Blogathon 03/21: Goggleboxing

Do we have two new victims joiners of this here Blogathon thing? Well wash my fanny with a jar of apple sauce and call me Hugo Z Hackenbush, I believe we do!

We are joined by the redoubtable More Shit To Make And Do. I am already on the edge of my seat over this development, and look forward to all contributions from this corner of the Internet with great eagerness.

And, after a conversation on the Twitter on Sunday, @Highwaylass, whose blog Transport of Delight can be found here, expressed an interest in coming along for the ride.

I don’t think we need any further proof that Young Masher’s Blogathon Internet sensation has become viral. Do we? No, we don’t. Anyway, let’s get down to it (as the actress said to some passing acquaintance or other).

People are reporting all kinds of lockdown strangenesses. Vivid dreams, dog-walking at most peculiar hours of the day/night, vivid dreams and, er, vivid dreams.

It must be related to lockdown, but my unfailing superpower of picking only good things to watch on’t TV has been, lately, a little off.

I’ve picked some absolutely horrible films to watch. Stinkers. Not deliberately, obviously. It’s all been accidental.

But, away from the truly awful films, some of the serieses seriesesis seriesisisis we’ve watched have been pretty good. So here’s a brief look at some of the highs and lows of seriesisisis we’ve streamed. Or gave up on.

First out of the bag is The OA (Netflix) which, because we don’t live in a world permanently coloured by hefty doses of LSD, made as much sense as… well… nothing at all. But we watched it. I don’t know what that says about us or indeed it.

Preacher (Amazon) got off to a promising start but then fell up its own arsehole and disappeared without trace.

The Boys (Amazon) has been very good indeed. The massive amounts of sweary irreverence have been most amusing to watch. I look forward to the continuation of the show.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Amazon) has been good to revisit too. No, it’s not been remade, I’m talking about the original.

American politics has been represented by the top-flight drama The West Wing (More4), and the outrageously hilarious spoof comedy The Trump Presidency (every media channel ever). The writers on that last show must have been on some pretty heavy drugs.

Britain by Narrowboat (Amazon) is a delightful series. I’m continuing to watch the two stars, Colin and Shaun, in their ongoing weekly YouTube episodes. Their vlogs are beautifully filmed and edited, and are worth a look.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Amazon) is not too shabby. It manages to keep a respectable distance from the original film, which keeps it on the list of things to dip into.

The Expanse (Amazon) is a slow burn but blimey and indeed O’Reilly it successfully captures a story of enormous scope and immense imagination. If you like your SciFi in large-scale, this should be on your list.

Warrior Nun (Netflix) was absolutely bonkers, but we watched it. Award yourself bonus points for spotting the many historical, geographical and any other type of continuity errors.

Umbrella Academy (Netflix) was lapped up by the whole family, as too was Stranger Things (Netflix) and Titans (Netflix). Though I prefer the far more sophisticated Teen Titans Go! (Netflix) to the latter.

The adults in da house revelled in the Netflix seriesis Sex Education (it was filmed on my old stamping ground which made it doubly interesting for me).

I bailed out of Star Trek: Discovery (Netflix) because if it’s brown and looks like shite and it smells like shite then it is, actually… shite.

Staged (iPlayer) was an unexpected delight in the underrepresented ‘soft and gentle, meandering ensemble comedy’ category.

My guilty secret is Homes Under The Hammer (iPlayer); I try to sneak an episode or two in during the quiet period of a weekend.

Lost In Space (Netflix) was quite good, if one’s expectations weren’t set too high. But if you remember how cardboardy and ham-acted the original was, this far exceeds that!

Utopia (the UK version not the US product – Amazon) was a wonderfully dark little discovery that is well worth a look.

The Man in the High Castle (Amazon) bowed out with a sort of a flourish and a damp squib of an ending; I’ll miss it, but the departure from the original Philip K Dick story stretched the suspension of disbelief just too far to be comfortable. The ‘what if?’ question is carried forward very well though.

Carnival Row (Amazon) took a little while to settle into (Steampunk not being my natural bag), but after a few episodes I really got into the concept.

We sampled The Good Place (Netflix) for an episode and a half before bailing out and declaring it to be a very unfunny thing which, for a comedy, is not a good label to have.

Lucifer (Amazon/Netflix) was completely unengaging and a very easy thing to leave well alone, but the quirky and very imaginative Locke & Key (Netflix) was a tidy discovery.

I watched half of an episode of Space Force (Netflix) before hanging the ‘I’d rather have root canal than watch another minute of this crap’ label on it. I’d give Space Force a hard avoid if I were you. And root canal. But if you have to make a choice of something to endure, choose root canal.

Glitch (Netflix) was less harmful than root canal but didn’t open the door to our collective imaginations.

There are a few (some might say obvious) seriesisisis missing. Picard, Ted Bundy, Hunters, Bosch, The Queen’s Gambit, Jessica Jones (no relation), Better Call Saul, Designated Survivor, Away, Another Life, Cobra Kai, Ozark, to name but a few.

There are also quite a few promising foreign language possibilities that I have on a list of things to watch if I ever get the time.

But this is just a list of the memorable ‘good watch/bad watch’ as viewed through the lense of the occupants of this house.

So. what have you been doing over lockdown?