The month of November means that a lot of shows dropped and there’s not enough time for it. On the to-watch list? Criminal (Netflix), Kingdom (Netflix), and a couple I’m already forgetting, never mind a movie or two. I need to finish up my third season of Young Justice (DC Universe) so I can drop the service.
For those who have followed this for the longest time, you know my love of romantic comedies. Netflix delivers a couple of good romcoms come Christmas the last couple of years and I’m curious to see what will really click for me. After finishing off Dash & Lily and taking a short break, I dug into the next show I had in my pile with Home for Christmas, which is a Norweigan show that came out last year and has a second season coming up in December. I haven’t finished it yet but the show is just delightful in seeing a mix of dating and relationship styles and issues in that country with what’s similar and what isn’t. The lead actress is fantastic and the episode where she spends a large chunk of it boffing a 19-year-old is just hilarious in its honesty.
One thing I did start up recently is the Enterprise series. I had seen some of it when it first aired what feels like forever ago but I had a hard time getting into it at the time combined with pre-emptions and so forth. I had forgotten that the fourth season ended with 22 episodes instead of the usual 24-26 episodes, so I had just that one lingering and finally finished it. It’s a good episode that brings to close the series in a way that doesn’t quite work. I was surprised that it was basically a TNG episode that was using the holodeck to look in on the events leading to Archer’s commencement of the Federation and so forth, but it did a solid job of advancing things a few years, showing some of the changes, but mostly just giving us that hollow sense of what could have been instead. I do think there’s potential for a good political show about the formation of the Federation and all that’s involved, something along the style of how The Expanse plays out, but it couldn’t have been done during this period of time.
With that show finished, I’m starting to sink my teeth into Voyager, a series I dropped after a few episodes during its original broadcast. My issue then was that the whole Starfleet/Maquis differences and friction side – which was the draw to me in having a split crew – ended up being sanded down to nothing very quickly and it was easy to lose interest. I’m not expecting any huge interest on my part here but perhaps some gap-filling when I finally see the Seven of Nine material, but that’s about it. In the short contrast between this and Enterprise, it made me realize just how much I really liked Phlox.
Being a fan of the original as it was part of “my generation” back in the day, I had no real expectations for this generational sequel on Peacock. And it’s true, Saved by the Bell is a dumpster fire. but it’s strangely addictive and I’ve laughed at more scenes than I probably should. I’m really confused.
Finally, with the news that Black Lightning is ending with its next season, I finally went back to finished up the third season. I never made it back to it after the Crisis crossover since the pandemic hit and I was out of sorts for awhile. There were some good episodes here but the show just felt like it suffered from a really clear lack of firm direction in some ways with what it wanted to do. It had a lot of threads to play with and it dangled with all of them but it just couldn’t bring it together. It does end well and sets us up for the next season, which I hope slides a crossover or two into it so that it feels a part of the larger Arrowverse.
The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode #5 – The Jedi Review – https://t.co/a3uSzAK1E5 #DaveFiloni #DisneyPlus #MichaelBiehn #PedroPascal #RosarioDawson #TheMandalorian pic.twitter.com/ViRYLGULXx
— Chris Beveridge (@ChrisBeveridge) November 28, 2020
