What I Watched: Father Brown Cozy crime drama Father Brown is back for its incredible 12th season, with a 13th already confirmed to be coming next year too.
You either like it or you don’t – Father Brown is formulaic and G-rated, but it provides escapist fare with happy-ish endings. The cast, aside from Father Brown himself, frequently changes – it appears seamless. It is low-investment TV for folks who feel daily pain because of the state of the world. I do miss Lady Felicity’s screams.
What I Read: Duskblader: Nightingale the Duskblader Book 1 by Orlando A. Sanchez.
No matter how fast you are, you can’t outrun your shadow. Moira Nightingale was an accomplished mage, an elite member of the Gray Council the most elusive and secretive of Councils in the magical community, until she was betrayed and left for dead. On that cold night, she formed the darkest of pacts, she unleashed the rage of vengeance and became a Nightmare, bonding with an ancient creature to save her life, and curse her existence. That night she became a Duskblader, a wielder of gloom, surrendering to a life of darkness, shadow, and retribution. That night she was reborn and vowed to end the lives of those who wanted her dead. That night she became a monster.
What I Listened To: Tomo – Just Another Day; Klangkarussell – Let Me Come to Life (@Farscythe); and Orla Gartland – Backseat Driver:
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, dearest ones? Darling DeadSplinterites, what’s going on? Please do share with us!
I started out Bodyguard on Netflix. The first episode was really great, as an officer in the bodyguard section of the British national police gets involved in a terrorism incident.
The show starts to present him with all kinds of ethical dilemmas and questions about lines that might be crossed. Unfortunately, there was a line that eventually got crossed that was so ridiculous I was yelling and laughing at the TV from the exercise bike, I fast forwarded to confirm that it was real, and then I shut the whole thing off.
I also watched the documentary Come Back Anytime about a little ramen shop in Tokyo. It’s a fun little movie about the owners and customers and the food.
I watched the new Star Trek — “Star Trek” really — movie “Section 31.”
Not good, Bob, not good.
…damn…even with michelle yeoh chewing the scenery?
…that’s…more disappointing than surprising, I suppose
Not fascinating at all. In Babylon 5, they introduced a Section 13 as a deep cover covert operations/dirty tricks unit as part of a conspiracy episode in the first season but the producer found out there was a similar style role playing game named Section 13 so they abandoned it to avoid confusion and conflict. Yet DS9 copied it with their Section 31… and now finally ruined it.
…we need a culture show with “special circumstances”
…except if they screw up the iain m banks stuff I may end up locked up for burning down a studio or two just to indicate the levels of dissatisfaction getting out of hand…so…that might be a bonus selling point for some folks?
It would be fascinating to see how much of our entertainment is “borrowed”. Most of it is, but not so blatantly.
To be fair, B5 was pitched as a Star Trek show in the late 80s.
However, they (Bermaga) passed (too much conflict, too much drama for their tastes) until they “made” their “own” show and borrowed large chunks of their plot from it including the main character becomes a religious icon at the end… which was the original plot of B5.
The few DS9 nerds I still speak too won’t speak to me about this.
…different genre…but a friend who happened to be in my vicinity when I went off about the source material mined for the kill bill movies similarly won’t let me open my mouth if that topic comes up in conversation…so I kinda-sorta feel your pain
…but I was spending a lot of time in places that didn’t let you watch tv back when babylon 5 first aired so mostly missed that boat…DS9 had its moments, iirc…& I didn’t hate sisko…but I can see how they lifted a fair bit from the other thing?
I was so excited about Section 31 when I thought it was a tv series, I don’t think the concept lends itself well to a movie.
I’m reading Onyx Storm and am bored. Womp womp womp. The series started off strong and now all the plotholes are glaringly obvious or more like characters and scenes are reverse constructed to move the plot along. One of my bigger complaints is that the MC and her weapons and war gear manufacturing bf haven’t figured out that she should be imbuing her daggers with lighting and embedding them in her enemies (she has a perfect record at dagger throwing) to provide her with a perfect pinpoint target for a finishing lightning strike…since she still can’t aim her lightning for shit. I’m only 30% in. Maybe they do come up with that later.
Is this a situation of the publisher rushed the author and now the plot got stretched into too many books?
Maybe? The author has six kids and her husband is in the army. Having her hands full is an understatement. The first book was super popular and nothing compares in that market (trust me, I’ve searched far and wide). It has a huge following of people dying to read the next installment. Book 3 isn’t terrible. It’s just not the best out of the three as the series has expanded in scope from deadly competitive school to global politics. When the plot was just about surviving school, its simplicity wasn’t an issue. Now that the whole world is involved, the politics are not complex enough for me to care. The core team is just hopping from mission to mission and global politics is impeding on the speed at which they finish said missions. With all the hype, it’s probably impossible to deliver a book that satisfies.
@HammerZeitgeist I haven’t yet acquired Onyx Storm. I’ll want to wait for your final book report before deciding to read it – I value your book-taste. I disliked the ending of book two. Disappointing that the love interest was going to have the evil issue – it felt like a set-up for more angst that I can handle these day. (You’ll find me in the HEA escapist aisle.)
It’s annoying that he’s basically a vampire now and can’t trust himself to have self control. The sexual tension is not sexy. Now I’m 40% in and they found a loophole but it’s short lived of course. Will report back next Brain Drain (or sooner if my eyes roll so far back that I need to vent asap).
