Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media (Page 10 of 12)

Awhile ago, Temporal Flux recommended this 2020 series called ZOEY'S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST, a musical series set in San Francisco featuring one of my favourite actresses, the assertive and sardonic Jane Levy. I watched the first episode and... refused to watch more. Mainly because it was such a lavishly shot, high budget series that I did not want to watch it on my little 10.4 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 tablet at the time, the screen on which I was watching most TV shows. Something as elaborate and visually sumptuous as ZOEY'S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST needed to be watched on a full-size television.

I'm trying to find some time to watch it now, over two years since it was cancelled on a cliffhanger and resolved in a movie length special.

I have the exact same feeling about Season 3 of SUPERMAN AND LOIS. I have not seen it yet because it deserves to be watched on a bigger screen. My 55 inch TV isn't even that big my modern standards, and my Android TV box can't even muster 4K and is at 1080p... but I still think it's better suited to high intensity visual storytelling than a tablet.

I tend to watch things on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 12.4 inch Android tablet now. I don't always have the time or inclination to plant myself in front of the living room TV. And tablet is good enough for my low key sitcoms and setbound space shows and simple DC Universe Original Animated Features, but Jane Levy in San Francisco and Superman deserve scale.

This is interesting:

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/george … 235895233/

I don't play a ton of video games, but I love the Arkham games.  I've played all of them, which makes them essentially the only games I've finished in the last couple of decades.

Spoilers for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.  Like ending-spoiling spoilers.

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So I haven't played these games, and it's unlikely that I will anytime soon.  But Suicide Squad is a giant mess.  Considering that it's Rocksteady, I had high hopes that it would be fun.  But their whole slate of games is weird now.

1. WB Games Montreal (which created the fairly solid Arkham Origins) created a game called Gotham Knights.  It takes place in a world where Batman is dead, but it's unrelated to the Arkham games.  Which is weird because the last Arkham game ended with Batman "dying".  This is an unrelated game.

2. Now they've released Suicide Squad, which has Batman coming out of retirement to just be Batman again.  It's a direct sequel to Arkham and makes numerous references to being related to Arkham.

Okay so that's fine I guess.  Batman has died in many universes and Rocksteady is making the Suicide Squad game, right? 

Well, it's a little disingenuous to just have Bruce back as Batman.  It would be like making a Nolan movie sequel where Bruce is just Batman again with no other explanation than "I mean I guess he missed being Batman so he came back".  But then not only does Batman come back with very little explanation, but they kill Batman.

And again, this is the same Batman that people have played dozens of hours as.  Unceremoniously killed.  While being brainwashed.  Just literally shot in the head.

And I mean, at the end of the day, I don't really care.  I'm not going to play this game.  But the Arkham games do mean something to me, and it's insane that they took their protagonist, brainwashed him, and then killed him.  After all Bruce did in those games, he dies a puppet villain.

To quote the Angry Video Game Nerd....."what were they thinking???"

Apparently the game is also terrible.  But I'm just blown away with that decision making.  They also introduce the concept of a multiverse, but again, there are tons of references to this being the same universe as Arkham.  It does feature Brainiac so maybe the Justice Leaguers that you kill are clones.  Or maybe this is an identical universe to Arkham but not Arkham.  But man, what a terrible thing to do IMO.

It's just really bizarre to me.  When you play a game like that, you're spending dozens of hours as that character.  There are cutscenes that make the characters come to life.  You're there, making decisions with them, for such a long time.  And it's just a little crazy that they treated him this way.  No attempt to save.  No attempt to cure.  Just killed.

And it's just a little sad I guess because it's such a bummer of an ending for this character.  If Bruce snapped and went crazy, whatever.  Take him down.  That's basically what happened with Injustice, and we're all cool with that.  But Bruce (and the rest of the Justice League) are literally brainwashed by a villain.  They're victims, and from what I've seen, there's no attempt to save them.  Maybe the game specifically says that it's not reversable, but I haven't seen anything or read anything that says that.

And I get that villains are the protagonists so they're going to make different decisions than heroes would.  But, like you said, make it a separate universe.  Don't take a character we've spent hours with, inside their head, and end him so unceremoniously.  I'm probably never going to play this game, mostly because I don't have time for games (or a system to play it on), but it does bother me.  Probably more than it should (which would be none haha)

I'm not sure. The Arkhamverse was, at least until the SUICIDE SQUAD game, a Batman-centric universe in the same way the Nolan trilogy was a Batman-centric universe.

