Altered Carbon Season 2

Summary in three words: It was ok

Reaction: I knew nothing about Altered Carbon when I first watched season 1. I guess it is based on a book, and I may need to read that at some point. The first season was great, and had a very original Sci-Fi story. There was nudity, violence, mystery, and a philosophical/religious element. The second season isn’t bad, it was just more toned down in a lot of ways. All the qualities I described above about the first season seem less present in the second installment. Maybe this is another show Netflix has decided needs to be more family friendly? Season 2 begins shortly after where season 1 ended, and it’s easy to get back into the narrative. I’m a little down on this season just because it felt less exciting. It furthers the overall narrative, and I’m still going to watch the next installment, but it lost a lot of the fun of the first season.

Worth watching? Yes

Favorite Character: Takeshi Kovacs 

Found Interesting: The overall premise of the show remains the most interesting aspect of the series so far.

The Chef Show

Summary in three words: Easy to watch

Reaction:  I enjoyed the 2014 movie Chef. Basically, The Chef Show came about because Jon Favreau enjoyed learning to cook so much for the movie, he decided to continue. Chef Roy Choi co-stars on the show; he also worked on the movie, and I imagine made most of the food. I’m not going to comment on the specific seasons; I just find this to be one of those easy shows to have on that you don’t necessarily need to be paying attention to. It’s basically just friends experimenting and trying to cook different stuff that they want to try. There is so much television that has these long elaborate stories, sometimes you need something more relaxed. While this show is good, it really makes me miss Anthony Bourdain. This show is not very similar to any of his shows, but I never watched anything about cooking until Bourdain.

Worth watching? Yes

Favorite Character: Irrelevant

Found Interesting: The Marvel stuff, and just when he has people on from movies he’s worked on. I also didn’t know the guy from Binging with Babish is from my hometown.

Dracula

Summary in three words: Starts very strong

Reaction:  Dracula is a BBC show that was brought over to Netflix. I decided to give it a try and enjoyed it. Because it is a British show it is only 3 episodes long, but each episode is about an hour and a half. I really like the first episode and thought it might end up being a horror show, but as it continued I thought the vibe changed a bit. My personal feeling was that the show tried to tackle too much in a 3 episode arc, even if they were long episodes. I liked the show as a whole, but thought the episodes got progressively worse.

Worth watching? Yes

Favorite Character: Jonathan Harker

Found Interesting: Dracula’s castle

Has anyone else seen these or something else interesting lately? Let me know what you think!