My friend is deeply into Good Omens and I actually like it, I just have commitment issues. For her birthday I watched Episode 2.
This is a very funny show. I really like Anathema and everyone else. I like her growing alarm at the witch burning only to find out they’re actually just going to have a tire swing because they’re not bad kids, really.
Poor goddamn Crowley and the inevitable transformation of his car cds. I may enjoy Queen, but it’s a by choice thing.
3below:
Dogfight Days of Summer
With General Morando’s invasion of Earth imminent, Krel tries to stop the fleet’s advance with unwitting help from the kids of Arcadia.
In which a Flappy Bird knockoff saves an empire. Although I’m starting to wonder if it’s an empire worth saving, between Varvatos’ backstory and the events in Ill Gotten Gains.
Mother’s Day
Mother, the AI controlling the royals’ ship, reflects on keeping the peace between her quarreling family. Morando discovers a secret hidden on Earth.
Hey wait it turns out that those people they keep swearing for aren’t just flavour. Cool cool cool.
Ill Gotten Gains
Colonel Kubritz stages a phony quarantine of Arcadia High School in a ploy to capture the royals — and their advanced weapons technology.
Kubritz has my favourite voice actor in the whole series, and I like most of ’em pretty good.
Ducktales:
The Secret(s) of Castle McDuck!
On a family trip to Scrooge’s ancestral castle, Dewey tries to hide the truth about his mom as his brothers search for family secrets.
“Brace yourselves. We’re going to have a pleasant family dinner.”
I really like the Ducktales reboot. It’s funny. SomewhatEvilScrooge is my jam. I still cannot tell you which nephew is which even though they now have personalities though. My sister gave me a cheat sheet I’m going to make a post-it note of and put on the monitor. It’s ‘the evil one, the neurotic one, the blue one, and webby’ in my head so far.
Stuff about their mom though. It always kind of bugged me in the old series their parents were total no shows and all I knew about them from the comics is they’d been sent to live with Donald after hospitalizing their father.
Of course, Spider-Man finally addressed the issue of his parents and it turned into a Russian/WW2 spy drama, so sometimes that’s a mixed blessing. No wonder no one liked Peter at school.
Silver Surfer:
Learning Curve: Part 2
The Surfer must decide if obtaining all the knowledge in the universe is worth giving up his humanity and freedom.
Spoiler: It’s not. Although does he actually have humanity? Wouldn’t he have Zenn-Laity? He’s a funny little blob, anyway.
Nebula’s voice actress acted the HELL out of her ‘I am a tough lady’ role.
Innervisions
The planet of Harmony has its inhabitants in a dream state, unaware of reality. The Surfer must awake them before their planet is wiped out by Thanos.
So! Two things. For some reason the Korbinites are called ‘Whynnm’ in this episode and because for some reason my subtitles weren’t oh, I spent a bit of time wondering why Silver Surfer kept talking about having to warn the ‘women’ but then walked right past a female of the species.
Anyway, Thanos has his proper role in this cartoon: Sad statue dweeb.
Spider-Man (90s):
Six Forgotten Warriors Chapter 3: Secrets of the Six
The Six Forgotten Warriors are said to have 6 secret keys to unlock a dangerous weapon that could destroy the world.
Peter’s parents are Russian traitors! This is why no one likes you, Peter!
Six Forgotten Warriors Chapter 4: The Six Fight Again
Five of the Forgotten Six reunite and team up with Spider-Man to stop the Kingpin from activating the Dooms Day Weapon. But during the process of activating it, Captain America and Red Skull are returned.
Ugh fine they weren’t traitors. Also I enjoyed how often this cartoon eschewed the traditional origins of characters for Spider-Man.
Six Forgotten Warriors Chapter 5: The Price of Heroism
Red Skull uses the Dooms Day Device to transport power into his son and transforms him into Electro. As Electro begins to absorb more power, he becomes even too powerful for his father to handle.
