Media Consumption Wednesday

[firecat]

I'm trying to get back into the habit of doing this meme.

Books

• Since March 2020, I have had no attention span for reading anything over 10K words or so.

Audiobooks

• John Scalzi, Murder by Other Means (Dispatcher #2). Audible original, novella, narrated by Zachary Quinto. Scalzi has a pretty utilitarian writing style that I don't care for, but he can tell a good story, and I like Quinto's voice. In this world, for unknown reasons, when people are deliberately killed, they don't stay dead. They wake up, alive, wounds healed, somewhere they feel safe. Oh, except that one time in a thousand, they stay dead. I like the way he's exploring the way the world works and how this affects people's behavior. The first novella in the series is The Dispatcher.

Music

• Lil Nas X, MONTERO. This is the first new music I've been really excited about in ages. I'm almost ready to call Lil Nas X/Montero a worthy successor to Prince. But I haven't seen enough to be sure yet, and I think I might want more musical variety from him (although for any musician who isn't being auditioned as a successor to Prince, his music has a lot of variety).

TV/Movies

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Disney+) - rewatch because I keep seeing prompts for characters in it that intrigue me.
• Debris - I watched one episode of this on Hulu and then I looked for the next episode a few days later and the show had vanished. Grr.
• Loki (Disney+) - In July I watched a show called Loki that was good, especially because it had Tom Hiddleston, but seemed kinda flawed; it had pacing issues and chemistry issues, and there were these silly, kinda slapstick extra Lokis. But a weird thing happened. The last week or two I've watched a show called Loki that's utterly compelling, there's so much going on that each episode feels like a movie, the energy between the main protagonists is so taut you can walk it like a tightrope, a lot of the supporting characters have emotional arcs of their own, the other Lokis are deeply poignant, and it still has Tom Hiddleston. This happens a lot when I rewatch stuff.
• Lucifer (Netflix) - My goal in life is to convince everyone on Earth to watch Lucifer, and in service of this goal I'm always up for watching an episode, especially if you're not a fan yet, but especially if you are a fan, and that means I'm watching it with a couple of different people right now and also with the NWP (see below). This week I watched season 1 episode 3-4, and season 6 episode 1 and 5-7.
• Metal Shop Masters (Netflix) - This is an "eliminate one contestant per week" competition show. I watched one ep of this with my Netflix Watch Party (NWP) peeps (we've been doing a geographically distributed watch party since April of last year). We all bitched bitterly at it because the judges came down extra hard on the two women and the nonbinary person among the contestants while cutting slack to the men, and one of the women kept being sexualized (they showed her twice lying on the ground with her legs spread. And she wasn't welding either time). So I don't know if we're going to watch any more.
• Street Food Latin America (Netflix) - Also with NWP. Each episode features a different city and focuses primarily on one owner of a street food establishment while also introducing a few other owners. You learn why the featured foods are iconic of the city, and how they're made. The person who's the primary focus of the episode usually has a story to tell about overcoming adversity in their life. I'm very fussy about food shows, and this one hits the mark.
• What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu) - Sitcoms are a really hard sell with me but I watched one ep of this because vampires. I liked it more than I like most sitcoms but I'm still not sure I want to keep watching.

Comments

[violsva]

Thank you for providing streaming service information--I'm not great at watching visual media in general, but figuring out where they are in the first place is becoming yet another barrier as services multiply.

[firecat]

It sure is!

I use the justwatch.com web site, which often has correct information about where shows are available. (Sometimes they get it wrong.)

[snippy]

Lizzo actually collaborated with Prince.

[firecat]

Oh cool, I have to go check that out!

[greghousesgf]

I haven't watched Street Food Latin America yet but a lot of netflix's other foodie shows are great.

[firecat]

Which ones do you like?

[greghousesgf]

I like Great British Bakeoff, Zumbo, Ugly Delicious, Final Table, Chef's Table, Bake Squad, Crazy Delicious, American Barbecue Showdown, High on the Hog, Salt Fat Acid Heat and I think I might have forgotten some.

[firecat]

I've seen some of GBBO (I wish other competition shows were more like this), High on the Hog (really loved it), and Salt Fat Acid Heat (liked it)!

[greghousesgf]

I've heard High on the Hog may get another season. I hope so!

[firecat]

It did! https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/high-on-the-hog-season-2-netflix-1235038310/

[greghousesgf]

That's great but that article doesn't say when.

Metal Shop Masters

[brainwane]

We all bitched bitterly at it because the judges came down extra hard on the two women and the nonbinary person among the contestants while cutting slack to the men

Was this the first episode? I watched that and the judging was super baffling to me as well! Also, if two people had trouble with the rules during the first challenge, doesn't that likely speak to a problem with the rules' wording, or with the show properly communicating them?

In the "people making stuff that most viewers have not tried to make themselves" reality game show genre, what have you loved? I love Forged in Fire partly because I feel like we can always tell why the judges made the decision they made and why it's reasonable. (But it does sadden me that the contestants are like 95% men.) It is a show with a full competition every week rather than the contestants being whittled down over a season, which maybe minimizes the dramatic reality-show stuff around rivalries, arcs, etc.

And the glassblowing reality competition game show Blown Away was usually but not always decent on the dimension "why are the judges making this decision?" -- did you watch it?

I think a big part of me just wants to go rewatch the first season of Project Runway again.

Re: Metal Shop Masters

[firecat]

doesn't that likely speak to a problem with the rules' wording, or with the show properly communicating them?
Yeah, ya think? Also, one of the things that was against the rules of this particular challenge was one of the artist's primary ways of working (they worked with found, scrap metal, but this challenge didn't allow that). Why choose that artist if you're going to force them to work in a way they don't usually? The next week's challenge required people to work with provided scrap metal, but that contestant was already gone.

Thanks for the rec; I think the group might try Forged in Fire next, although we initially steered away from it because of the contestants being almost all men.

We watched the first ep of Blown Away, but I didn't understand the judges' choices. Sounds like it might get better in that regard?

Re: Metal Shop Masters

[brainwane]

Thanks for the rec; I think the group might try Forged in Fire next, although we initially steered away from it because of the contestants being almost all men.

I hear ya! And the host and all the judges are men, too! Since (with very rare exceptions) each episode stands alone, it's possible to look up episodes ahead of time on the various fan wiki pages, and just watch episodes where at least one of the contestants isn't a man.

My recollection is that, mostly, in the first season of Blown Away, my spouse and I could understand the judges' choices. I think we shouted at the screen more during the judging in the second season. Or maybe that was just because I thought a particular competitor was getting let off way too easy. But in the first season one feminist competitor says cissexist things while talking about design/artistic choices, so that isn't great either.