What’s on TV?

[ericwn]

Seinfeld (1989-1998)- Great comedy streaming on Netflix!

View attachment 11174​

A classic!

 

[ericwn]

I always found VHS too temporary and didn't see the point in buying them. I'd just rent stuff. But I jumped in with both feet on DVD/Blu-ray/4K. And even some HDDVD. I've reached the point in collecting that I've stopped counting (before we moved, it was 5 bookcases of movies and 2 of tv). Now I've finally reached the "am I ever going to watch this again?" stage. Eventually I'll get to the "it needs to go" stage. But I'm a packrat. So it will be a while yet.

I used to have most stuff nicely ripped and available via a Mac and iTunes to stream on our Apple TV, but with streaming services these days, what’s the point of me entertaining that setup? The discs are mostly boxed up and the Mac mostly off these days, while streaming is used every day.

 

[MEJHarrison]

I used to have most stuff nicely ripped and available via a Mac and iTunes to stream on our Apple TV, but with streaming services these days, what’s the point of me entertaining that setup? The discs are mostly boxed up and the Mac mostly off these days, while streaming is used every day.

That seems like a lot of work for little payoff. Still, not everything is available for streaming. I've been watching stuff lately like Homicide: Life on the Street and Quantum Leap. I don't know who streams those, if anyone does. So I like having the discs as backup. Another example, I'd like to watch Parks & Rec, but don't feel like signing up for another streaming service. I just need to find where I have those discs packs and I'll be good to go.

 

[Herdfan]

I always found VHS too temporary and didn't see the point in buying them.

LOL. I didn't. They were my mom's.

I was an early adopter of both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and almost every Tuesday was at Best Buy picking up the new releases. Now with everything streaming, I haven't bought physical media in years.

 

[lizkat]

I'm gonna have to check this out... Fraggle Rock, whole new 13-episode release from Apple TV+.

Review: Fraggle Rock on Apple TV+ is the Muppet series Disney+ wishes it had

Irreverence, whimsy, radishes: series' return includes Muppet-teering at its best.

arstechnica.com

 

[Huntn]

Grantchester (2014- ) watched in the States on PBS, seasons 1-5 on Amazon Prime. We lost track of this series about season 3, like local PBS stopped carrying it, or maybe when we were moving from cable. Anyway, now we are going to catch up starting over at the beginning. I love the post WWII rural setting in England atmosphere in this series and a minister whose hobby is solving murders, with his friend the police inspector, while second guessing why he let his love slip away.

View attachment 11137​

Almost finished with Season 2. I’d forgotten how much of an edge this show has!

 

[ericwn]

That seems like a lot of work for little payoff. Still, not everything is available for streaming. I've been watching stuff lately like Homicide: Life on the Street and Quantum Leap. I don't know who streams those, if anyone does. So I like having the discs as backup. Another example, I'd like to watch Parks & Rec, but don't feel like signing up for another streaming service. I just need to find where I have those discs packs and I'll be good to go.

Lot of work, not in my opinion. I didn’t want to just have the disc, I wanted a digital versatile copy that would be a backup as well as be available throughout the house and when travelling.

 

[Huntn]

Lot of work, not in my opinion. I didn’t want to just have the disc, I wanted a digital versatile copy that would be a backup as well as be available throughout the house and when travelling.

I've always liked having hard copies of movies I like, but some of the lesser movies I'll buy them online at the likes of Apple, Prime, or Vudu. I'll have to designate those accounts in my will. It's curious to see what happens to those movie titles people have purchased and technology marches on, will the service update this content, or just say, oh well it's old, watch it on your old tv...

 

[ericwn]

I've always liked having hard copies of movies I like, but some of the lesser movies I'll buy them online at the likes of Apple, Prime, or Vudu. I'll have to designate those accounts in my will. It's curious to see what happens to those movie titles people have purchased and technology marches on, will the service update the stuff or just say, oh well it's old, watch it on your old tv...

