TV and movies that have been attempted, not always successfully*

*not counting the ones I noped out of in less than a couple minutes and didn't track my shame

Oh hey, Doctor Who's about to start. May as well post this...

Nadiya's Family Favourites: NADIYA! The best winner of the best series of Bake Off! This is a short series with Nadiya cooking some really great stuff with various educational moments, but it's less useful as a cooking-instruction show without the accompanying cookbook, since Nadiya doesn't always give measurements for some of the stuff she does. But I wrote down the ones I wanted to try, and got the recipes from the cookbook, so hopefully I shall do it. :D

Ocean's 8: Fun and enjoyable, although I did groan a bit and roll my eyes at the Helena Bonham Carter (tm) Red Carpet Dress With Headdress. That was a little much. Also, I felt like it didn't need to bookend with Danny Ocean and stuff; this movie worked perfectly fine on its own and it already had enough call-backs to establish continuity. It didn't need a tux at a grave that the character seems perfectly aware that her brother probably faked his death. Also it bugged me that they Surprise! brought in Yen from the other movies into the heist; the whole point, as stated by Debbie, was not to have a "him" in this. It would have been trivial to have a different person do that role in the heist. They bend so far into trying to tie this movie to the three that came before it that they undermined the entire purpose of the plot. Ugh. But other than them trying too hard to tie it to the Clooney movies (probably to appease a fanbase that would never be appeased), it was very fun and enjoyable!

Great British Bake Off: Before the third episode, I saw a liveblog tumblr post that just said "two in a row!" and I said to myself, "if that's handshakes, I'm never watching this fucking show again" and... well, now I'm four weeks behind watching it and not really feeling the urge to keep going. I was considering watching everything except for the judging, since that's where the handshake inflation of annoyance lurks. We shall see. I might go back and watch, but I'm not feeling any urgency, or any real engagement or desire to do that. The problem with it lately, and the issue with not watching the judging, is that during the process, all they show is chaos, and when it comes to the judging, sometimes I am actually surprised that some people have gotten things done or what things look like. The editing is not my friend and honestly I think it's gone really downhill in terms of what's on camera since BBC, and the overly dramatic tension and music and the handshake inflation... I might just be done with the show. I'll try to bring myself to care, maybe. But we'll see what happens. (I should note that I do not actually know that that blog was referring to handshakes. But from the context of how this show has been going since it left the BBC, that's the most likely candidate, and I'm completely over it.)

Also after I wrote this, I saw that same blog, for a different episode, refer to the drama of the promo for next week. I DON'T WANT DRAMA. That is the opposite of what I want with this show. I want friendship and pretty baked goods. That is all I want.

The Women's Balcony: This is an Israeli horror movie about how the introduction of a new rabbi and existing entrenched misogyny can really mess things up for women. I got something like 20 minutes into it and turned it off. I might go back, but working against it is all the reasons I put off watching it in the first place. I can do without flashbacks to the time the new rabbi saw a situation where the men were davening outside the men's section and in place that obstructed people getting around the shul and, instead of doing what the old rabbi had done and just told the men to knock it off and get back into the men's section and stop being road blocks, instead tried to have the women come into the shul through the back entrance. Which, aside from being a fucking assholic thing to even request, showed he'd given no thought at all to it, since the back entrance wasn't accessible, so I guess screw you if you use a wheelchair or brought a stroller. Men's unthinking actions and decisions, fucking things up for women, because they don't give a fuck. (The decision that women come into the back was pushed back on successfully, but dear god, the fact that it was requested at all. The fact that anyone thought that was a reasonable request. Just tell men to get out of the women's section (since, yes, the part of the shul they were obstructing was technically part of the women's section, if you looked at the layout of the mechitzas. Which the old rabbi had pointed out to them. And told them to get out of it.)

Sometimes, a movie is too much about your life to have any interest in watching it at all. Exhibit A: trembling before god.

Lords & Ladles: A tv show that recreates old recipes/meals inside large estate houses. Tried several episodes at random, all featured animal heads. Realized this was not the show for me.

