![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBusy, busy days. Some media consumed in the last weeks were:
The Diplomat, Season 3: I was afraid the same would happen as with The West Wing - which series creator Deborah Cahn had also been involved in - , i.e. the reality I live in would make it impossible for me to watch a show in which the people working for the US administration might be fucked up in varying degrees, but all sincerely dedicated to the common good in terms of their motivation, and by implication the US public would not vote a creature like the Orange Menace into office (twice). (Hence my personal impossibility of a WW rewatch right now.) This turned out not to be the case. By and large, I enjoyed the season, though its global dangers not withstanding, I would still rather live in that reality (where the US President might have as VP organized a false flagg operation during which 40 plus people of a friendly nation died, but would not want to change the US into a mixture of ultimate corruption and theocratic autocracy, and the British PM is still a Boris Johnson expo with the thinnest of egos, but at least Nigel Farage doesn't exist. (BTW: it's not clear where The Diplomat's timeline departs from ours; resident Rayburn was clearly a Joe Biden avatar when the show started and there is some occasional talk about restoring the US image abroad, but they never say from what, and whether the Orange Menace's first assault on democracy happened or whether something else did.) Seaosn 3 deals with the fallout from season 2's cliffhanger ending, throws in some new twists (and characters), andwhile wrapping up its seasonal storyline again throws in a tag scene with a big new reveal/hook, while playing to its two strengths, i.e. bringing its central character into a series of convoluted political situations in which she has to extricate not just herself but others (including the US and GB), and her screwed up but intense relationship with her husband. I don't know how I expected the fallout from Grace Penn becoming President through Rayburn's lethal heart attack to go, but not in the way it happened, which impressed me not least because it demonstrated in a show, not tell manner what is claimed right at the start of the show, that the job Kate did for decades before becoming Ambassador, the behind-the-scene problem solver for the person in the spotlight, is what she excells at. In early s1 this was used to explain her original difficulties in adjusting to being the person in the spotlight, at the start of s3, though, it's uised to explain how by continuing to deliver a series of solutions for Grace Penn, from the minor to the major, the new President goes from hostile to impressed. (Leaving aside she knows that the Wylers know about her big secret, which however they can't use without seriously damaging the US now she's President.) That this ends up with Penn making Hal, not Kate her own VP again was both unexpected and extremely logical (not just because the premise of the show lies in the title, which means Kate can't become VP or for that matter President), while at the same time offering a new role for Hal to play his mixture of competency and fucked upness in. Kate and he agree to inofficially separate and get divorced once his tenure in office is over while officially remaining married, but the physical distance doesn't stop them from not just maintaining but escalating their arguing with each other/ coming through for each other in emergencies (and when aren't those?) high wire act. I thought s2 had already made it clear Kate/Dennison won't happen but this season threw in another nail in the coffin by giving them an almost sexual encounter during which he withdraws at the last second and leaves, and then giving Kate (rather abruptly) a new love interest in the person of hot Callum (involved with this season's storyline), with the show not bothering with the getting to know you part, but making a time jump between episodes so that when he's introduced he's already the boyfriend. He does serve storytelling purposes other than letting Kate have sex with someone not Hal, though; both with the political problem from the second half of the sason and by showcasing that Kate subconsciously attempts to recreate the dynamic she has with Hal which she's horrified by when realising it. If I have one complaint, then it's that Stuart and Eidra in this season by comparison were rather static characters serving a Greek Choir function. An important one, don't get me wrong: Stuart - when hearing the lie that it was the late President Rayburn who pushed Roylin to plot the false flagg operation (something Kate has come up with once it was clear the Russians had found out that SOMEONE at the US top had done so and would sooner or later break the story) - reacts with all the shock and horror and self questioning our main characters DON''T anymore, including the important "do I really want to continue to serve in andministration who does things like this" (with the added irony he's not aware he's now literally serving the President who did it, i.e. Grace Penn, since the late Rayburn whom he now feels cruelly disillusioned by is innocent), thereby highliighting how jaded they've become despite all their good intentions. But it's not really a character forward moving storyline. Let's see, what else: we got another West Wing alumnus, Bradley Whitford, as Grace Penn's husband, being rather un-Josh-like but endearing at least until the seaosn finale, when he starts to get jealous of Hal (who is plotting politically, not romantically, with Penn, which as VP is his job, though he fills it in typcial Hal like fashion). And there's a new Mrs. Dennison, so new that I didn't get a good impression of her character yet. In conclusion, I continue to like this entertaining AU. I hope it gets another season, though if it doesn't, this finale despite its last moment reveal would also work as a finale.