From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv
On 6/21/26 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
What did you watch?
I started season #3 of "The Gilded Age" last night, but I think I will
save that for later. I've also been watching soaps, but won't bother synopsizing those.
Over the last few days, I have watched:
Foundation (Apple TV) - I finished season #3 of "Foundation".
Sidenote: There will be a season #4 of "Foundation", but in a bad news/good news(?) development, David S. Goyer is out as the series's showrunner, and it's looking like some of the cast (Lee Pace and Laura
Birn in particular) may not be back in season #4. [gulp]
I have very ambivalent feelings about season #3, especially in light
of the season finale.
Overall, I thought season #3 was actually pretty good (I may have
actually liked it more than season #2). And not having Leah Harvey
around as Salvor Hardin anymore was definitely plus. (I've come to think
that Lou Llobell is an OK actress, but I always felt like Harvey dragged
down every scene she was in.)
But there were a number of choices here that I am not sure I cared
for. For instance, in this season, they had Lee Pace playing a "Brother
Day" that was basically a drugged out hippie "Love Child", instead of
the conniving and ruthless Brother Day of the previous 2 seasons, and I
don't think I liked it. (There is also a role reversal with Terrence
Mann's "Brother Dusk", but that one doesn't really develop until later
in the season, and it's another development I am ambivalent about.)
The bigger issues here though are the whole "robot" subplot (of
course involving Laura Birn's Demerzel), and a couple of developments in
the season finale.
The finale sports one "twist" involving The Mule that is one of
those plot twists that might have looked great on paper, but actually undercuts almost everything that happened in season #3 (and the end of
season #2!!), and leads to an anticlimactic showdown, and on top of that doesn't even make a lick of sense in context (unless I don't quite
understand the nature of the Pirate Mule).
Then it sports a second "twist" involving Rowena King's character
that I also did not care for.
So, the finale ends up taking a lot of shine off the rest of season
#3, which is too bad.
Greenland 2: Migration (HBO Max) - I am surprised here, as this was not
nearly as bad as I've been led to believe.
Yes, it sports some idiocies (idiocies not on the level of, say, "Geostorm"! but idiocies nonetheless!). Stuff like: "Radiation storms"
(wait, did they seriously just lift this nonsense from "The 'Hundred"[sic!]?!?!! - ok, someone want to explain to me why a meteor
impact leads to the equivalent of radioactive fallout clouds?! 'Cos I
have no idea why that would be a thing!!).
But ignoring the idiocies, I actually enjoyed this flick - in fact,
I think I liked it more than the first film.
I also appreciate it that this flick seems to definitely wrap things
up, pretty much precluding a third film. Good for them!
Then two LMM/Lifetime flicks:
Who Killed My Husband's Mistress? - Friday night's LMN flick.
LMN(/Lifetime) are killing themselves with budget cuts - the lead actresses used to be "name" actresses, but for at least a year the leads
have all been played by "nobody" actress who range from unremarkable-to-mediocre-to-downright-awful! The lead of this one (Jenny Raven) was a lot closer to the last two in this list.
Indeed, it's weird - both of the second-lead actresses, Madeline
Leon (playing the lead's sister) and Natalie Jane (playing the lead's assistant), are both bigger names *and* better actresses than the lead,
Jenny Raven - so why not cast one of them as the lead?!
Anyway, this flick sports both a poor lead actress and an (I though) obvious culprit, so it ended up being a chore, despite me liking both
Leon and Jane.
Quick synopsis: When her husband's mistress is murdered, and then
her husband is basically assassinated, a(n incredibly boring) woman must figure out what's going on before, 1) the cops conclude she's behind it
all, and/or 2) the real killer comes after her.
Don't Trust the Girls Upstairs - Lifetime's Sat. night flick.
This one was also disappointing - This would have worked better if
they had played it straight.
Quick synopsis: When her sister dies, a woman (Remy Ma!) takes in
her orphaned niece (Aliyah Marc), which immediately sends her own
daughter (Sasha Rojen) in a jealous (but justified?) rage. Soon enough, weird/bad stuff starts happening - Is the niece a psychopathic "Bad
Seed"? Or is it the jealous daughter? Or something else?
Unfortunately, rather than playing it straight, this film (which is apparently based on a book) goes to the Lifetime well with the patented, cliched Lifetime "twist"/answer to these situations.
Unfortunately, in this case I don't think the patented Lifetime
answer worked as well as the more obvious answer.
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