, the season as a whole isn’t depressing even in moments of deep distress there is still a joke a few minutes away that can restore people’s spirits. This is not done in a way that stops there from being tensions or emotion but in a way that tries to cheer you up after giving bad news.

The wider focus of the season is on the changing world for farmers and the need to become more tech savvy in order to stay alive in an economic world that increasingly seems hostile to them. You do feel for the farmers and see the interesting things the new tech can do.

Of course the jokes are still there as ever and are always good to brighten up your day. They mostly land which is a rare thing to say for a comedy show these days.

Overall, a bittersweet season of TV

4/5

Pros.

It’s funny

It shows you the real world issues effecting farmers

The farming tech

The people and their bonds

Cons.

It is quite sad towards the end so get ready for that

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The Boroughs Season Overview: Old Person Stranger Things

Summary: the Duffers let someone else take over Chat GPT prompts and make something derivative of Stranger Things/

So this is Stranger Things for octogenarians, a group of misfit old people team up to fight aliens, sound familiar, it should, simply remove the world old and it’s the same thing as Stranger Things. The only difference being the monsters in Stranger Things come from another dimension not space, yet it could easily be seen as otherworldly.

Whilst Gina Davis praised this show for its Golden Girls’ esque collection of oldies for leading roles, the series doesn’t do much new with them. We’ve seen countless stories about evil old folks homes, and we’ve also had many stories with old people in main roles, sorry Gina.

The mystery aspects of the show are once again hard not to compare to Stranger Things as it looks incredibly familiar in terms of how they build tension and set things up for later. The writers of this show really thought the Duffers diseased franchise was a good one to copy from. No accounting for taste we guess.

Overall, Netflix needs to get better and learning what not to greenlite

1.5/5

Pros.

The performances are good

There aren’t pacing issues

Cons.

It feels familiar

The mystery isn’t very good

The evil care home idea is done to death

It’s dull

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Maul Shadow Lord Season Overview: The Right Direction For Star Wars?

Summary: Darth Maul continues his gangland story set under the reign of the Empire.

If you enjoyed Clone Wars and Rebels you will likely enjoy this, we did for the most part. It is nice to see Star Wars be dark and gritty and the gangland focus was a great way to do that. The action in the series hit where it needs to and seeing the fights with the inquisitors was cool. The only issue with this side of things is that due to plot armour you know neither Maul nor the particular inquisitors could die here as that would break canon.

Maul is a great character to explore the moral nuances within the force and to look at the idea of Sith not being aligned and instead being very hostile towards each other. There were a number of shots that referenced Dracula, or Nosferatu which gave the series a very cool vibe, particularly when Maul is calling to his apprentice as she sleeps.

The stuff with the apprentice and the cop was where things started to fall apart, that is not to say it was all bad. There were some great scenes, however, these stop and let’s talk about our feelings scenes slowed the plot down a lot, particularly when it was the cop and his son. Maul’s escape and the beginning of Devon’s training should have happened midseason not at the end of 10 episodes. There was too much filler.

Overall, a good Star Wars TV show with a lot of promise.

3/5

Pros.

Maul

The homages to horror

The inquisitor fights

Cons.

Filler

Yet more Jedi escaped Order 66

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Cinema Issues: Cancelling A Show After One Season

Today we are doing something a bit different and doing a bit of a PSA. So if like us you’re getting tired of seeing posts whining about various shows canceled after one season, wherein the poster didn’t understand why it has happened, the idea here is to explain to them once and for all, so they stop being tedious.

1- It is all about ratings, no not critical scores, viewing figures/ratings. It doesn’t matter if there is a right wing backlash to the show they don’t have the power to end it, it doesn’t matter if there is a loyal audience if it is small. How it has always worked is if the show doesn’t hit the ratings target it gets canned.

2- Sometimes shows get second seasons as they are bought up front or developed for two seasons. This then contractually overrules ratings issues. Look at the God Awful Halo TV series for an example of this, it was commissioned for two seasons and so it got a second season despite terrible ratings.

3- The only thing that matters is you watching it, talking about it online and buying merch, these things send the correct corporate signals. Boycotts and petitions after a decision has been made change nothing in most cases.

4- Businesses aren’t charities they don’t give a show 5 seasons to find an audience, not in the hyper competitive world of streaming you aren’t either a hit out of the gate as something like Squid Game was or you aren’t and then cancelled.

5- You aren’t entitled to a second season, when you start a show you aren’t entitled to an ending either. Check yourself.

