Tag: Television

The Stand: Not Quite Spoiler Free Review

I’ve already written one mostly spoiler free commentary about the new CBS mini series version of Stephen King’s The Stand. Now that the final episode is out I can give another mostly spoiled free review that briefly covers the whole thing.

I’m trying to stay spoiler free, but I can’t guarantee success. If you want to watch the series and you don’t want even vague hints at how it goes then you should stop reading now.

Last warning.

Okay, kids. Here we go.

The best part of The Stand is that it’s over. Good lord this series is awful. Just terrible. Like, I’ve read the book (both the original and the expanded versions) multiple times and I can’t even begin to imagine how they could have missed the mark so thoroughly and completely and massively screwed up such a fantastic story. The level of awful cannot be overstated.

The first half of the book is the world falling apart. The second half is putting it back together while the good guys face off with the bad guys. In the series it opens up in the second half of the story and gives a few flashbacks to the first half. It basically skipped everything you wanted to see. In the book the good guys congregate in one city and the bad guys in another. In the series, literally everything that happens in the bad guy city is so horribly bad it is unwatchable. The setting, the mood, the dialog, the acting, the casting, the writing, it’s all so bad it was painful to sit through. The good guy city is better, much better, but they still miss all the things that made the book so good.

The best parts of the series, with a couple of exceptions, are boring. Not bad per se, just boring and uninteresting. The exceptions being the final episode, which was mostly pretty good. We knew going in that King had written a mostly new ending. It’s not that good, but it’s okay. the other exception is Greg Kinnear who is excellent as Glen. When he’s on the screen it’s almost good enough to make up for everything else being so boring.

The worst parts of the series are so far off the mark they made me feel sick. In the book the bad guy sets up a society that is basically a police state. Law, order, peace, safety, all paid for by the removal of all human rights and freedoms. Trump would have loved it. In the movie his town is depicted as one part orgy and one part gladiator blood sport. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So instead of Flag being this menacing behind the scenes villain, he’s a pimp. They couldn’t have made it worse if they actively tried. Even the climactic ending was depicted in such an absolutely stupid way that I was thinking about offing myself so that I wouldn’t have to watch it all the way through.

All of that is maddeningly terrible, but it’s still better than whatever the hell Ezra Miller was doing. To say that his performance is the worst display of acting I’ve ever seen is possibly the biggest understatement in the history of language.

If you’ve read the book, I recommend that you never, ever try to watch this series. If you haven’t read the book, I still recommend that you never, ever try to watch this series. I don’t think it is humanly possible to tell the story of The Stand and make it worse than this. It can’t be done.

Why is Cobra Kai Good?

I’ll try not to include spoilers but no promises. If you are planning to watch the show but haven’t gotten around to it, you might want to be safe and stop reading now.

You have been warned.

Jen and I had a discussion this morning about Cobra Kai the TV series. Specifically, why is it good? When the show was first announced I, like many people, assumed it was going to be a spoof based on some jokes in the show How I Met Your Mother (one of the characters insisted that The Karate Kid was a story of a wholesome rich kid who got screwed out of his karate title and his girlfriend by the new bully in town). It’s not though. It’s just a continuation of the Karate Kid story (not you, Next Karate Kid). Johnny has grown up to be a loser. Daniel has grown up to be successful with a happy family. Johnny meets a nerd and decides to teach him karate and three seasons worth of bloody hijinks ensues.

If you look at it objectively and break it down into its core pieces, is it good? The acting isn’t terrible. Some of the kids are hard to watch but for the most part it’s okay. No one in The Karate Kid was getting a best actor award, and we’re pretty much on par with that today. The writing is pretty suspect. The boss fights in the season two and three finales were gratuitous to say the least (especially season two) and could have made the same points with 75% less violence. Granted, gratuitous does not necessarily mean bad. The dialog is often funny, but the overall story is completely telegraphed. You can literally see what’s coming multiple episodes ahead. I know surprise twists aren’t really the point here, but still… You could see the dramatic ending of season three happening during season one. It’s that predictable. Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t literal cheering in our living room when then dramatic ending to season three happened.

The show is 100% nostalgia and fan service. Seriously, there is nothing else here. Even that is hard to understand though. I saw the Karate Kid in the theater in 1984. I was 13. It never ranked as a favorite for me, not even close, but I liked it. It was fun. When the sequel came out I saw that in the theater too. Not so much for part three. I still don’t think I’ve seen that at all. That could explain why I like the show. It’s bringing me back to a simpler, more innocent time yadda yadda yadda. I can get behind that, but how does that explain my 18 year old step son? He loves it! He sat there cheering along with the rest of us. It’s not nostalgic for him, so where is his pre-existing emotional connection?

So the question remains? Why is Cobra Kai so good? Why have we hung on every shot for three seasons? Why are we all bummed out that we have to wait until next January for season four? How did they do this to us? They pulled a fast one on us and I want to know what happened. Was it hypnotism? Was it brain washing?

Why is Cobra Kai so damned good?

Beware

Home improvement shows on HGTV should come with a warning label. Everything going on here is their fault. We watched a bunch of episodes of Property Brothers* and now we’re turning the house upside down.

First it was the bedroom closets. Then it was the furniture arrangement. Then it was the bed. Then it was the end tables. We should be done with this room this weekend. After that it’s going to be the kitchen.

We aren’t doing renovations because Covid, duh. We’re making changes that are simple enough that a klutz with no home improvement skills (me) can pull them off.

The actual renovations will be in the cellar and they will wait until after Covid is cleared out. Pretty much everything in the cellar, from beneath the floor tiles up through anything actually sitting on the floor is so badly water damaged that it’s got to go. The floor and the walls and the drop ceiling all have to go. The HVAC ducts all have to go. I think once Covid is gone and we can let a work crew into the house we are going to take anything savable out of the cellar and put it somewhere. Everything else can be taken out by a junk removal service or something. Then we bring a contractor to take up the floor, take down the drop ceiling, and fix the walls. It’s going to be a nightmare, but there is so much water damage that there isn’t a choice.

The cellar can’t be blamed on the Property Brothers and HGTV, but all the upstairs stuff can. How dare you, HGTV. Put a warning label on these shows. Stay safe, everyone.

*Do you think either of the Property Brothers, or any of the staff and crew who work on the show have ever used the phrase, “property bros. before property hoes”?

The Stand: No Spoilers (Mostly)

I started watching episode six of the new mini series version of The Stand. I have to say something publicly and it won’t include any story spoilers, but it will give an opinion on one aspect of the production that may color your ideas a bit. Probably not, but maybe.

You’ve been warned:

Get out now if you want to remain 100% uninformed.

………

Okay, here it goes: Ezra Miller needs to retire. This is hands down the worst performance ever. Ever. He needs to be punished for this. He needs to go to his room without any supper and never come back again.

I’ve seen him in exactly two scenes and that’s enough to make the entire series suddenly feel unwatchable. Dude is that bad.

Dream or Nightmare

I had a dream that we went on vacation to some unnamed beach hotel. The cast of the show The Flash was there. I was trying to impress them by telling them I was in a cover band and we played a Genesis song. They were polite, but they were also not impressed.

Was it a dream or was it a nightmare?

You decide.

HGTV

We just binged an entire season of the HGTV show Brother Vs Brother. The show where these two twins buy huge houses and do renovation competitions. We weren’t planning it. We definitely didn’t mean to do it. It just happened.

They bought two century old houses for 2+ million dollars each and then sold them for 5.5+ million dollars each. I think I’m in the wrong business. Totally.