Topic: What are you watching?

Star Wars: the Cone Wars season 2 (Disney+).

Pretty solid, about the same quality wise as season 1, though I noticed there was less erratic continuity jumping around (there was still some, but it seemed more willing to commit to full 3-4 episode long arcs). Oh, and after being a pretty common side character in season 1, it looks like they've already jettisoned Jar Jar, lol (he may have had one appearance, but I may be thinking of a season 1 episode).

@ralphdibny Started watching DC Legends of Tomorrow on Netflix again and to my surprise, I'm actually enjoying it this time around. I'm also watching The Haunting of Bly Manor so having a more cheerful show like Legends on the side balances things out quite nicely. I'm currently on season 5 and it's great, although I'm kinda out of the loop since I couldn't watch the Crisis crossovers and apparently a lot of stuff happened that has affected the main show. But yeah, I'm really liking the chill tone of this show now as a contrast to a horror show.

@LtSarge ahh sweet, yeah it's a fun show! I seem to remember the season 5 finale being absolutely bonkers! I'm such a huge fan of all the characters, I just can't get enough of it

That Loki show is out in a couple of weeks on Disney plus. I think it has Owen Wilson in it which is a pleasant surprise. Hopefully should be decent

Cutie Honey Universe (HiDive via VRV) - Reboot of a classic Go Nagai (Mazinger Z, Devilman) property, that follows Honey Kusaragi, a seemingly average high school student who is really the magical girl superhero Cutie Honey (and can take on other forms as well, such as the biker persona Hurricane Honey), who battles a terror group of female beast people called Panther Claw.

It was okay, but I wasn't terribly enthralled by it. Though it did have some cool action scenes, in general it had a feeling of cheapness about it, I didn't care for the general enemy design, and most of it's attempts at humour didn't click for me. That, and you'd have to have a unique taste in fanservice (the standard transformation & bathing scenes are one thing, but it also has a bit of a masochistic bent with female characters often getting their clothes torn off by whip, including leaving marks, if not by that episode's villain, than by the surprisingly harsh teachers at the school).

Invincible season 1 (Amazon Prime Video) - Mark is your average high schooler, except that his dad is Omni-Man (the "Superman" like figure in this world of superheroes), and when he finally develops his own powers he's eager to get his start in on the family business, however pops' mission on Earth is quickly revealed (to the audience) to be not so benevolent, and there's only one other person on Earth who, might, be able to go toe to toe with him.

This was actually pretty good. Much of the character design screams "Justice League" knockoff, but that's pretty obviously intentional, but the show is varied by it's intense action sequences (which are often very gory), and the unravelling drama of Omni-Man's family & co-workers slowly discovering his secret. There's also some personal romance drama centered around Mark that's not as interesting.

the Sacred Blacksmith (Funimation) - Medieval fantasy series that focuses on young knight Cecily Campbell & how she gets mixed up in the affairs of the blacksmith Luke, the only one in town who can forge Katanas (blades much superior to what people usually carry around). However he has a chip on his shoulder & refuses to make any more, and Cecily gets dragged into a decades long struggle involving demons, magical demon swords, & more.

I remember watching this a long time ago back when I was still watching anime via unofficial means and really liking it, and I still really enjoyed it. It's generally animated quite well with a few fantastic action sequences, I liked the character design overall, and it has the right mix of light hearted humor, surprisingly dark moments, and light fanservice that I think would go over well with fans of shows like Is it Wrong to try & Pick up Girls in a Dungeon? Unfortunately it clearly didn't hit it's mark back when it aired & it only has one season, with plenty of plot threads left dangling.

Finished watching Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness on Netflix. This was a great show! Although I don't see why they couldn't just have made it one entire movie because it's pretty much a movie chopped up into four episodes. But yeah, I really liked the story and seeing classic characters like Leon and Claire in modern RE media is just so cool. To be honest, I would've preferred Capcom to use the plot for this game towards making a game instead of a TV show. While I was watching it, I thought about how it would look like if this were a game that I was playing, lol.

Regardless, I hope they make more RE shows in the future or even games with Leon and Claire. Watching this made me realise that Resident Evil is all about the iconic characters and the recent games severely lack in that department. Ethan just isn't iconic, but I guess that's why he's used in the first-person RE titles as you never see what he looks like. That would explain why they gave the remakes of RE2 and RE3 a third-person view, even if the original games had a top-down view, since you'd want to see Leon, Claire and Jill. So we'll probably won't see them in a mainline entry again. Here's hoping that Capcom makes Revelations 3 then so that we can play as characters such as Leon once again.

Just finished watching AEW Dynamite, that coffin match was crazy

I started Seven Deadly Sins the other day. It's a medieval fantasy setting that takes place in Britain about a Ragtag group of knights that are wanted for something they didn't do.

It's quite enjoyable and has some great fight scenes. The character development is good as well. I finished the first season last night and started the second season as well. Definitely worth a watch if you enjoy anime and have Netflix.

