Rewatches

[Cupcake]

I'm rewatching a lot of old scifi and fantasy series via Netflix and Hulu.

Presently I'm halfway through Highlander The Series season 2, and I'm delighting in how terrible it is. I remember when it was one of my favorite programs, and now a lot of it makes me groan and roll my eyes.

A lot of the early season acting is just terrible, the incidental music is highly melodramatic, there are plotholes a mile wide, and do not get me started on the preachy episodes that involve how Duncan MacLeod is the awesome white savior. Amanda and Methos are the cowbell of the show, and I'm really, really glad Tess is dead.

I mean, I have a little more respect for this time around, but she's super shrill and constantly complaining and spends too much time being Duncan's morality pet. I do give her credit for threatening a female immortal with a facial...using her artist's flamethrower thingy. In general, the sexism and racism just make me shake my head so, so much. Oh, how naïve we all were! </bitestongue>

Anybody else doing lots of rewatches? Comparing stuff from "then" to how we view it "now"?

[surreality]

@Cupcake There is a show my family watched when I was a little kid -- early 80s I think -- called 'Tales of the Brass Monkey'. (Gold? I don't remember.)

I recently found it somewhere, and I have never been more horrified by anything, oh my god.

They had a tribe of people native to some island or another literally called 'the mud people' who were clearly white actors in blackface and covered in caked on mud. It was wow holy shit, really?!

V the series pulled this one on us about a decade ago. It is like all the 80s US cultural propaganda so brazenly distilled it's worthy of a thesis paper or twelve.

[Auspice]

I don't rewatch stuff often (I have a really good memory for stuff I've watched and read, so I can get really bored with it), but I've been considering re-watching Malcolm in the Middle because Bryan Cranston and I'm not ready for the emotional roller coaster of re-watching Breaking Bad.

Plus, I need something I can watch while I'm on my exercise bike and MitM would be enjoyable enough.

[SG]

said in Rewatches:

Presently I'm halfway through Highlander The Series season 2, and I'm delighting in how terrible it is. I remember when it was one of my favorite programs, and now a lot of it makes me groan and roll my eyes.

I used to work with a guy who was on the set crew for this show. Adrien Paul apparently hated life because his fan base was all way older than he was. He did get lots of gaunch mailed to him, though.

[Cupcake]

@SG said in Rewatches:

I used to work with a guy who was on the set crew for this show. Adrien Paul apparently hated life because his fan base was all way older than he was. He did get lots of gaunch mailed to him, though.

There were plenty of young, pretty lady fans as I last recalled, but yes, there were also the crazy middle aged hausfrau types who used to buy body pillows. Or would, if they'd ever been made available.

Seriously though, I don't have any sympathy for Adrian Paul. He was a mediocre actor who got to headline a series that was immensely popular with a really awesome concept and got treated like a rockstar whenever he was around fans. Poor baby.

I'm on Unholy Alliance Part 2 and totally forgot that Xavier is actually the lead singer of Fine Young Cannibals! Though seriously, it's all just filler until you get to episodes with Amanda and/or Methos in them.

(I am fully aware of Elizabeth Gracen's cray.)

[SG]

@Cupcake Don't forget Joan Jett!!

[surreality]

I did, for a while, watch Black Sails more or less end to end more than once. Because holy hell is that show amazing.

I used to go through the full run of the X-files (which we had on DVD at the time) when working on projects with my old job, since it was more or less familiar background noise, in much the same way. Same with Millennium, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who ever even liked that show.

I miss certain campy 80s and 90s series, though, that I wish were available on Netflix or Amazon or similar, even knowing they were typically dorky as can be. 'Friday the 13th: The Series' and 'Poltergeist: The Legacy' -- both shows that had absolutely nothing to do with the movie series they namedrop, amusingly enough -- are on that list.

[Coin]

This year alone I have rewatched: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Burn Notice, and am currently maybe one third through the fourth season of Fringe. I don't think I'll rewatch anything else this year since most of the shows are coming back soon. But I think next year might actually be a Stargate SG-1 kinda year...

[Arkandel]

I tried to rewatch Friends since I really loved it when it was out and then on a prior mid-2000s rewatch it held up pretty well... but this time not as much. Although prime Jennifer Aniston, damn, I didn't find myself laughing.

[Coin]

@Arkandel said in Rewatches:

I tried to rewatch Friends since I really loved it when it was out and then on a prior mid-2000s rewatch it held up pretty well... but this time not as much. Although prime Jennifer Aniston, damn, I didn't find myself laughing.

Friends doesn't hold up even a little bit.

[saosmash]

I rewatched Frasier with my dad recently. That was a lot of fun.

[Cupcake]

@saosmash Sometimes it isn't so much what you're watching as who you're watching it with.

[Cupcake]

The later seasons of Highlander are definitely much more enjoyable, though I kind of want to MST3K them as I go. Also, actor spotting can become a drinking game. There's an episode with Jason Isaacs as an Immortal, not to mention (but I will) Anthony Stewart Head.

Though now we're in a generation of people who've never even heard of Highlander, the movie or the series. I'm getting some of the younger folk in the office intrigued by concept.

I think Xena will be next. It will be interesting to see how a 90's feminist show compares to feminist attitudes in the present.

[Coin]

Highlander got better regarding certain social issues, but the later seasons' writing was horrifying.

[Cupcake]

@Coin I think that's because Adrian Paul wanted to focus on his movie career so he was very checked out of the last two seasons in particular. And they were trying to get a feel for a new female immortal to build a spin off around, which is why the final season has so many Immortal-ette of the week ladies.

I was so happy when they decided to go for Amanda, but apparently her co-star was a real dick, the man she was seeing was gaslighting her, and the production was pretty much doomed from the start.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Cupcake
That's sad. I vaguely remember watching The Raven (the Amanda spin-off) and recall kinda sorta liking it in the same way I benignly enjoyed a lot of those syndicated shows in the 90s. I hadn't heard any of the horror stories from its production but I was surprised at the time it didn't last longer.

I'm now remembering Queen of Swords, a random syndicated Zorro knock-off I really enjoyed, but I've yet to come across it streaming.

[Cupcake]

@Three-Eyed-Crow I was literally just thinking of Queen of Swords and wishing I could find it somewhere. And of course, Peter Wingfield bridges shows marvelously.

[Arkandel]

@Cupcake Uhm, what movie career?

[Coin]

@Arkandel said in Rewatches:

@Cupcake Uhm, what movie career?

This is pretty much the reason why he went on to make two Made for TV Highlander movies: Endgame (which was apparently released in theaters, but honestly its production values were somewhere between MFTV and theatrical) and The Source.

Endgame was all right; at least it involved the series version of Connor and it bridged that pretty well; plus it had Donnie Yen, who was only in it for a bit, but he was absolutely fantastic (and continues to be fantastic).

The Source was legitimately just the worst thing to ever come out of the Highlander franchise, including Highlander II, which it VASTLY supercedes in sheer stupidity.

Yes, I am talking about the actual theatrical cut of Highlander II, the one with the aliens. The Source is worse.

By, like, a googolplex. I am using an actual number instead of made up one just so you know how serious I am.

[Cupcake]

@Coin What movies? I don't know what movies you're talking about.