What are you currently watching?

[Agent Meister]

TV shows, cartoons, anime. It goes here.

[Agent Meister]

I have been watching The Boys Season 3 , For All Mankind season 3 and The Orville Season 3 . They are good shows to watch

[Ultra Magnus]

The Boys, The Orville (because it is more Star Trek than Discovery or Picard), Strange New Worlds (Which is shockingly more Star Trek than The Orville), and the J6 Committee.

[Time Traveller]

Eh... "Customer States" compilations on YT. It is amazing and horrifying to see what people do to their cars, both intentionally and unintentionally. I have no idea why you'd try to fix your suspension by tying it up with ethernet cable and zip ties, or how you punch a hole through your transmission or transaxle casing, but both are way more common than seems reasonable.
It's been kind of fun for Minerva and I to guess what these people have done wrong in the cases where the root cause isn't so obvious, and I think I can now confidently identify which non-oil substance someone has dumped in their oil fill by the nature of the sludge that comes out.




We should probably start a real TV show soon.

[Ultra Magnus]

I caught the new season of The Umbrella Academy over the weekend. It fits the series really well.

I have also been hitting up the youtube channel RetroBlasting with a specific focus on the restoration videos. Watching him literally disassemble every single piece of the GI Joe Defiant and the USS Flagg and rebuild them from the ground up was jaw droppingly impressive. This is especially true with the "don't ever remove these pieces" parts.

[Sideways]

Eh... "Customer States" compilations on YT. It is amazing and horrifying to see what people do to their cars, both intentionally and unintentionally. I have no idea why you'd try to fix your suspension by tying it up with ethernet cable and zip ties, or how you punch a hole through your transmission or transaxle casing, but both are way more common than seems reasonable.
It's been kind of fun for Minerva and I to guess what these people have done wrong in the cases where the root cause isn't so obvious, and I think I can now confidently identify which non-oil substance someone has dumped in their oil fill by the nature of the sludge that comes out.





We should probably start a real TV show soon.

I like to watch Rainman Ray and Customer States What on YouTube

[Ultra Magnus]

There are a few of us that still hang out.

[Time Traveller]

Yup! Some of us old-timers still lurk around these corridors. I try to make sure to catch up on answering user questions from time to time!

[Agent Meister]

My Adventures With Superman

[GC Brad]

I've been on a quest to watch every episode of TV shows (mostly cartoons) that I loved in the '80s, but never saw all of the episodes of -- so basically, every show I loved in the '80s.

Besides that, doing some general catch-up with other series that I never managed to finish. More recent things, or things that maybe I wouldn't have watched when they were running due to having a busy life schedule at the time, or whatever.

I've managed to finish off quite a few series, but now I’m currently sort of bouncing back and forth between Transformers Prime and the original run of Inspector Gadget.

Prime is good so far (I missed the initial run) and it reminds me a lot of Earthspark, which I finished a while ago and enjoyed.

Inspector Gadget holds up surprisingly well. There have been several genuine laughs and ridiculous things that still get a chuckle. There have been a few cultural things that don’t look so great in modern times, but there were far less than I expected, and overall it’s been a lot of fun.

I’m also dipping into Beverly Hills Teens on nights when I can’t sleep. It goes back and forth between being amusing and wretched – some of the classist jokes haven’t aged well, and the whole vibe of conspicuous consumption doesn’t feel as goofy and harmless as it did back then. But then it falls into some general silliness, which is good.

I just finished up Centurions, and that was an interesting watch in the sense that I had a lot of questions about the writing team. It was pretty boring on the whole, with multiple failures in characterization and worldbuilding, but there were also some high points… I’ll be doing a full writeup on it soon.

If anybody’s curious, I’ve done similar full-series writeups for GI Joe:
https://gamecritics.com/brad-gallaway/c ... ars-later/

And I did a major series breakdown for my favorite ‘80s series of all time, Silverhawks:
https://gamecritics.com/brad-gallaway/c ... ars-later/

Cheers!

[Sideways]

I am jumping between a few different things lately.

Right now I am rewatching Star Trek Deep Space 9, and then on occasion I have been watching X-Files on Hulu. I am in the process of ripping my Blu-ray copy of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and then some movies, like Megamind.

I rewatched Beast Machines a few months ago.

[GC Brad]

I just watched DS9 for the first time this year with my son... another goal i have is to watch all of the Star Trek stuff, and DS9 has been a high point, it was a big hit with the whole family.

How did Beast machines sit with you on rewatch? I also watched the whole thing (first time) just this year right after a rewatch of Beast Wars (still great) and it was super weird, but overall I think I liked it.

[Roar]

Primal and season three of Primal on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, and as for me-it's practically the only show the channel has going for it.

If you all like all of CN's programming, that's fine, I'm not knocking your viewing tastes, I'm just surprised that CN still has enough intestinal fortitude to take a chance and win with a mature show like Primal, when Teen Titans Go! takes a considerable amount of their daily airtime.

I won't spoil the ending of Primal's season two, but I was truly surprised to hear that there is going to be a season three.

The show was created by Gennedy Tartakovsky, the same creator behind Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and worked on many other properties such as Batman: The Animated Series.

If you haven't seen it, it revolves around a primitive man named "Spear" (closest I can describe him is Neanderthal-esque?) and a female dinosaur named "Fang". Their stories are parallel in their life experiences and they begin as enemies by nature, but necessity forces them to form a bond of sorts to survive, eventually both of them trusting the other and becoming symbiotic.

