Tag Archives: Apple TV+

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

I started watching Monarch: Legacy of Monsters recently on Apple TV+. It is set in the post-Godzilla world. I found it average at best.

The Characters

The lead character Cate is super-irritating. Always crying and acting traumatised. Boo hoo I once saw Gojira kill some people. Ghau ghau, my father doesn’t listen to me. Boo hoo, I am imprisoned by a tyrannical organisation. Always doing RR. Her mother Caroline wears a permanently shocked expression on her face.

The actress playing May feels like a cheaper version of Tessa Thompson. Not because she’s a bad actor but because she is trying so hard to be like her. A few times, she gave me hope that she is dying, but refused to.

The otherwise demure artist Kentaro suddenly turns beast one fine episode, trying to break down walls of his cell with his fists. Then goes back to being like before.

Lee Shaw (Kurt Russel) is shown to be 90 years old. This is explained with “good genes I guess”. Getting kicked and punched, flying through the air from explosions. At least his acting is not irritating and he’s the only reason I saw this Season through.

The Plot

The flashbacks are cheesy. When they discover that the radiation pattern from Keiko’s findings is same as the light patterns in Bill’s paper, there was no real need to tear the page from the diary and overlay them to prove the point. And what are the chances the 2 images would be exactly the same scale and overlay perfectly?

Come on, bullshit

Why did Kyoko have an acceptance letter for Lee Shaw in the old age home?

Why did Lee Shaw stay at the old age home cum prison for decades when he already knew how to escape?

A South Korean policeman (Du-Ho) knocks out his colleague and betrays his country all the while laughing. Just because he’s old friends with Lee Shaw. How is that even possible when Lee Shaw has been interned for decades? Anyways, Du-Ho then flies a plane (alone, from Korea to Alaska), without being noticed by the USAF. Later, when a MUTO destroys his plane’s engines, he still tries to take off (without engines) grunting and screaming, as though the plane will fly from his sheer willpower.

The scenes with Gojira were great, though.

Overall, I would never have seen this show if not for Kurt Russel and Gojira.

My TV Shows of 2023

I thought I would do a yearly version of this article. Below are the TV shows I started watching in 2023, TV shows I stopped watching in 2023 and TV shows I tried to watch but couldn’t. Also TV shows I continued to watch this year.

TV Shows I stopped watching

  1. Servant (Apple TV+) – Didn’t find interesting anymore
  2. Invasion (Apple TV+) – Didn’t like Season 1, really
  3. Futurama (Hulu) – Not available in Thailand
  4. Loki (Disney+) – Too much work to follow MCU now.
  5. Aspirants (Prime) – Not available in Thailand
  6. Fargo (FX) – Not available in Thailand

Shows I tried but couldn’t get into

  1. The Last of Us (HBO) – Didn’t like it
  2. The Bear (FX) – Too busy and stressful
  3. Made in heaven (Amazon Prime) – Too much drama
  4. Platonic (Apple TV+) – Didn’t like it
  5. Extrapolations (Apple TV+) – Quite average
  6. Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+) – Couldn’t get into
  7. Scam 2003 (Sony Liv) – Didn’t want to pay again for the second half of the series
  8. Grey’s Anatomy (Disney+)

TV Shows I started watching

  1. Rana Naidu (Netflix) – Average
  2. Silo (Apple TV+) – Really good
  3. Hijack (Apple TV+) – Average
  4. Gen V (Amazon Prime) – Surprisingly good

Shows I continued to watch

  1. Young Sheldon (Amazon Prime/CBS)
  2. Tulsa King (Paramount+)
  3. Little America (Apple TV+)
  4. The Mandalorian (Disney+)
  5. Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
  6. Black Mirror (Netflix)
  7. Hostel Daze (Amazon Prime)
  8. Sex Education (Netflix)
  9. For all Mankind (Apple TV+)

TV Shows I re-watched

  1. Raja, Rasoi aur Anya Kahaniya (EpicOn) – Really really good

PS: I use trakt to track my TV show viewings.

TV Shows I stopped watching

As life goes on & we all move one step closer to death, I realise time is precious. There’s not enough time in this lifetime to watch TV shows which are “just average”. As such, in the last few months, I have cut out many shows from my life. Consider this article an addendum to this one. Below is the list

  1. Derry Girls (Channel 4, Netflix)
  2. Avenue 5 (HBO, Disney+Hotstar)
  3. Ms Marvel (Disney+Hotstar)
  4. Shantaram (Apple TV+)
  5. Upload (Amazon Prime)
  6. Hawkeye (Disney+Hotstar)
  7. The Shrink Next Door (Apple TV+)
  8. Ray (Netflix)
  9. Mythic Quest (Apple TV+)
  10. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+Hotstar)

Going forward, I will be more careful in choosing the TV shows that I start watching.