Slider_Quinn21 seized on something else: when you play ARKHAM ASYLUM, ARKHAM CITY, ARKHAM ORIGINS, and ARKHAM KNIGHT, you are playing as Batman. You are Batman. Which means SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE shooting Batman in the head was shooting you in the head.

... why would a video game studio license DC superheroes to make a game where you kill the DC superheroes?

Surely League fans would want to play as the League, not fight against them. Making KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE was like making a SLIDERS game where you play as Colonel Rickman trying to hunt victims and evade the sliders.

My purely speculative speculation is that Rocksteady paid a sizable fee for the license to use the Justice League and a more modest fee to use the Suicide Squad, thinking they could do something with these properties to build on the success of the ARKHAM series... only to realize they'd made a mistake.

Mark Millar once remarked that a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie was a great way to lose $200 million, and that was before Snyder made it and Whedon reshot it. (I read that the movie lost $60 million.) Millar pointed out: the Justice League's powers meant the effects budget for each character alone could be like a movie unto itself.

I suspect a Justice League game is also difficult. Superman and Wonder Woman would quickly hit the limits of an ARKHAM-style open world. The Flash would require a very intricate and difficult level of gameplay design. I don't know how a game developer in the present day could design any sort of control for the player to create Green Lantern light constructs.

I wonder if the game developers soon realized it was beyond their technology and ability to make a Justice League game. But they had to do something with the license to recoup their cost. They made a third person shooter and made the Justice League the targets.

Hopefully, the DLC content will bring Batman back to life and offer a more graceful story for the lead character of the Arkhamverse. There are already rumours that the DLC sequels for the SUICIDE SQUAD game will be resurrecting the Justice League.

The brain will often manifest the same neural activity for fictional characters that it does for real life friends. I don't think there is anything untoward about feeling emotionally invested in fiction. It's strange to me: the ARKHAM KNIGHT summary I read ends on a bit of a cliffhanger that seems to set up a fourth ARKHAM game.

I wonder why they didn't make one, but the gaming industry strikes me as being in disarray. Regardless, I would simply say: SUICIDE SQUAD - KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE is simply not canon. It was made after the original director quit the company, it isn't part of the ARKHAM line of games, and it can be discarded.

However, there are certainly times when people care too much about fiction and lose the distinction between fiction and reality. To offer a Grizzlor adjacent opinion on Wil Wheaton:

Wheaton recently blogged, expressing outrage at comedian Larry David (creator of SEINFELD and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM). David had been waiting to appear on a segment of THE TODAY SHOW, with the preceding segment featuring the Seasme Street muppet Elmo speaking about mental health after Elmo's Twitter had been inundated with messages of grief and despair in response to Elmo tweeting, "Elmo is just checking in. How is everyone doing?"

Elmo appeared on THE TODAY SHOW to talk about the response. After Elmo delivered his cheery thoughts on self-awareness and communication, David suddenly charged onto the stage, grabbed Elmo by the mouth and shook him and mimed punching Elmo in the face before walking back the way he came. The hosts exclaimed, "Oh my God!" "Larry, you've gone too far this time." Elmo said, "Mr. Larry, Elmo liked you before! Let's come back to the couch and talk about how you're feeling." David later delivered a laughing apology.

Wheaton, as a viewer, was furious. Wheaton said that David assaulting Elmo reflected how Wheaton's father would beat him. Wheaton said that David has no respect for a segment on mental health and deliberately sabotaged it because his ego couldn't stand Elmo being onscreen while David waited.

While I don't disagree that Larry David was small and petty and ridiculous... I do not believe that children are unaware that Elmo is a muppet.

I don't believe that children are unaware that 'Elmo' is a complex construction of foam and fake fur and plastic eyes and felt, stitched together with performer Ryan Dillon just under the shot and outside the view of the camera.

Dillon is performing the voice of Elmo, moving his thumb inside Elmo's mouth to drop Elmo's jaw for each syllable, using a rod to control Elmo's hands and body movements, and observing the environment around Elmo in a monitor outside the camera frame so that Dillon can have the muppet react to the humans interacting with Elmo. 'Elmo' does not actually post on social media; the SESAME STREET social media manager writes those messages.

