Finishing a few TV shows

I do not watch as much TV as some people, but in the last week or so I managed to wrap up a few series I have been watching on streaming services. My tastes tend to be towards escapist TV rather that gritty realism.

A friend got me into Stranger Things after the first season had been running a while. It had a Goonies meets Poltergeist feel and I was not sure which way it would go, but I have really enjoyed it. The mostly young cast have been pretty good. This fourth season has lots of threads as characters in various locations deal with the next supernatural threat as well as other issues such as bullies and being trapped in a brutal Russian prison. I like that it is not relentlessly depressing like some shows and there are some laughs to be had. The standard of the effects is high with lots of action. They split this season in two with the last two episodes totallying about four hours! They are blurring the line between TV show and movie. Netflix does not have to conform to standard hour or half hour slots. They have set things up for a fifth season with the young cast perhaps getting too old to keep it going much longer. There is not supposed to be much gap between seasons in their timeline, but they have all grown up a lot.

Over on Disney+ we have had Obi Wan Kenobi which fills us in on what went on between episodes 3 and four. Ewan McGregor does his best to merge into Alec Guinness with about ten years to go before Luke and Leia grow up into the characters I first saw in 1977. Leia gets the bigger part here as a feisty young princess who gets herself into trouble. Darth Vader also appears as he tries to hunt down the last Jedi with his force-enabled Inquisitors. They do a pretty good job of getting the feel right without too much messing around, but it does drag a bit in places. You do know that certain characters cannot die as we will see them later on, so that reduces the tension a little. You just wonder why some were allowed to live when it was inevitable they would be a problem.

Years ago I saw comedian Phil Jupitus do a show about Star Wars and he suggested that Eddie Izzard would be a great Obi Wan. It was never going to happen, but I could imagine him doing some these scenes.

Also on Disney+ was Ms Marvel, which is obviously aimed at a teen audience, but has enough action and mature themes to suit us old folk too. I have never read the comics, but I like that it is based around a young Muslim girl of Pakistani origin and has quite a lot of her culture that you would not generally see in this type of show. They talk a lot about the partition of India, which was a massively traumatic event for millions, but may be unknown to many in the West. The show really plays on the look of comics with added graphics such as text messages appearing in windows as characters converse. There are some little nods to other shows such as Hawkeye. The action moves from New Jersey to Pakistan with some subtitled scenes, but it is mostly in English. I think it looks and sounds great with some fun performances. There is an extra scene right at the end that made me go 'Huh!', but apparently this is setting up a movie next year. As usual there are lots of articles and videos putting some of the show into context of the comics. I would save those until after you watch it.

Next up is Only Murders In The Building, which is more real life, but as fun as murders can be. This is something my other half and I both enjoy. She watched Obi Wan, but it was not so much her thing. The second season picks up straight after the first ended with another murder. There is another celebrity in the penthouse and a classic actress gets a role.

With so much choice on TV and streaming we can all be watching a different set of shows. There is so much choice, so I just pick some I think I will enjoy and resign myself to not seeing everything that other people rave about.

Happy viewing!

Posted using CineTV