@ralphdibny I don't know if you've kept up with the posts in the TV show thread over at Push Square, but we started discussing HBO there and I've gotta say, this service has TONS of interesting superhero shows that I haven't even heard about. Especially DC shows, I didn't even know DC was making that many shows, lol. Stuff like Doom Patrol, Stargirl, Krypton, Batwoman and so on all look very interesting. I don't know anything about them, so it could turn out that these are terrible shows, lol. But they seem promising at the very least! I also discovered that Supergirl is on HBO, and that's the only CW superhero show besides Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow and The Flash that I haven't watched yet because it isn't on Netflix, so that was a nice surprise. There are also some Marvel shows like Cloak & Dagger, Inhumans and Runaways. Again, they could also be awful shows but at least there's a lot of new superhero shows to watch on HBO compared to Netflix.

Out of curiosity, are you subscribed to HBO or have any interest in using that service in the future? I've pretty much fully converted to HBO now from Netflix, lol. It's so much more promising, I'm watching Game of Thrones for the first time and it's really good. Can't wait to discover other shows as well.

@LtSarge we don't get HBO in the UK! Most of the original HBO programming ends up on Sky over here and by extension NowTV which is like sky for cheap-os like me. Those shows you've mentioned have originated in different places but either ended up on HBO US/Worldwide through network changes or global distribution deals.

Doom Patrol was originally on that DC Universe comics/streaming service, now on HBO US I believe. Over here in the UK it's on something called StarzPlay which you pay extra for on top of an Amazon Prime subscription. So a load of BS basically so I just torrent it as it's not worth the hassle.

Absolutely love that show though, it's probably the best and my favourite DC show that's ever been made.

Same with Stargirl - DCU original moved to either the CW or HBO, not sure. Haven't seen this one but I love the look of it so I'll be giving it a go at some point.

I think Krypton was on terrestrial TV over here, like channel 4. I can't stand adverts and don't watch live TV so I never got into it. I think it was sort of supposed to be linked to Man of Steel but then sort of wasn't in the end. It was cancelled before I even considered downloading it.

Batwoman is an Arrowverse show that was again on terrestrial TV over here (channel 4 still!). They took months to air it so I ended up torrenting it so I could watch it as it's part of the crisis on infinite earth's crossover.

I've generally soured on Arrowverse because of their treatment of Ralph Dibny 😂😥. I'm definitely going to continue with Legends of Tomorrow and the final season of Black Lightning but tbh, Flash and Supergirl just really aren't that good anyway. I'll probably watch them all still but I'm not in any great hurry to do so. I think Supergirl is on its final season now anyway so I'll probably just polish that off at some point. I wish they'd just finish Flash as well and get on with their new shows. Superman and Lois looks really good but I haven't seen it yet.

I've been avoiding the TV thread over on PS because I'm not up to date on my shows (as you can probably tell!) And don't want to get any spoilers. I haven't seen that Marvel What If? Series yet either. Hopefully I'll get some time for it next week!

Cloak and Dagger and Runaways are great. Runaways is actually probably my favourite Marvel TV show. I just love the theme tune to it so it really gets me in the mood for the show itself. Inhumans is decent, way better than you might think. It got a lot of flak for being like a cheap and poorly designed show but I think it was worth a watch as part of the larger MCU. The only MCU-TV universe show(s) I haven't watched yet are Helstrom, Jessica Jones Season 3 and Agents of Shield season 6+7. Just haven't managed to get around to them yet!

@ralphdibny Ah right, I believe Johnny over at Push Square mentioned that to me but I just forgot, my bad! Didn't know it was such a hassle to watch these shows in the UK, but it shouldn't come as a surprise to me that you've already seen all of them considering how much you love superhero shows! Anyway, glad to hear that most of them are good, will definitely have to watch all of them eventually. Hopefully you'll get HBO soon in the UK as it's a very good service from what I've seen.

@LtSarge haha yeah it's a bit of a Mish mash but frankly I don't want any more streaming services over here. It's already expensive and confusing as it is. The rest of the world can keep HBO 😅.

We also have to pay a TV license if we watch/stream live TV or use iPlayer which is the BBCs streaming service. But it's like a law so it's not as simple as subbing or unsubscribing from like Netflix or something. The BBC hire private contractors from a company called Capita that come around and check if you are watching live TV. There's various rules and regulations with regards to what these private contractors can do but it seems like they frequently try to force entry through intimidation and/or false information, official-looking documentation and threats. It sounds like they will make a lot of stuff up and will report back on "circumstance" i.e. assumption rather than actual evidence. You can fight it in the courts but I believe that most people just don't bother. They either pay the TV license because they think they have to, they see the value in the service or they just can't be bothered with all the hassle that comes from not paying it. I fall into the latter camp.

Kandagawa Jet Girls (HiDive via VRV) - A sickly sweet, and extremely fanservicy, anime about groups of high school girls who race in slightly sci-fi jet ski races.

