Thursday, January 5, 2017

Across A Streaming Universe: Christmas Edition


Merry Christmas!  During this special season, we have more time at home, and fewer episodes of our favorite network and basic cable shows.  So it's a great time to roam across the streaming universe, and find some gems in the streaming universe!



Alison and I watched this interesting little show on Hulu.  It centers around two hustlers in the fake psychic world of greater Los Angeles.  But one of the "psychics" has a bad run-in that leaves him brain-injured, an injury that gives him true psychic glimpses.  One of the stars is Pierce County's very own KaDee Strickland, a young woman that Alison grew up knowing, and who has had a stellar movie and TV career.

This show is mature-rated and has some language and occasional skin, and is rougher than most of the stuff that KaDee has been in.  Alison and her mother, Rose, were curious as to how KaDee's parents would handle it.  A tweet I saw from KaDee said that after a Shut Eye binge, they had to kind of counter it with A Little House on The Prairie binge.

Tom's rating:  7 of 10





Christmas time was a great time to restore our watching of classic Twilight Zone episodes.  I had seen them before, but Benjamin had not, and he really enjoyed these gems of storytelling and imagination.  The most recent we watched was A Nice Place To Visit, where a bad man finds that he has died and has gone to a place where he can get wherever he wants.  He thinks he's in heaven, but surprises are in store.


It's enjoyable to see many of these great talents I had grown up, but it's rather sad to see how many of them are gone.  The episodes we watched were from 1960, which explains it.  Nevertheless, it was great to see their performances again.

Tom's Rating: 10 of 10.





I have been slowly streaming Homeland, and am in the middle of the fourth season.  It's an interesting show, but it is not consistently good, especially now that the story line that ran through the first three seasons is complete.  The main character, Carrie Mathison played by Claire Danes, has many flaws, some which defies logic to me as to what a real operative could get away with.

Tom's Rating: 7 of 10.





BrainDead was a fun show, which Alison and I devoured quickly.  We came as close to true bingers as we ever have, watching 13 episodes in about a week.  Fantastic humor/satire which showed a zombie-infested capital hill, making fun of our twisted, hyper-partisan political circus. A perfect warm up as we are about to start the most bizarre Presidency in American History.

Tom's Rating: 9 of 10.





This is the type of  show that I have been waiting for.  The Man in the High Castle is a carefully crafted alternative reality show! This one is based on the great novel from Phillip K Dick, and is set in a world where the Axis powers have won WW2, and the Japanese and Germans have divided out America.  Set in 1962, it is a deep, detailed an fascinating exploration of our country trying to survive a fascist takeover.

A fascist takeover.  That could never take place here. That would be impossible.

Right?

Toms Rating:  10 of 10






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