What Was the Last Television Episode You Watched?

[Victoria Silverwolf]

We bought a DVD set of ten random episodes of Red Skelton's TV show, dating from 1951 to 1961. (The series lasted a lot longer than that.) Besides the very broad comedy, these things were notable:

1. In the very early episodes, promotion of the sponsor (in this case, Tide detergent) was worked into the skits. This seems to be a leftover from radio days. (I've heard it done on the Jack Benny radio program, for example.)

2. In later episodes, the main skit (which takes up most of the show) is introduced by an elaborate song and dance number (without Skelton or the other performers in the skit.) This is really odd.

3. Skelton's constant ad libs and breaking the fourth wall, particularly if another performer makes a goof or laughs.

 

[Chris von shannow]

The last part of a Netflix series called

Unbelievable it’s very good

 

[Karapace]

Star Trek: Strange new worlds episode: Under the cloak of war.
I have really being enjoying this latest Star Trek offing, it has a much lighter tone than some of the other more serious outings and feels very much like a return to its original series origins. This episode was not so light hearted but still good dealing with the murky side of conflict after all the battles are over.
I am liking the characters in this series, they seem quite rounded and I like the humour. If I have a criticism it is that episodes tend to get wound up very quickly and a little too neatly sometimes

 

[KGeo777]

KOJAK- The Only Way Out - A lawyer is being held hostage and soon to be murdered in order to silence a mobster who is working with the Feds. It was silly because the lawyer could have done a few things to thwart the plan to murder him. Last show of the first season, premiered 50 years ago this week.

 

[KGeo777]

MANNIX - The Edge of the Knife -- a surgeon's son is kidnapped and the price for getting him back is to kill someone on the operating table. Veronica Cartwright appears but has no on screen credit.

 

[paeng]

Professionals - it was OK

 

[hitmouse]

Taboo episode 4. Netflix. I am a bit late to this series, which I think first aired on the BBC. Early C19th, Tom Hardy, lost in Africa for years, and thought dead, turns up at his father’s funeral in London, inherits his father’s estate, and proceeds to run rings around the East India Company, the Crown, the Americans, and everyone else who wants what he he has. This a dark, muddy, Hogarthian London in contrast to the more usual Austin/Elliot costume drama. Hardy is a much better actor than I had realised: tremendous stillness and menace. Jonathan Pryce is the scenery-chewing principle bad guy.
Great stuff.

 

[Toby Frost]

I watched three episodes of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix, an animation about a hapless young man who gets caught up in cyber-crime in a dystopian city.

It's basically a pretty standard cyberpunk setting seen through a distorting lens of what feels like pretty standard anime. All of the story "beats" feel completely predictable so far, likewise the characters. The violence is ridiculous rather than exciting. Some of the calmer moments are quite interesting, but it feels a bit silly compared to the downbeat noir of Blade Runner or William Gibson. I don't know if I'll continue.

 

[Toby Frost]

Hmm. Thinking more about this, I think the trouble for me might be that Edgerunners is about the wrong set of stereotypes. The characters in Edgerunners feel like manga stereotypes - hapless lad, object of his lust who finds him amusing, massive thug, shouty creepy child-woman, etc* - and not noir characters. I'd be happier with noir stereotypes: private eye, femme fatale, dodgy cops etc. Thanks to Blade Runner (the film) and William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, cyberpunk defaults to noir in my mind. So that might mean that I'm just approaching this wrongly. That said, it doesn't feel anywhere near as well-written or characterised as, say, the cyberpunk computer game Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

*Do a very small number of people do all the American voices for anime? Everyone in it sounds very familiar.

 

[HareBrain]

Do a very small number of people do all the American voices for anime?

Yes, if there's an edgy teenage male lead destined to attract a female character, chances are he's voiced (badly) by a guy named Bryce Papenbrook.

I don't think I've found a US dub I preferred to the original. They're all am-dram quality.

(I also didn't get far with Edgerunners.)

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm sure that the same woman does all the (deep) voices for the mocking-love-interest characters, too.

I find it hard to believe that anime just isn't very good (I find it hard to believe that any form of art that big "just isn't very good") but, with the exception of the Ghibli stuff I've seen and some bits of Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop it tends to leave me cold. Maybe it's just a dislike of the format, the way that you can dislike Shakespearean dialogue no matter how it's dressed up. Telling a fantastical story through animation seems like a very good idea to me, but once the same group of stock characters is presented in the same way, my interest falls off.

 

[HareBrain]

once the same group of stock characters is presented in the same way, my interest falls off

Most non-Ghibli anime seems to contains a lot of what I would call "hysterical reaction shots" (or possibly "overacted screeching"), which seem now to be a fixed part of the culture. Even my favourite anime of recent years, Heavenly Delusion (which I would strongly recommend if you have Disney+) isn't entirely free of this. In this respect (alone) the English dub might be better, at least as far as the voices go. I tried to start two anime recently and gave up almost instantly because one of the characters got on my nerves so much.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Star Trek TNG: Genesis - in which the writers of Star Trek demonstrate once again they have NO idea how evolution works and Gates McFadden shows she can direct even when the script she is lumbered with makes very little sense..

 

[KiraAnn]

Our area cable provider added a new channel. They've been running the original Perry Mason series from 14:00 to 21:00 every day. Been binging a lot on those.

My most entertaining focus has been identifying later stars at an early stage, like George Takei, and Robert Redford, among others.