I think I’ve mentioned here before that we’ve been watching Limpkin parents raise a trio of chicks this spring. Here they are as fluffy little darlings in early April:
The chick in the middle is having a tantrum and screeching its head off — note the outstretched wings. The chicks are highly competitive; for weeks, they’ve charged each other to fight over the snails and mollusk the poor parents work 18 hours a day to provide. That’s why I named the chicks Kendall, Roman and Shiv after the awful, screechy, cut-throat kids in HBO’s Succession.
Now they’ve become more self-sufficient. They still screech for food sometimes but spend most of the day seeking their own snails and mollusks. Pretty soon, the Limpkin parents will be able to reconnect over shared interests apart from childrearing and maybe even remove the chicks from their mobile phone plan!
We’ve been calling the Limpkin parents Logan and Lady Caroline after the terrible parents in Succession, but based on their parenting style, the adult birds deserve better. Their parenting seems 100% egalitarian, and they’ve been tirelessly devoted to their chicks.
The chicks have grown to the point where I can no longer tell them apart from the parents unless I can see all at the same time and make inferences from size differences. This is a photo from this morning featuring either one of the grown chicks or Lady Caroline. I think it’s the latter:
My hat’s off to those Limpkin parents because raising three chicks to adulthood in a swamp with alligators, snakes, hawks, eagles and other predators must be difficult. Well done, Logan and Lady Caroline!
As for their fictional human namesakes in the TV series, presumably we’ll find out who the successor is next week in the series finale. I was thinking terrible Shiv would outmaneuver her horrible brothers, but last week’s events make me think probably not?
Anyhoo, open thread to discuss whatever, including that you never watch shows like Succession and can’t understand how any thinking person could possibly find it entertaining or that you find it more fulfilling to train hamsters to perform the works of Henrik Ibsen.
schrodingers_cat
I am too cheap for HBO. Otherwise Succession sounds interesting. I still haven’t watched either Sopranos, GoT or The Wire.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: HBO is changing their name to “Max” today.
Manyakitty
@raven: which is LAME.
MattF
Speaking of shows, I’ve been watching Rough Diamonds on Netflix. A lot of the narrative is about the travails of a Hasidic diamond merchant family in Antwerp— the dialogue is a mix of English, Yiddish, French, and Flemish. I’m unsure how all this would appear to gentiles, but I find it riveting.
ETA: If you watch it, turn off the dubbing and turn on the captions.
TaMara
David Zaslav, destroyer of Discover, HBO and Warner Bros got good and booed at Boston University this weekend. Who thought it was a good idea to have him as a commencement speaker? I guess for sheer entertainment value, it was.
Video are here (twitter links).
NBC video here
schrodingers_cat
@TaMara: David who?
schrodingers_cat
OT: I am waiting for my Derwent Pastel box to arrive. I got a brand new unopened vintage set from eBay. I totally suck at using pastels. I am trying my hand at a new medium.]
I posted this on the weekend, I am posting it again because I like how it turned out. I have added a few more details and highlights but not yet photographed the latest version.
A Study in Blue from J. Basford’s Magical Jungle.
*Derwent is a British brand that is a tad pricy here. It is like the British version of Staedtler.
zhena gogolia
I knew Jeremy Strong once upon a time so tried to watch it, but only got 15 minutes in. He is a very good actor, though, and a fine person, based on my limited experience. I’m so glad he’s had so much success.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: He’s a terrific actor and utterly fearless, as the crimes against humanity that are his rap sequences in the Succession role demonstrate. ;-)
Over the course of watching the series, I’ve become obsessed with the idea that someone needs to make a Humphrey Bogart biopic and cast Strong as the lead. He’d be perfect! And Bogart had an interesting life that deserves a modern biopic…
rikyrah
🤬🤬🤬🤬
Terrence Daniels (Captain 🍀 Planet) (@Terrence_STR) tweeted at 5:22 PM on Mon, May 22, 2023:
Today in Fascism 🤦🏽♂️
A Florida public school staff member, risking her job, documented a glimpse of what’s currently happening at her school. The state has come in and removed hundreds of thousands of books from their school library deeming the books “inappropriate”. t.co/OlLh9YnrFk
(twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1660773064920170496?t=_1TFcIpMK-bqOtH4qITo3g&s=03)
rikyrah
@TaMara:
Good. He should have been booed
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Oh, that is a great idea!
UncleEbeneezer
We finally tried The Diplomat and bailed after just two episodes. I think our main problem was that we couldn’t stop comparing it to the Danish series Borgen, which is much more to our taste. The jokes on The Diplomat just didn’t really hit for us, and aside from the plot twist at the end of episode one, the drama wasn’t really getting us drawn in. Oh well, on to one of the other 500 shows we have in our queue…
Steeplejack
Hesitant to read the comments, because I haven’t gotten around to Succession yet and have managed to avoid spoilers so far.
Yesterday I dusted off PBS Passport and started watching Season 2 of Astrid, an engaging French policier where the title character is an archivist with uncanny insights both in the files and at the crime scenes. She’s neurodivergent—yes, I know, but it works very well, and the plots and acting are good. I binge-watched Season 1 last year and didn’t realize there were new episodes until recently.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: No spoilers so far.
I don’t know how far we would have gotten in The Diplomat if not for Rufus Sewell. Ani Ahn and Rory Kinnear are also stellar. But the plot is RIDICK.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat:
You really do owe it to yourself to watch The Wire, at least twice.
Remarkable show.
Thor Heyerdahl
@raven: meanwhile everyone will just continue calling it HBO. At some point in the not too distant future, the name will miraculously return as HBO and this will be a business school case study into worst business renaming examples.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks. I will read upward. 😺
Another Scott
Our TV is always tuned to the Tennis Channel or quirky murder mysteries from Britbox/etc via a PBS channel. I’m amazed by people who have time to watch dozens of TV shows on various services.
Perhaps relatedly??…
Cheers,
Scott.