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps : Which I missed in the cinema but which is now on Disney +. Personal state of knowledge: I saw none of the earlier Fantastic Four movies, to which this one isn't connected anyway; the comicverse characters I encountered a) in an historical AU version via the comics 1602, and b) in the comicverse Civil War storylilne, which means I hardly saw them at their best. (Unforgotten: Reed Richards fanboying Joe McCarthy.) I'm happy to report these latest MCU versions are a delightful bunch, living in a canonical alternate universe (818) in the 1960s, and keeping in trend with both MCU Spiderman and the latest DCU Superman, we're not going through the origin story again but the movie introduces us to the character(s) when they're already superheroiing, albeit not that long. The cast includes Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Pedro Pasqual as Reed Richards, and Joe Quinn, since Stranger Things a Geek celebrity, as Sue's brother Johnny, with the unknown-to-me Ebon Moss-Bachrach playing Ben Grimm. Something that struck me as very sympathetic is that the movie treats the four as a true ensemble, i.e. Johnny and Ben aren't the sidekicks, and that the central dilemna when it's revealed (i.e. when main antagonist and divine superbeing Galactus says he wants baby Franklin as his successor and will take the baby in lieu of the Earth) neither ignores the fact that while handing over your baby to a horrible fate is monstrous, so would be just accepting a whole lot of other babies (and adults) dying to save your kid instead, nor goes into a dark twist that would clash wsith the movie's overall optimistic tone. (I.e. Torchwood: Children of Earth, this is not. I mean, I love the CoE miniseries, I still stand by my opinion that it's one of the best things RTD ever created. But that one is set in a universe where things like our protagonist handing over babies to save the rest has already happened and is thus ic for both character and narrative universe.) Sue's refusal to see "saving my child" and "saving the planet" as an either/or opition and determination to come up with a "both" solution struck me instead as very Buffy Summes like. Given many a comics movie tends to have rather an overabundance of villains, it felt refreshing that we had just two here, Galactus and the suitably otherworldly Silver Surfer, far more actually present and revealed to be tragic when Johnny finds out about her backstory. (BTW, said backstory also serves as an "what if?" since it shows what would have happened if the FF had given into Galactus' blackmail. Yes, one particular planet gets spared, but other worlds get destroyed instead, and I like that this universe isn't one where the heroes say "I only care what happens to me and mine, and to hell with everyone else". The set design of the movie - the Sixties as imagined by then futurists - is great, and I am very glad that what I expected to happen from the trailers (i.e. this Earth getting destroyed while the leads escape into the regular 616 verse so they can be around for the next gigantic crossover) does NOT happen and 818 will be around to set movies (and/or tv shows) in some more.
The Diplomat, Season 3: I was afraid the same would happen as with The West Wing - which series creator Deborah Cahn had also been involved in - , i.e. the reality I live in would make it impossible for me to watch a show in which the people working for the US administration might be fucked up in varying degrees, but all sincerely dedicated to the common good in terms of their motivation, and by implication the US public would not vote a creature like the Orange Menace into office (twice). (Hence my personal impossibility of a WW rewatch right now.) This turned out not to be the case. By and large, I enjoyed the season, though its global dangers not withstanding, I would still rather live in that reality (where the US President might have as VP organized a false flagg operation during which 40 plus people of a friendly nation died, but would not want to change the US into a mixture of ultimate corruption and theocratic autocracy, and the British PM is still a Boris Johnson expo with the thinnest of egos, but at least Nigel Farage doesn't exist. (BTW: it's not clear where The Diplomat's timeline departs from ours; resident Rayburn was clearly a Joe Biden avatar when the show started and there is some occasional talk about restoring the US image abroad, but they never say from what, and whether the Orange Menace's first assault on democracy happened or whether something else did.) Seaosn 3 deals with the fallout from season 2's cliffhanger ending, throws in some new twists (and characters), andwhile wrapping up its seasonal storyline again throws in a tag scene with a big new reveal/hook, while playing to its two strengths, i.e. bringing its central character into a series of convoluted political situations in which she has to extricate not just herself but others (including the US and GB), and her screwed up but intense relationship with her husband. I don't know how I expected the fallout from Grace Penn becoming President through Rayburn's lethal heart attack to go, but not in the way it happened, which impressed me not least because it demonstrated in a show, not tell manner what is claimed right at the start of the show, that the job Kate did for decades before becoming Ambassador, the behind-the-scene problem solver for the person