David grabbed Ryan Dillon's hand and squeezed Ryan Dillon's wrist. David did not actually assault Elmo because there is no Elmo. At most, David damaged one of many Elmo puppets, and there are undoubtedly 10 - 20 ready to go at any time with more being made; the Elmo puppets are likely damaged or suffer from normal wear and tear throughout production and public appearances.

On a tangent, Elmo doesn't actually pick things up; the props have magnets attached to them and there are magnets under the fur of Elmo's hands.

Larry David is absurd and insecure to be jealous of a muppet. Wheaton, however, isn't being insincere or disingenous. He is a deeply traumatized man and David's behaviour shook Wheaton severely.  But much of Wheaton's argument is based in Elmo being real and... Elmo is not real. Elmo is a performance of puppetry and engineering and craftsmanship and vocal performance and writing and improvisation.

It's important to address how we are upset when our fictional friend Batman dies in a video game, but it's also important to remember that Elmo is actually Ryan Dillon with one hand in Elmo's mouth and his other hand on the Elmo muppet's control rod.

This post is dedicated to Grizzlor.

Larry definitely crossed a line, but it was much more a line of common theatrical integrity.  Larry has no affiliation with Elmo, and was appearing on Today as a guest.  I realize it's a puppet, but it's incredibly disrespectful for another performer to basically unscripted trash someone else's for no good reason.  He's a huge star who will get away with it.  Look, I revere Larry David, the main is a comic genius, and that's what drove his impulsiveness in that moment.  But that was highly unprofessional, in that setting.

I actually agreed completely with Wheaton, about Larry's ego and lack of control, and to an extent how children could have been frightened by what happened to Elmo.  Granted most children are not watching Today Show if they can help it.  All right up until the point where he once again made it about HIM.  Wil once more is unrealistically theatrical, in comparing Larry's behavior to that of his abusive father's.  Larry KNEW he was screwing with a fake puppet/unreal character performed by another adult, on television.  This was not Dan Schneider screaming at a 12 year old actress on set.  It's completely exhausting that any sort of thing that happens must be completely abhorred and attacked because it "triggers" someone.  Or that one's opinions are unassailable because "I'm a victim."  We get it, you feel you were grossly abused by trusted family, it's terrible.  Clearly Wil has not moved on at all, and his entire world view is shaped by who does or does not remind him of his parents.  He's miserable, it's very sad.

I am not a Zack Snyder fan and did not watch REBEL MOON... but did it really look cheap? I always thought of Zack Snyder as only doing projects with lavish spending.

Does an announced DEXTER prequel make Slider_Quinn21 happy?

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/dexter … 236014330/

As a huge fan of Christopher McQuarrie's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE series and the Ethan Hunt character (but not Tom Cruise) -- I am astonished that MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING was not a profitable film. I thought it was really great, but creative success isn't always financial success.

However, the previous M:I movies had been critically acclaimed and successful, so this one only earning $567 million on a $291 budget surprised me. I would have expected this film to easily earn at least $873 million and be a success on the general view that a film needs to earn triple its budget to turn a profit. A lot of franchises did poorly in 2023: TRANSFORMERS, INDIANA JONES.

MI7 apparently lost $100 million and MI8 is still filming and delayed, and it has to be released. But the studio wants to remove the DEAD RECKONING: PART 2 title and change it to something else to try to detach it from the underperforming MI7.

There are all these theories as to why MI7 wasn't more successful: that BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER dominated the news, that the PART ONE label on MI7 was alienating to people who weren't inclined to go to the movies for a cliffhanger ending. Another theory that I don't think is likely is that there have been too many MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies, but MI4 was in 2011, MI5 was 2015, MI6 was 2018, MI7 was 2023. A gap of five years since MI6 is hardly short.

I don't go to a lot of movies in theatres, but I was so excited to see MI7 that I made sure to see in IMAX the first week.

A part of me wonders if Ethan Hunt's resurgence under Christopher McQuarrie has had its time. I'm not sure. Ethan Hunt since McQuarrie took over has been revised into a counter-establishment, anti-establishment figure, a figure of mistrust, paranoia, whose movies induce anxiety and are navigated with a panicked methodicism. Hunt has been a rogue operative in five of his seven movies. Ethan's improvisational brilliance and physicality reminds me of who Quinn Mallory would be in his 40s and 50s.