Joy in FL
I started watching Succession, but didn’t stay with it. At another part of my life, I think I would find it fascinating, but I’m currently not patient enough towards that kind of drama.
What I am really liking is Silo on Apple TV. The way the introduction shows the spiral central “spine” of the silo makes my imagination so happy. The visual symbolism is right in the sweet spot for me. The characters, the plot– I love it all. I hate that I can’t binge it, but it’s also fun to anticipate it from week to week.
The photo of Limpkin Lady Caroline is so beautiful. And I love reading your descriptions of pretty much anything, Betty Cracker : )
Ocotillo
@schrodingers_cat: lol, me too although I binged the Sopranos when they were offered for a limited time on HBO or Netflix I can’t remember which one.
CaseyL
I just don’t get why HBO is renaming itself.
MAX – I think it was Cinemax? – was another movie cable channel (which HBO may have engulfed, for all I know). So a big possibility for confusion.
Seems pretty dumb to throw away a brand name that’s been around for as long as there has been cable TV, and which has a decent-to-excellent reputation. Makes me think they’re about to inaugurate some changes that will piss a lot of people off, like when SciFi became SyFy and got rid of a lot of its most beloved shows.
Jay
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Congrats on the pastels!
I am atingle because I am awaiting an Amazon delivery today containing . . . USB cables! Reorganized my messy setup and just need the final two pieces: a short USB-C to USB-micro cable for transferring books from my computer to my old Kindle and a hydra-headed cable that will allow me to charge up anybody in the car, regardless of race, creed or port orientation.
Jay
Finally watching “Ted Lasso” on Apple TV, ’cause T bought a brand new Mac, and the 1 week free trial became 3 months, (automatically, because Apple had the data),
Into Season 2, and enjoying it.
schrodingers_cat
@Subsole: It is on my list. I have heard a lot of good things about it. I tried once but it was bit too dense and I had a lot going on at that time. I should give it a try again.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Unfortunately, that post is tagged as 18+, so those of us without Twitter accounts can’t view it. I’m guessing the 18+ tag has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with whether the content is objectively unsuitable for kids.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Care to share the car usb cable and the kindle one too? I am interested.
BTW pastel pencils rock, much less messier than the chalk sticks.
Anyway
@Steeplejack:
I like Astrid – watch it on one of the many PA/NJ PBS stations I get. Plan to check out Passport based on Raven’s reco of a show (forget its name)
After the recent mention of Brokenwood I signed up for a month of AcornTV – love the kiwi accent.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
That really is wow.
MattF
@Jay: WaPo gift link. Spoiler: No one knows wtf is going on there.
Jay
@Steeplejack:
T has a ??????, I don’t know what it’s called. When she started WFH, the University provided it, but it’s a puck like device that allows power and data transfer, no matter what the input cable is or the output cable. 6 different options.
Ah, Dell DA3000 “docking station”.
Not cheap though.
Betty Cracker
@CaseyL: Yeah, a lot of rebranding exercises seem utterly pointless to me too. Changing “Angie’s List” into “Angi” doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve never used the service, but I know what it is. If they wanted to get away from the origin story of one woman compiling a list of reliable contractors, why change it to Angi, which is basically the same name only misspelled and sans the list that was the entire point? From what I understand, it was following the HomeAdvisor merger, so the name had to change, but the tack they took seems like the worst option.
Roger Moore
@CaseyL:
Neither does anyone else, except maybe some of the people involved in the decision. My understanding is the goal is to lump all their properties under a single label, so people think of what used to be separate channels as a single unified whole. They have been labeling their streaming service HBO Max for a while, so I guess they’re hoping the Max part is now as important as the HBO part.
I think the whole thing is incredibly stupid. I can kind of understand why Google rebranded itself as Alphabet and Facebook as Meta, but in both of those they kept the existing brands, just as subordinate to the corporate parent. Throwing away all the goodwill associated with HBO (and Warner Bros. etc.) as a brand is just foolish. It actually tells viewers something important about the shows they’re about to view, and denying viewers that information will only hurt them.
MattF
@CaseyL: Because… it’s the NEW COKE. NEW NEW NEW.
Miss Bianca
A hamster production of Henrik Ibsen works? Betty, you sick freak – I would watch the hell out of that!
Jay
@MattF:
yeah, I know, I posted the recent news on the Ukraine post.
Mordor say’s “it’s all over” and a great victory but is warning people to still stay inside, etc
Online the rebels are posting vids from areas even deeper in Mordor, while locals are posting vids of more local evacuations,….
From “Glorious Victory in Bakhmut” to f’d in the ass in less than a day.
CaseyL
@Betty Cracker: Well, they changed the nature of the service along with the name. It seems mostly to be a request-quote thing now, and if you want to actually see the reviews and such of the businesses, you have to go a few layers down. Not nearly as customer-friendly, which I’m sure was the point: to make it serve businesses more than customers.
@MattF: Yeah, and that worked out really well as i recall :)
Quinerly
Robert Reich lays it all out
robertreich.substack.com/p/how-desantis-and-other-gop-lawmakers
Roger Moore
@Jay:
Docking stations do a lot more than just data transfer. They also provide power to a laptop, nowadays through the same USB C port that’s used to pull data out. They’re really convenient because they let you set up a whole desktop working environment you can connect your laptop to with a single cable: monitors, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc. If you’re willing to spend on them, you can have one at work, one at home, etc. so you just ferry your laptop back and forth and have the same setup at work and home.
My department does that for our administrative staff. We have more administrative assistants than space, so they work from home some days and at the reception desk (which gets very little use as an actual reception area since COVID) on others. Rather than sharing computers at work and having separate ones at home, they just bring their laptops back and forth.
TaMara
@CaseyL: See my comment at 5
schrodingers_cat
As a self professed stationery nerd, discovering my artistic side has been like manna from heaven. There is an endless variety of tools and supplies to be discovered. Its like being a kid in a candy store
BTW I am using my fountain pens for line work and they have been pretty awesome.