…father brown gets bonus pointa from me for being books by GK chesterton…who wrote the man who was thursday…which more people should read
…I have a couple of mixed bags to offer this week…the killers game…with dave bautista…takes a while to finish getting through the place-setting part but full-tilt onslaught of comedy overblown hitmen…& women…all trying to take down the big man…does what it says on the tin
…also saw a bit of a netflix (I think it was netflix) thing called “territory” about the dysfunctional antics of a family running the (fictional) world’s biggest cattle station in the northern territory of australia (the real biggest one is in the south of oz, I believe) after a death throws a lot of things up in the air…not far in so it could be disappointing but it led off ok
…& a book that I’d beore inclined to make a suggestion for at least some folks hereabouts…technically the world-building has a set up with more or less contemporary tech but the setting is a part of that society that’s still super old school about their martial arts dynasty superheroes…called the sword of kaigen…by an ML wang…but it came out in ’19…seems like it was a part #1 but there isn’t going to be a part #2…there’s other books from earlier that are in the “theonite” setting but she seems to have scrapped the thing & moved on to something else for the one that came out in ’24?
…apparently that’s a “dark academia fantasy”…which might be fun…the scholomance ones managed that…but…she pulled the rip cord on a series already so maybe it’s a false start?
Lol RIP you got my hopes up then dashed them twice in a post. Should I be avoiding that series/author?
…it was decent for something in that lane, as it were…& while there are some loose ends trailing at the end in a few respects the thing is somewhat self-contained if you don’t get misled about who the principal protagonist is…so…I wouldn’t warn you off…just wouldn’t want to have it held against me when there wasn’t likely to be another installment coming
…the academia one she might continue since that was where she was at last year…let us know if you give it a shot?
@SplinterRIP, I like GK Chesterton. His journey of faith interest me, as does his darn good writing. I would have dearly loved sitting next to him at a party.
This quote sounds almost Buddhist to me; it is a guide for the times when I try to transcend my lower instincts and focus instead on kindness:
Then there are the other times when I’m utterly enraged by all the systematic cruelty, Fascism, idiocy, and hatred, and fear. Then I want to tear it all down by any means necessary…
…it is a sore point with me that I can’t go on about how all the ways the man who was thursday is brilliant as a book without spoiling it as a read…& I so want people to read it because it deserves to be
…but…damn if it wouldn’t make a fantastic choice for a book club right about now?
…also…agreed about the quote & the man…I don’t know if I’d have agreed with him on everything but it’d be a fascinating conversation at that dinner table & I wouldn’t be too proud to beg for an invite
Waiting for Reacher Season 3.
Ended up watching the Godfather. Still brilliant and well made.
Watching: I’ve been catching up on my late night monologues. I only watch those & move on. Though today I am catching up with my favorite rage comedian & my choice for our next democratic presidential candidate!
Reading: I tried to read “You Can’t Joke About That” by Kat Timpf. I didn’t really know who she was but after about 5 pages I found it complete trash and unreadable. I am about to start “Constant Comedy – How I Started Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor” by Art Bell. Hopeful this will be much more entertaining.
Listening: Catching up on some new music and came across this fun tune:
Making my way through Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix. 6 episode series about these 2 Australian women who built *wellness* careers basically saying you can cure cancer with vegan food and juicing. One is a true believer and the other is just a top-tier grade A grifter.
It’s really well done, based on a true story. I want to read the book it’s about now.
I’m having flashbacks to the woman years and years ago that was on GT making shit about how she was going to flee to Belize with the grifter character – like the manipulation is impressive.
Also, I think I might have read her vegan cookbook years ago. A friend was raw vegan for a hot minute and I was crashing at her place and I was reading a cookbook that feels like the same vibes as this bullshit. Like not “vegan food is good for you for (actual legit reasons)” but like “raw vegan food can cure literally anything! this food takes 4 hours to prepare for a 200 calorie meal but don’t worry you’ll be healed from everything!”
We watched some Nordic noir called “Sleepers” about a detective who was put on the force by a crime boss and now has to serve two (and even three) masters. It was bleak and tense as you would expect. Good though.
What I’ve Been Reading: This is superior trolling.
It also seems to go against the now-prevailing sentiment that everything should be devolved as much as possible. For example, there should be no Federal Department of Education, nor a State one (I totally agree with that for the Empire State) but rather left in the hands of local authorities, who presumably know best. I’d leave the federal one in because some towns, and some cities for that matter, are completely wacky and maybe a post-DoGE DOE could keep an eye on them.
I wonder what it would be like living in a city held hostage to the whims of a Rand Paul or really anyone in the constellation of random reps and Senators who occasionally retire or lose reelection, although that seems rare nowadays. I know DC Home Rule is relatively recent (it gifted the world with convicted felon mayor Marion Barry, “bitch set me up,” who, post-release from jail, went on to represent one of DC’s wards in the City Council.) But I think one of Boston’s mayors actually served part of his mayoralty from prison?
Anyway, my point is the New York City Council is already stocked with many unhinged vote-grubbing locals. Imagine layering some kind of Congressional Committee on top of it, with the power to introduce and veto legislation. “With all due respect to Rep. Taylor Green, New York is not the capital of the US, Washington, DC is, so we cannot direct its employers and residents to relocate to Dalton, Georgia.”
i do enjoy klangkarussel 🙂 always such a mellow vibe
Darwim’s Law.
Yes, this is what I’m reading.
LISTENED
WATCHED