Richard Ayoade Travel Man: New season! Very stark how the guest, and the interaction between them, makes or breaks this show. The episode with Jessica Knappett was awful, but the one with Eddie Izzard was excellent.

Grace & Frankie: Lasted about 1.5 episodes, ragequit when the asshole husbands cancelled Grace and Frankie's credit cards without telling them, while the wives were getting away from their husbands at the vacation house, literally the day after they told their wives they were gay and, surprise, we're divorcing you. Honestly, everyone on this show's unlikeable, but Martin Sheen is the clear villain of the piece, and I have zero interest in watching this show. Also, bad marriages aren't always triggery for me, but wow, this one... yikes.

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I stopped watching Grace and Frankie because I have an embarrassment squick. But that episode is not representative of the rest of the series. There were no other dickish asshole undercutting moves that I can recall. From there on out, it's mostly about everyone learning and growing and becoming better people and rebuilding relationships in a different configuration. Not saying you should go back and give it a second try (after all, I'm not watching it either!). Just fyi.

I am with you on this season of GBBO.

Yeah, I figured the show did not intend it to be a moral event horizon, with all that entails about characterization, but it did also open with a scene where the husbands, led by Martin Sheen, decdied to drop the "we're gay and we're dumping you for each other" thing in a public restaurant in hopes that the wives would feel socially pressured not to "make a scene". I barely made it beyond that, and two blows in two episodes was A Lot. I didn't find anyone in that show likeable, so I was already lagging, and then that was my nope moment.

I'm so sad about GBBO. It was so good. It's amazing to be able to pinpoint an exact moment where something jumped the shark and have such a clear understanding of what happened. Especially the handshakes: someone clearly told Paul to give them out more. And then boom, three in the first episode of last season. And it just got worse from there. And the production stuff about showing people crying and all that... I don't know how much to believe the stories about Mel and Sue making sure to ruin the footage of people crying before, but after last season and this one, I'm way more inclined to believe it. ;)

I think you're the only other person I've seen that hated Grace & Frankie as much as I did. I totally ragequit after the first episode.

Lords & Ladles is quite heavy on the paddock to table journey of meat and as such really isn't as low-key as I've seen it described. But, did you see that massive twitter thread of "Sorry There Are No More Episodes of Bake-Off and Queer Eye, You're Clearly Going Through Some Stuff, Here Are Some Other Soothing Shows with People Being Nice to Each Other over Low-Stakes Things." Many useful recs in there.

I didn't see a twitter thread directly, but I think that was what I saw screencapped on tumblr, and that's how I found out about Lords & Lordles. I did want to like it, but, yeah. But I've also failed out of Sue Perkins's Supersizers because Awkward. At this point, possibly the only cooking stuff I'm watching is America's Test Kitchen?

I haven't bothered to try Queer Eye. I watched it the first time around, I'm good. ;)

I totally get how from where you stand The Women's Balcony reads as horror, but for me it reads as a really joyful vindication of a dying sort of liberal Orthodoxy, where one needn't be obligated in the most machmir version of every halacha to be seen as faithful.

(and of course, it has mixed dancing!)

Yeah, in theory it's a comedy? It's just difficult for me to look beyond the existential horror of it. I grew up in Young Israel, which suddenly did the thing of No Women Shul Presidents. And even in my "so far at the edge of modern orthodox, it's balancing on it" current shul, I didn't have to justify dancing with the Torah as a woman on our side of the mechitza, I had to justify doing it as a leftie. Because, I was told, the dudes would take any opportunity to try to take the dancing away from us if they decided we were Doing It Wrong. There's a constant push-pull and I'm so tired of being in the middle of it. (My dad actually gave me source sheets for holding it the leftie way, but I've too le tired to bother after that.)

I do still love how in Shtisel, the daughter who the father doesn't talk to didn't go off the derech... she became Lubavich, and they're misnagdim. There's fine gradations to things that you will never ever see explored in American media. And it's great to see them.

TV and movies that have been attempted, not always successfully*

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