All in all a better hobby than doom scrolling. It is also very meditative.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
Even New Coke had the good sense to keep the Coke brand. Max is the equivalent of changing the name to “Tab Plus”.
NotMax
Parents looking forward to empty nest syndrome.
//
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Do you have suggestions for a good docking station for a windows 11 machine. I also want my all in one desktop and my laptop to share the keyboard and the mouse.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Here’s the short (18") USB-C to USB-micro cable. My ThinkPad has two USB-A ports and two USB-C ports, but the A ports are used by my external keyboard and the dongle for my wireless mouse. I would unplug the mouse so I could use my USB-A to USB-micro cable to transfer files to the Kindle, but then I would keep reaching for the (dead) mouse to control the screen! So now I can use the empty USB-C port to transfer files without disturbing my setup.
And here’s the car cable (repeated from above). You’ll need a charger gizmo, of course. I use this one.
I also have a 24" USB-C cable for the car that is the perfect length to go from the charger to my phone when it’s mounted in its dashboard vent holder. (Best holder ever! I have raved about it before. Details on request.)
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Request.
I am upgrading my work from home setup.
JaySinWA
@Steeplejack:
I don’t see an Apple lightning adapter in that Hydra.
Jay
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, T’s moves around, (just not back to work yet), depending on what we are using it for, (phones to TV, multiple monitors, old 90’s DVD to Flat screen, etc). It even manages to power and provide output from an 80’s CD player to our surround sound system.
NotMax
Amusing bit of banter from a grade B- film noir encountered recently. Assistant to a P.I. slumped in an easy office chair, half nodding off.
P.I: “Hey, got a job for you. You’re going to the morgue.”
Assistant: “Do ya think they’ll take me?”
:)
Jay
@MattF:
trollhattan
@Manyakitty: It’s a two-step, with the final one shortening it to either M or X. They’re busy with the focus groups at present. It’s hard to trademark a letter.
moonbat
Every friend who at first told me to watch Succession, “because it’s SO GOOD!” now tells me they don’t know why they continue to watch a show where every character is a uniformly awful person.
I figure, I have to deal with enough awful people in real life, why subject myself to them in my spare time?
Steeplejack
@Anyway:
You can get PBS Passport for basically $5 a month—I donate $60 annually—and it doesn’t feel painful because you’re also supporting their over-the-air content. And they have a lot of good shows. Just getting caught up on Endeavour and Grantchester was worth it for me.
Steeplejack
@Jay:
Yeah, way overkill for my needs.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: I am going to join this June.
raven
@Jay: Watch Dickinson!
raven
@Steeplejack: We just finished “Our House” and it’s not very good!
NotMax
@trollhattan
X is taken.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
I hope you know about JetPens.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Kendall’s the Roy kid who is both brilliant and a genuine sociopath, e.g., can threaten the ex with a restraining order forbidding her to leave town and scant minutes later, give a moving eulogy for good old dad, coincidentally undercutting the uncle’s filleting.
He’s the most visionary of the four and also, never follows through on any of his schemes, either abruptly walking away (remember the birthday bash high-wire thing?) or self-torpedoing. Which is why I think Shiv ends up as Queen of Dragons. Wait, did I mix up shows? Anyhoo, sicko Roman committed seppuku in front of the investor and the president, and Conner is dumb as a soap dish.
That leaves Shiv.
Or, how about Greg? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
dmsilev
@Joy in FL:
I’ll second this recommendation. Definitely enjoying it so far (about half of the first season has aired).
“Apple TV+: The place for dystopic science fiction”; probably not a great tagline, but between this and Severance, it’s kind of true right now.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
To share keyboard and mouse, you might need only an inexpensive KVM switch. (I can’t look ’em up right now.)
trollhattan
@NotMax: Does the band know about this?
Burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
Thanks for the reminder. I need a USB-C to lightning cable that I don’t mind losing. I’m renting a Polestar 2 for the weekend, and CarPlay needs a wired connection.
Betty Cracker
@raven: I loved Dickinson! I wish the same people would take on the Brontë sisters. ;-)
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: I do. I love Japanese stationery and German writing/drawing implements.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: There is a mind numbing array available. I search and then I am lost.
I do like some American brands as well like General’s (they have the best charcoal pencils) and Prismacolor premier for colored pencils.
CaseyL
@dmsilev:
I first read that as ““Apple TV+: The place for dyspeptic science fiction,” and was probably more amused than was appropriate.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
I would suggest looking at whatever model the manufacturer of your laptop sells. Then figure out what features you really need, like whether you need the dock to be able to run a 4K monitor or 1080p is good enough, and find the one that meets your needs. I have a very fancy one my employer provides- it’s a several year old Dell, so I don’t know if the exact model is still sold- but it stays at work.
When I’m on the road, I have something that’s a bit more like a fancy dongle. It provides a breakout between the USB C port and a bunch of different ports: USB A, Ethernet, and HDMI. It claims to be able to do power delivery, but that didn’t work for me; I had to plug my power adapter directly into the PC instead.
For sharing your keyboard and mouse between computers, you might want a KVM switch. This is basically a USB hub with two inputs and a switch that lets you pick which input it listens to. It has 4 ports, so you could use keyboard, mouse, and a couple more devices. They have even fancier ones that also have monitor input and output, so you can use a single monitor for multiple computers.
Another Scott
@Burnspbesq: I just got one of these dongle gizmos for the Kia Niro PHEV I got at the end of April. I haven’t used it much yet, but it does work. I assume there are similar things for iGadgets.
Cheers,
Scott.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I’m in the process of finishing the second season of Girls5eva on Peacock because, I’m one of like 3 people with a Peacock subscription. The show was dropped by Peacock but is being picked up by Netflix for future seasons. It’s Tina Fey produced so if you like her other shows (30 Rock, Great News, Kimmy Schmidt) this one has a similar clever/zany humor mix.