Good point, a lot of these purchase services might not be around forever. I would have used more of the buy and download options earlier too but tight data volume allowances in Ireland where I lived at the time made that impossible

 

[Huntn]

Good point, a lot of these purchase services might not be around forever. I would have used more of the buy and download options earlier too but tight data volume allowances in Ireland where I lived at the time made that impossible

An outstanding example of this for me at least, was finding Treasure Island (1990) sitting on Amazon Prime to purchase and stream. This copy is the first one, that I can’t say for sure it was remastered, but it is listed as HD and the only one I’ve found that looks acceptable on a large screen TV and at a reasonable price.

There was an issue back in the day when content was filmed using film, but was then converted to VHS for editing. If I understand it correctly, the issue is some of this final content was then transferred to DVD for sale and did not hold up for larger screens. I saw this with editions of STNG, Lonesome Dove, and Battlestar Galactica (until they came out with a remastered version for the latter)

I’ll say looking for the word remastered is good for anything from the 90s, but my impression is also that you will not find this situation on a BluRay product. It seems to be unique to that period in the 90s while DVD was still the main standard for this content viewed at home.

 

[Huntn]

I always found VHS too temporary and didn't see the point in buying them. I'd just rent stuff. But I jumped in with both feet on DVD/Blu-ray/4K. And even some HDDVD. I've reached the point in collecting that I've stopped counting (before we moved, it was 5 bookcases of movies and 2 of tv). Now I've finally reached the "am I ever going to watch this again?" stage. Eventually I'll get to the "it needs to go" stage. But I'm a packrat. So it will be a while yet.

I’ve got 2 small bookcases full, a mix of DVD and BluRay, with a couple of UltraHD BluRays (which I really don’t see much difference on our 65” 4K TV), and most of the content that is mine, and I watch on occasion. My wife has things like Vampire Diaries, I Love Lucy, and others I am convinced will not be watched anytime soon, which is available for streaming, and that’s how she watches the latter.

 

[DT]

A good reminder, I’m looking forward to the new season too.

Re-started S03, not sure why we originally bailed, I don't even remember finishing the first EP of this season, probably interrupted by life in some capacity

Anyway, JFC, forgot how good this show is (the 98% for S03 on RT isn't wrong ...), Vulture is also right about S03E01 (5 out of 5) being a spectacular bit of direction from Jason Bateman (he actually won an Emmy for Directing in 2020 for S02E01).

LOL. I didn't. They were my mom's.

I was an early adopter of both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and almost every Tuesday was at Best Buy picking up the new releases. Now with everything streaming, I haven't bought physical media in years.

Yeah, I've been through so many format and used to purchase lots of physical media: VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, HD-DVD, BD ... and then pretty much shut down at some point and went to purely digital cloud based copies.

Until recently I still had the LDs, finally gave them and the player away to a collector. Still have some pre-recorded VHS (some anime, a copy of The Wall , no player, well, maybe in storage), and a couple of HD-DVDs I wound up not selling or giving away Lots of DVD and BDs, though I can't remember the last time I used any of them - the only time we use a physical BD - and it's very infrequently - is a cheap rental from RedBox for a new release that's still weeks away from cloud/streaming.

 

[Huntn]

Re-started S03, not sure why we originally bailed, I don't even remember finishing the first EP of this season, probably interrupted by life in some capacity

Anyway, JFC, forgot how good this show is (the 98% for S03 on RT isn't wrong ...), Vulture is also right about S03E01 (5 out of 5) being a spectacular bit of direction from Jason Bateman (he actually won an Emmy for Directing in 2020 for S02E01).




Yeah, I've been through so many format and used to purchase lots of physical media: VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, HD-DVD, BD ... and then pretty much shut down at some point and went to purely digital cloud based copies.

Until recently I still had the LDs, finally gave them and the player away to a collector. Still have some pre-recorded VHS (some anime, a copy of The Wall , no player, well, maybe in storage), and a couple of HD-DVDs I wound up not selling or giving away Lots of DVD and BDs, though I can't remember the last time I used any of them - the only time we use a physical BD - and it's very infrequently - is a cheap rental from RedBox for a new release that's still weeks away from cloud/streaming.

I heard that vinyl was outselling digital?

 

[DT]

I heard that vinyl was outselling digital?

For music on physical media, apparently vinyl did outsell CDs in 2021, but I think digital downloads were way ahead. Though I see it was still pretty recently, 2018 that the combined physical medias outsold DD - but now I think there's even more people not buying digital downloads and just using a music subscription service like Apple Music, Spotify.