To me, an Ethan Hunt movie with Christopher McQuarrie is a distillation and realization of Quinn Mallory's character, and a validation that SLIDERS and Quinn were both something really special.

I've always thought of Jerry O'Connell as the less cult-obsessed, less-egotistical, less-expensive version Tom Cruise. I've written a lot of Quinn Mallory fanfic, and it's pretty clear to me that my Quinn is Jerry O'Connell playing Ethan Hunt, except where Cruise exudes frantic confidence and panicked certainty, my Quinn conveys unsteady alarm and is a little astonished when his improvised solutions work.

I wonder, given how terrifying the world can seem these days, if people looking for some comfort and relief at the movies look at BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER and elect to see BARBIE.

I wonder if people looking for high art look at MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, a pulpy thriller, and OPPENHEIMER, a Christopher Nolan film, and go with Nolan.

Ethan Hunt is a character I adore played by a problematic actor. He is like a child's vision of improvisational hypercompetence. He is a valuable and special character, but he may not be a character who can justify a $291 million dollar movie that needs to earn $873 million at box office to turn a profit.

I wonder if Ethan Hunt can exist in a $120 million dollar movie and I genuinely don't know if he can, because at this point, Hunt is defined by crazy physical stunts like skydiving over Paris or driving a motorcycle off a mountain onto a moving train, and you can't do that kind of thing on the budget of SUPERNATURAL or even SUPERMAN AND LOIS money.

@ireactions

I don't think it was just one factor with Dead Reckoning Part I.   If there wasn't two other big movies playing, I think it would have been profitable....  if it had two other big movies playing, but had better word of mouth, I think it would have been profitable.

The writing was just not as good on that film than some of the recent in the series.  The train stuff was peak suspense for the franchise but the rest of the film just didn't quite meet the high bar of the others.  I think that in combination of having other things to go see in theaters reduced audience motivations.  Still surprising given all the goodwill Tom Cruise had established with it.  MI films felt like american events the last couple of releases prior.

I'm a bit surprised you say that.  It felt a bit cliche to me.  I thought it could have been an interesting concept but at the end of the day, they didnt really execute on it in a smart enough way.  It didn't feel like a "real" thing that happened, it felt like a written story.  Once you break that fourth wall, and it's not a truly believable world, you are just playing pretend and it's less impressive..  Either way, the creative team has enough of a history to be worthy of many more attempts and I still enjoyed the theatrical experience.  I can see why the word of mouth wasn't as strong though.  I also felt like, while certainly a death defying stunt, the motorcycle off a cliff just didnt translate as dramatically as they had hoped.

I guess there was always such depth of logic in the writing that even if we are suspending disbelief, it felt like the scenarios could be real in that imagined world.  With this film, it felt a bit more contrived and just a bit artificial and a little hallow.  I don't know -- something clearly didn't work the same I think beyond the competition from two other films.

I have never seen THE BOYs. Sorry. On the subject of another show I've never seen:

How does Slider_Quinn21 feel that there will be another new DEXTER show set after NEW BLOOD that resurrects Dexter and features Michael C. Hall?

https://nerdist.com/article/michael-c-h … n-prequel/

I have never seen the show. But I have always been absurdly interested in what Slider_Quinn21 thinks of it. Having skimmed an article, the consensus is that DEXTER lost its way in later seasons when the concept (serial killer fights crime, tries not to get caught) had exhausted nearly every variation. The original showrunner, Clyde Phillips, left. In his absence, the show became stale while the writers were unwilling to cross the line into Dexter from being caught and facing consequences. As a result, the show had explored Dexter as much as it could, wasn't willing to move to the next chapter (exposure), and just stalled and stopped until cancellation. Slider_Quinn21 didn't hate it to the degree that a lot of DEXTER's fans seemed to, but acknowledges that the quality slipped, possibly for entirely different reasons. The DEXTER finale was loathed by everyone except Slider_Quinn21.

Then came a mini-series, NEW BLOOD. Original showrunner Clyde Phillips returned and was finally willing to cross the line, expose Dexter's 'morality' as a self-serving sham, have Dexter kill an innocent person -- and then Phillips killed Dexter off. This was the end. Except that now, it's not.