The other Peacock show I really liked and wish would have been saved by another streaming service was Rutherford Falls. But since that’s been cancelled I’ll probably drop Peacock once I’m done with this season of Girls5eva since the next season will be on Netflix and I’m not seeing much else on Peacock I want to dig into.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Thanks!
NotMax
@trolhattan
Did someone say rebranding?
;)
sdhays
@Roger Moore: I understand that they intend to keep the HBO brand for…something, but they want “Max” to signal that it’s also family friendly, not just high quality adult-targeted content.
It seems brand overthinking to me, but then I think most branding is overthinking things so what do I know?
cmorenc
Years later, the bitter experience of investing so much time and interest in the seemingly promisingly interesting but (as turned out) aptly-named “Lost” series, i am a bit shy about getting sucked in again – the longer the series ran, the more the writers were simply winging it without any coherent plan, which resulted in the lamest ending ever.
That said, “Ted Lasso” restored my faith that there may be other worthwhile series out there, nonetheless i remain cautiously reluctant to getting hooked on series productions.
NotMax
FYI, Paramount Plus about to raise prices.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Thanks for all your recommendations. I am bookmarking this thread!
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
This iOttie Easy One Touch 5 air vent mount is the culmination of a long, frustrating search to find a good car mount for my phone. (The doughty Kia is a 2009 model and doesn’t have your fancy gewgaws like a dashboard screen.) What is great about the iOttie is that you can tighten the rubber jaws onto the vent blade as much as you need to, so it stays in place and doesn’t fall out. Genius. See pictures and video at Amazon page. I bought mine at Best Buy, if you prefer one rapacious corporation to another.
The 24" USB-C to USB-C cable of perfect length is the same brand as the USB-C to USB-micro one above (Sunguy).
Jay
lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/05/ruperts-latest-fraud
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Arguably everyone in the show is a sociopath, but remember how often Logan told Kendall he lacked the killer instinct? I think the old man was right. Kendall is the most capable of the kids (low bar!), but I’m not sure any of them wouldn’t immediately run the company into the ground.
SPOILER-ISH:
Shiv would be the best delegator. If it were up to me, I’d pick her of the three for that reason and because she’s the least fash-curious. But the fact that the last episode ended with her somewhat in the pole position has me thinking there will be a twist?
I can’t divine if the show’s writers see Logan as the ultimate blueprint and will settle on the kid who is most like him, in which case maybe Roman isn’t done for despite his blubbering? Geri once called him the “bootleg” version of Logan, and I think she’s right about that — he’s a mercurial sicko but doesn’t have daddy-o’s business skills. The empire would collapse within six months.
Early on, I thought Greg would inherit the earth, but now I hope not because I can’t imagine how that would NOT be a dumb ending. Maybe Sandy, Sandi, Stewy and the Pierces collaborate to muscle the Roys out? Or the widows/side pieces hatched a plot on the pew?
I confess I have no idea how it will end!
Steeplejack
@JaySinWA:
It does in fact have a Lightning adapter (called “IP”). See the second picture on the Amazon page.
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
What would make sense to me is to have a single streaming service called “Max” (or whatever name you choose) and then have different subcategories under it. All the things that used to try to stand on their own- HBO, WB, Discovery, etc.- would have its own subcategory under the Max umbrella. Families who didn’t want their kids watching racier fare from HBO could easily cut put the whole thing behind parental controls. That would keep the existing valuable brands while still consolidating everything into a single platform.
Steeplejack
@raven:
I skipped that. I think next up for me is maybe The Fall with Gillian Anderson or catching up on (the original) Professor T.
Kay
@Joy in FL:
I love that none of them can ever make a decision. It’s an hour of all of them dithering. Their mortal enemies also dither. An indecisive bunch of big shots.
Their father took so long to decide who should be his successor he died. I was hoping he would die just so I wouldn’t have to watch him not make a decision for another season.
UncleEbeneezer
@cmorenc: Sticking the landing on a multi-season series is really hard to do. Breaking Bad and The Americans are about the only two I can think of that really nailed theirs.
Mad Men, The Wire, GoT, Battlestar Galactica, Boardwalk Empire etc., all had endings that didn’t quite live up to the rest of the run, imo, but they are still some of the best series’ I can remember and I will always tell people that the journey is well worth it even if the endings aren’t perfect. Lost seems like one where it really flopped so bad that it actually ruined the whole experience. I never watched it but my wife still complains about it.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
👍 Glad to know that when I get on an occasional OCD productivity binge it’s useful to someone else.
I just got tired of making do and jury-rigging things to get them to work. Now everything will be just right.
dmsilev
@UncleEbeneezer:
Lot of people feel that way about Game of Thrones. Same underlying cause, really, the blatantly bollixed-up ending makes it clear that the writers never really had much of a grand plan all along, they were just making things up as they went.
MattF
@dmsilev: I suppose the alternative is to do a ‘Martin’ and have no ending at all.
Manyakitty
@trollhattan: ah yes, innovation by committee. That works GREAT. 👍
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
The only way to avoid being disappointed by a series is to wait until it’s completely wrapped up and fans who watched it to the end say it made it. Otherwise, you can always be disappointed by future writing. Even great shows can decay and be betrayed by mediocre writing.
One thing to look for is shows where the individual episodes are worth watching by themselves. At least that way you have an immediate payoff. It’s really easy to get trapped by the promise of a big ending and find yourself watching crap to get there. If the writers can’t make the episodes engaging enough to be worth watching individually, what makes you think they’ll be able to pull off the big ending anyway?
Sean
@UncleEbeneezer @dmsilev: I’m rewatching Lost currently, and I still hold the minority opinion that it wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. I don’t care about the ending debate (to me it was underwhelming but fine). The journey and growing close to the characters that are so fun to watch and to root for is more than enough satisfaction for me. I enjoy being in the world and the lore even if the ending wasn’t perfect. Case in point, my wife knows the whole ending from following pop culture, but never actually watched it, and she is still fully engrossed in the show.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
IOW, they haven’t paid the Apple tax, so they aren’t allowed to use any of Apple’s official names. That’s why they can’t call it a lightning connector or say “iPhone”.
