Tag: disenchantment

Direct Beam Comms #141

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Disenchantment

I was a huge fan of the Matt Groening created series The Simpsons from its debut until about the year 2000. Until then, I’d been nuts for the show, going as far in the pre-internet days to purchase books about it where I made notations and even wrote down scraps of witty dialog I liked between boughts of laughter while watching episodes. And, when Futurama premiered in 1999 I remember thinking as the credits for the first episode aired, “Welcome, my new favorite show.”

I was never as big a Futurama fan as I’d been a The Simpsons fan, I only ever lasted a few seasons with that one, but even so if I didn’t dig Futurama those early seasons of The Simpsons, especially the Conan O’Brien years, are gold to me.

Now comes the next Matt Groening created series Disenchantment on Netflix.

Disenchantment
Disenchantment

The setting here is a fantastical land where princess Bean (Abbi Jacobson), elf Elfo (Nat Faxon) and demon Luci (Eric Andre) all team together to destroy their boring lives. Bean is sick of being a princess and wants to live like normal people while Elfo comes from a place where everyone is happy all the time and he wants to experience some “real-life.” Bean is set to be married and is terrified of being locked into this life. She, along with Luci, decide to ruin the wedding, accidentally impaling the groom in the process and running off where they find Elfo. The three run from the brother of the groom and now new groom into the unknown and adventure.

I thought that Disenchantment was interesting, if it’s probably not something I’m going to keep watching. I think that I might not be the demographic for this show, it’s very much in the vein of risqué Adult Swim series, and this might be why it didn’t connect with me.

Then again I like lots of stuff, some of if mainstream and some of it weird and off-beat, so it’s odd that I found Disenchantment so lacking. Getting through the first episode was a bit of a slog and I don’t think I laughed once during it, though I did giggle when Elfo’s village is revealed where some of the residents have their names on their shirts ala Shirt Tales and some of their names describe their character traits.

I think what I liked so much about those early The Simpsons seasons was that it was a show with a big heart, of which is lacking in Disenchantment, though maybe that comes in later episodes? If you’re looking for a series that delivers joke after joke at the expense of characters, then Disenchantment might be for you.

I’ll probably give this one a few more episodes to see if things improve after the first one.

I really should look at Disenchantment more like a funny Dungeons and Dragons rather than a realistic cartoon but one thing I kept thinking while watching Disenchantment is how Bean is this princess, and all she wants is to have a “normal” life like the people she hangs with in taverns and sees while she’s being taken home from a night of drinking back to her castle. But the “normal” people she strives to be seem to have terrible lives, and the only reason she can go out drinking and not face any consequences for her actions is because she’s a princess. If she really was one of the “normal” people she’d be out toiling in the fields with the rest of them and would be dead by 25 from some random plague.

What To Watch This Week

Ocean's 8
Ocean’s 8

Ocean’s 8 – Tuesday
The sequel/reboot to the popular series of Ocean’s… movies is set to be released on digital download this week.

Deadpool 2 – Tuesday
The hilarious second Deadpool movie is out on Blu-ray and DVD this week too. This set includes the theatrical as well as a director’s cut of the movie, dubbed the “Super Duper Cut,” and contains material not seen in the theatrical release.

Ash vs Evil Dead – Tuesday
The final season of the underrated by everyone, myself included, Ash vs. Evil Dead series is also out this week on DVD and Blu-ray. This reportedly will mark the final appearances of Bruce Campbell as the title character since he “retired” form the role earlier this year.

The Terror – Tuesday
The first season of one of the best TV series of the 2017–2018 season, The Terror, gets its DVD and Blu-ray release this week.

