For all you fans of The Expanse, I just a press release from Amazon, announcing that the first three episodes of season 5 will release on 12/16/20, and the ten episode season will continue weekly, with the finale debuting on 2/3/21.
I don’t like this new trend of releasing episodes every week. When they did this with season 2 of The Boys, I waited until all the episodes were available before I started watching, but in this case, I am not going to wait until February, so I suppose I’ll watch it every week.
I thought I would hate that kind of release schedule as well, but it keeps me from burning through the entire season in one sitting. Gives me something to chat about with my other friends who like the Expanse.
Yes, you’re right. Before Game of Thrones ruined their legacy with the final season, I did appreciate the sense of anticipation during the weeklong wait for the next episode. And as you say, it did give me something to talk about to friends.
On the other hand, I do enjoy watching 1 or 2 episodes every day, if the show has long multi-episode story arcs, because it’s much easier to see the plots unfold. For instance, my wife and I are doing a re-watch of Deep Space Nine, a couple of episodes each night. Season 1 was a bit patchy, but now we’re in season 2, where they’re kicking off story lines that will last for years, and it’s fun having that continuity without the wait.
You guys are inspiring me to get back on board the Expanse. I loved the first season, lost steam in the second.
My theory is that they do the whole weekly release thing as a cunning plan to stop people bingeing for one weekend and then cancelling their subscription. (I’m kidding).
My wife also gave up after season 1. Just before season 4 aired, I persuaded her that it was worth her while, so we watched (re-watched for me) seasons 1-3 together. I think streaming helped her because some of the plot lines are very complicated and there are 100 characters doing different things, and seeing the episodes back to back helped us to figure out who was doing what. Also, even if a particular episode wasn’t up to par, there was less of a sense of disappointment when we could move straight into the next one.
I know you’re kidding, but I do have friends who sign up for free trials just so they can binge a particular show before the trial period ends, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that is a factor.
Yeah, we’ve had some streaming-service-creep here and likewise dumped Disney+ when the Mandalorian didn’t appeal. We’ve decided to cancel Netflix but may come back in six months’ time if decent new seasons or shows are released.
I’m still stuck in the old ways - we cut the cord a good many years ago precisely to gain more freedom and flexibility but then we found ourselves not using streaming services while still paying for them, which ends up being not all that different to being locked into one of the annual cable contracts of old.
It’s useful to remember that you can come and go with streaming services; they make it easy to log back in and resume subscriptions, after all.
It also sucks that there are so few decent movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime these days. On either of them now it’s basically just every bloody Bond film ever made and a couple of the Mission Impossibles…
That’s certainly been a barrier to returning. I think I might go back and start from the beginning!
I quite liked the Tom Waits tough guy cop dude (Joe Miller, thanks imdb!) as a main character in the first season but found Jim Holden to be annoying. I’ll give him a second chance!
Honestly, I don’t think you have a choice but to start from the beginning again, to avoid being completely lost and frustrated. I enjoyed re-watching it with my wife, and I definitely picked up on some things I’d missed the first time. In fact I may re-watch season 4 before I start 5.
Dark (German time travel show on Netflix) was very similar. It was so complex, I remember watching the first episode of season 2 after a year wait, had no idea what was going on and had to re-watch season 1. It’s a shame that season 3 was a trash fire (in my opinion) because the first 2 seasons were sci fi classics.
Did you like the final season of Dark? It just didn’t work for me. Either the writer ran out of ideas, or he was forced to end it early by Netflix, and that was the best he could do to cram several years of ideas into one final season. Given how inventive the first 2 seasons were, I wonder if it was the latter, especially since Netflix has cutting many of their series after 2 or 3 seasons, which according to their analytics, is all they need to maximize their profit on a show.
I’ve haven’t seen the final season yet. Thank you for the warning. I’ll probably go ahead and watch it, and with lower expectations now, I’ll probably enjoy it more!
Speaking of mysterious European shows, did you see The Returned? It was on Netflix some five or so years ago. It was pretty good. I didn’t get around to the second season, though, and there was an English-language remake, which I avoided altogether. But you might like it. The good thing is that you should get a sense of whether it appeals pretty quickly.
Yes, The Returned (French version) was one of my favorite shows. Like Dark, it’s definitely in the category of “Not exactly sure what’s going on but still enjoyable”.
here the same - waited a few weeks, binged thru it and cancelled
we have all the services plus the obvious pay tv and DAZN subs, though disney won´t get my money
I love Star Wars, but somehow felt like the Mandalorian, while looking so good, is uber dumb and flat.
I felt embarrased watching it. Some might say SW was always a bit flat …
Not sure what I´m missing, but can´t watch Mandalorian further. Maybe it´s the lack of characters similar to Chewbacca or Han Solo.
Especially and I am so sorry to say that… Gina Carano is one of the worst “actors” of all time.
in about 24 hours, we have a teams call - the complete staff and partners, getting in from home.
we “celebrate” this years end / xmas via stream.
Everybody recieved a package, from us, with snacks, drinks and other stuff, like mobile phone tripods … plus a 30 bucks worth code for online food ordering - just working for this evening.
