I have been busy this month with a big work event that is happening Saturday so it’s been quiet around these parts since my time has been spent at the office getting everything together. Plus, I MOVED offices right in the middle of all this (to the new downstairs office) so I have just been swamped lately.
Anyway, this week in ears and eyeballs.
TV:
GHOSTED (FOX Sundays 8:30pm except when baseball is on): Well, the first episode was pretty mild but I enjoyed it. I’ve always liked Adam Scott (Ben in Parks & Rec) and Craig Robinson (Darryl in the Office) so when I saw the commercial for this show I was vaguely intrigued. Which is good for them – commercial worked and I did actually watch it! Anyway, this is about two normal (?) dudes who get recruited into the Bureau Underground (literally, an investigative bureau that is underground) which takes on multi-verse, paranormal, and alien abduction mysteries. Adam Scott’s character’s wife was supposedly abducted by aliens which caused him to go a little crazy, but he’s conveniently a theoretical physicist or something who specializes in the multi-verse. Craig Robinson’s character is a mall cop who used to be a real cop. Anyway, it definitely has potential but unfortunately for it, it’s on FOX, which is not known for keeping the good stuff going.
MINDHUNTER (Netflix): I was semi-interested in this from the commercials so I decided to check it out. It is based on the book of the same name about the FBI’s study of serial killers in the 70’s in order to understand them better. I thought it would be another bloody gore fest but except for the very first scene when a hostage negotiation goes wrong, it has been a cerebral (if highly creepy!) exploration of the criminal mind. The two FBI agents are joined by an academic psychologist in their study and it’s just a really interesting show. They interview real life serial killers (played by actors. The agents have fictional names but the serial killers are based on their real life counterparts) with a lot of the dialogue taken from the real life transcripts. Anyway, it’s been interesting.
SLASHER Season 2 (Netflix): I enjoyed the first season of this anthology series. I’m almost done with Season 2 and it’s a TOTAL gore fest (more like what I was expecting for Mindhunter, honestly). It’s totally tasteless dreck that for the most part I am enjoying. There is one particular instance of violence in the second half of the season that was totally uncalled for that was perpetrated on one of the victims, who then survived it, who then was burned alive! Come ON. It was too much – and for me, that is saying something. If you watch it you’ll know what scenes I’m talking about. Anyway, this season is about a group of camp counselors who somehow killed another of their fellow counselors and buried the body. The camp area is about to be redeveloped so they go back in the dead of winter to move the body. The camp is now a spiritual (yoga/vegan) retreat so those guys are there too. When the ex-counselors go to move the body, they discover it’s missing and then chaos ensues! I’m going to finish it (I only have 1-2 eps left) but that one scene I mentioned above I found really off-putting. The first season was better.
***
MOVIES:
John Wick 2: Good but not as good as the first one. Though to be fair, I have watched the first one like 17 times so I may need to watch this one again before final judgement… (I love Keanu though… I just watched some stupid anorexia movie on Netflix called To the Bone only because he’s in it. So, whatevs.)
PODCASTS:
Revisiting my opinion on My Favorite Murder, which I mentioned last week… there are a LOT of ads on this show. I’m still debating on if I really like it much. I don’t like it when podcasts start out with a bunch of ads before you get to the content. It is very annoying! And I’m usually trapped in the car with it so I can’t fast forward. Anyway, other listeners are telling me that this gets really good down the road but… we’ll see. I did learn I can’t listen to true crime on the commute in – not the greatest way to start your day!
Which is funny because I watch true crime allllll the time and have Investigation Discovery running in the morning on the weekend but I don’t like it in the car in the morning.
Anyway… that’s it for this edition. Stranger Things 2 comes out on Friday and I’m going to be all over that!