I've been home ill for a few days and binge-watching The Man in the High Castle. Is anyone else watching it? I'm kind of meh on much of it (though it is nice to see Gwen from Angel, and Stephen Root is, as always, a wonder -- oh! And here comes Tate Donovan!), but I am slowly growing to adore the Trade Minister. I feel like I'd be happy to spend many hours just watching him bemusedly observing various objects and silently pondering them.

I watched the 1st season. I haven't started the 2nd yet.

I tried very hard to like Man In The High Castle but I just couldn't get into it.

I was definitely inertia-watching as one does when one is sick, and wouldn't say I'm into it exactly, but I am way into the Trade Minister. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa gives such a lovely, quiet, thoughtful performance, all care-worn and sorrowful and quietly attentive to everyone and everything around him (I must have seen him before, as his film debut was in The Last Emperor, which I know I saw on the big screen but of which I remember almost nothing, but I'm pretty sure I have missed everything else on his resume) and I'm quietly happy every moment he's on screen.

I looked at the Onion AV Club's reaction to it, and most of those folks are the same -- meh on the show as a whole, but they'd all be delighted to sign on for two or three seasons of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa just walking around and looking at things, and every now and then sitting down to read a book.

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa gives such a lovely, quiet, thoughtful performance

Yeah, he's wonderful.

I haven't seen Man in the High Castle, but I'm very familiar with Tagawa's work. Besides movies, he's done a ton of tv, from Baywatch and Magnum PI to Hawaii five-0 and Teen Wolf. Also from Mortal Kombat to The Librarians. Often typecast, he's capable of great subtlety, believeable menace, and artless comedy.

Jessica is me. I also appreciated Tagawa's performance and kept wanting him to become the protagonist.

I have also watched the first season of Man in the High Castle but not yet the second. I'm not sure how I feel about it. As an adaptation of PDK, it's one of the better ones, some of the choices they made were really good.

Black Mirror: I watched the whole thing (or the first season? Not sure which is the accurate statement there) and you are right, Volans, they never quite get as innovative as they seem to think they are. There were a couple that were well done, probably the ones aurelia mentioned although I don't remember the titles or, to be honest, the plots. For the most part, it teetered on the edge of getting interesting without actually getting there, for me.

I already wasn't taking Black Mirror nearly as seriously as it was taking itself, but this Toast column put me over the edge.

Oh that's PERFECT