This program is not for children to watch any part of, there is a breathtaking amount of violence in just about every episode, bloodshed graphically represented, along with subsequent deaths. It's not preachy by any means, but many moral and social dilemmas are also at the forefront as part of the plot of the show such as enslavement, the sanctity of life or lack of, and others.

The fact that the main characters, and most of the show period has scant to no speaking and can tell an engaging story is what makes it even better.

Although the program does not sugarcoat the rough complexities of life, there are adequate scenarios in which real pathos and genuine affection between the main characters, and for others, are shown.

Season three airs on Cartoon Network Sunday January 11, 2026 at 11:30 EST, and I can't wait to see it!


Also this past holiday season, every airing of The Wizard of Oz, (1939), but not by choice. I don't know why, but Disco (cat) for whatever reason is completely and totally enthralled with only that movie. I mean this animal sits on the bed or couch and watches it from beginning to end without moving an inch, everyone finds it absolutely adorable, so they select the channel the movie is playing on just to watch the cat watch the movie.

[GC Brad]

Ah, I've seen a lot of Primal, maybe 1.5 seasons of it, and then we put it on pause for some reason I can't recall. that is quite a show, pretty shocking in the violence, and I'd say I'm not much of a prude! Haha... Definitely pretty compelling stuff. it made me want to go back and see some of Tartakovsky's other work, I somehow managed to avoid almost all of it by chance, except for the odd episode of Dexter's Lab here and there.

[Sideways]

I just watched DS9 for the first time this year with my son... another goal i have is to watch all of the Star Trek stuff, and DS9 has been a high point, it was a big hit with the whole family.

How did Beast machines sit with you on rewatch? I also watched the whole thing (first time) just this year right after a rewatch of Beast Wars (still great) and it was super weird, but overall I think I liked it.

I did not remember a lot of Beast Machines the first time through, but overall I still enjoyed it.

I've watched TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.

[Time Traveller]

Sounds like a lot of great picks for the winter months! Minerva and I just watched S2 of the Adventure Time spinoff Fionna & Cake. Good fun feel-good show. It adds somewhat to the lore of Finn & Jake's land of Oo, and being only 10 episodes it doesn't get as heavy as some previous AT universe stuff. I'd like to tackle some bigger shows, but we're already a month behind on one of our daily YT channels, and I suspect we'll get behind-er as the year goes on. We've got a busy one in store to be sure.
Primal sounds interesting, but it's something I'd like to approach attentively and I'm not sure I'm ready to undertake something like that at present.

[GC Brad]

Was in the mood for something different last night, decided to look up Blackstar to see if that would fit the bill and I was shocked to see it only has *13* episodes?

That caught me by surprise, for sure... If that's correct, I'm surprised it had a toyline and remains in the hearts and minds of folks after all these years with such a tiny run!

[GC Brad]

Circling back on Blackstar... Man, that first episode was rough.

It's one of those "we don't give you any origin" in the beginning shows, so you jump in and you're not exactly sure what's going on.

The main bad guy seems kind of boring, art design isn't great. The main lady, Mara, is clearly a sorceress or equivalent, but Blackstar's powers are vague and the other guy (His name is Clone, maybe?) didn't do anything at all. Tough to get a feel for them.

Will continue watching, but this show contains a lot of the trademark Filmation 'corny physical comedy' that has always turned me off.... There are a group of pinkish dwarf-type people that always have a grating 'silly' soundtrack playing when they're on screen. Filmation kept it the shenanigans pretty contained to Orko in MOTU which was fine, hoping they don't go overboard with it here.

TBD!!

[Time Traveller]

Blackstar was a weird watch for sure. I don't remember the details at this point, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts as you go along. The Trobbits were super annoying for sure, and IIRC, not usually narratively important.

Also what a toyline to collect... SO many ultra rare items -_-

[GC Brad]

To be honest, I think I'm gonna tap out even though it's only 13 episodes...

Everything about the Trobbits rubs me the wrong way and they sort of showcase the worst tendencies of Filmation, IMO. That cheesy wicky-wicky music, they're boring as characters, they're not nearly as cute/appealing/fun (visually) as I'm sure Lou Scheimer thought they were. His tendencies to add stuff like that is just bleccchhh to me. They're analogous to the scientists in New Adventures of He-Man, and boy, did I hate those guys...

But beside that, there's just no consistency to any of it, and no reason to connect or buy in to the show.

We know nothing about Blackstar apart from what we get in the intro, and there's been zero development of the rest of the cast. No camaraderie or personality on display at all, and there's no buildup of the bad guys, either.

Last night's episode was about a ghost ship stealing fruit and nuts from mer-people, for god's sake. Not saying that premise couldn't work, but we know zero about any of these characters and feel nothing for any of them, it's just an ep of Stuff Happening and then it ends.

I don't wanna come down too hard here since it's clear that Blackstar laid the tracks for He-Man and a few other things, but it seems obvious that Filmation was still sort of figuring things out and trying to come up with a system or formula, and they hadn't sussed it yet with Blackstar.

John Blackstar had to walk (and stumble) so that Prince Adam could run, etc etc.

With all that said, Warlock is cool as hell and IMO the best thing about the entire show, and this show is super ripe for a modern-day reboot. The elements are here, they just need to be handled with modern writing sensibilities... we know so much more about how to craft great shows these days, I'd be first in line if someone took this on and gave it a proper re-imagining.