That said, I question making Electro Red Skull’s bouncing baby boy. In the ~comics, he’s a electric pole worker (we call them something else where I come from, I don’t know the American name) who got struck with lightning to get his powers. Same origin as my grandpa’s powers, but the Americans wonder why we call him Hydro-Man. Especially considering the next episode.
The Return of Hydro-Man: Part 1
While on their honeymoon, Peter and Mary Jane are interrupted by Morrie Bench. Still obsessed with making Mary Jane his other half, Morrie kidnaps her.
Mary Jane gets arrested for fashion crimes. Or stealing a boat. One of those.
Features a frantic drive of a shitty van from Niagara Falls to New York. I have no idea how far that is and google maps is all effed up from the plague so I’m not gonna bother checking the driving time. It’s even funnier if he was afraid the van was going to die out after an hour’s drive.
“Thank god, tall buildings!” is a classic Spider-Man line though.
Rob Paulsen is the voice of Hydro-Man and when I was a little kid, he was absolutely my favourite voice actor ever. So that was nice.
Transformers (G1):
Megatron’s Master Plan: Part 1
The Decepticons convince the humans that the Autobots are the true enemies, with the help of a greedy candidate for mayor, named Sean Burger.
‘I could be mayor of this city or I could join with evil robots to rule the world’ is a pretty believable villain origin story, honestly.
Meanwhile the Transformers are going to be flung into the sun because they were like ‘welp, humans said we gotta go’
And I think Spike’s dead. I haven’t watched the next episode yet.
Gummi Bears:
Water Way to Go/Close Encounters of the Gummi Kind
“Water Way to Go”: Gusto encounters a mermaid named Aquarianne and wants her to pose for him but Sunni, jealous that he won’t paint her, lies that he plans to capture her. When she leaves, Duke Igthorn captures her so her sea-monster pet will follow her and attack Dunwyn. “Close Encounters of the Gummi Kind”: Gusto’s rolling sculpture of Gruffi to lead away ogres instead attracts not only Igthorn and his ogres but a group of humans who want to see the Gummis for a variety of purposes.
It’s Rob Paulsen again! With my favourite character type, ‘somewhat cooler loner character who only shows up intermittently!’. I loved Gusto. I do think Sunni was suffering a little from the only other boy bear being Cubbi. Are they siblings? I don’t know. Who is/are/was Sunni’s parents???
June Foray, with her signature raspy voice, is Grammi Gummi and *also* a small child in this episode which was frankly excellent.
I never quite understood the connection between this cartoon and delicious treats, but I enjoyed it as an adventure cartoon. Since it was usually split into two parts, even though I would miss half of it running home from school, I usually at least got to see the second episode.
If you look up ‘GI Joe’ on IMDB, you will not find the 1986 series. It is, for some arcane reason, located under ‘Action Force’. Anyway, solved that. So this also came to TubiTV and I watched it, as is my wont, only to discover that I was in the wrong order and had to go to the earlier 1983 miniseries to find out who everyone was. Anyway, here’s what I saw:
The Pyramid of Darkness: Part 1 – The Further Adventures of G.I. Joe
Zartan and Cobra seize the Delta Space Station and destroy G.I. Joe headquarters. Shipwreck and Snake Eyes are lost behind enemy lines while Cobra Commander reveals his plan to deprive the world of electricity.
Spent this quietly confused and wondering exactly how one plot point led to the next. Did enjoy how it took a failed voiceprint match to reveal that the two men wearing COBRA costumes over their regular costumes and two animal friends were not, in fact, COBRA. This is also when I realized I had the wrong series and went back to find the other so I can’t tell you what happens in the next part yet.
The Cobra Strikes
Destro builds the Mass Device, which is capable of teleporting objects and people from one location to another. In order to send its beam anywhere in the world, Cobra steals a powerful relay satellite, and captures Duke during the attack.
These Joes seem like nice boys (and girls). This Duke guy wasn’t in the other episode I saw, hope he’s okay.