Manyakitty
@NotMax: good reminder to cancel Showtime on Sling. All the Star Trek alone is enough to keep me on Paramount+.
Manyakitty
@dmsilev: Game of Thrones could have kept the exact same outcome and not been a hot, miserable mess for the last season. I blame GRRM for dragging his feet (or writer’s block). There is a MASSIVE difference between season 5, which is the last one based mostly on his material, and the last two, which were based on a pile of crap.
sdhays
@MattF: Speaking of Martin, I miss his comments. I hope he’s enjoying retirement.
Maxim
@Manyakitty: Exactly. Once the showrunners didn’t have Martin’s books to work from, it fell apart.
Sean
Regarding Succession and “Why does anyone want to watch these assholes be assholes?” argument – I watch because I enjoy watching assholes plotting, sabotaging and destroying other assholes. The show is entirely about the kind of people we loathe actually brought low, humiliated and made miserable by their petty bullshit, and while I think that is largely fantasy, I enjoy it in the fiction arena.
When we say “pass the popcorn” or some variation thereof because a Trump cultist is now hurting trump or the GOP loses because of MAGA machinations, it’s the same thing.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
That’s what I figured. I have an older, similar cable that also has an IP/Lightning connector, and I checked the comments on this one to make sure that the “IP” connector is a Lightning connector.
Manyakitty
@Maxim: it’s especially painful and obvious on a rewatch. One yike.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I think GOT had a slightly different problem from Lost. GOT had a reasonable plan, which was to follow from the novels. As long as they had the novels to work from, they were just doing an adaptation. Eventually, though, they outran GRRM’s writing, so they had to make it up themselves. That’s a little bit different from Lost, which never had any source material to run out of. JJ Abrams was always flying by the seat of his pants and never had a grand plan to follow. He was OK at faking it for a while, but the lack of a plan eventually showed through.
I think the real lesson to take from this is that sprawling, multi-season epics should be left to plotters, not pantsers. If the writer doesn’t have at least an outline of how things are going to go, you can’t count on them delivering an ending on any kind of schedule.
Manyakitty
@Roger Moore: #reasonable
PJ
@Betty Cracker: A new movie about Emily Bronte, Emily, came out earlier this year: rogerebert.com/reviews/emily-movie-review-2023 I haven’t seen it yet, but it got good reviews.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
But who’s gonna play Bacall? That’s what I’d be wanting to know.
I don’t very often have crushes on public figures, but she’s one of the few.
Albatrossity
Last year Limpkins staged a getaway and there were many records in more northerly states where they had not been sighted previously. For example, prior to June 1022 this species had never been recorded in Kansas. By September 2022 there were over 10 documented records for the state.
They are doing it again this year; already there are 2 different Limpkins hanging out in two different counties in KS. My hypothesis is that they are sensible enough to want to get the hell out of Florida and Louisiana.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, but try saying “pastel pencils” five times real fast. ;-)
PJ
@Sean: I started watching Succession a few weeks ago (while I was waiting for Barry to start), and my problem with the show isn’t that it’s assholes being assholes to each other, it’s that it’s just a soap opera, and none of the assholes are interesting. None of their problems are interesting. It’s just jerks scheming against each other. There’s no reason to care about any of them, or what they’re fighting over. The acting and directing is good (the writing’s okay), and there’s just enough that happens that I’m not reaching for my phone, and there’s only one more episode to go, so I’ll watch it to see how it ends, but I can’t imagine it will make any difference in the story (and certainly to me) one way or another.
UncleEbeneezer
@PJ: Looking forward to this one. We both swoon pretty hard for Emma Mackey. Not just because she’s incredibly attractive, but she’s also a really great actor. She’s amazing on Sex Education. My wife also loves period/classic-literature stuff so this has that going for it as well.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sean: We started watching Lost because my wife has nostalgia for it and it seemed like the sort of thing I’d enjoy too, but it felt really dated and after a handful of episodes neither of us really felt one way or another about continuing with it. I probably would’ve loved it at the time.
eclare
@sdhays:
Same here!
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: I actually thought GOT ending/last season were fine (and some parts of the season were great!) Definitely not as good as some of the other seasons. But not horrible and I still enjoyed it.
Steeplejack
@JaySinWA, @Roger Moore:
Just received the Amazon package with the hydra-headed cable. The packaging minces no words and clearly says “USB-C/Lightning/Micro.” And it definitely looks like a Lightning connector. (Don’t have an Apple device at hand to check. Will try the aging iPad later.)
john b
I’m fairly sure that’s exactly what they’re doing. Succession appears under “HBO” as of today in their rebranded app.
They also have “max originals”, TLC, HGTV, DC, Food Network, Discovery, etc
Maxim
@PJ:
This. I have to have at least one character I like enough to be invested in and root for.
Sean
@UncleEbeneezer: The visual effects are pretty dated to be sure, but given the Dharma time lore, it feels less dated to me than I would’ve expected. But it’s hardly a perfect show. Aspects of it were perfect for me.
@PJ: I get you. I like the absurd humor of the show (Tom and Cousin Greg mainly) and I find the psychological hurdles the Roy kids can’t overcome interesting, especially in the way they continue to use their dad’s hostility towards one another, even as they recognize and resent it from their dad. But I can definitely understand your point of view.
piratedan
@lowtechcyclist: Emma Stone perhaps?
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: I think the problem with Lost was they tried to do too many connections between everyone, and it got overwhelming. There were too many things left unresolved, which really pissed all the fans off. They never told us what the hell those numbers were about, for example. Why did they want all the kids at the beginning? Don’t do that and then leave us hanging.