Curse of the Demon – Wednesday
The terrifying British horror flick Curse of the Demon aka Night of the Demon airs this week on TCM. This is a slow-burn movie where it’s never clear whether or not what’s happening on-screen is natural, or super-natural and also was part of the inspiration behind the Drag Me To Hell movie.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

Godzilla King of the Monsters
Godzilla King of the Monsters

Direct Beam Comms #140

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Better Call Saul season 4

The crux of the AMC TV series Better Call Saul is that its lead character Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will one day become the titular Saul Goodman — a lawyer for drug dealers and other bad elements in the Albuquerque, New Mexico of Breaking Bad. Ever since the first season the creators of Better Call Saul have teased that one day chipper Jimmy McGill will cease to exist and be replaced by not so good Saul Goodman, and every season too there’s been more teases about characters from Breaking Bad also crossing over to Better Call Saul, in which a handful have. Now I can’t imagine we’ll ever see Aaron Paul or Bryan Cranston sharing the screen again with Odenkirk, though stranger things have happened, but that seems to be the focus of all the online chatter before each new season of the show.

Maybe it’s because I was never a fan of Breaking Bad but I’m perfectly okay with this. In fact, I think Better Call Saul is a better show because of this.

While there are some ties with Breaking Bad, for the most part Better Call Saul is its own show. Sure, there’s Jimmy and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) who are the leads of Better Caul Saul and who were players in Breaking Bad, but I don’t think you need to have watched a single minute of that show to understand Better Call Saul. The characters are different here, less set in their criminal ways if at all.

But some of this is changing, it does seem as if both Jimmy and Mike are becoming more in-line with the criminal element than they have in the past with this latest fourth season of the show.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that Mike’s “crossed over to the dark side.” Whereas Jimmy does have some criminal elements to him, Mike’s now taking a paycheck from bad people to do bad things. And if Mike’s “broke bad,” then how long will it be until Jimmy fully becomes Saul Goodman?

The first episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad was a little slow, but I find that first episodes of established shows usually are. Much of the episode deals with a very big ramification from something that happened in the final episode of the third season which has left Jimmy a distraught, and nearly destroyed man.

That is until he isn’t distraught or destroyed anymore. There’s a scene at the end of this episode that left me wondering, was this the real debut of Saul Goodman, a man only interested in his self willing to do whatever’s necessary, to hurt anyone for his own gain?

Only time will tell.

Lodge 49
Lodge 49

Lodge 49

Another AMC series premiered last week, this time the brand new Lodge 49 — NOT another zombie show, shock! Starring Wyatt Russell (Black Mirror), AMC has been promoting this series as the TV version of The Big Lebowski. Heck, Russell’s character even goes by “Dud” which is a lot like the “Dude” from The Big Lebowski. Yet to me Lodge 49 was a lot more like the working-class movies and TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s than The Big Lebowski, though there was a little of that for flavor.

Here, Dud is twenty-something that’s drifting after his life came crashing down before him. He got bitten by a snake and the wound hasn’t yet healed, his dad drown while surfing and he and his sister Liz lost everything from their family home to their family business afterwards. Now, Dud metal detects on the beach for what he can and borrows what he must at high rates from a pawn shop. Until one day he finds a ring on the beach and finds that it’s from a fraternal lodge, of which he’s interested in joining if only to find a way out of his spiraling life.

Lodge 49 really isn’t what I thought it was going to be. It’s a lot more quirky and funny than I was expecting, though there is a dash of darkness to it too. I was intrigued by this show and really liked the characters within it.

The one thing that concerns me about Lodge 49 from promos I’ve seen online is that it seems like there’s quite a bit of mysticism in the series. There is a bit of that in the first episode, but what could be mystical could easily be something else. I could be totally wrong or this might make the show stronger than I think it is, but I hope Lodge 49 stays on the level and doesn’t go all John from Cincinnati or anything.

Disenchantment
Disenchantment

What To Watch This Week

Avengers: Infinity War – Tuesday
The biggest hit of the summer, and one of the biggest movies of all-time, Avengers: Infinity War is available on DVD and Blu-ray this week.

Patient Zero – Tuesday
This movie about a world overrun with zombies and the one guy who can speak zombie (Matt Smith) was originally due out two years ago but was shelved until now and is getting an on-demand release this week.

Disenchantment – Friday
The first season of the Matt Groening created animated fantasy series Disenchantment debuts this Friday on Netflix.

Red Dawn – Saturday
The commies invade Calumet, Colorado in this classic red-scare World War III movie that I’ve seen waaaaay too many times to count on HDNET MOVIES.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool TV Poster of the Week

Project Blue Book poster