Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

It's a reboot, using most of the building blocks from the original show, jettisoning Sven and replacing him with a new character named Shiro, and giving actual character arcs to Keith, Lance, Hunk and Pidge. (Hunk and Pidge especially are MUCH more fleshed out, both personality- and plot-wise than they were in the original show.) Everyone feels like more of a real person rather than just a human subsidiary to a cool-looking lion and the Golra conflict is ramped up considerably with decidedly higher-feeling stakes than the original series. It also feels a lot more like they are actually dealing with an entire universe rather than some unidentified planet due to the setting.

You can get the tone and direction pretty much from the jump in the pilot; I'd say watch it and see if it interests you. If it does, you will probably love the series. If it doesn't, it might grow on you but there are so many seeds planted from the beginning that I don't how you can make the emotional investment that lets later episodes pay off without buying into the pilot.

dammit i should watch voltron

I watched the Taken spinoff last night. It took me a few minutes to realize that the gigantism-afflicted-looking-dude playing young-Liam-Neeson was...Rollo from Vikings. He looks really bad with a normal-dude haircut and stubble. There were some decent stunts and network TV-acceptable gun fu, but I won't be back.

thx djp, i will give Voltron a test drive

Crashing is pretty good so far - Peter Holmes isn't really funny to me, but he's kind of the straight man to the other comedians jokes anyway. Kinda hard to find a caring and sweet dude funny.

Man, this season of Colony.

catching MacGuyver live right now, it's part 2 of a fantasy-themed series where he travels back to Camelot and is working with Merlin the magician

Anyone else watching "Crashing"? It's grown on me after 4 episodes. Really good mix of drama/comedy.

I've been watching it. It's not in my "appointment viewing" list but I'm enjoying it. I preferred the UK show with the ame name (but completely different premise/unrelated) from last year.

"Crashing" (UK) was so good

Stoked about Fleabag season 2!!

Fargo season 2 is on Hulu now, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

that medieval 2-parter of MacGuyver turned out really cool! he made a dog whistle to calm down a medieval guard dog and Merlin was all astounded by this trick. TNG/DS9's Colm Meaney had a bit role. plus in 2nd episode you find out MacGuyver's first name!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV2KBd1SA60

shit i just misspelt MacGyver a million times

I remember that event when it happened live. ANGUS!

I found Fleabag hard to watch. I guess its the same reason I dislike shows like the UK Office and Extras, but those extremely awkward situs and people make me feel ill. The toothy guy! Ugh he reminded me so much of too many "trying way too hard" date guys.

I found the fourth-wall breaking and general cringeyness of Fleabag was very smartly deployed, for reasons that only truly become clear later in the season.

^ Agreed. First time I watched "Fleabag" I turned it off within a few minutes. I came back to it later on and it won me over after the initial cringe factor.

Didnt mind the 4th wall stuff so much - it was a play originally, right?

Yeah, with Phoebe as the only star

The brilliant Review is back for a truncated final season. One million stars!

Is anyone else watching the new Samurai Jack episodes?

WHAT

Samurai Jack is back on Adult Swim with brand new episodes. They've shown two so far. They have been BREATHTAKING.

http://www.adultswim.com/videos/samurai-jack/ (will not work without a cable provider login but episodes can be streamed here)

Watched Crashing (UK) and although it's got quite a few good jokes and performances (esp the Kathy Burke cameo) it's juvenile and cringey in a way that Fleabag avoided, and the gay love triangle characters are... not good. Like "1970s BBC sitcom Indian" not good.

Crashing (US) feels a bit like Togetherness is its utter nothing-icity.

DVR'd Jack, just too much stuff to watch/do lately

IMO bump it to the top of your priority list

there are too few shows with the visual and sound design of Samurai Jack out there; both episodes have felt like I'm watching the creation of a new type of symphony

I don't have cable, so I'm gonna have to wait for DVD. (I own the first four seasons; I hope when they put this one out, they make some effort to match the box art of those sets.)

and this season will be in HD! :D

I liked the original run a lot but, for whatever reason, never sat down and watched all of the episodes, so I'm not coming into this as a Jack superfan who knows the entire mythology of the show backwards and forwards. I mostly tuned in to see if the new episodes were any good. I wasn't quite prepared for them to be THAT good.

i think part of it is that I loved the show so much when it was on the air a decade ago, really afraid it can't live up to that promise. but you're giving me hope

god, 16 years ago. so old.

i haven't watched crashing (us) and i never will bc pete holmes sucks and it looks annoying, so maybe this take-down is inaccurate, but i found it entertaining to read: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/03/there-should-be-fewer-shows-about-comedians.html

fave things right now

Catastrophe
The Americans
Review

nothing new is really grabbing me right now besides Trial and Error, which is good fun. I am unreasonably excited for Twin Peaks, American Gods and The Leftovers all coming in around the same time. peak weird TV.

leftovers is awesome and so weird

I need to catch up on The Americans. I'm probably a season and a half behind but I can't keep up the attention span to binge it -- I think it's a little too heavy to digest more than a couple episodes at a time.

im the same way w that show

Hey na, Crashing (US) is definitely a pretty harmless show and nothing mind blowing but the article is inaccurate IMO. Peter's lack of self awareness is hinted at through other people's perceptions of him, in one scene the fellow comedians he is crashing with remark that he sucks once he has left the room. But certainly, Pete plays the naive nice dude role straight. His jokes are the least good part tbh, unless you got an appreciation for bad jokes told well.

Fargo season 2 was great for eight episodes, but it really shit the bed in the last two.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
UFOs? Get fucked.

well i was thinking about watching that show someday, guess i won't bother now

I liked that part

what that was the best thing

Completely pulled into Into The Badlands - I have a pretty high tolerance for genre mashup schlock (Brotherhood Of The Wolf is a secret fave movie of mine) as long as it's played straight and w/o any of the wink/wink/nudge/"we know this is crap" that plagues low-budget TV.

I've lost touch with TV in recent years, where's good to find out about the best upcoming/current comedies, documentaries, radio docs, etc?

The BBC and Ch4 sites are kinda useless, is there a better site or reliably good columnist/reviewer? I know Jack Seale at RT is pretty good, and I used to love Jacques Peretti's stuff for the Guardian - anyone else?

Hey NI,

http://www.metacritic.com/tv

Saw Izombie was back on and other things were ending so I assume that means there's a whole new season of programmes out.
Anything else worthwhile appearing over teh next couple of weeks?

Check in here: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/tv-premiere-dates
Better Call Saul next week is a must.
Chewing Gum season 2 is on Netflix. MST3K on next week (cautiously curious).
I'm looking forward to checking out Brockmire.
I am backlogged on Legion, Taboo, American Crime (great but depressing)