What are you watching in (late 2025 and) 2026?

[Mannahnin]

Definitely. I thought he was really good in The Majestic as well. Haven't seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind yet, but after hearing him talk about it in the doco, I want to now.

It's absolutely worth checking out. It's quite a performance.

Yeah, it's a really good movie. He and Winslet are great leads, the supporting cast is stacked, the writing is excellent and Michel Gondry's visual style really ties it together.

 

[payn]

My wife and I tend to recreate something like broadcast tv in our watching methods - watching one episode of a different hour-long show ever night and sometimes supplementing it with a 30 minute comedy if we have time/energy.

So right now we have the following on rotation (or have recently finished):

• Brooklyn 99 (rewatch)
• Stranger Things S5 (1 episode to go)
• Lazarus Project (a real shame this was cancelled but the cliffhanger actually felt like an ending)
• Lost Girls (a docu-series on the Long Island Serial Killer)
• Amazing Race s14 (from 2010)
• A Man on the Inside

After my wife goes to bed I usually watch a show on my own and having just finished 4 seasons of 12 Monkeys I restarted Fallout because I tried watching Season 2’s first episode and felt lost. Oh and I am also watching American Traitors (s4) and will move on to the UK’s most recent season (the uk version is superior, if you ask me) and we are both psyched for Survivor 50 starting at the end of this month.

Oh I really enjoyed 12 Monkeys! There was a lot of timey wimey makey uppy science stuff but eh its time travel fiction.

 

[el-remmen]

Oh I really enjoyed 12 Monkeys! There was a lot of timey wimey makey uppy science stuff but eh its time travel fiction.

I liked it quite a bit in parts (though not as cynical and a departure from the source film - more of an echo than a remake) and I appreciated how at the end the made sure to complete everyone’s “cycles” but. . .

Spoiler: Spoilers for final episode

I think it tried to have its cake and eat it too by having Cole, after having to be wiped from existence to set everything right, be the exception because “time owes him.” It made the least sense of a dozen little things that you had to squint at to accept. just let it have the tragic end, man.

 

[jian]

So, we just finished The Night Manager series 2, which was OK but somewhat disappointing after the original, which isn’t surprising since the original was written by John Le Carre and this follow up isn’t.

It reminds me a bit of Black Doves (and many other series, both British and not) in that it’s quite weak on plot - it’s mostly a series of character scenes that the writer though would be cool strung together with nonsense, though to be fair it does hold up until the end, when the plot is definitively lost. I hope they explain that in the next series.

(I also really hope that someone Colombian was involved in the writing, because otherwise it feels a bit too colonial for my taste.)

 

[jian]

On the other hand, we got Netflix back and so I finished watching Cobra Kai, which was pretty great, no notes. Loved the end of Kreese's arc particularly.

 

[payn]

On the other hand, we got Netflix back and so I finished watching Cobra Kai, which was pretty great, no notes. Loved the end of Kreese's arc particularly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

On the other hand, we got Netflix back and so I finished watching Cobra Kai, which was pretty great, no notes. Loved the end of Kreese's arc particularly.

Cobra Kai was great! Loved it all the way.

 

[jian]

Now watching Steal, which is a beautifully put together series. It’s well written, tightly plotted, and doesn’t treat you like an idiot - it’s like reading a great thriller, you have to stop and look stuff up occasionally (ANPR is automatic number plate recognition, by the way). Unlike The Night Manager or Black Doves, this series makes me proud to be English.

The first episode is a heist from the point of view of the hostages, as an incredibly well informed and organised team raid a pension fund manager in the City of London and convincingly transfer £4bn to a British Virgin Islands account. It’s all succinctly explained - it takes a lot of information and focus to do this, and yes, people on the inside.

A weird aside for me is that I spent the first three episodes thinking that Andrew Koji (who plays Darren, the financial investigator) is Will Sharpe, who’s just a very similar half-Japanese guy who’s been in similar parts. Koji in this part looks very much like Sharpe in A Real Pain. Koji is way more martial-arts, of course (he’s playing Ryu in the upcoming SF film) but not at all for this role.