IMHO Babylon 5 did one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen of keeping things consistent from beginning to (almost) the end, but of course he wrote it that way from the beginning. (I watched it all the way through again, and caught a lot of stuff I missed the first time.) I give JMS credit for making sure the fans would get an ending even if they were cancelled after 4 seasons, but then when they got a fifth season it was pretty thin. That’s probably the best character Walter Koenig ever played.
Betty Cracker
@Albatrossity: Haha, yeah, I can’t blame them! I think I read somewhere last year that the first Limpkin ever was spotted in New York. I was thinking how are you gonna keep ’em down on the Withlacoochee when they’ve seen the mighty Hudson? ;-)
Manyakitty
@Soprano2: Babylon 5 holds up to repeated viewing, too. Have you heard about the animated movie coming out next month?
karen marie
@Another Scott: I read part of an interview with the head of HBO who explained the game plan – since so many are no longer paying ridiculous cable fees, he and his friends want to consolidate streaming sites and soak the public.
Betty Cracker
@piratedan: You know, she could probably pull it off. Great idea!
Alison Rose
LOLLLLLLLLL
Oh, don’t stop there, Ronnie. Why don’t you invite JKR and putin, too? Maybe David Duke, Stephen Miller, Anita Bryant (who is apparently not dead, to my disappointed surprise). You absolute monster. Have fun spending the next year and a half getting dumped on by the tangerine tyrant.
eclare
@Alison Rose:
For real? Holy fuck!
And whoa, Anita Bryant is still alive?
Betty Cracker
Regarding great series finales, Breaking Bad was definitely one of the best in my book. I liked the ending of Mad Men. I’m probably one of the few who wasn’t furious about The Sopranos, but that may be because I didn’t watch it until a few years after it wrapped, so I already knew about the controversy and wasn’t expecting the story to be wrapped up in a tidy bow.
Six Feet Under had probably the best series finale I’ve ever seen, but to get the full impact of it, you had to stick with a series that degraded in quality significantly over its run. The ending was so damn good it’s arguably worth it because for a few years, it was an excellent show.
trollhattan
Short-Fingered Vulgarian says a thing!
Whiny little bey-otch. Lucky for him his competition are all keeping busy mimicking him.
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: Jokes? which Diplomat were you watching? I understand that two different series with the same name came out at nearly the same time.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … WARNING – TheHill:
This could be interesting, but I assume that Stearns will try to find ways not to get involved (sensible judges don’t like getting involved in things like this unless they feel they have to)…
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: SFU was letter-perfect. Also, best film or television use of a Jefferson Airplane song that’s not “White Rabbit.”
“St Elsewhere,” “Derry Girls” and “The Good Place” stand alongside, atop Perfect Mountain by my estimation.
Hoodie
@Alison Rose: DeSantis is starting to resemble Kendall Roy, e.g., a bunch of weird ideas, poorly executed and all under the shadow of an abusive father figure (Trump). DeSantis has done next to nothing to deserve the hype he’s gotten, almost all of which is attributable to Trump anointing him for the FL governor’s race and his ability to free ride on the nasty cultural movement Trump created. He has no discernable political skills (e.g., he can’t even carry on a normal retail political encounter), yet exudes a gigantic sense of entitlement.
rikyrah
The ages of these women😳😳
vm.tiktok.com/ZTRE9bEBS/
Manyakitty
@trollhattan: Newhart. Come ON.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Minor addendum: This cable is rated for data transfer as well as charging. Dunno if it’s a real concern, but some cables mention only charging. 🤔
Soprano2
@Manyakitty: I knew they were working on something, but wasn’t sure when it was coming out. Thanks for the heads up!
Timill
@schrodingers_cat: The way I’ve gone is this:
amazon.com/gp/product/B09T3F7DZN/
Main downside is that the bits are independent, so I type at the wrong computer because that’s the one the mouse is pointing at…
Logitech have a system where you can run the mouse back and forth and the keyboard follows, but that’s (even) more expensive and I haven’t tried it yet.
Roger Moore
@Soprano2:
This is more or less the point I made about wanting a plotter rather than a pantser. The writer needs to know at least a solid outline of the series before they start, or they’re never going to be able to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.
IMO, another problem is less about the writers than about the structure of TV series. Series like Lost and The X-Files aren’t allowed to have planned endings, at least not for the series as a whole. The network wants to be able to keep extending them as long as they’re commercially viable, so the writer really isn’t in position to write that way. Instead, they’re pushed to keep spinning the story, which makes it almost impossible to have a definitive ending planned.
The best you can hope for with that kind of show is something like what Joss Whedon did for BTVS. For the first few seasons, he was never sure if the show was going to be renewed. He wrote the seasons so each would be a satisfying end to the show if were cancelled, but left himself an opening for future seasons if it were cancelled. He did sometimes set stuff up for future seasons, but it was usually minor enough that you would only recognize the setup when the payoff arrived; if the show had been cancelled, nobody would have complained too much about the lack of follow-through.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@lowtechcyclist: Bacall is who I think of whenever I hear the line “with a voice that is dark like tinted glass” from Short Skirt/Long Jacket by Cake (theme song for former Blog favorite show Chuck).
@UncleEbeneezer: You left out Newhart! which has one of the best series endings in TV history. Granted it was a sitcom without a lot of dramatic build up or even really a season-to-season plot line, so that made things easier. I was kind of underwhelmed by the X Files finale but the problem with these shows that rely on amping up the mystery and dramatic tension over season and series long arcs is it gets to the point where it’s nearly impossible for the wrap-up to live up to the buildup.
There are several sort of bundled streaming services – Disney+ offers a bundle with Hulu and ESPN sports. Amazon offers subscriptions to Britbox and some other services through Prime Video. Then there’s the HBO or should I say Max bundle of streaming services.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: Apparently he doesn’t know how to read a room.
DeSantis apparently wants to be hobnobbing with the likes of Musk, Jared, and the Bone Saw guy. They all deserve each other.
