TV Reviews

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  Black Mirror
  Black Mirror (slang for a TV's only inherent value when it is turned off), is a near-future British science fiction anthology television series (later picked up by Netflix). Each episode is a standalone story which examines unanticipated consequences of new technologies, often with a dark and satirical take.

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  Bosch (TV)

  Bosch is an Amazon Original TV Series (started in 2014), that's one of the best crime-drama shows of the last few years. My wife and I binged watched 4 seasons in about as many weeks. Basically, it's very old school, and predictable in some ways: tough guy Harry is ex special forces, the veteran detective, who sometimes bends/breaks the rules... but over time, you learn that he's fairly ethical outside of a few shortcuts, and is trying to right the wrongs of the world, because he was brought up as an orphan, after his prostitute mom was murdered, and he was stuck in the system.

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  Daredevil (TV)

  While I wasn't really a fan of the idea of Daredevil. Blind Justice was a movie in the same genre that I liked, and it felt like a rehash, though I suspect it's the other way around. And I taught Martial Arts, and the idea of the blind Master, who overcomes his disability, sort of never really clicked with me. But this one works: the film style, pacing, story, characters, acting, I'm good with it. Season 1 more than the rest.

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  Dickinson

  So I get Apple TV+ for free, because I buy their computers and phones. I tried the Dickinson show, and OMG this stunk on ice (for me). While it got a 71/91 on Rotten Tomatoes, I couldn't get past the first episode. Basically it's was like Hamilton (the Play), let's imagine kids in the 19th century using modern vernacular and attitudes, and turn it into a teen dramedy suitable for The CW. It was complete with lesbian kissing scenes, and a complete cool/progressive fiancé/BF that totally gets Emily's free spirited 21 century feminist routine. It's like 90210 with more cheese and less depth and hitting every snowflake hotbutton it can find.

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  Dirty Money

  Netflix produced a 20/20 style documentary series called Dirty Money. Only this show doesn't have the constraints of a John Stossel, who is likely to wakeup one day, and realize how unclean his Michael Moore style one-sided Marxist propaganda is. So while the show is interesting, and watchable, it's completely dogmatic, one sided, and filled with lies of omission and commission. It reminds me of High School civics, history, social studies, all over again: though this is slightly more interesting.

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  House of Cards
  House of Cards: the Breaking Bad of Politics. And I'm not sure I mean that in a good way. I grew to hate all the characters on Breaking Bad, but I started out hating them on HoC. They don't get more likable. If you like watching people manipulate each other and behave badly, this show is for you.... or you could have visited my family during the Holiday's.

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  Man in the High Castle
  The premise of "what if the Nazi's and Japs won WWII" is a fascinating piece of alternate history. The premise exceeds the implementation for season 1: which turned in a mediocre spy thriller with a different backdrop. Season 2 is far more interesting and starts exploring what life and culture would be like, as well as the drama is more interesting. I'm hoping Season 3 continues the progression.

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  Orange is the New Black

  Orange is the New Black (ONB) was one of Netflix's early success series, that ran for 7 seasons, and is well liked by reviewers and viewers (96/82 on rotten tomatoes). While I generally liked the characters and writing, it gets a bit manic, woke and Social Justice preachy in the story. You quickly realize it is just it is just Lesbian Hogans Heroes -- with a darker view of the world, but all the same cynical and slightly bigoted undertones. Instead of being anti-German, it's anti-straight white male patriarch, anti-authority... everyone in power is incompetent or an asshole. The prison is filled with good people that just had a tough childhood and made some bad choices, are mentally ill and not getting treatment, or they are framed victims. It's all societies fault. The story arc is interesting, but the dogma of the writers gets thicker and thicker as the writers try desperately to make you bond to the criminals and empathize with their bad chocies resent the authority protecting society from them (or them from each other), and hate the system as much as they do.

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  Roosevelt's: An Intimate History

  Ken Burns disappoints with a progressive puff-piece, written, directed and shown by the left, for the far left. Teddy the Republican was almost all bad. FDR the Democrat was almost all good. And the complexities that made both 3 dimensional, instead of caricatures, was all whitewashed off the series. I figured the format would allow PBS to do something deep and complex, it was just long and shallow.

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  The Final Year

  HBO propaganda film on how great Obama was, called "The Final Year" and was total puffery. You probably shouldn't do many documentaries on people while they're still alive. (Too many people are more biased when they can be help accountable, and all the truths haven't leaked out). But this is especially true when done by water carriers like anyone at HBO. It's like watching a Reagan Documentary done by Breitbart: I'm sure there's some interesting parts (and some truths), but it certainly wouldn't be the whole truth -- and I find Brietbart a lot more intellectually honest than HBO. Crap like this is why I give HBO as little of my money as possible.