Slaves of the Cobra Master
As Duke tries to escape from Cobra Temple, GI Joe constructs its own Mass Device. The two sides race for three rare elements that power the device, with Scarlett leading the Joes to an arctic mine in order to acquire radioactive crystals.
I can’t help thinking that if a teammate has been established to not speak (Snake Eyes) it’s just going to lead to frustration on both parts if you keep yelling at him to confirm he hears you on the walky talky. Or maybe it’s YOUR fault he chose death, Scarlett. You made it a hostile workplace.
Also ended up identifying a character as ‘Tripwire’ by recognizing his voice actor, looking up who that voice actor played, then playing ‘who was that most likely to be based on ‘their deal’ and their nickname’.
Speaking as having grown up on My Little Pony (1980s), you would not believe how little difference there was between it, GI Joe, and Transformers.
OH BOY. Okay so during March oneself discovered that a bunch of Hasbro cartoons had come to TubiTV, including the stuff that had always been too expensive to get on DVD (Transformers, GI Joe) and a bingewatch (or as much as one can) began.
So here’s a bunch of them, quick reactions!
A Plague of Insecticons
The Autobots and Decepticons investigate reports of a new group of Giant Robots in the form of Insects.
The powers of the Insecticons are many, varied, and poorly explained. I do wonder at the moral of the episode ‘they may be enemies now, but their programming as Decepticons means that won’t last for long’ or something to that effect which probably meant something other than ‘the power of friendship always wins for Decepticons’ but I refuse to hear any other explanation.
Autobot Spike
After a vicious battle with the Decepticons, Spike is seriously injured. The Autobots use Sparkplug’s new invention, Autobot X, as a body for Spikes mind until his human body can recover. But the side effects could be disastrous.
In the IDW comics I read like, one on earth (that wasn’t the Thundercracker’s Santa script issue) and for some reason Spike was killing Transformers? And I was like ‘that’s weird’ and then I saw this episode and was like ‘oh he should have killed more’
The Immobilizer
Wheeljack’s new invention, the immobilizer, freezes anything that it’s pointed at. Now Megatron wants it for his own.
Hey, Wheeljack’s invention worked! On him.
Dinobot Island: Part 1
The Dinobots are destroying the Autobot base because there is no room for them to train. Bumblebee and Powerglide find a mysterious prehistoric island and believe it will be the perfect home for the Dinobots.
“Amazing! Dinosaurs! Let’s let the Dinobots just wreck ass on this island”
Also a LOT of Autobots we’ve never seen before get introduced in this episode and in the second one too. They are introduced via the classic ‘this is my name, this is my deal, even though we’ve known eachother before this, presumably’ but none more awkward than Perceptor’s and possibly Blaster’s. I’m not sure if Blaster is just like that.
Dinobot Island: Part 2
When the Decepticons begin to steal the energy from Dinobot Island, time warps begin to appear all over the world releasing more prehistoric civilizations into modern times.
All dinosaurs speak a common tongue of comradery which is how Grimlock got them to charge as one. It’s just science. It’s clearly explained in Land Before Time.
Traitor
The Decepticons steal the Electro Cells from the research center and plan to use them to create energon cubes. When Mirage tries to stop them on his own, Cliffjumper begins to think that Mirage is a Decepticon spy.
Summary:
Cliffjumper: This episode is called traitor and I choose Mirage. I’LL KILL YOU, MIRAGE, I’LL KILL YOU
Mirage: Wh-what?
Optimus Prime: Now now, we can’t kill Mirage without PROOF
Mirage: WHAT IS GOING ON
Later: Cliffjumper attempts to shoot Mirage in the head because he saw Mirage walking somewhere. Cliffjumper claims they’re friends at the end of the episode but I think Mirage should probably keep his door locked at night.
Enter the Nightbird
Dr. Fujiyama has created a ninja robot called Nightbird. When the Decepticons steal her, the Autobots must try to rescue Nightbird without harming her.