Ksmiami
I think we are headed for a technical default. And Biden needs to get the megaphone out now.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
The first two seasons of Six Feet Under were perfect. I still love the one with the funeral for the Santa guy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: Honest to god, I couldn’t believe even Trump was stupid enough to say something like that. That man was president of the United States.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: Agree 100% about The Good Place — excellent show, stellar ending!
I haven’t seen Derry Girls and managed to see only a few episodes of St. Elsewhere ages and ages ago. (I think I was still in high school when I saw that with my mom, and I’m now practically an old lady, so it was a long time ago!) Added to my list!
Manyakitty
@Soprano2: always glad to find another B5 fan. 🙂
eclare
@rikyrah:
Awesome!
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: I agree about Six Feet Under – it stuck the ending in a way I will never forget. I was satisfied with the Mad Men ending too. Can’t say anything about Breaking Bad, haven’t seen it, can’t imagine wanting to.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Let’s launch ’em all into space on Musk’s next rocket. Which might just go the way the first one did. So sad.
Manyakitty
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I remember watching the Newhart finale live, probably with my parents. I think we all stood up and screamed when he woke up next to Emily in the classic Chicago bedroom.
Jay
Apparently, it was just a “deep raid” to f with Mordor. All the “Good Russian’s” have safely withdrawn back to Ukraine.
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: DeSantis is a fucking idiot.
eclare
Sex and the City had a good series finale. We finally learned Mr. Big’s real name, John.
Alison Rose
@Manyakitty: Okay, I’m pretty sure someone has already asked this but…is your nym meant to be said as two words: “Manya (to rhyme with Tanya) kitty”? Because I always say it in my head as “Many a kitty” as in lots of kitties. Which is a nice idea.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: Among many other things. But yeah, he really comes across as one of those “IQ around his waist size” people.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: We both really liked Derry Girls. We had to put the closed captioning on though. Their accents were impenetrable sometimes.
Manyakitty
@Alison Rose: kinda both. Initially, it was Manya kitty, for my beloved Mme. Curie, who we call Manya. However, my happy number of cats is apparently 3 (including Heisenberg and Asimov), so I do have many a kitty as well. 😸😸😸
Jay
M*A*S*H ended well, “Chuck” ended well, “How I Met Your Mother” ended well, “Beachcomber’s” ended well, “Northern Exposure” ended well, just to name a few.
You gotta remain true to the vibe and not go jumping the shark in the last season.
eclare
@Manyakitty:
Huh. In my head I pronounce Manya as the “mon” in Montana.
Manyakitty
@eclare: so do I. Her name is pronounced MON ya. Also ‘Ladybug’ and ‘Pretty Girl.’ lolol
Jay
@Manyakitty:
I always see it as Manana Kitty, tomorrow kitty.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: The one with Rufus Sewell. There are definitely attempts at humor in it. But they rarely landed for us.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: “Derry Girls” truly one of the funniest shows I can name. I seldom laugh aloud at teevee and it had me crying, frequently. Seconded on the captioning–those are some thick accents.
Three very brief seasons, 19 total episodes, one hilarious cameo.
Manyakitty
@Jay: I like that.
eclare
@Manyakitty:
Yay! I got it right!
MattF
@Betty Cracker: About The Sopranos— a woman I knew around that time loved the show and would go on at length about possible sequels, movies, etc. At some point I’d heard enough of that, and told her it was obvious that Tony wouldn’t survive the end of the series. She never forgave me.
UncleEbeneezer
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Newhart was a great ending. One of the best for sure. But the fact that in this thread we’ve only listed a half dozen or so great endings to great series’, in the entire history of television, I think supports my point about their relative rarity. IE- most great shows don’t have great endings.
trollhattan
@Manyakitty: Yep, forgot about that one.
I think because of his laid-back style Bob is underappreciated for how sophisticated his humor is, going back to his standup days.
Matt McIrvin
@eclare: I remember when Annette Funicello died, the obituaries got some scathing comments from people who were confusing her with Anita Bryant.
Manyakitty
@eclare: great minds and all that 😸 Honestly, she is an excellent cat. So loving and empathetic (to me). I will be lost when the inevitable happens. She’s 15 now and starting to show her age. Fingers crossed for lots more years with her.
Miss Bianca
@trollhattan: where does that one stream? I really want to see it, and it looks like it’s never coming out on DVD.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sean: We weren’t NOT enjoying Lost, we just found that we had several other shows that we were more interested in. A problem that is much greater now than when Lost first aired.
Manyakitty
@trollhattan: totally. He’s still super funny, too.
trollhattan
@UncleEbeneezer: Bet a good deal of that is because of “Yeah, we’re not picking you up next season.” Relatively few good shows get the story arc they deserve. So many unfinished stories.
(On the other extreme end are shows that last waaaaay too long.)
Add to my Perfect Mountain list: “The Americans.”
Manyakitty
@trollhattan: yes for the ending, but oof, those last two seasons were tough to watch. They were good, just… relentless.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca: Think it’s still available on Netflix. That’s where I saw it.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin: Oh god, that’s hilarious.
As if teen boys everywhere got sparklepants over Anita Bryant. “It’s Anita Bryant, starring in Bloomers Beach Party!”
Jay
@Manyakitty:
unfortunately, it never works, the response is always Me-now!
Joy in FL
@dmsilev: Hello to another Silo fan : )
Glidwrith
@Roger Moore: Keep opening the hidden replies. Video is available at the bottom.
Manyakitty
@Jay: particularly when she is doing her door kitty imitation (not a window). She stands on me with her front paws on one shoulder, her rear paws on the other, and stares impassively into the distance. Then she changes sides. Repeat ad nauseam until I feed her.
glory b
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: My daughter loves Girls5eva
JaySinWA
@Steeplejack: I think data is a requirement for fast charging. The charger and the device have to do handshakes to insure the device can handle higher voltages.
