Big Blue Huddle

 A very warm Saturday afternoon and nothing to do but find something to Binge-watch.

Going thru my next to-watch list, I tuned to Disney+ and there it was, "Obi-Won-Kenobi", the new short series that takes us back to the Star Wars adventures. It is 6 episodes long and each episode, though advertised as 50+ minutes long, was somewhere about 35-40 minutes. With that, I watched the entire series this afternoon and was not disappointed. I loved it.

I used to be, like most folks, a huge Sar Wars fan, but they sort of lost me with the last couple of movies, as I never really liked the characters. But this sort of takes you on one long adventure. It takes place when Princess Leia and Luke are about 10 years old. It follows the life of Obi-Won-Kenobi during that period. I won't give anything away, but it was typical Star Wars fare. If that is your thing and you long for the older Star Wars fun and action, lot's of action, this is for you. A very easy watch.
My only problem is you know certain people aren't going to die as they are involved in the Star Wars adventure. Also, a terrific battle between Obi-Won-Kenobi and Darth Vader in the last installment. Again, knowing neither can die takes some of the excitement out of it, but great anyway.
 If you are a fan, do not miss this series.

Another series I have watched for many years now is 'Alone' on the History Channel.

I am big on these survivalist-type shows but this one is a bit different. It has been on for many years now and the premiss is that they find some really obscure place and drop 10 survivalists there, all in different locations, and all are alone, no camera crew, no doctors no anyone. They have to fend for themselves (they are clothed). They cannot move around off their location, like going from one part to another and they are allowed to bring 10 survival things to help them. They know nothing of the others, how many are left and when there is only one left, they come and tell them they won. It sounds a bit weird but I find it fascinating, how they cope with the loneliness. I think the longest anyone has been out there has been 105 days. Most either succumb to the loneliness and missing their families, some to starvation as in winter it is very hard to find food, others to assorted medical issues. They each have a beeper, and if they want to call it a day, they press the button and they come and get them. They do check on them every few weeks to make sure no one had died and forgotten about and they have pulled people out because their health is in danger.

If this is your thing, I highly recommend this show.

Quote from: y_so_blu on June 25, 2022, 02:53:56 PMForged in Fire, the manliest reality/game show ever created. Just watching it adds hair to my chest and makes me want to burn down my house attempting to forge a blade.

One of my friends, a teacher at a middle school I work at, was on this show.

Quote from: Sem on June 26, 2022, 11:23:50 AMOne of my friends, a teacher at a middle school I work at, was on this show.

That's awesome! Did he win?

We watched the first three episodes of "The Old Man" this weekend. The two leads are Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow, both first rate actors in my opinion. So far it has been absolutely gripping. Great action and tons of intrigue. Since I have now seen three episodes, I feel very comfortable recommending it. It's on the FX channel. Here is the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL2lhM_kDPM&t=14s

Quote from: y_so_blu on June 27, 2022, 01:35:21 AMThat's awesome! Did he win?

Pretty sure he didn't. When I have time I'll try to find the episode and if I do I'll link to it.

We have Optimum as our cable provider. One of their channels has been showing 4 episodes a week (antenna TV--channel 114) of the old Benny Hill show. I know you can probably watch it anytime you want on streaming services, but we just set the DVR and it copies the 4 shows every Saturday nite and we watch one every night before we go to sleep.

One of the truly funny men ever to grace a TV screen. Some of his skits are just truly hilarious.

I used to watch him all the time when his show was broadcast on regular TV, but some of his more lude skits were cut out. Here you get most everything except if there was nudity which is covered up, but still funny as ever.

I finished "Banshee" last night and it has become one of my all time favorite series right up there with Ozark. There are a couple of scenes I consider "overly brutal" that is my ONLY criticism.

Anyone on here who liked the dark mystery "Ozark" should like "Banshee" - not the same setting of course, but the high wire acts of people in over their head and an unlimited number of devious characters who have bloody days along with the "good" guys (who are devious themselves)

Now I just read that "Only Murders in the Building" is back for the second season so the timing is perfect...even though I plan on binging "The Old Man". But I should be able to do both because the one irritating thing about "Only Murders..." is that a new show is released weekly so every time you watch an episode and clearly anxious for the next episode...you have to wait a week 

For those who haven't watched the first season of "Only Murders in the Building", you can binge watch the first season and then get into the second season that will wrap up at the end of August. I can't recommend it enough for a lighthearted fun murder mystery

 I also hate these series, especially dramas and mysteries that only drop once a week. Even with a recap, I never really remember everything that happened.

I usually wait until all the episodes have shown and then watch.

I wanted to try the Old Man ser ies, but it is also a once a week deal, so I'll wait,

Quote from: y_so_blu on June 27, 2022, 01:35:21 AMThat's awesome! Did he win?

Here's the episode. My teacher/friend is Cameron Alarcio, he placed third.

https://play.history.com/shows/forged-in-fire/season-7/episode-13

Summer is streaming time for the most part.  Here is some of the shows I am watching

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)

What We Do In The Shadows (FX)

The Boys (Amazon)

Star Trek (I don't know what they call it but it's the prequel)  (Paramount)

Gods Favorite Idiot (Netflix)

Obi-Wan Kanobi (Disney)

Orville (Hulu)

Love, Death, and Robots  (Netflix)

Space Force (Netflix)

We saw a great write-up for a new short series on FX and Hulu "The Bear' a 1/2-hour show that was billed as the Bad News Bears meets a local fast food restaurant.

Quickly, the plot, owner of the restaurant dies, and his brother, a world-class chef in the best restaurant in NY comes in to take over. The new restaurant is sort of a fast-food joint in Chicago and the crew is short of a full deck. The 'old school' wants to keep things the same and the new guy wants to change.

We have watched 4 of the 8 episodes and this is nothing like the build-up, it is hardly funny, but some parts are quite enjoyable. It's one of these series that if I stopped watching now, I wouldn't be sad but we will watch the last 4 episodes just to see how it turns out.

 I started watching a new series on Amazon Prime--The Terminal List. It is billed as a thriller and I am 5 episodes in out of 8. I think, when they wrote and started this, they had a lot of Jason Bourne in mind, as it goes, something like in the Bourne movies, a sinister group behind a lot of nasty things.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11743610/

So a group of Navy SEALS are sent in and are ambushed and wiped out except for their commander and he goes on a mission to find out why, since he felt the enemy was tipped off and they were set up. So our commander thinks he is Jason Bourne and takes on the baddies killing whoever gets in his way.

My take thru 5 episodes, it started out great, and when there is action, shooting, and killings it is also great, but as time is going by, there does tend to be more talking and trying to explain all the subplots. than non-stop action.
This genre of movie, I like a lot and I will gladly stay with it to the conclusion. If you are into not spy thrillers, but as I said, the lone guy out against the huge corporation, trying to figure things out, with many, many bad guys in the way, you will like this.

Funny, in the Bourne series, the 'bad group was Treadstone, here it is Capstone)

"The Terminal List" looks like something I would like. I'll check it out. Been watching "The Old Man". A little slow with spurts of extreme action. It's a good show. Not as good as "Banshee", but good

Quote from: Jolly Blue Giant on July 04, 2022, 05:51:09 PM"The Terminal List" looks like something I would like. I'll check it out. Been watching "The Old Man". A little slow with spurts of extreme action. It's a good show. Not as good as "Banshee", but good

I have that show on my watch list, I'm just waiting for all the episodes to drop, and then I'll take a hack at it.