Tag: television

Suck it, nerds

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This couldn’t have been scripted any better: Jeopardy! contestants struggle to answer rudimentary trivia about football, ironic hilarity and passive-aggressive bullying from Alex Trebek ensues

Seriously, this couldn’t possibly have occurred better even if it were scripted by Seth Rogen or Sarah Silverman.  The desperate avoidance of the category, from all three contestants until it was absolutely the last thing left on the board, and then the defeated resignation from all three that their scores were condemned to be final where they were, seeing as how none of them thought they had a cake’s chance at a buffet of getting any of them right.

And then to make matters worse, not only was the studio audience beginning to laugh track at their pathetic lack of knowledge of the country’s most rabidly popular professional spectator sport, they began to start getting lip from the biggest dweeb of them all, Alex Trebek.  Who completely abused the fact that he had the answers right in front of him and could easily pretend like these were basic, easy questions, regardless of if he knew the answers to them or not.

Seriously, it never fails to astound me that Jeopardy! contestants can rapidly nail the correct questions to shit like “Philippe Cozette and Graham Fagg had a handshake in this location” or “Alfred Dreyfus was among the thousands who marched through the streets of Paris during this 1902 funeral procession,” but they don’t know what a fair catch is?

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A free weekend of wrestling

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It doesn’t happen that often, but it turned out that I had an entire weekend free to watch all of the wrestling available for the Royal Rumble weekend.  Weather derailed my hopes of breaking in my new grill with its maiden meats, and all I really wanted to do alternatively was absolutely jack shit other than watching NXT Takeover: Philadelphia and the Royal Rumble.

Surprising no longtime fan or wrestling smark, NXT Takeover was the true gem of the weekend, as just about every single match on the card was pretty good, and I can’t help but wonder what goes through the mind of Vince McMahon sometimes knowing that both his daughter and his son-in-law are basically openly declaring war on his own product with their own personal projects in the women’s evolution and NXT.

Since NXT developed and turned into the officially televised developmental product and started putting on shows since Arrival, they have pretty routinely outperformed the main roster, and just about every single Takeover event has outshined the primary shows that they’re supposed to be the lowly undercard for.

Superstars are given the time and leeway to properly build up their characters, let feuds develop, and are given the latitude and clock in matches to put on actual good matches.  This was no more prevalent than at the last Takeover, where just about every single match on the card had some degree of development behind it, and wasn’t just some fly-by-booking where opponents are pitted against one another without reason.

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I want to enjoy food as much as Kasumi does, someday

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Going down the Netflix rabbit hole, after I finished watching Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, the immediate suggestion by the algorithm was a show called Samurai Gourmet.  Upon watching the preview; not like I had any choice, because Netflix forces previews upon you like James Franco’s alleged sexual aggression, I decided to give it a flyer, because I was sad that I had watched all of Midnight Diner and was wanting to get more of that peaceful, slice-of-life feeling that it had provided, and a show about a retired man leisurely seeking food to savor and enjoy seemed like it had some potential.

Now I don’t think it’s as good as Midnight Diner, but Samurai Gourmet has so far been pretty enjoyable as well.  Whereas Midnight Diner was more about a centralized location and the people that gravitated to and around it, Samurai Gourmet is conversely centered around a singular person, freely flowing to different locations.  However, it does manage to capture that light-hearted feeling and emotions of internal thought processes and the enjoyment of comfort foods in perfect circumstances.

I feel like the best analogy for the show is that it’s like Stephen King writing, when he was still in his literary prime.  He’d take something like his protagonist going into the kitchen and doing mundane things, and somehow bilk 5,000 words, mostly adjectives to describe every little activity, before the last two paragraphs in the chapter are loose ties to the inevitable aliens/demons/monsters/spiders that the story is supposed to opposed by.  Except in Samurai Gourmet, there is no supernatural villain to derail Castle Rock, just protagonist Kasumi’s own imagination of his inner samurai dealing with his fairly minor conflicts.

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I want to eat at the Midnight Diner

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A show I’ve been enjoying a lot lately has been Netflix’s Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories.  It’s apparent that I’m very favorable to slice of life types of shows, and at just ten episodes that aren’t even a full 30 minutes, it’s the perfect kind of show for me to watch an episode here and there, or watch several in a row, and walk away from the screen feeling moderately pleased with life.   There’s no really other way to describe it other than the fact that it’s a light show that puts me in a good mood while watching it.

There’s one particular episode that I enjoyed a lot, that revolved around the budding relationship between a Japanese physicist and a girl from Korea working in Tokyo, and how their shared love for fried rice omelets is the link that brings them together.  It deals with the taboo perspective of Korean-Japanese relationships, and how easy it is to criticize and pass judgment from the sidelines as opposed to those who are capable of seeing past them.  And all in like 25 minutes, which means the characters are introduced, a conflict is established, and then the episode winds down, giving me more time to do other things, which usually ends up watching another two episodes of Midnight Diner.

Anyway, aside from simply enjoying the show, I look at the Midnight Diner itself, as the kinds of places I love discovering and going to.  And I haven’t even been to Japan.  But anywhere, really, whether it’s in the United States or any other place in the world I’ve visited.  I love charming little eateries, where the cooks are masters of their small menus, and only hit home runs. 