I was pretty excited to see this episode because there’s a lot of old gee wun fanfic where this is Megatron’s love interest (who uh, conversely is often killed off quickly as part Starscream proving… he’s better?) and I was always like ‘who is she? What is her deal?’
And her deal is she is a ninja robot who has no actual mind and goes into cold stage at the end of the episode, the end. Fandom can be weird when it wants a woman character to add to a group or, in some cases, be null rayed to death for some damn reason.
Changing Gears
The Decepticons set up a trap for the Autobots and kidnap Gears. Now, with Gears as his slave, Megatron creates a solar needle in order to steal the sun’s energy. But the consequences could be disastrous.
“What did you do to Gears, you monster!? You turned him nice!”
Alternately: I find out who Gears is.
A Prime Problem
Megatron creates an Optimus Prime clone to lure the Autobots into a crevasse of Korlonium Crystals set to explode on contact.
The stupidness of the tests that they came up with to prove who the real Optimus was (trick shooting, racing) is soothed by the fact that even in universe they were completely useless tests. Optimus probably needed a drink after this episode.
Atlantis, Arise!
The Decepticons discover an underwater city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and make friends with it’s people. Now they’re out to destroy the surface world.
I would have spent more time wondering about there being another species + civilization on Earth if I was a human during this episode, but their city got blown up anyway.
Attack of the Autobots
While distracting the Autobots with a surprise attack, Megatron secretly sets a trap inside their base that will force the Autobots to do his bidding.
I’m just going to admit it now: I have no idea who most of these robots are.
Microbots
Megatron recovers the Heart of Cybertron from an ancient spaceship and uses its power on the Autobots. Perceptor suggests using his shrink ray to enter Megatron’s body and steal the Heart.
Megatron just flying off in disgust without even dignifying Optimus with a response after realizing Autobots had been running around in his body was relatable.
Perceptor: *trying to fix a microchip*
Brawn: YOU COWARD! HIDING BEHIND YOUR MACHINES!
Perceptor: kind of busy!
Brawn: WEAK! MACHINE WEAKLING!
Perceptor: this is delicate work!
Brawn: I’LL KICK YOUR ASS! I’LL KICK ANYONE’S ASS
Ironhide: *lying there wondering if he’s going to get his chip fixed*
The Master Builders
Grapple has dreamed of building a solar tower to collect energy from the sun. To achieve this dream, he rashly allies himself with the Constructicons.
Grapple and Hoist are hilarious.
The Insecticon Syndrome
The Insecticons return and attack the nova power plant in order to get enough energy to seize the defense computer at Iron Mountain.
More weird insecticon powers. Triple crosses. Confused Autobots. Spike was there…? It’s all a blur.
Day of the Machines
Megatron reprograms the human built supercomputer TORQ III with his own personality and has it controlling machines of all types by using Remote Control Circuit Linker cards.
Scientist 1: Surely it’s a bad idea to create a computer capable of murdering us all
Scientist 2: Haha that is the only way humanity will evolve, through murderous machines.
Scientist 1: I am not sure about this
Scientist 2: Stop worrying your pretty head. You’ll feel better in the mornin–
Scientist 1: What’s wrong???
Scientist 2: In a twist, the machine is murdering us. Ah well!
Summary: The new U. S. Ambassador to Britain confides to the Beresfords that on the voyage there someone substituted another travel bag for his, a bag that only contained his boots.
Self, you may go back to this blog some years hence (if the code rot hasn’t claimed it yet!) and say ‘strange, there was an unusually long period between updates and then all at once one day!’ and this episode is why. There’s a scene where one of Tuppence’s friends is wearing a lovely suit and calling the others ‘chums’ and all that and despite some eugenics issues (sigh) it’s generally a delightful character moment and you were like ‘oh I NEED to get a screencapture of that’ and you never did and then it was a whole month later?
Anyway, that’s what happened. And you liked this episode. Except for the part where you knew it was a fake out at one part but for some reason the acting made it seem like it was Albert’s scheme to get noticed by his bosses, not someone else’s scheme.
17a: “Portal Jacked!”
