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Decent way to kill some evenings in the run up to Halloween. As with most anthology series' it's a bit hit-and-miss, but mostly enjoyable. Nails the campy vibe of the original films and features some awesome practical effects but occasionally shies away from showing them too clearly.
 
Watched the first season of House of the Dragon (2022) on HBO Max.

Welcome to the new season of Netflix' The Crown. We added some fantasy elements, weird diseases, a bit of gore and seasoned it all with a bit of incest. - HBO

Where
Game of Thrones was relatively focused in time, this series makes sometimes jarring time jumps including recasts of main characters. If you feel disoriented after these, you are not alone. Some characters stay the same age throughout the years though, so I don't know what's going on here.

The time jumps are arguably the show's biggest problems, as we are treated to dramatic turn of events only to have jumped 6 years forward in time in the next episode with little to no time to orient ourselves. Stand alone, some episodes offer great drama though. Paddy Considine as Viserys Targaryen will win you over even if you're not into the rest.

All in all, it's a medieval soap opera / drama with some fantasy elements tacked on. It looks cool, but it's not a very good fantasy series. Most of the things here could easily have been done without the fantasy and without missing out on a lot, which speaks volumes.

7/10.
 
The lack of colourful characters is a disappointment in my book. The plot does seem to lack consistent direction, but there's a woeful lack of Tyrion one-liners, Bronn comebacks and hapless sidekicks like Pod.
 
Watched the first season of House of the Dragon (2022) on HBO Max.

Welcome to the new season of Netflix' The Crown. We added some fantasy elements, weird diseases, a bit of gore and seasoned it all with a bit of incest. - HBO

Where
Game of Thrones was relatively focused in time, this series makes sometimes jarring time jumps including recasts of main characters. If you feel disoriented after these, you are not alone. Some characters stay the same age throughout the years though, so I don't know what's going on here.

The time jumps are arguably the show's biggest problems, as we are treated to dramatic turn of events only to have jumped 6 years forward in time in the next episode with little to no time to orient ourselves. Stand alone, some episodes offer great drama though. Paddy Considine as Viserys Targaryen will win you over even if you're not into the rest.

All in all, it's a medieval soap opera / drama with some fantasy elements tacked on. It looks cool, but it's not a very good fantasy series. Most of the things here could easily have been done without the fantasy and without missing out on a lot, which speaks volumes.

7/10.
The lack of colourful characters is a disappointment in my book. The plot does seem to lack consistent direction, but there's a woeful lack of Tyrion one-liners, Bronn comebacks and hapless sidekicks like Pod.
I just finished the first season and I agree with these both, though I think I enjoyed it overall more than you folks. I'd probably give it a 8-8.5/10? Too many time jumps and too many damn birthing scenes knock it down quite a bit.

There's a lot to be said for the lack of personality on the show, I think. It's certainly not the actors, it's the writing for sure. It's all very, very dour, and for good reason, but Game of Thrones (in the early years) managed to be grim as hell while still providing occasional deep laughs. All of the people on House of the Dragon have a ton of character, but not much personality yet. Matt Smith's Daemon is engaging and shows some level of mirth (sadistic, though it might be), but otherwise everyone is gravely serious. Hoping for some more lighthearted moments in Season Two.
 
Sandman was finally renewed for a second season on Netflix. Reports were that it cost $15 million per episode, and that caused delays in renewing.
 
A tv show to raise funds to reforest and preserve forests in France. :)

 
I am haphazardly rewatching different parts and episodes of Brideshead Revisited these days.

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Yes, the series, the movie is not to be spoken of.

(the main reason I do so now - and the reason for the disorderly approach - is the fact that I'm currently working on a translation of the book into the Czech language - it does have an old translation, actually, but it is amusingly terrible and it is high time to do something about it)

And let's put aside the assessment of quality, sure, it is probably my favourite TV series altogether, just like the book it adapts is among my favourite books as well, but that's (obviously) for personal reasons - for example, I admit that Waugh, much as I love him, is a bit of an Oxford snob and while Romantic at heart, he tends to be somewhat... stilted and unnatural in his narration, he likes to show off, he is very intellectual and flowery and while he does have a poetic sense, the sentences he puts out are sometimes a bit mechanical, over-intellectualised ... I realise it now much more when trying to translate it.

Nonetheless, what I find particularly extraordinary is the fact that this must be the most accurate adaptation of a book I have ever seen. Like, seriously, most of the sentences, most of the scenes, directly from the book, not even much missing. I actually use it to help me sometimes to find the nuance, to express the text better, because it is pretty much 1:1.

And what's crazy is that it actually works. It is weird, sure, but it is weird in precisely the same way the book is.


P. S. - fun fact, I came across the book and the series both by way of recommendation - they were recommended to me by a parish priest when I first came with my desire to convert... after reading it, I realised that this person is really special, in the way he sees the world... and sure, over six years later, he is actually probably my best friend now. Sometimes the "art litmus test" works indeed, though it's rare to happen, IMHO.

Though yes, we also talked at length about Tolkien, so I guess I should have known already.
 
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