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From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-11 (Saturday)
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 09:45:48 -0800
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I barely feel recovered enough to do one these, but here goes.

Yesterday, my fever did break around noon. Unfortunately, it's more 
complicated than that, but I can say the worst of the fever does seem to 
be over. So I seem to be recovering, just not as fast as I hoped.

So, while my fever still raged before that, I watched nothing in the 
morning and was barely awake.

For lunch, I watched - DOOL: Thur's ep. Tate and Sophia share a bonding 
moment of sorts - Tate proposes adoption, but Sophia doesn't want to try 
that out on her control-freak mom just yet. Dumb Holly gets beaten dumb 
Doug III to Dr. Sarah after the thugs work him over, and lie to Sarah 
about going to the cops - then Holly and Doug share a moment of "sexual 
tension". Brady and Kristen seem to come to a 
rapprochement/understanding about Rachel (I wonder how long this will 
last!?!). Xander and Philip clash about Titan.

Wild Card football - In an absolutely pathetic effort, the Chargers went 
back to playing like they did before Jim Harbaugh took over as coach. 
One of the worst Chargers efforts I have ever seen, and that includes 
the previous Wild Card loss where they blew a 33(?)-point lead!

I did not watch Ravens-Steelers, because I knew I would jinx the Ravens 
if I did - the Ravens did hold on to win the game by 14.

More soaps: GH - Thur's and Fri's ep's. I love how dumb Willow is 
finally seeing how shitty Carly & company (e.g. that awful cow Josslyn) 
are and have been for years to Nina. Luckily they are so awful that when 
they take temp custody of Willow's kids, it finally thrusts Willow into 
action and she asserts her control of Michael's medical care - love that 
there's nothing Carly can do about it... Not that it matters - at the 
end, Cyrus Renault shoots Michael full of digitalis, so he's probably 
toast anyway... Jack Brennan subtly puts Josslyn on Cyrus' trail for 
Dex's murder - I wonder if Brennan has figured out that Joss will 
probably kill Cyrus once she figures it out.

Then I finally started season #2 of "The Rings of Power" on Prime.
    Ep. #2.1 is probably the best episode they've ever done (it's 77 
mins long!), as it shows the background of Second Age Sauron and what 
happened to him. Meanwhile, Elrond, convinced Sauron has already 
corrupted the 3 Elven Rings, tries to prevent the Elf King, et al. from 
using them. (Sidenote: The guy who plays Círdan, Ben Daniels, reminds me 
a lot of Canuck actor Rob Stewart!)
    But I have to put this in context - this is the best episode that 
*this show* has ever put out.
    Nearly all of the fundamental and systemic problems that this show 
had in season #1 are all still there (though they are clearly trying to 
make an effort to paper over some of them!):
    - the "proto-Wizard" storyline still being the absolute worst of 
these (there were no Wizards in the Second Age! - and if this dude does 
turn out to be Gandalf, I will curse this show as every bit as bad as 
ST: Voyager!);
    - as well, this show is just absolutely failing to portray the 
inherent grace and majesty that the elves naturally possess. This is the 
most problematic with Galadriel (bless her heart - I love Morfydd Clark, 
but there's little she can do to salvage the character with what they 
are giving her on this show!); and Elrond (Charlie Vickers) is suffering 
the same degradations in season #2);
    - they also barely seem to have a handle on Sauron's nature and 
power, which seems to wax and wane depending on the scene and what it 
calls for;
    - and, finally, they are just trying to make up too much (what is 
with the Frank Zappa-esque Wizard dude in Rhûn?!).
    Ep. #2.2 was mostly worse again, though it still seemed better, on 
average than much of season #1. It does have a payoff though when Sauron 
becomes "Annatar", which is actually from Tolkien's legendarium.


What did you watch?