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  The Morning Show

  So I get Apple TV+ for free, because I buy their computers and phones. Thus I decided to watch the best they had to offer (the premier show), called The Morning Show. Basically, it's a fictionalized story of Matt Lauer / Mitch Kessler (played by Steve Carell) getting caught in a MeToo scandal, and how his cohost Alex Levy (Jennifer Anniston) and the rest of the cast handles it. I figured with such a snowflaky topic, that Apple might go full snowflake and make complete SJW tripe. They didn't. For the most part, it was a fairly mature take on a fairly complex subject, and they didn't play Matt, er Steve Carell, as the caricature character they might have, and it brought up some reasonable discussions and was somewhat entertaining. So it was worth watching, even if it wasn't the best thing on TV.

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  The Newsroom

  I watched The Newsroom, after it was getting absurd amounts of adoration from my left of center friends. And for me it was Sorkin's usual anally-injected leftist dogma under the cover of machine-gun prose and fake objectivity. I watched the first error ridden diatribe, full of errors and falsehoods, and couldn't bring myself to watch any other episodes. It was so insulting (and so loved by people that didn't know better), that I immediately put Sorkin into the same category as Michael Moore, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and other cult leaders. Then I wrote this line-by-line takedown of the opening monologue. When the series ended 2 years later, I feel like the world became a better place for it being over. If you want to look how America became so divided, shows like this are a great example.

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  The Ranch

  Netflix original series basically said "let's put the case of 'That 70's Show' on a Colorado Ranch, and make fun of red-states". You'd think with that premise, it would be a disaster -- but it the first couple Season's were good. Then Danny Masterson got "MeToo'd" over "rape", aka having sex with his sleeping wife a couple decades ago, and she stayed with him for 3 more years. Then he was killed off, and the show lost its tone and wandered for another season and a half before mercifully going to the slaughter house.

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  The View

  The View was a talk show with 3 or 4 female shrill Liberals that gang-bang the one token conservative. In the case of Elisabeth Hasselbeck they haranged and bullied her off the show for being "too Christian/Conservative for their audience". E.g. they were worried about the balance and likability she might bring to the show. Ratings plummeted on The View, while Hasselbeck grew the FoxNews Channel ratings (she went to immediately afterwards) by 9%. Yeah, Elizabeth was the problem. They replaced her with Meghan McCain, and they repeatedly had incidents with her not being liberal and stupid enough. Basically, the two most obnoxious are Joy Behar, and Whoopi Goldberg, who like to prove their stupid, divisive, hypocrisy, on a regular basis -- with Joy being more obnoxious, and Whoopi just looking ignorant. Lousy show with lousy humans, makes their viewing audience dumber with every viewing.

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  Upload

  Upload is an American science fiction comedy satire web television series on Amazon Prime Video. Basically, 2033 humans are able to "upload" themselves into a VR afterlife of their choosing, and others can visit them. It's kind of a corny rom-com with murder mystery going on, that isn't that deep, but works better than many shows on regular TV. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 83/90 (reviewer/viewer) -- a little generous, but I enjoyed the plot arc, characters and writing, even if their anti-Capitalist/anti-commercialism and OpenSource good-guys tropes were a bit over the top. The whole show was over the top and a caricature... but it did have a little bit of thought provoking mixed in.

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  Volkswagen emissions scandal

  The first episode of Dirty Money was fascinating. It interviews the key people involved, talks about the issue, how it happened, how the government stumbled on the truth, and in only 7 years, got around to doing their jobs (partly because of VW's stonewalling and distractions). It even accidentally mumbles that the other auto-makers were doing the same thing. The only thing it left out is "why?" Why would VW take this risk? You're spoon-fed the ideas that it was just greed and arrogance that caused the callous disregard for the planet. And I'm sure greed and arrogance were part of it. But it forgets to hint at the truth: the regulations were unmitigated bullshit. The truth was it was because CARB and the EPA set unreasonable and unattainable standard, and so VW had a choice of surrender a market, or cheat. You might not agree with VW's decision, but if you don't know why they did it, then you don't understand what happened. This documentary (and most of the media) leaves you ignorant of why, while feeling like you know more than you do. It turns people into progressives: arrogant, ignorant and sanctimonious (or worse: willing to lie for their cause).

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  Walking Dead
  Walking Dead Grumble Thread. Look I can suspend disbelief enough to watch a show about the Zombie apocalypse. Living in the bay-area, I saw them walking to the poll booths on Election Day. But I can't stand stupid people not adapting to their new reality. There's so many better ways to deal with walkers or biters.

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  Westworld (TV)
  Placeholder for Westworld TV series. On my to-binge lists, but I hear lots of people who love it, but I'll have to see if I'm in the other group or not.