Tag: television

Black Mirror is the best show I’ve seen in a while

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Recently, I just finished watching all episodes of Black Mirror on Netflix.  It still seems weird to say it, but I think it’s the best television series I’ve watched in a long time, because it’s one of those series that this opinion didn’t really formulate until I had some time to think about and process the episodes, and then I realize that I’m spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about the show and coming to a slower realization that it really a god damn good show.

I think the best way to describe the show, other than the fact that every episode is pretty self-contained and nobody has to watch them in any particular order, but the stories told, the concepts used, and the twists in the plot, they stick with you.  Seriously, the last time a show stuck with me so hard was Parks & Rec, which is a hilarious comparison to make, given the fact that Black Mirror is pretty much the polar opposite of Parks & Rec in almost every conceivable way.  Yet I favor both shows tremendously, in spite of their dramatically differing places on the spectrum.

Black Mirror should come with a trigger warning however, because they certainly seem to hit notes on a regular basis that, at least for me, that manages to trigger a fear, anxiety or line of thinking that is part revelation, part discovery, and part oh shit.  Regardless of that, I think that’s what makes the show such a unique program, in the fact that they so regularly manage to accomplish those kinds of emotional responses, which I think is ultimately what show creators should aspire to be getting.

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I liked Iron Fist.  Sue me.

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the first time in a while, I had a weekend where I had really nothing planned at all, so I made the best of it by pretty much doing absolutely nothing at all.  Meaning, I took the opportunity to sit around and watch a bunch of television and movies that I’d been putting off for a while.

I’ve made it pretty clear that I’ve been pretty fond of Netflix’s Marvel catalogue, and throughout the last year, I’ve watched and enjoyed both seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.  The objective for the choices of properties are obviously setting up an eventual run for The Defenders, but in order to get all the players onto the field, it was also obvious that Netflix would have to create and release a series about Iron Fist.

There was one obstacle that everyone including myself was a little dubious about the latter needing a series to be made about, and that’s simply the fact that among the Marvel Comics roster of characters, Iron Fist is pretty much a fucking lame property.

Such isn’t solely my own opinion, it’s often a very broadly accepted one.  Numerous writers have tried to varying degrees of failure, but the bottom line is that Iron Fist is a really, really weak property for Marvel Comics.  Almost completely incapable of carrying a series, about himself, Iron Fist found the most success when paired with other, stronger characters, in a complementary role, like Luke Cage

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Late to the dance by like, 18 years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but apparently Netflix has announced plans for a Castlevania animated series that will be released later in 2017.

Too bad Simon Belmont has already been immortalized in animated form, since like 1989, on Captain N: The Game Master. 

Okay, I just really wanted a reason to post a picture of Captain N Simon Belmont.

Anyway, I’m a little dubious about this idea, since video game-based animated series are almost always starting on an uphill battle, and the fact that Castlevania hasn’t really been relevant since like… Symphony of the Night, depending on one’s interpretation and dedication to the litany of Pokévania games that were released for various Game Boy platforms.  A part of me thinks that the choice of Castlevania is like television producers wanting to do something, needing reputable source material, and someone in the room thinking “I know, I used to love Castlevania, the games were hard as shit, but I’m sure we could spin it into a story,” and then one or two people recognizing the name and concept and then an idea snowballs before everyone begins to blow each other.

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Double standards in racism

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m 90% sure I’ve written about this before, probably when Chris Rock decided it was a good idea to make a really tasteless joke at the expense of Asians at last year’s Oscars, but just because it was sung and danced about before doesn’t mean it’s ever okay for it to be sung and danced about any other time.

So when Steve Harvey decided it’s completely okay to imply that it’s a Christmas fucking miracle for Asian men to get non-Asian women to date, on national fucking television, it most certainly triggers some agitation within my person.

The thing is, I’ve never really had a problem with Steve Harvey.  I’ve actually kind of liked Steve Harvey as a comedian; when he goes deadpan, it’s usually to good effect, and I’ve heard enough of his standup to know that there’s actually a brain capable of creating good material in that bald shiny noggin.  I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of what he’s done with the Family Feud franchise, because I think with him as the host, the show has gone very low-brow, and often reaches for the low-hanging fruits of lame double entendres, sexual puns, and it’s obvious the survey is only asking people who hang out at douchey Midtown bars.

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It only took four seasons

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

(**spoilers alert** I’m sure I’m the only person who really watches 90 Day Fiance)

But it looks like we’ve finally got the failure to launch that I’ve been pining for since the series began.  Listen, I don’t know when the show actually aired, because watched the entire season via TLC GO at my own leisure, and I don’t know if anyone other than me actually cares about the show, but damn it, I just finished it, so here we stand with me writing about it, for a brog that is still down for eight months going.

Anyway yeah, I’ve been hoping for a failure since the show started.  The show has always kind of had a particular dynamic, with almost a formulaic dichotomy of couples each season, with there being at least one layup of a couple that would make it to the altar with minimal disruptions, but everyone else would have varying degrees of obstacles and hangups that left viewers wondering if they would make it. 

Eventually, it became apparent by season 2, that for the sake of television, the success rate for all couples was extremely high, as frankly no couple wanted to be the couple that failed for television, and by the time season 3 wound down, I was pretty resigned to the fact that every couple was going to make it, regardless of what might happen after the cameras stop rolling. No matter how unlikely the compatibility between Mike & Aziza or Jason & Cassia seemed, they were going to make it.

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Oh, Atlanta #457

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Short story shorter: convenience store owner assumes black customers are using phony money, locks them in store

Why editing is important: CBS News 46 uses the phrase “confederate” when they probably mean “counterfeit.”

It should be noted that the students are from Morehouse College, a historically black college, so there would be a good amount of irony involved if it turned out that black students from a HBCU were actually trying to use confederate money.

Ultimately, this sort of racial profiling is yet another sad, sad story in this modern two thousand and sixteen world we exist in now, but it’s ironically humorous to me that CBS46’s writers and editors make an error like this that are probably chalked up to an ironic Freudian slip.

The war never ended for some, y’all need to know.

TLC Go: my prayers have been answered

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember having a conversation with some friends about the progression of the television industry, and how television today is going down the route of individual network apps with trying to give people the long-awaited ability to pick and choose the things they want to watch, a la carte.  Somewhere along the conversation came the question that if we could only have one network to watch, what would it be?

Unconsciously, I said TLC.  Didn’t even hesitate to say it.  And I guess because it’s true, that if I had to be limited to watching a single network, the endless train car of train wreck shows would have to be it, since wrestling and sports do eventually get repetitive, nature shows have too much overlap and recycling and David Attenborough isn’t going to live forever to narrate them all, and if I had to pick between trash-fiction and trash-reality, I’m going with TLC.

Well, in a rare wish come true, I recently discovered that TLC actually does have their own network app now: TLC Go.  Granted, it’s only available on platforms such as Roku or AppleTV, or via Android or iOS, which kind of inhibits the ability to watch on XBOX or PissNetwork, but I have the capability of still being able to take advantage of its existence.

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