in the spotlight, is what she excells at. In early s1 this was used to explain her original difficulties in adjusting to being the person in the spotlight, at the start of s3, though, it's uised to explain how by continuing to deliver a series of solutions for Grace Penn, from the minor to the major, the new President goes from hostile to impressed. (Leaving aside she knows that the Wylers know about her big secret, which however they can't use without seriously damaging the US now she's President.) That this ends up with Penn making Hal, not Kate her own VP again was both unexpected and extremely logical (not just because the premise of the show lies in the title, which means Kate can't become VP or for that matter President), while at the same time offering a new role for Hal to play his mixture of competency and fucked upness in. Kate and he agree to inofficially separate and get divorced once his tenure in office is over while officially remaining married, but the physical distance doesn't stop them from not just maintaining but escalating their arguing with each other/ coming through for each other in emergencies (and when aren't those?) high wire act. I thought s2 had already made it clear Kate/Dennison won't happen but this season threw in another nail in the coffin by giving them an almost sexual encounter during which he withdraws at the last second and leaves, and then giving Kate (rather abruptly) a new love interest in the person of hot Callum (involved with this season's storyline), with the show not bothering with the getting to know you part, but making a time jump between episodes so that when he's introduced he's already the boyfriend. He does serve storytelling purposes other than letting Kate have sex with someone not Hal, though; both with the political problem from the second half of the sason and by showcasing that Kate subconsciously attempts to recreate the dynamic she has with Hal which she's horrified by when realising it. If I have one complaint, then it's that Stuart and Eidra in this season by comparison were rather static characters serving a Greek Choir function. An important one, don't get me wrong: Stuart - when hearing the lie that it was the late President Rayburn who pushed Roylin to plot the false flagg operation (something Kate has come up with once it was clear the Russians had found out that SOMEONE at the US top had done so and would sooner or later break the story) - reacts with all the shock and horror and self questioning our main characters DON''T anymore, including the important "do I really want to continue to serve in andministration who does things like this" (with the added irony he's not aware he's now literally serving the President who did it, i.e. Grace Penn, since the late Rayburn whom he now feels cruelly disillusioned by is innocent), thereby highliighting how jaded they've become despite all their good intentions. But it's not really a character forward moving storyline. Let's see, what else: we got another West Wing alumnus, Bradley Whitford, as Grace Penn's husband, being rather un-Josh-like but endearing at least until the seaosn finale, when he starts to get jealous of Hal (who is plotting politically, not romantically, with Penn, which as VP is his job, though he fills it in typcial Hal like fashion). And there's a new Mrs. Dennison, so new that I didn't get a good impression of her character yet. In conclusion, I continue to like this entertaining AU. I hope it gets another season, though if it doesn't, this finale despite its last moment reveal would also work as a finale.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps : Which I missed in the cinema but which is now on Disney +. Personal state of knowledge: I saw none of the earlier Fantastic Four movies, to which this one isn't connected anyway; the comicverse characters I encountered a) in an historical AU version via the comics 1602, and b) in the comicverse Civil War storylilne, which means I hardly saw them at their best. (Unforgotten: Reed Richards fanboying Joe McCarthy.) I'm happy to report these latest MCU versions are a delightful bunch, living in a canonical alternate universe (818) in the 1960s, and keeping in trend with both MCU Spiderman and the latest DCU Superman, we're not going through the origin story again but the movie introduces us to the character(s) when they're already superheroiing, albeit not that long. The cast includes Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Pedro Pasqual as Reed Richards, and Joe Quinn, since Stranger Things a Geek celebrity, as Sue's brother Johnny, with the unknown-to-me Ebon Moss-Bachrach playing Ben Grimm. Something that struck me as very sympathetic is that the movie treats the four as a true ensemble, i.e. Johnny and Ben aren't the sidekicks, and that the central dilemna when it's revealed (i.e. when main antagonist and divine superbeing Galactus says he wants baby Franklin as his successor and will take the baby in lieu of the Earth) neither ignores the fact that while handing over your baby to a horrible fate is monstrous, so would be just accepting a whole lot of other babies (and adults) dying to save your kid instead, nor goes into a dark twist that would clash wsith the movie's overall optimistic tone. (I.e. Torchwood: Children of Earth, this is not. I mean, I love the CoE miniseries, I still stand by my opinion that it's one of the best things RTD ever created. But that one is set in a universe where things like our protagonist handing over babies to save the rest has already happened and is thus ic for both character and narrative universe.) Sue's refusal to see "saving my child" and "saving the planet" as an either/or opition and determination