Tag: tv-show

The Last of Us — Season Two

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I’ve watched the second season of The Last of Us. I was already very disappointed with the first one, though my wife liked it.

I watched this season with great difficulty. But by the end even Tanya said she doesn’t want to watch the next one.

My complaints are fairly straightforward. Bella Ramsey is a good actress, but she’s completely wrong for this role. And appearance isn’t even the main issue here. Although, yes, let’s briefly touch on looks too. I do want adaptations to resemble the characters we know from the games. And even Pedro Pascal, charismatic as he is, still doesn’t quite match my image of Joel. But Bella creates an entirely different perception of the character because she is fundamentally different. Dina in season two also doesn’t look like her in-game counterpart, but at least her personality fits. Anyway, after the first season I had already made peace with the visuals.

My main complaint is that the writers, together with Neil Druckmann, for some reason completely reworked the characters’ personalities and motivations. For the sake of flashy spectacle, they changed both the internal logic of the world and the characters’ actions.

The episode with a zombie army attacking Jackson may look impressive, but it’s illogical (fast zombies in such huge numbers would have wiped everyone out instantly), it doesn’t exist in the game or its logic, and it directly contradicts it — the area around Jackson is constantly cleared precisely to prevent any large horde from forming. Yet somehow they missed an entire army. And narratively, this episode is completely unnecessary, in my view. The game’s motivation works far better without any zombie armies.

From the very first episodes, Ellie is portrayed as a reckless, self-absorbed idiot who doesn’t care about rules and just does whatever she wants. And not only does no one put her in her place — everyone around her turns a blind eye to it (which, honestly, explains how they ended up with a horde right next door). And everything Ellie does afterward only reinforces this impression. She’s not a strong character with an internal code. She’s not someone who has to overcome herself to torture a person and then break down in tears afterward. All of that remained in the game and was effectively buried by the writers. In the series she’s just an extremely unpleasant fool — to the point where at some stage I actually found myself wishing she’d just get shot already and the show would end on that happy note.

All in all, I’m genuinely surprised that the creators are doing such a thorough job of undermining their own work. I won’t be watching any further — especially now that even watching it out of solidarity is no longer required.

TV Series: “The King and the Jester” / “Korol i Shut”

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I don’t think I’ve written long, thoughtful posts about TV series before. But it’s been months now, and I’m still under the impression of this one—so that must be a sign: I need to speak up.

The story of the band Korol i Shut (The King and the Jester) officially begins in 1988 in the city of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) when three classmates—Mikhail “Gorshok” Gorshenev (“Gorshok” in Russian means “pot”), Alexander “Poruchik” Shchigolev (“Poruchik” means “lieutenant”), and Alexander “Balu” Balunov—decided to form a band, initially naming it Kontora (it can be translated as The Office but mostly refers to KGB, I think). However, in 1989, Gorshok met Andrey “Knyaz” Knyazev (“Knyaz” is “Duke”) at a restoration school where they later interned together. They became friends, and Gorshok was deeply impressed by Knyaz’s drawings and lyrics in the style of dark fairy tales. This led to Knyaz joining the band, which a year later adopted its final name, Korol i Shut (The King and the Jester). Knyaz’s depiction of a jester became the band’s iconic emblem, and over the years, the jester in the logo began to resemble Gorshok more and more.

I’m not an expert in music genres, but the band’s work has been described as horror punk, folk punk, and rock. I discovered them around 1998, when their music video Yeli Myaso Muzhiki (Men Were Eating Meat) started airing on various music TV channels. It was a blend of horror, dark humor, and memorable punk rock riffs:

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TV Show “The History of Russian Computer Games”

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Recently, the streaming service Okko released a documentary series titled The History of Russian Computer Games, about how the video game industry developed across the post-Soviet space—starting with the USSR era.

Anton Vert recommended it to me, immediately pointing out a few downsides. But it’s one thing to listen to smart people, and another to watch it yourself and then share your own opinion that nobody asked for.

In 30–40 minute episodes, the series talks about different milestones in the industry’s formation—first in the USSR, and then across the entire territory of this former Soviet empire. At least, that’s how the series is sometimes positioned (I’ll come back to this in more detail later).