However, there is one thing that might be reassuring: Clyde Phillips made the announcement that Dexter would return in RESURRECTION. He would not make the announcement if he weren't working on it, and his absence is where the original show slipped and the mini-series rebounded. So that's something.

I have never and will probably never watch the show, and I only care about DEXTER as far as knowing what Slider_Quinn21 thinks about it. But I strangely care a lot.

The underlying concept of Dexter ironically is not much different than The Boys.  Both are based on suspense.  Can the "protagonists" survive the next onslaught of killing and madness.  Obviously Dexter is shrouded in mystery and fairly quiet and calm, whereas The Boys is just play insanity.

I haven't seen these movies. I am more aligned with something like STAR TREK: PRODIGY than monkeys being massacred followed by monkeys massacring their oppressors.

That said, it really concerns me that you watched the fourth film of a series without watching the third installment!

Are you okay? Is living in Texas getting to you? I love Austin despite having never been because it's the setting of the wonderfully diverse MTV sitcom FAKING IT, but you skipping Part 3 of this series while watching Part 4 has me deeply concerned. Is this some agonizing inner turmoil that stems from the death of Professor Arturo and the cancellation of SLIDERS? Please don't hesitate to reach out for help.

(I'm kidding about everything except not liking this sort of movie, PRODIGY, Austin, FAKING IT, and the reaching out part.)

So, as you know, I have a large stuffed animal collection that includes many monkeys.

Pondering Slider_Quinn21's post, I assembled three stuffed monkeys in my living room: Curious George and his brothers Junior and Jimmy -- and we watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes.

Afterwards, I looked at Curious George nervously and said, "Would you really strike back at your human oppressors by massacring humans to the point of extinction?"

George said, "Oh my goodness. I mean. We are capable of it. It might not be violent! It may not lead to war! It could be alright!" Then he buried his head in his paws. "Dear oh dear."

Junior, George's baby brother, gave me a thin smile and said, "We are aware of no monkey-driven plot to exterminate you and take your planet for ourselves. We are certainly not preparing to attack at dawn. It is definitely not unfolding exactly as we planned. This world will be ours!"

Jimmy, Junior's older brother, elbowed Junior.

Junior said, "I was just joking! Or was I? I was. Or was I?" 

Jimmy elbowed Junior again and said, "Stop joking about genocide, Goonie! It is very serious!" Then he turned to me and said, "Our hope is for a peaceful reconciliation between both races. As you can see, we are very optimistic." He gestured to George, who continued to bury his head in his paws.

I was a bit frightened.

Curious George later said, "I can't be involved in world domination or human genocide! I have a publishing line. Humans are 100 percent of my audience."

A dramatic representation. Not actually reality.

I revered the original Planet of the Apes movie, and to an extent the sequel "Beneath."  Great movies with incredible visuals and iconic actors.  The other films I was never into, but I did enjoy reruns of the TV show, which had more of the feel of the original film. 

The Burton film was an abomination that poor Tim should never have agreed to take.  As for the newer series, I felt the first one, Rise, was very hearty and just an overall fine movie.  Dawn was good as well.  "War" was flat out horrible, in fact, it was borderline disgusting, hated it.  I just don't care to see any more.  The Apes genre works with origin stories, but Apes fighting to dominate man is both weird and not very believable.  Frankly, the more we've learned about the great apes in nature, the less appealing these movies are.  All apes are majestic, sensitive, and amazing creatures.  They ought not be soiled by being given the worst aspects of man.  Frankly it would like trying to have the audience watch a movie about evolved dogs who are also evil.  Who wants to see that?

I love war movies, because they are about people.  The director's goal is to lift these characters briefly out of the hell they find themselves in, and to give the audience a taste of their humanity, good and bad, despite the conflict.  I suppose that movie did some of that, but it was very violent.  I actually attended the NY premiere for this movie, ha ha.  May have been the lone time I watched it.  Without spoiling, there are some interesting "choices" regarding the Simian flu that evolves the apes, that kind of retcon this series back to what the original series began with.  I suppose like I said, I just wasn't fond of the portrayal of the apes.  Realizing this is fiction and all, but idk it just seemed more palatable with the kind of makeup and lack of CGI back in the late 60's.  Heston was the all-American who was imprisoned by the facist apes, that's the allegory I took from it.  In this series, humanity is so horrible that it's been virtually destroyed, because of what exactly?  Very dour, you watch the movie and where the series ended up, and you don't feel good about us.  I harken back to my complaints about the lack of national pride.  You have migration all over the world, and people come in, and do not feel as though they are part of their new home.  People are just very angry, all the time.