PS: I use trakt to track my TV show viewings.

Invasion has grand ambitions but falls short

Invasion is a Sci-Fi show on Apple TV+. I actually wanted to watch Foundation but it proved too complicated and big for me, so I settled for this. The show has great special effects, good production values & a huge budget. But eventually, it ends up disappointing because of flaws in the story and the annoying characters.

Entitled American Soldier annoyed with the eponymous Invasion, PC: Series TV Online

The story is about the invasion of earth by Aliens. It follows 4 characters around the world affected by the invasion. Like other similar shows and movies, you just know the paths of these characters will merge at some point in the show. I won’t go too much into the story, because it’s the characters who sink the show.

The Characters

Sherrif Tyson is a typical old-school/small-town Sherrif who realises during his retirement party that his career has been too lacklustre. Tyson is played by Sam Neill, who is the only big-name actor in this show. All the trailers of this show focussed mostly on his characters and misled people into thinking that the show revolved around him. Instead, he appears only in one episode, climbs a few ladders, grunts a bit a then dies.

Maliks are an Islamic immigrant family living in New York. The wife is plain-looking and homely, so the husband fucks and impregnates an attractive American woman. As revenge, the wife abandons him twice to die. First time the aliens almost kill him, second time she abandons him to gun-toting vigilantes. The family pretends to be victims of Xenophobia, but the wife proves the entire point of it by stealing an American family’s SUV & abandoning injured patients. At one point another American family provides them shelter, but the Maliks leave them to die. The children only squeal and shriek.

More Characters

Trevante is a typical entitled American soldier posted in Afghanistan. Trevante displays his American values from the very first scene by insulting and abusing Afghans, even those who help him and save him from certain death. He frequently demands locals to help him, steals things from them, all the while abusing them. Trevante continues his entitled behaviour even when he lands in London, demanding Britishers to give him an entire plane to fly him to the US.

Mitsuki is arguably the most irritating character in this show. She is a low-ranking engineer at Japan’s space exploration agency. Being an Asian and a Lesbian at the same time, she satisfies demands for inclusivity and diversity in the show. At work & off, she has no qualms cutting corners and breaking rules to get what she needs. After being fired for indiscipline, she is caught hacking into some servers. She gives her boss a lecture about love & he promptly hands over his all-access card. Mitsuki goes on to hijack the biggest radio telescope of her country without any repercussions. She even develops an AI program to decode Alien language in hours. All the while shedding tears for her presumably perished lover.

Caspar is a British epileptic kid who discovers that the seizures he has been having all his life are actually mind-syncs with the Aliens. He always gets his way because his mixed-race girlfriend shows everyone some shitty sketches he made. They casually convince Trevante to escort them to a hospital to induce a seizure in Caspar. The hospital, full of patients in need of help drops everything to do just that. Eventually, when his eyes roll into his head one last time, you can’t help but hope that he’s dead.

Eventually, the Aliens are defeated in typical American fashion. The Americans fire a nuke at their mother space ship and the alien creatures just drop dead on earth. Even I, an inferior human knows not to create designs with single points of failure.

Eventually, I am glad the season is over and I hope they don’t renew it for a second season.

My Favourite TV shows

Below is a list of my top-25 favourite TV shows of all time, in descending order:

  1. Seinfeld (NBC)
  2. Sacred Games (Netflix)
  3. Better Call Saul (AMC, Netflix)
  4. Californication (Showtime)
  5. Better Things (FX, Disney+Hotstar)
  6. Breaking Bad (AMC, Netflix)
  7. The Family Man (Amazon Prime Video)
  8. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO, Disney+Hotstar)
  9. Louie (FX, Disney+Hotstar)
  10. Young Sheldon (CBS, Amazon Prime Video)
  11. Silicon Valley (HBO, Disney+Hotstar)
  12. The Wire (HBO, Disney+Hotstar)
  13. Mirzapur (Amazon Prime Video)
  14. The Mandalorian (Disney+Hotstar)
  15. Michael Palin’s New Europe (BBC One)
  16. The Office (India) (Disney+Hotstar)
  17. Raja, Rasoi Aur Anya Kahaniya (Epic Channel)
  18. Servant (Apple TV+)
  19. Waterfront Cities of the World (Knowledge Network)
  20. Goliath (Amazon Prime Video)
  21. The Last Man on Earth (Fox)
  22. Black Mirror (Netflix)
  23. Derry Girls (Channel 4, Netflix)
  24. Mad Men (AMC)
  25. Amazing Stories (Apple TV+)

PS: I use trakt to track my TV show viewings.