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Reacher is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. The acting and writing is bad. The writers seem like they are given one draft and no time to edit. The actors are given one chance to rehearse and one chance to shoot the scene and then they cut and move on. Its just low budget schlock but some how it works for me.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Ana Sawai is regracing us with her presence today as FX releases the highly anticipated update to Shogun. I hope its good!

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Hiroyuki Sanada is both the star and producer...it can't possibly be too bad if he's in charge.

Yep, exactly. Every single character is one-note and don't change or grow one bit, especially Reacher. And hey, I'm fine with that.

My wife and I continually get a kick out of the way he walks, like his ligaments are made from iron cable or something. But it's fitting.

Just finished Silo.....another well done series out of Apple TV.

They've certainly cornered the market on bleak dystopian semi-sci fi series!

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Have any of you watched The Bear? Captures the frenetic madness of the restaurant industry well. I don't ever recall feeling stressed out by watching a show but that holiday episode in season 2 was downright disturbing.

It has also rekindled my love of Italian Beef sandwiches.....and how hard it is to find a good one.

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The bear is absolutely fantastic.

Anam and I are making our way through shameless. Just hilarious.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

So I'm watching Halo season 2 even though I've never played the games and I thought season 1 was decidedly weak, but somewhat entertaining. They fired the original showrunner and said they'd take things in a new direction, but I have yet to see that. For starters, I thought they'd put Master Chief in the armor a lot more, but alas, he's out of it waaaaay more than he was before. I think there have been like, two episodes where he and the other Spartans are suited up for an extended period of time. On top of that *mild spoiler warning* they've basically killed off, like, half the cast in heroic fashion. Can't say I was too swayed by it because I just wasn't that invested in the characters to begin with.

Reacher proves you don't have to make a huge effort into plot and characterization to make a successful action piece. Just hit the right notes, create some really bad bad guys, get your musclebound hero to growl a few times and splatter some heads, and voila! Entertainment. And Pablo Schreiber is an even bigger behemoth than Alan Ritchson, so it shouldn't be all that hard.

About the only actors who seem to be having any fun whatsoever with the material are Natasha McElhone and Bokeem Woodbine, everyone else appears to be there to tell us about how war is hell and what it is to be human, so on and so forth...meh.

I am also watching Halo.....Halo Reach is supposedly the best Halo game out there and this season is essentially about the fall of reach. Admittedly, I am a Sony man myself and have only played the first Halo......I did fire up the Xbox 360 the other day and attempt to play reach but instead went back to Knights of the Old Republic (which became unplayable after an hour on 20 year old glitches)....oh well. If they made a show about Commander Sheppard and Mass Effect I'd be way more into it. I was a bit disappointed in the last episode.

We finished The Bear S02 yesterday and I have to say its one of the best unique shows I have seen in a long time. I was surprised at how good it was.

You gents speak somewhat highly of Reacher so I will give it a go.

Watched the first episode of Shogun and all the haunting memories of the original series from my childhood (along with V) came back (you don't forget the pot or the peeing). It was my first experience with a very different culture and I was happy later on in life when I got to experience that culture first hand. Hiroyuki Sanada is an excellent choice for Toranaga. It seems that the dude that plays Hiromatsu growls in Japanese like I do! My wife was thoroughly entertained when I joined in! Not so much when I hooted for Ana Sawai! I hope it continues to deliver.

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I personally think the reboot of Battlestar Galactica was one of the best and smartest shows to ever grace the small screen, but I found myself quite annoyed at the quasi-spiritual stuff they shoehorned in there.

It's a thousand times worse in Halo. I don't give a rat's ass about these stupid artifacts or the supposed connection between this psychic collaborator "McKee" and the Master Chief.

Thank God we FINALLY saw some action that was similar to the game, armored soldiers blowing shit up and what not...too bad it wasn't real.

Yeah this Halo show is kind of losing me, less contrived intrigue....more ass kicking. I am enjoying Shogun a hell of a lot more. My wife is very tired of me squealing with glee every time Anna Sawai comes on the screen but she understands.

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The trailer for Fallout looks unreal. Really looking forward to it.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Agreed. Plus it has Wayne Goggins who I am a huge fan of, Justified was a great show, without him it would have not been nearly as good. Bonus: it has the girl with the manga eyes.....Ella Purnell.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Walton Goggins but yes, he's amazing in everything he does. Played his one episode guest appearance in Community to PERFECTION.

Only slightly more familiar with Fallout than Halo, but the look of this show just already feels more fun.

Wonder if they'll ever do Half-Life. You'd think it'd be pretty easy to find some bearded white dude and put him in some weird looking spacesuit.

Halo S2 is concluded....with easily the best of the season so far. The Flood is here..so they should be able to squeeze out another season.

Watching another dark space series on Apple TV...this time, Constellation...with the lady from Prometheus (Noomi Rapace). If you want to travel down a rabbit hole with Multi-dimensional quantum reality..........then this is your series! All these Tree of life, interwoven fate threads and alternate branches of reality shows lately should really get you thinking....if thinking is your thing.

As I have said before Apple TV has got the market cornered on this stuff....which just happens to be right up my alley.

Up next.....looking at 3 Body Problem......anyone seen that?

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Sad that it took until the final episode of the season in Halo to give us ONE compelling fight sequence. The fact that we didn’t see full armored combat until now makes me think the budget of this show is simply not up the snuff. The rest of the time we have to either see them fight out of armor or brood about some existential shit.

The overall body count was still pretty high though. Like, four major cast members, one of them being the Master Chief of course, made it through relatively unscathed. The possibility of Kai and Dr. Halsey making it were heavily implied but if both actors left after this season they have the perfect outs.

Would love it if we saw a lot more armored combat in space but if they did that the show would have like a $300 million budget or something crazy like that.

I'm on the 2nd episode, so far so good.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Finally finished The Crown. Definitely an intriguing series, though IMO it really treated the Royals with kid gloves, sometimes even making them look downright heroic. I do give them props for at least hinting at Prince Andrew's sexual proclivities, though it outright avoids his later scandals. You'd think they would've seized upon the Sarah Ferguson thing but she doesn't even show up.

The cameos at the end were interesting. All in all it makes being in the Royal Family an absolutely miserable place to be, though now I want to take a nice holiday in the Scottish countryside. Wet, cold, and muddy, but quiet and peaceful. I'd love it there.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19395018/

I finished Constellation and I think I need to re-watch the final episode. I was enjoying some beers and thought it would be a good time to watch it.....wrong.

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Nope.....it wasn't the beers...that's some quantum entanglement right there.

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