Dominic West is one of the best actors alive but has sadly missed on mainstream film star fandom. I mean look at his impressive roles in TV compared to film but even though we won't see him fighting some galactic alien threat in a billion dollar green screen superhero movie we get to see him in some of the best tv shows ever put to screen and in War he stars opposite the brilliant Sienna Miller and a cast of British actors at the top of their game if you're familiar with British TV.

I'm four episodes in to War and thought it would be another show I'd have in the background thinking it would be poorly written and poorly acted until I finally forgot to finish it but now I wait every week to see where the story goes and I haven't even watched a legal drama since I was a kid too young to watch Boston Legal with my siblings.

The story follows two rival London law firms Cathcarts & Sons and Taylor & Byrne clashing and scheming over the high profile, multi-million dollar divorce of tech mogul Morgan Henderson (West) and international film star Carla Duval (Miller) I won't say anymore because it'll start getting spoilery but if you haven't canceled your HBO subscription after Lanterns i highly recommend giving it a watch. I also learnt it's planned as an anthology series and the next season will pit Marissa Tomei and Kelly Macdonald against each other so I'll definitely be watching and drooling each episode.

Everyone raves about Friday Night Lights. So I started watching on paramount+. Halfway through I’m thinking “this show is the worst filmed thing ever.” Scenes are framed so bonkers that you’re only catching the corner of a persons eyebrow or it’s focused on the wall and you can only hear the dialogue. It’s only like this every second or third episode. So I’m thinking it’s that weeks directors choice for some reason.

Now I had always heard the camera style was the thing that stood out to people but I was absolutely flabbergasted by how weird the shot choices were.

Turns out it’s not the show but the app just randomly screwing with the aspect and zooming in on the screen at random. If you close it out and reboot everything goes back to normal for a little bit.

Absolutely maddening function

The other day I randomly thought about the CW and decided to check it out.

And...the channel now feels like a ''wasteland'' for lack of a better word.

When I was younger the CW was a huge deal, especially when it was the WB. And even in the first 5 years after it became the CW it was still a great channel. I loved Smallville and Supernatural.

The last CW show I watched religiously was Superman & Louis.

The CW now feels like the History Channel with it's Pawn Stars type of shows,

John Lithgow in Dexter. He was terrifying and so mesmerizing and creepy as the Trinity Killer. Not to mention the season 4 finale

I started both at the same time and both have kind of the same vibes, but Yaga is more horror-y (based on a slavic myth) while Phony doesn't seem to have anything supernatural.

While Phony stars Connie Britton and Yaga has Hudson Williams, I like the fact that both shows have many unknown actors, or at least I haven't seen most of them in anything before.

Yaga: Follows a private investigator probing the disappearance of a young fishery heir, finding himself at odds with a local detective, a charismatic professor, and a labyrinth of enigmatic suspects and ancient magic.

Phony: After waking up from a freak car accident, Sonny discovers that his mother has been replaced by an impostor.

For me Olivia benson is definitely up there with Buffy summer and a few others

Apparently a new season dropped 10 days ago and I just found out. Usually it's months or longer before I see any mention anywhere.

Every other mediocre reboot is huge news, but it's like they're keeping it a secret or something with this one. This show is fire. Fire! Fire! Fire! But I didn't even know there was a season 2 until months into season 3.

The killer who prompts the story is the leads' partner and is presented as somewhat justified.

The death that triggers the main story is killed by someone who wasn't killing all the other people and that reveal is done in the last 10 minutes of the show.

Dark Matter’s season 2 has been one of the most interesting and experimental television shows I’ve ever seen, but Apple’s marketing and what we expect of “scifi” and 10 episode prestige television series means no one is watching it to pay attention to the fallout and discourse of how audiences react to a genred show switching to multi genre.

Season 1 was adapted directly from a well known scifi book and was for all intents and purposes a good but standard scifi/thriller show. Alternate reality travel, chase scenes, quantum physics, a wife guy tries to find his wife. Season 2 takes it to an entirely different direction becoming a powerful drama about human fallibility, grief, and regret.

Apple has done absolutely no marketing to tell anyone the show has shifted gears. So an entire audience who came to watch season 1 hoping to watch a gripping fast paced action thriller are now frustrated by the amount of dialogue and philosophy. On the flip side a huge audience of people who would absolutely adore watching that sort of show are put off by season 1’s marketing framing it as an action scifi thriller (literally named after a science concept and opens with Shrodingers Box!) As a result every episode more and more people drop off reducing streaming numbers and I am so worried Apple is about to cancel one of the most interesting and ambitious shows made in years.

Season 2 is written by the book author and his editor. They’ve written the second series like a book, with literary devices and short stories within the narrative that point to larger philosophical reflections. I personally find it so refreshing to watch a show that makes me analyse it like a book. In an era of second screen television and tedious exposition, Dark Matter requires concentration and interpretation, something that’s become increasingly unfamiliar as streaming competes with an instagram feed. (This isn’t a criticism about the audience of the show, more a criticism of television as a whole.)

The biggest point of contention has been two bottle episodes within this season. Self contained short stories about characters within the universe that play like short films. For many people watching they have hated it and called it “filler” taking away from the plot. For others they have found these the two best hours of television, hoping everyone involved wins every award, and have spent days reflecting on the themes. This has caused really polarising reviews (go to imdb and sort reviews by date - you’ll find some people saying 10/10 the best thing they’ve ever seen, and others giving it 4/10 and saying season 2 has too much dialogue or drama or filler episodes, and you’re better off watching Liam Neeson thrillers or Rick and Morty.)

Imo season 2 has been polarising because of the expected narrative format in television today: you have 10 episodes, there is a plot per episode, a plot per season, and an overarching plot for all seasons. This framework constricts the potential of great storytelling. The two bottle episodes feel like filler episodes because back when shows had 22 episodes they required filler episodes, and we now expect a tight season plot that has conflict and pay off. The two bottle episodes are some of the most moving pieces of television I’ve ever seen (one episode is almost entirely dialogue free and plays like a cross between Last of Us 01x03 and the beginning of Up, but with beautiful direction, cinematography, colours etc.) I wonder how many other great writers have been robbed of the great stories they want to tell because they’re confined to that 10 episode format and accommodating second screeners. I can go on and on about this but this post is already too long.

There are many flaws to the show, it’s not a perfect show and the inexperience of book writers adapting for screen is visible. But overall I do recommend watching Dark Matter, not just for the show (I really don’t want it to get cancelled!) But also if you are a tv nerd interested in the state of television then it’s definitely worth a watch.

Tl;dr - Dark Matter is doing something different in how it’s telling its story and it’s polarised audiences. The discourse is being missed entirely because everyone is sleeping on the show, and you should watch it and read the drama as a reflection on the constraints of television today.

I like the look of 'Star City', but, from the trailers, 'For All Mankind' never appealed to me. Would watching Star City alone be worthwhile? Or Am I going to miss a lot of the context by not watching FAM first?

Besides Joker and Riddler. I really enjoyed Bookworm, I love the book motif and I think his outbursts were actually unsettling in a way

I also like King Tut for the theme and for being I think one of the few in the show you actually feel sorry for

As for any I dislike. hmmmm I actually can't think of any