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A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Series Overview: Lighter Game Of Thrones

Summary, a hedge knight tries to make a way for himself in the world.

In many ways this has a lot of interesting stuff around it, such as Summerhall, the Blackfyre Rebellion etc. However the issue centrally with the show is that Dunk’s journey isn’t all that interesting. It gets better when you have the accusations and the trail but the first few episodes are slow.

The comedy or the lighter aspects are what stood out for all the wrong reasons however, Game of Thrones and Westeros as a whole is a serious place. Yes there are sillier elements and yes the Dunk and Egg side of things explore them but having a shot of Dunk pooing within the first episode just feels try hard and juvenile.

Tonally a lighter show could work but it needs to read the room a bit more and to be able to take itself seriously at times too.

The idea at the end of the show that Dunk thinks he just brings bad luck and gets people killed and as such is sad, doesn’t work when he’s only known he’s people for about 5 minutes in some cases.

Overall, an interesting idea that needs a tighter execution.

3/5

Pros.

The world

The trial

The things it sets up

Cons.

The comedy

The slowness

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Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen: The Name Says It All

A new horror series from some of the people who brought you Stranger Things.

One only needs watch the first ten minutes of this to see where it is going, and to see that it is generic. Sadly we had to sit and watch it to the end and yup it goes exactly where you would expect a modern horror series to go.

From the way the couple act you can tell they are going to be insufferable, they are stereotypical millennial or Gen Z adults, listening to true crime as they drive, overly crude and of course nursing some deep seated trauma that they spend every second stewing in.

The broader horror of the show is all about marriage and how ultimately you shouldn’t do it. It deconstructs traditional ideas about relationships and turns them into horror. As we have seen that before, the idea of subverting traditional ideas about relationships just shows how screwed up Hollywood is and how it really doesn’t even understand basic human interactions anymore.

The kindest way to describe this is Netflix slop, you will likely see about 20 other series and films just like this on the streamer if you watch it.

Overall, just bland and dull.

0.5/5

Pros.

At least it’s not more episodes

Cons.

The characters are awful

Its subversion and commentary are played out

It isn’t scary

Its incredibly generic

It is badly paced

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Daredevil Born Again Season 2 Overview: It Got Worse

So the TV show brings back Jessica Jones a fan favourite character, but why not Luke Cage because he is a deadbeat father who is out of the country working for the CIA, he shows up in the last few minutes after all the fighting is over no doubt to be emasculated next season.

The reason why Muse was barely in the show last season before being killed off was because they wanted to have Daredevil’s girlfriend take over the mantle and become a female version of the character, who was in one issue of a comic once.

Matt is overshadowed in his own show by the crime stopping adventures of Karen Page, at the end of the series he goes to jail despite being a force for good, so that next season they can give someone else the mantel of Daredevil whilst he’s gone, perhaps Electra.

The decision to not feature the Punisher this season at all, but have Dex essential serve the same purpose is a choice and and a weird one at that.

Finally having Kingpin be exiled after all he has done is ridiculous, people have died as a result of him, yet Daredevil pleds with the crowd to let him leave. It’s just dumb. It’s suicidal empathy.

As you can guess it’s bad the first half of the season was bad and this somehow got worse. Overall since the first episode of season 1 of Born Again it has been rapidly running down hill.

0.5/5

Pros.

The new White Tiger

Cons.

It makes Daredevil a background character

The writing makes no sense

Characters who should be there aren’t

It feels sanitised

How they handle Luke Cage

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Stranger Things Tales From 85 Overview: A Defiled Corpse Is Given The Weekend At Bernie’s Treatment.

Netflix killed Stranger Things that is very very important to state at the top, whether it was gay Will with superpowers being the real hero, the lack of a bonus 9th episode, or the horrible documentary wherein you realise the Duffers used ChatGPT to help write episodes.

They ran it into the ground. No spin off from it could ever do well now.

However they thought going back to the hey day of the show might get around that. Let’s not talk about the fact that they couldn’t even get a single major cast member back for this.

Despite the episode lengths being shorter this felt longer than the last season that’s just how bad the pacing is. Binging it in order to get this review out relatively quickly but it was a slog.

The formula of the show is a depressing retread of the main show, nostalgia, mysteries without good answers, and Marvel-esque writing with no emotional depth.

The animation is also ugly in every possible scene.

Really the question when it comes to this is why, just why. There was no need no one wanted this.

0.5/5

Pros

The music is okay

Cons.

It is needless

The voices are jarring

The story is dull

It is badly paced

The ending

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