Sister Golden Bear
@Roger Moore:
One of the masterful plotters was the show runner for Babylon 5. Not only did he have the long-term story arc figured out, he planted fire-shadowing that might not pay off until another season (when it had high impact). He also planned out “off ramps” for not only for story lines that might need to wrap up early, but had also had “off ramps” for all the major characters — all of them had “seconds” — e.g. the assistants to the ambassadors — who could get promoted in the main role if the main actor became unavailable.
Unfortunately, all that planned got hosed when it looked like the series would get canceled in its 4th season, forcing him to rush things. Then to add insult to injury, it did get renewed for the 5th and final season after all. JMS tried his best to make it work, but it didn’t.
Denali5
I enjoyed Rita on Netflix. Interesting family/friends dynamics.
lowtechcyclist
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Hadn’t thought of that before, but yeah!
And I love that song. Cake’s done some good stuff.
Steeplejack
@Miss Bianca:
Derry Girls is (still) on Netflix.
Alison Rose
@Manyakitty: Awesome, then I shall keep saying many a kitty :P
Amir Khalid
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Which X-Files series finale do you mean, season 9 or season 11? The season 9 finale bothers me because the trial of Mulder was too obvious an idea, and so poorly executed. The otherwise much better season 11 finale ends with a bizarre, mystifying speech in which Scully pretty much disowns their son William for no real reason, and then tells Mulder she is pregnant again.
louc
@trollhattan:
Going to chime in about Derry Girls. We watched the first two seasons and thought it was hilarious, but then got caught up in other things so we only just finished season 3. The one-year later ending was pitch perfect. And oh, that kicker cameo was just the chef’s kiss.
Plus, what can you say about a show that uses Liam Neeson to such comedic effect?
Re X-Files. It was always better at the one-offs than the increasingly tedious conspiracy theory plotline. If I go back to rewatch, it’s the one about the psychic with Peter Boyle, or the one about vampires with Luke Wilson.
Manyakitty
@Alison Rose: tis a fact.
laura
@Joy in FL: one of my sil’s is close friends with the author Hugh Howey who lives in Jupiter Fla- he might be your neighbor.
Big Ups for Derry Girls- it’s got it all including a kick ass sound track.
Thanks for the fantastic jump roping Rikyrah- once, long, long ago I could double dutch and the jumping in and jumping out with friends was the best part. Alas, my jump around days are probably in the rear view mirror. Anybody else jump the bamboo poles?
Steeplejack
@JaySinWA:
Thanks. Good to know. Some of these little-known peripherals companies have a fly-by-night vibe about them.
eclare
@Steeplejack:
I will have to put that on the list. Currently watching the fresh season of Queer Eye. All the episodes make me cry.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, BB pulled off a great finale.
I was surprised to see something positive about Breaking Bad as BJers are almost all “BB is so awful, the character is terrible blablabla”. Whatever. I was a faithful viewer.
I was an on-off SFU viewer and agree with this assessment.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat:
I came at it from a drafting perspective, but art supply stores have always been a favorite of mine for browsing.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
I think you’ve really nailed the problem. The key is that the vast majority of shows were cancelled rather than wrapping up neatly. American TV tended to have very loose continuity, so there just wasn’t the concept of a show ending because the story was told. Consequently, most shows ended either because the network decided they were never going to make it or because their time had passed. Neither one is conducive to a great ending.
Roger Moore
@louc:
The key is that Chris Carter never really planned out the conspiracy theory stuff. He was making it up as he went along, so whenever it looked like you were getting to the bottom of it he just kept digging deeper. There was never going to be any payoff to all that setup, which made it painful to sit through.
dnfree
@Steeplejack: We have two iOttie car phone holders. Mine is the fancier one that has a connection to the car’s “cigarette lighter” port, so the iPhone can be charging while it’s giving directions. Seemed like a great idea. Well, it killed the ability to charge my iPhone 11 by laying it on a flat charger. Now I can only charge my phone with a lightning connection, like my old iPhone 6. We still use the holder but not the charging connector, which defeats the purpose.
dnfree
@Roger Moore: Yes, that’s what I’d like—reinventing cable TV without all the separate monthly charges and all the jockeying around to get from one to another.
Amir Khalid
@louc:
I reckon The X-Files is best thought of as a story about two people, Mulder and Scully, bonding over their extraordinary shared experiences. The show was at its weakest in seasons 8 and 9 when they were not both present.
zhena gogolia
@louc: The Peter Boyle one was incredible.
lowtechcyclist
WSJ: Special Counsel Is Wrapping Up Trump Mar-A-Lago Probe
“WASHINGTON – Special counsel Jack Smith has all but finished obtaining testimony and other evidence in his criminal investigation into whether former President Donald Trump mishandled classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The rest of the WSJ article is behind a paywall, of course, but that’s the header and first paragraph.
Steeplejack
@dnfree:
Bummer! My iOttie is just the holder, of course, although I can and do charge my phone while it’s in it, using my trusty cable and charger gizmo listed above.
JaySinWA
@schrodingers_cat: Others have pointed to hardware KVM implementation, but a software KVM may be sufficient. If you have a strictly WIndows environment Power Tools has just added Windows without Borders or you can get it separately. Here’s an article from last year that covers some alternatives including hardware that may perform better and/or run in Apple, Linux, or mixed environments. pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-control-multiple-computers-with-one-keyboard-and-mouse
schrodingers_cat
@Timill: Thanks
schrodingers_cat
@JaySinWA: I have tried that but I am not super happy with it.
JaySinWA
@schrodingers_cat: Windows without borders specifically or software KVM’s in general? Windows without Borders is one of the low end options according to the article. It doesn’t fit my requirements, my machines are a mix of OS’s and located in different environments.
WiFi may make the software solutions less responsive, especially remote desktop versions. If you end up with a docking station with ethernet support or simply an ethernet adapter might improve that. I have used remote desktop options and they definitely work better over ethernet than over WiFi with the same device.
schrodingers_cat
@JaySinWA: I have tried two, Windows w/o borders and another one whose name escapes me at the moment
And used it with wi-fi