 

[DT]

Re-started S03, not sure why we originally bailed, I don't even remember finishing the first EP of this season, probably interrupted by life in some capacity

Anyway, JFC, forgot how good this show is (the 98% for S03 on RT isn't wrong ...), Vulture is also right about S03E01 (5 out of 5) being a spectacular bit of direction from Jason Bateman (he actually won an Emmy for Directing in 2020 for S02E01).

Finished Season 3. Wow. Stunned silence at the season finale, EP10, and those last two - we watched back to back, holy hell, even IMDB which is usually pretty shitty has them rated at 9.4 and 9.5 (out of 10). That Tom Pelphrey (Ben) wasn't at the very least nominated for an Emmy, is a travesty. He's at least up for a Critic's Choice award in March.

 

[Huntn]

Grantchester (2014- ) watched in the States on PBS, seasons 1-5 on Amazon Prime. We lost track of this series about season 3, like local PBS stopped carrying it, or maybe when we were moving from cable. Anyway, now we are going to catch up starting over at the beginning. I love the post WWII rural setting in England atmosphere in this series and a minister whose hobby is solving murders, with his friend the police inspector, while second guessing why he let his love slip away.

View attachment 11137​

How many murder mystery series have come out of the UK featuring clergy detectives? It’s like it’s own genre.

• Grantchester- good
• Father Brown- ehh.
• Sister Boniface Mysteries- new unwatched.

 

[DT]

Finished Season 3. Wow. Stunned silence at the season finale, EP10, and those last two - we watched back to back, holy hell, even IMDB which is usually pretty shitty has them rated at 9.4 and 9.5 (out of 10). That Tom Pelphrey (Ben) wasn't at the very least nominated for an Emmy, is a travesty. He's at least up for a Critic's Choice award in March.

And also blew through S04/Part01 (they're splitting season 4 into two 7 episode parts, not sure when Part02 premiers this year ...)

Excellent, yes, Chavi is terrible, the setup is great, S04E01 starts with an insane moment, then flashes back - some crazy character moments, I think everyone __doomed__.

 

[DT]

Side note:

Should we merge this thread, with the binge worthy TV thread? In my head, they're the same, what's on TV is often something we binge, especially existing seasons or shows that are dropped all at one time. The differentiation is a little vague, and like I have a show I'm going to post about, it's "On TV", but it's also "binge worthy" ...

@Eric @Huntn

 

[Huntn]

Grantchester (2014- ) watched in the States on PBS, seasons 1-5 on Amazon Prime. We lost track of this series about season 3, like local PBS stopped carrying it, or maybe when we were moving from cable. Anyway, now we are going to catch up starting over at the beginning. I love the post WWII rural setting in England atmosphere in this series and a minister whose hobby is solving murders, with his friend the police inspector, while second guessing why he let his love slip away.

View attachment 11137​

Just finished Grantchester Season 5, season 6 was broadcast back in Sept 21, but if it appears on Prime, and might appear without a subscription in Sept. As is, Amazon offers a subscription to PBS Masterpiece theater so it could be watched now If we wanted another subscription.

Of spoiler note:
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William Davenport the current Vicar has discovered like Sidney Chamberlin before him that life after not having sex definitely becomes better with some heat of the moment sex.

 

[DT]

Station Eleven
HBOMAX
10 Episode Miniseries

Based on the 2014 book by Emily St. John Mandel (won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2015).

What I love, is it's a story about the post-apocalyptic future due to a flu-like pandemic, but it's not about the post-apocalyptic future due to a flu-like pandemic ...

Just fantastic and beautiful, it's has way more in common with The Leftovers and Lost than in does with Walking Dead or Contagion.

I think this is a pretty perfect summary of the whole show, from the review of the series finale (via AVC):

One thing I love about Station Eleven is that for an apocalyptic novel, it’s not very interested in the mechanics of the world ending. The pandemic is much worse in the show’s world, and we all understand pandemics differently now than when the book first came out. We understand how vaccines can help other people and how connected our health is to that of others. So the metaphor is already there, in a way, but Station Eleven doesn’t dwell. It does not give us more sheets and studies to read about how the virus works. Instead, it knows the most compelling part of the story is simply in the connections between people.