to come up with a "both" solution struck me instead as very Buffy Summes like. Given many a comics movie tends to have rather an overabundance of villains, it felt refreshing that we had just two here, Galactus and the suitably otherworldly Silver Surfer, far more actually present and revealed to be tragic when Johnny finds out about her backstory. (BTW, said backstory also serves as an "what if?" since it shows what would have happened if the FF had given into Galactus' blackmail. Yes, one particular planet gets spared, but other worlds get destroyed instead, and I like that this universe isn't one where the heroes say "I only care what happens to me and mine, and to hell with everyone else". The set design of the movie - the Sixties as imagined by then futurists - is great, and I am very glad that what I expected to happen from the trailers (i.e. this Earth getting destroyed while the leads escape into the regular 616 verse so they can be around for the next gigantic crossover) does NOT happen and 818 will be around to set movies (and/or tv shows) in some more.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 08:25 am (UTC)He's one of
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 01:58 pm (UTC)He was in the first season of Andor, and also in the first season of Punisher where he was Micro.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 03:24 pm (UTC)I'd pretty much given up on MCU, and only watched FF because of Pedro Pascal, but I really enjoyed it to a degree that it almost makes me want to watch the upcoming Avengers movies just to see more of these characters. I just really liked the family dynamics, and agree that this really felt like a real ensemble.
Since you haven't seen previous movies, it probably wasn't as obvious to you as to those of us who did see them, but having Sue Storm be the de-facto leader of the ensemble, and the most powerful of the four, was such a refreshing change to the early 00's movies that pretty much only used her powers as an excuse to get Jessica Alba naked as often as possible.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 07:14 pm (UTC)Pedro Pascal only needs to get a Star Trek role and then he has visited all the big franchises, hasn't he? And always delivering excellent work.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 04:49 pm (UTC)[I also agree - that I'd rather live in the reality of the Diplomat than my own. And oddly, I don't have any issues with the political satire in the Diplomat, which I thought I would - due to the present on-going political satire from hell that is happening in real time. Honestly, I think the present US Federal Government has kind of ruined US political satire for me for the foreseeable future? )
On FF First Steps - part of the reason it works so well is it skews away from the rest of the MCU (along with all of the previous FF films - which are entirely skippable, some unwatchable) and in an entirely new direction. I agree - that it's nice that they manage to explore the amoral and immoral possibilities, yet find an alternative solution. (Very similar to Buffy in that way - which I've been rewatching, because I find Buffy comforting. Also Angel.) It's a comforting movie and kind of uplifting. And the cast helps, a lot. As does the set design. Plus, it's among the few MCU films that you don't need to watch a television series, previous film, or seen other films to follow. It does have a lot of references to classic comics though - I saw it with a friend who'd read the classic FF comcis, and he was in heaven.
The actor who played Ben Grimm - is famous for his multiple Emmy wins for The Bear. He has among the best character arcs of anyone in television on the Bear. He kind of plays the same role as Ben Grimm, actually. And another difference from the previous films, is that Ben isn't "grim" or portrayed as resentful or bitter at all, and in all of the original films, he was, partly because they skipped the origin story and the whole getting used to the powers and changes, bit.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 12:19 pm (UTC)(This said, definitely agreed on the strangling mood in the final shots of the finale once Kate realizes what really happened with Poseidon and how it had happened.)
FF: "Comforting and kind of uplifting" is a great summary of the vibe this movie gives.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 04:09 pm (UTC)It felt like Hal and Grace were kind of similar, and Todd and Kate kind of were - from Todd's perspective?
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 06:54 pm (UTC)Edited to add: Also thanks for previous recommendation of the Diplomat. Managed to catch the first episode. I now need to see more.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 01:42 am (UTC)We also just finished S3 of Diplomat, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Someone I know referred to it as "the best show about marriage on TV" and, honestly, between the multiple marriages they depict, I'm not sure I disagree. And all of it happening in the midst of various global crises.
Possibly it's because we were watching them concurrently, but some extremely mean part of my brain would love to see a Diplomat/Slow Horses crossover just so Kate could meet Taverner.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 12:11 pm (UTC)I don't know about "best", but it's certainly a brilliant show about marriage in its various guises, that's for sure. One reason why I liked "The Americans" so much was that it was also this.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-10 01:41 am (UTC)Loved The Americans too. It's great to see Keri Russell really getting to sink her teeth into these wonderful roles.