However, when I do visit Tokyo one of these days, I hope like hell I’ll find a place like the Midnight Diner, and it would probably be the highlight of my trip if I actually did find one just like it.  I don’t stay up too late these days, but I’d be more than willing to capitalize on some jet lag and try to find a place open 12-7 am if were anything like the show’s place.

It’s a great show for those who like slice of life anthologies, or just want to watch something very quick, short and relaxing.  I know I’ll be disappointed when I finish the series, and have to go back to the drawing board to find something as simply enjoyable as Midnight Diner.

Content choice paralysis

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I highly doubt it, but I wonder if I’m the only person who goes through this: I sit down to watch some streaming television, and after I open Netflix/Plex/Hulu/WWE Network, I find myself browsing and searching through these gargantuan catalogues of content, and before I know it, 45 minutes have passed, and the time I earmarked to watch some television is mostly gone.  A 60+ minute episode/movie doesn’t really fit into the schedule, and nothing I want to watch is one of those 22 minute shorts.  Ultimately, I end up watching nothing, but have added ten new things to the watchlist that I’ll inevitably ignore in the future and repeat the process all over again.

To say that there’s a wealth of content out there is an understatement.  The catalogues of crap out there are never ending, and the fact that it’s all over the internet reinforces the notion that it can be cycled in and out of circulation at the drop of a hat at any given time of the day, week, month or year.

This is why shows have such short lifespans, because the pressure to immediately succeed is so high, and failing to get an 11 out of 10 often times means cancellation, or falling by the wayside by the next avalanche of programming that’s waiting in the wings at all time. 

Frankly, it’s mind-boggling just how much stuff is out there, and I’m having a really hard time of keeping track of what’s decent, what’s not worth investing time into, and I’m finding that my standards are kind of molding into modern standards, because I’m not giving shows enough time to mature and develop, because they themselves aren’t giving themselves enough time to do such, and begin to suck, and I’m already thinking of what I could be/could have been watching instead.

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The worst part about Black Mirror season 4

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It’s only six episodes, and I am already finished with all of them.  Lord only knows how much longer it’s going to be until there’s another season, and even still, new episodes are going to have to be written and filmed and edited and this is maybe one of the only flaws with entire seasons being dropped on Netflix, when you get engrossed in something and blow through it in just a few sittings, you’re left feeling empty and unsatisfied at the prospect of there being no more on the horizon.

Anyway, I was super excited when I heard that Black Mirror was coming back for a fourth season, so I gave it the excitement treatment: avoiding absolutely anything and everything about it until the date it released, so that I could be completely blind and have zero preconceived notions going into it.  Frankly, I don’t think there’s any way to possibly enjoy things any more than doing that, because just about everything gives way too much information away.

In short, I enjoyed season 4.  The show invariably had the challenge of producing fresh content despite being four seasons in, and I think the challenge proved to be such at times, but overall by the time I had gone through all six episodes, I was left with a feeling that I was sad that there was no more, and wishing that there will be more in the future, sooner rather than later.

I do think the season started off with a bang, with USS Callister, an absolute marvel of an episode that was a spectacular blend of a good story, excellent acting and really stellar visuals, with the definite homage to old episodes of Star Trek.  Contrary to the start of the entire series where there’s a fairly unanimous agreement that The National Anthem was a terrible way to start the series, season 4 definitely hits the nail on the head by starting out with their best episode first.

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Netflix’s Castlevania: the teasers of teasers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Blink, and you just might miss it; that’s how I felt after the fourth episode of Netflix’s animated Castlevania’s credits started rolling, and instead of the next episode in 3..2..1.. prompt, it was a preview for something else, signifying the end of the series.  Right there, it became abundantly clear that just four episodes were ordered with the intent to gauge interest and test the waters before a more comprehensive commitment would be made.  Which is kind of ironic in itself, since Netflix and online streaming services are typically the platforms in which longform series tend to get their chance to let viewers, and now they’re pulling the network-like process of short test runs to see if something is worth it.

But for what it’s worth, I liked it, and I was pleased to discover that more episodes have already been ordered.  Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse was always one of my favorites in the series, and based on the fact that Netflix’s series revolve around Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades and introduce Alucard, it’s pretty clear where the source material is coming from, which lit my fanboy’s enthusiasm upon realization.

It is interesting to see something based on a storyline from my childhood, but fleshed out and explained to me as an adult; the Castlevania canon tends to get a little convoluted, and I admit that I stopped playing the series outright in the midst of Symphony of the Night, because when I realized that I had to basically play the entire game over again in an upside-down castle I was like naw, fuck that, and haven’t really looked back at the games since.  But Castlevania III is a property that I was all too familiar with, so it was really easy to get into the Netflix show.

Back when I was a kid, there wasn’t much thought to the plot: Dracula is ruining shit, and Trevor Belmont shows up to fight against it.  The Netflix Castlevania fills in the gaps in the plot that an old NES cartridge either fails to deliver and/or nine-year olds simply can’t comprehend, and it’s way more compelling than when I was sitting on my ass plotting on how to avoid hits and whether or not I was going to take Grant on this journey or try to finish the game with Sypha (never took Alucard, because he sucked).  But I never thought to why Dracula is waging war on humanity in the first place, and why Trevor Belmont was needed to come save the day in the first place.

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