Waiting for Rick Godot

Sunday evening. No Rick & Morty yet. So what's on?

  • The Bitch in Apartment 23: Krysten Ritter (alias Jessica Jones) is adorable as a mean slutty girl, but the show doesn't work for me. I lack the ability to empathize with perky people, and screaming blondes exist only to be chased by guys/mothers in hockey masks.
  • What Happened to Monday: Grim, serious, pretentious stylistic imitation of Children of Men, Demolition Man, and Blade Runner; total nonsense unleavened by humor or science or characters. A "European Federation" facing overpopulation and starvation from climate change puts ID tags in everyone and cryofreezes multiple siblings like Simon Phoenix. People are buying dead rats from street vendors. Reality: The birthrates in Europe are far below replacement rate, and would have zero impact on climate change. China showed that one child policies don't work. Rats don't look like chicken inside, and are an inefficient food source; you cannot feed seven people on one Rattus norvegicus. Also cryofreeze doesn't work except on dead bodies, and you can't possibly get people to put their six-year-old child in a death freezer as shown. Rick & Morty is hard science & social theory compared to this.
  • Witnesses: French crime drama? Seems dry and dull, gloomy cinematography (they found a part of France as grim as Seattle or Scandanavia?), but opening with a weird graverobbing crime is interesting. I kind of like the characters, which is better than most shows. Despite my toddler-level French, I distrust the subtitles because they translate "le flic" (rather rude) more politely as "the force" instead of "cops" or "pigs", and a few other tone shifts. Gonna keep watching this.

The Defenders

  • Why are they fighting in a sewer with glowing blue walls?
  • Fight choreography brought to you by people not even in the same shot.
  • Oh good we're starting with racist rich white trash cultural appropriator Danny Rand, this can only go up, right?
  • "New York City"? Who says that, unless it's followed by "Git a rope."?
  • Alias is still a mopey drunk, so characterization is established.
  • Cage is boring, so there's nothing new there.
  • Murdock takes all the best cases of chemicals (they're in everything!) either crippling or superpowering people, gets $11 million in settlement = $1.1M + court costs for him, but he still wants to go beat up bad guys instead of blowing coke off a stripper's ass.
  • Sigourney Weaver! In a terribly staged scene with awkward dialogue. I wish this shitshow would kill me, but sooner than weeks or months.
  • Long dramatic scenes going nowhere. I need to drink more than Alias to blackout thru this.
  • Cage: "Hero's your word, not mine." No, in the comics he & the less shitty Danny Rand ran a biz called "Heroes For Hire".
  • Oh no it's a natural(?) disaster which occurs about once a month in some places, so New Yorkers panic and light up Murdock's windows with gel lights, not that he can see.

Well, that was Ep 1. I can't even rate this, it's just random scenes leading to nothing. Maybe I'll watch E2 and see if it coalesces. Maybe I'll just self-flagellate some other way.

What I'm Watching: Happy Valley, Message from the King, Rick & Morty

  • Happy Valley: 2 seasons (and a 3rd is planned) of a middle-aged English policewoman chasing murderers in a small town. I find Flock of Seagulls, the first season junior antagonist, utterly unthreatening, but he has his moments. The 2nd season arc was a little obvious, Moaning Myrtle was sinister as hell but with minimal payoff. Still, it's as good a police procedural/mystery as I've seen in ages. ★★★★☆

  • Message from the King: South African badass Jacob King comes to L.A. looking for his missing sister. The plot's a little opaque at times, Jacob is a mute statue except for some side-eye, and there are far fewer guns and security systems than I'd expect in L.A. underworld, but the fistfights and stealth missions are good. It's very reminiscent of The Limey, but much grubbier and less fun. ★★★☆☆

  • Rick & Morty S3: Holy shit. Pickle Rick with Danny Trejo. How many times can I spam the star button? ★★★★★★★★★★ I do want at least one of the dumbass improv cable show eps this season, we can't take a constant dose of this like that Statham flick Crank.

  • Almost no anime. Last year's Crunchyroll simulcasts had Gabriel Dropout (seriously Gabe is my spirit animal: A dropout who wants to destroy humanity), Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (this might be a tech blog? She's a Python programmer! She's writing Django all day in a soul-crushing open-plan office without even a cubicle!), Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor (awesome title, sometimes great characters & plots, endless filler crap in between), some Sakura Quest (cute start, and hooray, more shows about adults with jobs! But this was too mellow and sappy). Everything else this season seems to be a ripoff of Sword Art Online without the cranky MMO-soloing protagonist in black (ahem), or rom-com. Get your shit together, Japan, you're being out-weirded by a Marty McFly & Doc Pickle cartoon. ★☆☆☆☆