A tie in to the game of the same name (or vice versa), and created by the Senran Kagura guy, so you can kinda guess what to expect. Pure fluff, but can be fun in a very guilty pleasure kind of way.

the Right Stuff (Disney+) - inbetween all the Star Wars, Marvel, & general family fare on offer I found this drama focusing on the Mercury space program as NASA was trying to get a man into space before the Soviets. It was actually a pretty solid watch and hopefully not a one off for these kinds of originals on D+.

Momokyun Sword (HiDive via VRV) - A twist on the classic Japanese fable of Momotaro, with the hero being gender swapped into Momoko (a well endowed heroine, because anime). It's pretty much fluff & doesn't take itself too seriously (the heroes & villains are just as likely to put their differences aside for a beach day as they are to try & kill each other), but worth a look if you don't mind a fanservicy guilty pleasure (though, while it is very fanservicy it does stop short of actual nudity).

Binged watched all of the Star Wars Visions episodes yesterday morning. Despite being the "safest" premises I think "The Duel" & "The Elder" were amongst my favorites, though I thought "Lop & Ocho" was excellent too, and "the Bride" & "the Ninth Jedi" were very solid. Elsewhere I found myself enjoying the one with the little robot boy (can't remember the name) more than I thought I would, "the Twins" was fun but perhaps a bit OTT considering the source material, and though I appreciate it for doing something different I wasn't big on "Tatooine Rhapsody". Also, while it deserves credit for the unexpected ending, the last one wasn't one of my faves (though I'll admit I wasn't big on it's art direction, so that could have played a part).

Still, overall it's very much worth a look.

Sorry for the double post, but I just finished binging the back half of What If?.

I had procrastinated on watching this one (started last weekend), but I'm glad I got around to it. The first couple episodes were a bit slow, but I thought it picked up by episode 3, and then by episode 4 (the Doctor Strange one) it was absolutely fire. There were some ups & downs after that, but the last few were absolutely amazing.

A couple notes:

• I was surprised to see Spider-Man show up given the whole rights juggling act. I assume that since it's a TV series instead of a movie (and animated) that it lets them bypass whatever rights Sony has? It certainly wasn't Tom Holland voicing him, that's for sure.
• I could be misremembering, but I thought Loki confirmed that the Infinity Stones are powerless outside their home universe/reality. Ultron should have been screwed if that's the case.
• It would be an absolute shame if the show's events (or at least some of it's universes) weren't at least referenced in Multiverse of Madness. I think a version of "Evil" Strange is confirmed to appear, so here's hoping.
• Just a neat observation. Under the tab where they list all the MCU movies/series in timeline order, they have What If? listed right after Loki, which is neat given that the latter ends with the multiverse being unleashed.

Watched the first three episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime. It's an animated series based of Critical Role's Dungeon and Dragons.streams. Alot of familiar voice actors here reprise their characters from the table top game, Travis Willingham (Full Metal Alchemist, Marvel's Spider-man), Laura Bailey (Fruits Basket, Marvel's Spider-man, World of Warcrat) Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us, Infinity Train), Liam O' Brien (World of Warcraft) Sam Riegel (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Phoenix Wright) Taliesin Jaffe (Street Fighter IV, World of Warcraft) and Marisha Ray (Persona 4, Far Cry New Dawn).

First off this show is not for kids, the F bomb is dropped alot, there is nudity and sexual scenes and of course blood and gore.

The first three episodes basically tell the story on how the group is formed and there first big victory as a group of adventures and then sets the stage for the rest of the series.

I thought they did a great job on the animated series the animation was great, voice acting of was awesome of course. Alot of action particularly the second episode. Definitely worth a watch. One nice thing with the series, they did it so you don't even have to know anything about Critical Role's web series you can just watch Vox Machina.

If you enjoy fantasy type shows like Game of Thrones, Witcher, Wheel of Time etc this will probably be worth your time.

Was watching Magic User's Club on Funimation, got through the 6 episode OVA just fine, but about "halfway" through the 13 episode TV series I realized the episode order was somehow jumbled up & they don't even have all the episodes (ex. both episodes "2" & "8" play the contents of episode 8, with no way to actually watch episode 2, and it's not the only early episode to be missing in this manner, as episodes "3" & "9" play episode 9, etc.).

Not a huge loss as even though the show was cute it wasn't particularly stand out, but it's an absolutely ridiculous flub for a paid service.

Finished peacemaker, vox machina last week
Finishing up book of boba fett
Starting the rookie(nathan fillion is awesome)
Just saw that firefly is on hulu. Will rewatch that.

@PhhhCough The Rookie is great! My wife and I are watching season 4 as it airs here in the UK. Last night's episode was great and we too like Nathan Fillion, Castle was also a great series.

@crippyd loved castle. Enjoyed the firefly costume, the adam Baldwin guest episodes. Was it supposed to end so abruptly?