Yep, just saw the 1st 2 episodes of season 2. Not blown away yet, but it took a good few episodes before I really got into season 1 so I'm hoping this will be a similar slow burn.
I'm somewhere in iZombie season 4. I'm disappointed. But first, the good parts. Liv is as hilarious as ever. Her expressions and posture and body movements are so, so, so, so good. That lady is a master. Wow. And Ravi and Major and Don E. are great, too. Initially Don E. was just a silly throw-away sidekick, but in this season he's a main character, and he's great at it. And I like the twisted new direction the writers have taken with Blane's father. That was very clever. But the good parts don't make up for the bad story line that is so opposite the story line of the prior 3 seasons. Spoiler For the prior 3 seasons Liv's goal has been to preserve the zombie secret, for the purpose of protecting zombiekind. Now she's intentionally threatening zombies with starvation. Why do I say that? Because (1) it's common knowledge inside New Seattle that there aren't enough brain tubes to go around. Hey, Peyton knows this, and she doesn't eat brain tubes! Yet Liv repeatedly intentionally makes more zombies. Her side job is making more zombies. She's intentionally adding to the zombie starvation problem! (What?!) It doesn't fit the prior 3 seasons. Ya, she has a big heart and just wants to help people, but helping people by risking the starvation of fellow zombies is not cool, and it does not fit her character.. And Major -- I so, so, so wish the writers had put his point of view into season 4. As I said in a post above, the entire show is really about him, because he's the character who changed, and his transformation is complete in this season. In season 1 he was like 8-year-old Anakin. In seasons 2 and 3 he goes through a gradual change, and now in 4 he's full-on evil Darth Vader. The storyline SCREAMS for scenes told from of his point of view, but we get so very little.
I just finished "Jane the Virgin" (unless there are more than four three seasons; I only watched the ones on Netflix) I mainly wanted to see what it was about, after I saw one of the actors on "Whose Line is it Anyway", and got sort of stuck with it. I kind of like, how the show doesn't take its genre too serious, is somehow fun and ... well, weird. But it must have done something right, after all I kept watching Any yesterday I started an Australian mini-series (I think): The Principal. Only one of four episodes in, but I like the way it's going.
Accidentally caught up with all of iZombie, and I quite like it, it has absolutely nothing to do with Aly Michalka, nothing! At first I wasn't too sure about it, having read the comic book prior to watching the series, it very quickly becomes apparent that the two share almost nothing in common, there's no ghosts in the TV show for example (I'll say no more in case anyone is wanting to read the books). However, the two versions happily coexist in my head now.
Have been finally watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood with the missus. Damn, it's good (and very cleverly different from the original anime, although I don't know how it stacks against the manga, which I have not read (tho I do believe it's closer to it than the original, concurrent series)
"Brotherhood" tracks the manga well. I enjoyed both series very much, but the perfect series would be the backstory episodes of "Fullmetal Alchemist" with the main story of "Brotherhood."
Enjoying "Luke Cage" season 2. I'm liking it more than the first season, because of the deeper story. There's the problem of forgiveness and repentance between Luke and father, overlapping the same problem of forgiveness and repentance between Mariah and her daughter, overlapping the problem of revenge and forgiveness with Bushmaster, overlapping Misty's struggle to find the right path in a corrupt police agency. Really good!
A Handmaids Tale; it's pretty good, I'm enjoying it though it's a little slow burning at times. The Affair season 4 has begun; good start, expecting it to deliver again. The Leftovers, binged watched this a while back. Really liked it, has religious overtones to it I guess.
I saw yesterday, that the fifth season of "Bates Motel" was added to Netflix. Done with the first episode, going to the second.
Merlin. About to finish the second season, and I really, really enjoy it. It's fun to watch, I'm good entertained, I think Anthony Head is is great (Revan is lucky, I started watching Merlin *after* I got him, or his name would be Uther ) and the rest of the cast is fun to watch either. With Asa Butterfield as young as he was there - reminder, that the show is a few years old as well Gosh, I think I must die soon, when I count the years.....
