WoT:
I am completely bewildered. I've generally been onboard with the changes from the books so far, but I have no idea what they think they're doing now.
ETA: A quick check of reactions online so far has been show-only people going "That was great, I can't wait for next season!" and book readers going "What the fuck just happened?" so apparently I'm not alone.
The Expanse
It seems that each episode of the current season has a bonus scene in the Extras section. Video, not just stills or after-show discussion.
The Expanse
Yes! Short (2-5 minutes?) scenes can be accessed through X-ray. They seem truly to be bonus extras so far, not anything that'd really furthering the plot, but they're enjoyable. The latest one is Amos and Bobbie, so that's good times.
The Witcher
Rewatching was absolutely the right call for me. I wasn't too confused about the 3 storylines taking place at different times, I actually figured that out fairly early, but what DID confuse me was the rate each storyline was taking place at. Like, I assumed at first that because Show Called Witcher that Geralt's story was more or less continuous and the gap between, for example, episodes 5 & 6 was invisible to me and made for a jarring narrative. But I figured out on the rewatch that while we are getting Ceri's story more or less as a whole, we are just getting the highlights of how Geralt and Yennefer got to the point of everything that happens in the finale. The season is kind of all backstory. which is weird, conceptually, but does work once I realized that was what was happening.
And then Season 2 kind of becomes the Mandalorian. So that's nice. I actually haven't finished the season 2 rewatch - I felt less confused about what happened in it but it turns out that I just tuned out a lot of what was going on with the mages because everything mage related really bored me in season 1, at least on the first watch.
I've also started reading the books and I'm kind of mad about it because I did not need another multi-volume fantasy series in my life but it actually is pretty good so what the hell. I've read worse for less reason. The reason being, ultimately, that I like the way Henry Cavill says "Hmm", pretty much everything follows from that.
I would like someone to tell me about the video games at some point because I'm not going to play them but I'm curious what they are like.
And, yes, I have had Toss a Coin to Your Witcher stuck in my head for days and days. Occasionally replaced with Burn Butcher Burn (which I do like but it's just not as catchy) and, oddly, Istanbul Not Constantinople but that can happen at any time for no reason at all.
I read an article that said they were originally planning on Geralt being more talkative in the show, but Cavill is able to convey so much in a single syllable (mostly "hmm" or "fuck", if you follow the memes) that they decided making him terse worked better.
That's hilarious. But effective
If you missed the previous discussion -t, Witcher season 1 jumps between multiple time periods and doesn't explicitly tell you it's doing it but rather expects the audience to put it together from dialogue and visual cues. This resulted in a lot of confusion for some people initially.
Ohhhhh. I've watched the first couple of eps and may go back to try again.
Witcher Season 1: Specifically, Ciri's timeline is
the "present."
While Geralt and Yennifer
each start in their respective pasts and hop forward a random amount of time each time we see either of them
until all the timelines sync up at the end of the season.
WoT:
I re-watched episode 8 the other night and I'm a little more comfortable with the changes. Especially since they apparently were plagued with production problems (lost ability to film in a key location, loss of a cast member, and COVID restrictions preventing the use of a lot of extras/stunt performers forcing them to completely change one of the major components of the episode. Still my least-favorite of the season, but I don't hate it.
Overall, I'd probably rank the episodes from best to worst 4,7,3,6,5,2,1,8.
New season of Umbrella Academy in March! I think. I can’t find where I saw that to link, so hopefully it wasn’t a dream. Looks like I picked a pretty good time to jump into this universe.
Incidentally, I think I am caught up on the comics. I was thinking they would give me some idea what to expect from season 3. That was pretty foolish. No regrets, though. Except now I have to wait for the next comics run as well. Anyway, that was how I learned that Diego is the Kraken, I had it in my head that Ben was the Kraken.
I had it in my head that Ben was the Kraken.
It would make sense, right?