MediaAdventures

Altered Carbon

Fantastic scifi show. It does grungy masculinity in a way that is not toxic. The premise of the consciousness being able to be stored in a chip that can be transferred between bodies allows for great storytelling. The main character gets portrayed by a few actors of different races, and the dystopian long term effects of such a world are really well explored.

Exception

Decent slightly slow burn sci-fi mystery, even though it's only eight episodes. The initial point of drama I found somewhat frustrating. People arguing over theoretical moral standards when there are very clearly high stakes that supersede those always drives me nuts. But it evolves into a much better place with the conflict and gets way more interesting after that.

La Brea

Lord, this hit me wrong off the bat. Barely made it one episode. Very stereotypical writing in the very first scene, it feels like everyone is saying the most audience tested artificial lines they could.

Sisyphus

I have mixed feelings and I might be giving up after episode 5. The premise is great, and there are forces at play in the show that they don't initially explain to the viewer. We're left to figure some parts out ourselves, which is something I love in a show.

The characters are decently compelling, and I'm obsessed with the female lead, who fully glamifies her gun and all her weapons.

It's losing me a bit in the emotional arcs; there are scenes that don't feel intense at all with really emotional music blasting in the background, and then they somewhat artificially raise the stakes sometimes just to make the action scenes more aggressive.

Antebellum (2020)

Silo

It's almost starting to upset me how well done this show was. There's an unexpected structure to the plot, it always answers a question by leaving a few more mysteries in its wake, and the way they build out the world is so human and believable. Seasons 1 and 2 were incredible, so I went and read the book series, and I have a lot of questions about how season 3 is going to be handled. And the main actor does such a great job.

But ultimately, it's one of those rare shows or movies where they stay true to the book content and just improve upon it in the creation of the show.

One of the major characters is revealed to be lesbian partway through with a touching history with another character.

Ponies (Persons of No Interest)

This was one of those shows that does an amazing job blending comedic moments into intense drama and sincere heartfelt moments.

The premise is super fun, although they sometimes make wild choices, which makes sense considering the circumstances they’re in with no training.

The Bright Sessions from Atypical Artists

I actually went through a phase of scripted audio drama podcasts, and this was by far one of my favorites.

The premise is essentially therapy for the X-Men. "Atypicals" are people in society with supernatural level abilities, and the story takes place as a series of therapeutic sessions with various characters trying to deal with their abilities. Over time, the characters run into each other, and a drama starts to unfold with a government organization tracking these individuals.

I loved the podcast, and the characters were incredibly well conceived and carried out. The football jock bad at explaining his emotions is an empath who feels everyone's emotions around him, one girl has a time travel ability that initially is only triggered by panic attacks, and the consequences of what other abilities would mean for a person's development are also explored.

There are a ton of queer characters here, including one of my favorite plotlines of a gay couple. There was even a book published about the two of them it was such a fan hit.

The Wheel of Time

This show was so incredible, and I’m so upset they stopped it after season 3. They stay true enough to the books, while occasionally mixing up things in a good way. They made multiple lesbian relationships directly part of the plot, whereas in the books lesbian relationships were only vaguely hinted at.

So many details made this amazing, such as in season 1, the weaving is all white, but then later you can see the specific elemental colors of the weave depending on the spells they were casting.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

I’ll be honest, this feels very straight man, and I was very concerned about the quality after the demonization of the main character’s ex girlfriend, who went on vacation without him with an ex and posted a photo on insta, and he’s just such a no nonsense man that he immediately called her and broke up with her. And she was cheating on him with multiple people, men AND women. “Bisexuals are disloyal sluts” is a common, damaging negative stereotype.

Once you get past that, the actual dungeon experience and characters are great, and I got really hooked into the story. There is a good scene of him standing up to a bully, which made him a little redeemable, and there were a few lines that did make me laugh out loud.

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

I really, truly hope this leads to more international Walking Dead spinoffs. I love most of the franchise, and even across different stories, they capture the same essence of the difficulty of survival versus humanity.

Bridgerton - Season 4

Lies of P

This game is incredible, and I feel like I don’t see much talk about it. It was aesthetically so well done with a Victorian cyberpunk apocalyptic vibe, and the Dark Souls style combat was also superb due to the satisfying feeling of being able to fully block attacks if you get the timing right.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Soulmates

This is very reminiscent of black mirror, and explores various permutations of what unexpected things could happen to people if science could suddenly pair you with your soulmate. It’s incredibly well thought through and excecuted.