I just finished season 2 of Legion last night. Legion has supplanted Breaking Bad as "the best show I've seen on television". For those not familiar with it, Legion is the story of a mutant in the x-men universe (sort of). From Wikipedia: "Landgraf stated, in January 2016, that the series would be set in a universe parallel to the X-Men films where "the US government is in the early days of being aware that something called mutants exist but the public is not". He felt it was unlikely that characters would cross over between the show and films, but noted that this could change between then and the premiere of the series.[46] That July, an article on Marvel.com referred to Legion as one of several characters joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), suggesting that Legion would be set in that shared universe like Marvel Television's other series.[70] The next month, Singer said that Legion had actually been designed to fit into the X-Men universe, but also to stand alone, so "you wouldn't have to label" the relationship between the series and the films. He teased plans to have the series "relate to future X-Men movies".[71]" This is the first few sentences from the Wikipedia plot description (non-spoiler, the rest of the plot description does have spoilers): "David Haller was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age and has been a patient in various psychiatric hospitals since. After Haller has an encounter with a fellow psychiatric patient, he is confronted with the possibility that there may be more to him than mental illness." This is an adult-oriented show. Torture, drug use, sexual situations, etc. This is a very dark show, much darker than any other x-men/mutant stuff I've seen elsewhere. I don't know how to express just how good this show is. The plot is presented really well. Whoever arranges the music is a genius. The cinematography is really good too, they are very good at theming different episodes to have a completely different vibe.
I should perhaps also mention that the show is really, really weird. It gets weirder in the second season. I haven't watched twin peaks but I've read it's perhaps on that level of weird. I happen to like weird stuff, but it seems it's a turn-off for some people. So if you don't like really weird television, this one may not be for you.
"Iron Fist" season 2 I know, I know, it's the weakest of the Marvel Netflix shows, but I've enjoyed the totality of the inter-linking tv shows, so I had to give it look. Episode 1 is very slow and ... downright boring. But for the sake of the brilliance that is the "Daredevil" show, and the reference to Matthew's death, I tried the next episode. And the next. It's picking up, and surprisingly, it's actually Ward and Joy that make the show watchable. Both of them are doing fantastic acting jobs. In the first season they were almost throw-away characters, just there to connect Danny to the Rand Corporation and Rand to the Hand, but this time around Ward is the lead character about as much as Danny is, and Joy is not far behind -- and they're great. I don't know where the writers are going with Ward and his N.A. meetings but I'm willing to ride it out, because they have made him very interesting. It's a crying shame, though, that Davos is just a one-dimensional Disney villain. "I hate you because you beat me in a fight and thereby denied me the iron fist! Therefore, I'm going to destroy your entire life!" is lame. Unoriginal. Lazy. Boring even. I so hope that future episodes will include backstory flashbacks that fill out his motivation and make him "real." And you just know that at some point Danny and Davos are going to have a fight so big they destroy a city block.
Update: finished #9, because it got good! Finn Whatever-His-Name who plays Danny still generally sucks at a movie-fu karate, but ignoring that, the writers remembered how to write! The Mary/Walker thing back and forth with Joy, Joy bitching with Ward about family history (aside: that lady needs to play a psycho in a movie. Someone write a movie with a female Joker from Batman, please, and cast her as the villain!) Ward struggling with everything and everyone but having an occasional hugging moment, Danny getting physically destroyed, Davos turning into Wilson Fisk and starting to build an army -- wow! But I didn't think they'd do that to Colleen! [jawdrop] Spoiler What in the -- why does she get the fist? That is not right. No. No again. What is going on? I do not approve of that storyline. She should not have the fist!!!
Got into "Gotham" season 4. Quite good! Teenage Bruce Wayne is becoming "Bat-boy" -- no bat motif yet, but he's dressing up in all black and dark grey, and looking for bad guys to beat up! Woot! ::applause:: And Selina Kyle finally has a bullwhip, and Solomon Grundy has made an appearance! ::applause:: Penguin and Riddler -- wow. Seriously, both of them need the tv equivalent of the Oscar for best lead actor. They are still amazing in every episode. And they have been from the beginning of the show. I could watch the show just to see them interact with each other. 40 minutes of the two of them bickering in a room would be interesting viewing, because they're that good. Wow.
Starting Series 2 of Snowfall, really liked the first series and first installment of S2 was good. Pretty much picking up where it left off, this series reminds me a little of The Wire. Not really sure why just has similar feels about it. We signed up to Netflix in the summer so there's a few on there I want to get into; have watched the first 2 Eps. of Narcos. But honestly there's just so much out there I'd like to take a few weeks at home just watching TV and films!