Thanks for heads up, I don't even know how that is possible. It seemes every book list includes it as a worthy mention.

 

Not exactly "historical drama" in the vein @douter is talking about, but I've been enjoying watching the first few episodes of Comrade Detective over the last couple of days. To quote wikipedia's brief outline:

It's only six episodes, but they're a lot of fun, with some good tongue-in-cheek references to communist ideology vs. the reality of living in a communist state.

One of my favorites from Episode 1 is in the course of a conversation about a case at the police station, someone suggests that the crime they're looking into was an inside job (which in context would mean a police officer helped the criminals). There's a pause as everyone considers this for a moment, only for the main character to say something along the lines of "That would make sense, but for one thing: There is no such thing as a corrupt police officer in Romania." Everyone nods thoughtfully in agreement and moves on to other, less outlandish theories.

So far the nefarious plot the buddy-cop protagonists are trying to foil seems to revolve around an American operation to corrupt Romania's youth away from proper Marxist-Leninist values by smuggling blue jeans and Monopoly (the board game) into the country, and those capitalist exploiter pigs will stop at nothing - not even murder! - to see it done...

 

Midnight Mass is one of the best TV shows I have seen in a long time.

The show is basically religious "horror". At first, a scoffed at the idea, because most movies based on this subject matter tend to be unoriginal, boring, and moralizing.

Midnight Mass is none of these things.

First of all, it explores religion, predominantly Christianity and Islam to a lesser extent, in such a fascinating and compelling way. I truly felt like I understood religion more after watching this.

Second, the creators do something incredibly fascinating with the concept of "Angels"

Spoiler

They basically depict an ancient vampire like an angel, according to the main character

The show also has really fascinating and eye opening conversations regarding a tonne of things like addiction, death, racism. And at no point was it ever boring or did it feel like it was moralizing.

If you are religious at all. I think you will absolutely love this show. It does some interesting things with citing and interpreting scripture.

If you are not, I think you will also love this show, you just won't appreciate some of the more nuanced points being made about religion.

Please guys, watch this show so I can have somewhere to discuss it.

 

My current favorite show is Evil. It's really hard to describe. A "dark subversive supernatural mystery" fits I guess, but really, the less you know the better. Some episodes are truly astonishing, leaving you with a "wtf, that's what they went for?" reaction. The earliest episode I truly felt like that was season 1 episode 4, so that's how I far I'd recommend watching to see if it catches you.

 

Babylon 5 is getting a reboot now. Literally just Babylon 5 (same showrunner) with new actors and better effects.

I'm not entirely certain how to feel about that.

 

I'm not against the reboot, but it probably should be done by someone new. At the same time, having the same person do the some show again after 20 years is going to be a fascinating case of how the same series can be totally different just because time changed and not because it has a different showrunner.

 

Bablyon 5 just with updated graphics sounds kinda dope.

That show can be dowright ugly.

 

High Recommend Squid Game.

Very solid series. Likable protagonist. Intense drama. One Netflix's best shows atm.

 

I'll second that Squid Game rec... but only if you have a steely stomach. It's not all that shocking or gory, but the abject despair of the whole series and its bleak outlook really just made me uncomfortable.

 

Lol i saw the premise and gathered what you said from that alone and noped the fuck out.

 

Yeah, this was my initial thought upon seeing the trailer. Arth’s post made me think about giving it a go, but @KHAAAAAAAN!! has confirmed that it should only be when I want to watch something like that.

 

Yeah I would not recommend it if you’re not in a good headspace. I’d say it ends on a good place but the series is definitely bleak

It’s very lord of the flies in tone

 

Yeah, same. Korean entertainment can be some of the most fucking bleak stuff imaginable, and this seems like a prime contender for that.

 

It's better than Game of Thrones imo.

 

It's telling that even when it comes to happy series people ask for confirmation that it has a happy ending because you can't be sure with Kdrama.

 

Binged all of Midnight Mass in one sitting. Predictable in a lot of ways, but it was still satisfying to follow along as things played out.

Preachers ever so slightly unhinged by their overzealous belief are much more fun to watch than slimy hypocritical conmen.

 

See, this is one of my concerns about the reboot. One of B5's greatest strengths was its ability to show all sides of a political disagreement in a way that the viewer could understand the viewpoints of the opposed characters, even if they disagreed with them. In a very real way, the whole core of the show was built around the concept of nuance and shades of gray in diplomacy and politics. Even when someone was clearly in the wrong (most of Londo Mollari's character arc comes to mind), it made an honest attempt to make sure you understood where they were coming from.

In the current entertainment climate, I seriously question whether it's even possible to produce a show that does that, without either inciting a mass twitter cancel campaign, or without turning the characters and their viewpoints into the kind of dumbed-down didactic caricatures that modern audiences are more comfortable with.

 

Eh squid game was ok.

Nice little twist at the end.

But not that great.

I think animal world did it better

 

While we're at it, if you liked Midnight Mass (personally I thought it was okay), you should watch Shiki. It's a 2010 anime with a similar premise. Broadly knowing what's up (from having seen Midnight Mass) isn't really an issue, cause the series doesn't hide it for too long. The characters take some time to uncover it though, so observing them, and also "the other side" and characters caught in between is where the tension lies.

(If you don't usually watch anime, don't worry, Shiki isn't really too "anime-y", so to speak, besides funky hairstyles on some characters. It's an anime adaptation of a normal horror novel, not of some anime-y source.)

Not gonna lie, I like it better than Midnight Mass.

 

A couple of notes:

I‘ve streamed Season 1-3 of Superstore over the last couple of days and damn, that‘s a good show. Another one of the wonderful ensemble comedies that are held together by chemistry and writing. The show wrapped earlier this year after six seasons, so I‘m happy to have the whole thing to go through.

Also, I‘m going to wake up to watch the Season 2 finale of Ted Lasso in less than six hours, and I am *not* prepared. Overall, this season was very different from the first, with a strong focus on certain topics that were mostly alluded to last year. The final episode has a lot of threads to wrap up or at least untangle, so I‘m really looking forward to seeing what they‘ve come up with and what‘s being set up for 2022. #COYGH