What are you watching?

A wonderful adaptation of W. W. Jacobs's supernatural short story, "The Monkey's Paw" from 1988. Strangely unknown to the normally omniscient editors of Wikipedia, and virtually invisible elsewhere on the Internet:

Oh, I watched this version ...

Live Landing of Vikram Lander on Moon
https://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-m1-c...ander-moon

Live Landing of Vikram Lander on Moon
https://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-m1-c...ander-moon

It was very tense, watching the trajectory, the velocity, the altitude of the lander, as it descended towards the lunar surface. The control room fell silent, no announcements, though we could still see everyone monitoring the data on their screens.

Communication was lost when it was 2.1 km above the surface. Another report says data shows it at just 330m above the surface. After that silence.

There is still the orbiter, which is active, alive and well, due to continue for another year gathering data, images and measurements.

And there's still the other half of Chandrayaan-2 to consider. The mission's orbiter, which arrived at the moon last month, is scheduled to operate for at least a year. The spacecraft is using eight science instruments to study the moon in a variety of ways — creating detailed maps of the lunar surface, for example, and gauging the presence and abundance of water ice, especially in the south polar region.

https://www.space.com/india-moon-landing...-modi.html

Undone

This is the part where I would usually list some of the shows that [i]Undone[/i] is most similar to in order to give you an idea of what it’s like. But there aren’t any, not really. [i]Undone[/i] is an intimate examination of one woman’s personal traumas and mental state; it’s also a wild sci-fi drama. It’s a story about a family torn apart by tragedy and grief, and it’s an animated series that uses its unique visual style to create a dreamy, feathery unreality where you can never trust the path ahead of you.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/9/13/20...azar-recap



https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/undone/s01

Undone





https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/9/13/20...azar-recap



https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/undone/s01

Interesting that the people who made Bojack Horseman made this. I don't think the people behind Waking Life are behind this at all, though I'm apparently not the first to see a potential connection in theme & visual style...

Interesting that the people who made Bojack Horseman made this. I don't think the people behind Waking Life are behind this at all, though I'm apparently not the first to see a potential connection in theme & visual style...

I've just watched the first two episodes. It is a technique called rotoscoping which has been around a long time but is, apparently, a long and very skilful artistic process. Yes, it was also used to make Waking Life but I am not aware of any other connection.

I'm somewhat surprised (and pleased) to see (hear) Bob Odenkirk voicing that character although I have yet to see whether the metaphysical elements are merely a story-telling device to be dismissed as a result of brain injury/chemistry in the end. I hope not but no spoilers, please.

On a lighter note, Undone was not the only new (to me) metaphysical offering available as I browsed for new things to watch. I also found "The InBetween" which is another psychic-helps-police procedural. No too heavy but quite enjoyable (at least the first episode was).

A BBC production from 1984 of J. B. Priestley's play, "I Have Been Here Before" (listening rather than watching, as it was a radio performance, but thought it fitted better here as it was drama rather than music):

I was recently looking for something mindless to watch, so I checked out an anime I'd heard people speak highly of called Goblin Slayer to see if it lived up to the hype. Anime, in general, seems to be overly terrible and I'm usually sceptical of any recommendations, especially these days. After watching I think It could just as easily be called "Dungeons and Dragons: BFG Edition". I would not have been surprised if a rendition of Rip and Tear or some heavy metal remix of E1M1 had started playing at points.

It had potential to be a really good, mature story, but the host of standard anime-isms dragged it down in my opinion. Not to mention the overly cutesy art style that didn't pair well with the brutality. To its credit, it's one of the few out there these days that takes the "teenager doing adult things" cliche that infects the whole medium and made it make sense. Since its a medieval fantasy world where 15 year olds could reasonably be considered adults. At least they weren't in a highschool.

I wouldn't be surprised if the protagonist was someone's character in a DnD campaign and that's where they got the idea for the story. Which then made me go "Wait, is DnD even a thing in Japan?"

I recommend it nonetheless.

Detectorists. A comedy series first aired in 2014.
Currently the first two series are available on BBC iplayer.

The first episodes are about to drop off the end of the four-week availability, so anyone interested should start there before Monday night.

Show contentSpoiler:

Series two starts with an Anglo Saxon priest fleeing raiding horsemen. There is a reference (which appears to be a psychic impression) to the sound of those horsemen later in the series. I won't say more in case anyone wants to watch for themselves.