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Viking Song: My mother told me

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It’s been a long time since I last wrote about good songs. Now it’s time to talk about one that my younger children have come to love — and which we’ve already listened to dozens of times.

The song was made very popular by the TV series Vikings, although in fact it is more than a thousand years old. In English it is known by its opening words, “My mother told me”, while in Old Norse (Common Scandinavian) it sounded as “Þat mælti mín móðir.”

In the series, the song is performed by two brothers who, upon hearing each other’s voices, realize that both are still alive after the battle. But, as I said, after the series the song began to be heard in many places; it was even added to various videos on Viking themes (for example, over the trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla video game). In many versions, performers limit themselves to just about a single verse, which is repeated several times:

My mother told me

Someday I would buy

Galleys with good oars

Sail to distant shores

The song is dated to around the 9th century AD. And in this text, historians say, is reflected the time when the Vikings no longer had enough land of their own and resolved not only to go on distant raids but even began to contemplate settling in other lands — in particular, England and Ireland. On the subject of the full text of the song, there is an interesting article by archaeologist Martine Kaspersen: http://www.scandinavianarchaeology.com/my_mother_told_me/.

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MyShows: How to Keep Track of TV Shows (and Movies)

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There was a time when I didn’t watch any TV shows at all, because I had a strong impression that all series were basically soap operas. (Too many of them were being shown on TV during the final years of the USSR—things like Santa Barbara and Simple María.) But then someone persistently recommended a space series called Firefly. Eventually, I gave in and watched it. And I was absolutely blown away by how powerful a well-made show could be—both in terms of writing and acting.

That’s where my love for TV shows began—as well as my appreciation for actor Nathan Fillion, who played the lead role in Firefly. He later starred in the excellent series Castle, currently appears in The Rookie, and, in my opinion, would have been the perfect choice to play Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie (though for some reason they cast Tom Holland instead).

For my wife and me, watching good shows has become a favorite way to spend our evenings together. But at some point, keeping track of what we’d seen and when new seasons were coming out started to get tricky. So I went looking for a good tool to help with that. A coworker recommended the service MyShows. I’ve been using it for many years now, and recently the developers added a new feature (still a bit rough around the edges, but promising)—tracking not only TV shows but also movies. So I figured I’d write a bit about this platform.

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MacLeod — Duncan or Connor?

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Yesterday, I ran a little social survey on my Facebook page, and the result was pretty much what I expected. I asked a simple question: “When you hear the surname MacLeod, what first name immediately comes to mind?”

As I thought, the majority of answers were “Duncan.” In fact, some people even asked what other answer I could possibly have expected. And that’s exactly what makes it so interesting.

Connor MacLeod
(illustration from IMDb.com)

Of course, when we talk about MacLeod, we immediately think of the story of the Highlander — the near-immortal warrior who can only die if his head is cut off. The whole bit about transferring power between immortals after such a victory isn’t really important in the context of what I’m saying here.

What is important is this: it turns out that many people don’t realize there were actually two Highlanders! Yes, both were called Highlanders, and both carried the MacLeod name.

It all began with the release of the film Highlander in 1986. According to the story, the MacLeods are a Scottish clan, and in 1518, Connor MacLeod (played by Christopher Lambert) was born. In 1536, Connor was killed in battle — only to resurrect, learning that he was one of the immortals. The film follows his life, his training with the immortal mentor Ramirez (played by Sean Connery), and his constant battles with other immortals, all the way up to the modern day.

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Song: Ludwig Göransson “The Book of Boba Fett”

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Modern TV series have become a separate form of art. And the quality of many of them is no lower — and sometimes even higher — than that of recent films. At the same time, music plays far from the last role. Many series can boast excellent theme songs and soundtracks.

When Disney released The Mandalorian, they managed to win back the trust of Star Wars fans after a few rather questionable films in the cinematic universe. That series also had a compelling main theme. But in the recently released The Book of Boba Fett, I think they took the music even further. The result is a strikingly memorable theme with a Nordic vibe. Over the past few days, it’s become the favorite song of my younger kids. And honestly — mine too. It hits something deep inside, like it triggers some kind of inner vibration.

Ludwig Göransson – The Book of Boba Fett (From “The Book of Boba Fett”/Audio Only)