17b: “Warren & Hypno, Sitting in a Tree”
It’s nice to watch a show again! It’s been a while.
In which Hetty learns a very valuable lesson about paying attention to what’s going on.
Otherwise, I was denied someone being burnt in a wickerman. The end mystery turned out to make a lot of sense but as I’ve noticed with this series so far, the end result is rarely any sort of clear ‘punishment’.
Also elder abuse is bad. And Robert’s grief was pretty darn well written/acted which was a nice bit to this episode.
Okay so I was going to watch this after I watched the last episodes I posted about here but for some reason when I turned it on I couldn’t… understand a single word anyone was saying. It wasn’t an issue with the computer, I had the same processing issue yesterday with Tommy and Tuppence! What the heck, right? I dunno what’s going on with my auditory processing but I do not care for it at all.
So! I gave The Changeling another shot today and I really liked it. Properly creepy (plus added ‘humans are technically responsible for billions of deaths in space’ meta) and the added fun of Kirk logicking a computer to death. I’ve done that, I think. Or was that ‘downloaded a trojan’? One of those!
It did throw me for a loop – when Uhura started speaking Swahili (her birth language, right?) I thought they were going to go ‘ah! Her memories are returning!’ but… they just told her to keep reading in English? So that wasn’t what I was expecting at all from that scene. Or uh, any idea what happened to her memories.
It ending on a joke after the horrific ending of Charlie X (still think that was a good end) was a mood whiplash/delight. Delightlash?
“My son. The doctor!”
Had a devil of a time with this episode in that I suddenly could not figure out what anyone was saying. I had to turn on subtitles, which really helped.
So anyway, a good mystery! And not just because someone got murdered. I mean, theft mysteries are good too…
I like the mysteries where they seek it out themselves just to, well, do something because that’s rather novel and when Tuppence gets to shine because she is delightful. I sadly do not have any pictures to share of her outfits which included a marvelous purple cloche and her dressed up as Sherlock Holmes for a masquerade ball.
I have to admit some cultural references were lost on me, I’m not sure what a man dressed up in newspaper has to do with Alice in Wonderland but I really should read that book sometime and not just rely on the Disney cartoon.
There’s a lovely bit in here where Tuppence is trying to dig for info about women who cheat on their husbands and Tommy is just happily saying Tuppence is his best friend (as for why she can’t cheat on him with his best friend). Watch her, Tommy. She’s creative.
Also genuinely upset by murder and death in this episode, which is a change from how mysteries usually go where it’s all a sort of delighted ‘oh a puzzle!’. That said, it was sad seeing Tuppence so sad and shaken.
Miri
While I was interesting in seeing Kirk beaten to death by feral children and I liked them learning about what happened via apocalypse logs, the ongoing subplot of Yeoman Rand being jealous over a child and Spock being ‘logically she’s over the age of consent so get over it, Janice’ while Kirk was trying to act normal and Bones was ignoring everyone to inject himself kind of off-putting and WOW that’s a hell of a sentence you’re welcome.
In conclusion, episode had good points and ‘they made it weird’ points and every Star Trek fan I’ve mentioned watching this episode to told me it needed to be burnt to the ground.
Court Martial
Universal excitement from the Star Trek fans about watching this one, I enjoyed how about midway through it turned into Ace Attorney and then in the climatic scenes scenery was ripped from the floor and eaten whole without chewing. I am not wholly sure about the logic about the chess. I like that there’s a kid named after Kirk and her costume was pretty neat.
Charlie X
I was recommended this one as a better ‘weird feral child’ episode and it certainly was in the sense that I didn’t want to scrub myself clean after watching it. Important detail: Apparently 17 year olds serve on the Enterprise and Thanksgiving (I assume Canadian Thanksgiving) is an actual Enterprise holiday.
I did not care for Charlie, finding him to be an increasingly creepy little man and the final conclusion of the episode was very ‘oh. Well then’ that felt like vindication after I noticed the majority of his victims were simply women he happened to walk by.