Monday Media returns-ish

[ironymaiden]

Just finished:
Barbarians (Barbaren) on Netflix. this is a German show in German and classical Latin, where i got the story i wanted out of the first few minutes of Gladiator - those nasty Romans deserve to have their asses kicked in the woods. C says the military history and costuming of the Romans is good, i say the human drama is soapy and fun, six episodes and no filler. CW for suicide, gore, and attempted rape. ends in a (reasonably) happy-for-now place with a solid setup for season 2.

Weekly watches:
Feeling pretty meh about the GBBO final coming up. this season has been edited to create extra "drama" that has resulted in one of the contestants looking like a fuckup that keeps managing to just be not-last, like showcasing every spill on her workstation and her basically calling herself stupid. i know she's been a star baker so that's not the full story. i blame Love Productions/Channel4 for creating a narrative that has resulted in making her a target for abuse on social media.*

After a wobbly start, The Mandalorian has mostly righted the ship.

Tried and failed:
Seis Manos, a "Netflix anime" set in Mexico. it's trying for a pulp 70s kung-fu film meets grindhouse vibe but it just kind of grossed me out and was giving this white girl racist vibes. kudos for subverting a trope - someone looks like they're going to be the series protagonist, but they were just a way to introduce us to the actual leads. i think anyway, we were only able to give it two episodes.

The palate cleanser:
The Repair Shop is delightful - Brits bring in family heirlooms for restoration and a charming specialist in a thatched-roof barn restores them and then we get to see the owners beaming and crying and sharing said heirloom with family members. i'd like slightly more restoration nerdery and slightly less sweet families (really we could keep the families and just make it longer) but it literally helped us be able to sleep well after the disturbing stuff in Seis Manos. the various restoration experts are delightful and it just has them and a narrator, no tv host. excited to have three seasons to get us through the rest of the year.

The tried and true:
tonight i discovered that Key and Peele is on HBO Max. it's so nice to watch without commercials. the Obama jokes are bittersweet these days, but tonight I said, "bitch" had me laughing so hard i had a coughing fit.



* yes, it's the fat one and there's definitely fatphobia involved. but i felt the same way (and still see similar comments from other fans) about Ruby Tandoh back in the day, and she is slim and conventionally attractive.

Comments

[varina8]

This is the first I've heard about Laura getting abused online. That's awful! I was happy to see Paul Hollywood come to her defense. Hermine was lovely but she had a bad bake. It happens.

I'm doling out the episodes of GBBS like rare chocolates. It isn't their best season (I still have mixed feels about Matt, though a UK friend says he's a national treasure) but I'm grateful to have any season at all. I do wonder how much having to be away from family and friends threw people off their game. Also, don't the contestants usually go home for the week, giving them more time between the bakes? It sounded like the 10 bakes took place over six weeks.

Now off to finish the final!

[ironymaiden]

they had practice kitchens set up to use and breaks between contest days, but it certainly was a stressful time. (and i can't believe both Dave and Noel were doing this while their wives were pregnant.)

Matt grew on me. we saw him and Noel seem to cheer up the bakers several times this season; Mel and Sue used to make me annoyed with getting in the way and being distracting and getting their faces and fingers into the food.

they really really pushed the narrative edit of Laura as a fuckup. Hermine definitely did have a worse day, but by that episode i had been expecting Laura to have been eliminated several times. she just managed to be next-to-last enough times to fail all the way up to the final.

i have more thoughts about her treatment in the final, looking forward to what you think of it.

[varina8]

Final done! Peter knocked it out of the park so I was good with their choice. I thought having all of the crew come out for the announcement was a nice touch since none of the families or eliminated competitors could attend.

Matt has grown on me too. I really liked Sandi Toksvig so I guess that made the transition a little slower for me.

For whatever reason, I felt less emotionally engaged with any of the competitors.

And the narrative edits this year felt brasher, more like an American reality show to me (and that isn't a compliment). I didn't get as much sweetness from it. I did like the couple of times we got a hint of the the families being in lockdown too — Hermine and her son after her star baker, Marc with his daughters.

It was funny that you pointed to Ruby in your note. She and Laura both annoyed me a bit for their over the top reactions. I hadn't really thought about the numerous shots of Laura's sloppy work area, as she is one of the least tidy bakers that I've seen on the show. That said, I thought the final shot of her at home with the caption that she was learning to cleanup better was a gratuitous cheap shot and a sour note in an otherwise sweet final montage of the competitors.

The Decider had a a good column that argued the show runners let the audience and Laura down by not taking her out earlier. I really thought she was going out the week Lottie went and that might have been the kinder choice. I can only think that her flavors were amazing.

[ironymaiden]

I felt that Laura in the final was cruel, the way she was filmed was cruel, and indeed the jab about her being cleaner at home was cheap and nasty. I don't remember watching a final where one contestant was so completely outclassed and outright dismissed in the judging discussion. I hope that someone at Channel 4 is reading the criticism about the edit and taking it to heart.

[varina8]

I agree on Channel 4 needing to take the criticism to heart.