{"id":42759,"date":"2025-01-20T06:30:57","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T17:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=42759"},"modified":"2025-01-19T21:15:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T08:15:26","slug":"what-i-watched-over-the-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2025\/01\/20\/what-i-watched-over-the-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Watched Over The Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

That title does evoke early childhood memories. \ud83d\ude00\u00a0 But the recent holiday did<\/em> give me the opportunity to watch more shows than everyday time allows.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

First off the blocks was Arcane<\/em><\/strong>, Season Two. I really enjoyed Season One (having been alerted to its goodness by fellow Supernatural Underground<\/a> author, Kim Falconer<\/a>) so I was looking forward to the second. And I did enjoy it, just not quite so much as the first season.<\/p>\n

The graphics were fabulous and I loved—and love—the characters, but was pretty much beflummoxed by what was actually going on, plotwise, much of the time, particularly in terms of the Big Bads, their motivations, and other aspects of the existential threats. It’s still worth your while, just not quite the tour-de-force I was hoping for.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Next up was Blue-Eye Samurai<\/em><\/strong> — and if two shows makes a theme, then you are indeed noticing an anim\u00e9 theme. \ud83d\ude00 Again, fantastic visuals, good characterization, and a coherent story. It’s also reasonably gory in places (in line with anim\u00e9 tradition) and with some action sequences that were so wildly improbable I had to laugh. Laughing with, though, because the wildly improbable is fundamental to much anim\u00e9 and also ninja tales, so not unexpected. Overall, I thought Blue-Eye Samurai<\/em> was very watchable and am hoping for a Season 2.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then there was The Jackal<\/em><\/strong>. Definitely not anim\u00e9 and equally definitely not The Day of the Jackal, <\/em>either of Frederick Forsyth fame or the original 1973 film. However, if you can set that aside (which takes some doing if you’re a fan) and watch the TV show for what it is, it’s a reasonable sort of thriller with a more human ‘twist’ to Eddy Redmayne’s Jackal assassin. I also liked Lashana Lynch as Bianca, the MI6 agent hunting the Jackal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A local reviewer touted Black Doves<\/em><\/strong> as the next “must watch” after The Jackal<\/em>, but although it was a reasonable sort of a story and had some good action elements, I thought it was more ‘okay’ than ‘edge-of-the-seat.’ I also thought it suffered from the wildly improbable in places, without Blue-Eye Samurai’s<\/em> saving graces of being both anim\u00e9 and fantasy. And also from the “Big Bads” being overhyped, and consequently feeling far less “big” or “bad” in the final confrontation. Nonetheless, it did manage a reasonable sort of ending and I would watch a second season. So no, I’m not panning it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Last but not least, there was Ted Lasso<\/strong><\/em>, Season One, which was pretty much as good as innumerable peeps have assured me it would be. Fun, quirky, with a cast of great—and very human—characters. And, of course, “the beautiful game.” Or as one of the players (Dani Rojas) would say, “football is life.” \ud83d\ude00 I really enjoyed it and am very glad there’s a Season Two and Three already out there for ‘later.’<\/p>\n

Much later now, though, with the holiday well and truly over. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That title does evoke early childhood memories. \ud83d\ude00\u00a0 But the recent holiday did give me the opportunity to watch more shows than everyday time allows. First off the blocks was Arcane, Season Two. I really enjoyed Season One (having been alerted to its goodness by fellow Supernatural Underground author, Kim Falconer) so I was looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42759"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42841,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42759\/revisions\/42841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}