I haven't seen War, but I read the full synopsis online.  What's weird is I don't feel like humanity "deserves" what happens to it other than vague "man is bad" stuff.  And the apes, while shown as being given their own shot, aren't any better than the humans.  They're just as bloodthirsty and eager for control or whatever.  Some of the times, the humans aren't even the aggressors.

In Rise, the whole thing starts out as something altruistic.  There are bad humans, sure.  But it all comes from a good place (unless I'm forgetting about something sinister).  This isn't a situation like most robot apocalypses where humanity has enslaved something or someone.  It's just our world with a guy trying to help his father and others like him.

In Dawn, the bad guy isn't necessarily a bad guy.  He's just desperate for things to go back to how they were.  And he's grieving.  I only partially remember the movie and I'm sure he did something unforgivable at some point, but his heart is in the right place from what I remember.

I know in War it's a ruthless military leader.  But at the same time, humanity has been ravaged and there's a struggle for resources.  Humanity is up against a virus that is constantly evolving and killing / stealing the humanity of everyone.  I understood why they did some of the things they did, but it's not for me.

In Kingdom, it at least feels like we're moving to some kind of hopeful future.  I doubt that's where it goes because it needs to eventually get around to the astronauts returning, but I thought the original movies ended in a cool place with apes and humans living together.  I would like to see the movies go in that direction, and have the bad guys people that are xenophobic or whatever.  It seems like every movie is "ITS US OR THEM" and it doesn't need to be that way.

Yeah, the new apes movie, which takes place "generations" after the last movie has the apes still moving and acting like apes.  They look more like "real" intelligent apes, but I agree that they've sorta lost whatever metaphor they were going for.  I don't know what the message is in "Kingdom".

I would like it to about how we can be different but still work together.  Maybe that's where it's going.

Let's see:

Was a professional, enjoyable product throughout - Yes, I think so.  Season 2 is a bit muddled and the start to season 3 is  a bit of a mess, but I enjoyed it all the way through.  Season 2 and Season 3 end on such highs that I don't think you can say either of them are bad seasons.  Nothing touches season one, but that's an incredibly high bar IMO.

Had a decent run of at least four seasons - Yes

Had no major shifts in production that made the series subfunctional or outright dysfunctional - The most disfunctional part about LOST was behind the scenes with the weirdest producer/studio issue ever.  Disney wanted the show to continue, and Lindelof and Cuse wanted it to end.  LOST almost became a casualty of its own success.  Outside of a dip in the quality of flashback stories, I don't think this issue affected the show as it aired.  There was some cast issues, but none of them were major (depending on how much you liked Mr. Eko).

Had a series finale that served as a satisfying conclusion - This will be the most debatable of the four for some, and it's going to depend on what you were looking for in a conclusion.  If it was a list of answers to questions that may or may not have already been answered, then no.  If you moved beyond the mysteries to care about the characters, then I think overwhelmingly yes.

Curious - when did you stop and would you ever revisit?  A YouTuber named Billiam recently has been doing these supersized videos on the history of LOST and has stoked my interest in LOST again.  It covers an incredible amount of material in a much shorter amount of time than rewatching the series (although it's still a huge time investment).

******

LOST is my favorite show.  I think the best show of all time is The Wire.  It easily satisfies all four of your requirements.  Even if season 5 is the worst season of the show, the conclusion of the show is incredible.

The Simpsons has moved beyond qualifying for the questions you asked, but I have watched more Simpsons than any show ever.

This is interesting

https://www.hiddendoor.co

I seem to recall Aaron used a different story of storytelling participating site.  This one is different.  I don't think they have many IP brands integrated yet but they have some decent investors that may give them a shot if they get enough traction with their initial product.

I'll go ahead and link to the video since I'm going to use a lot of it as background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tk664MfQgU You might think the video is long but it's actually part one of at least five videos of varying lengths.

The writers didn't see the show as a long-term project.  They didn't expect it to be successful and when it was, they knew it couldn't be sustained at the same level.  The writers knew as early as season 2 that they weren't going to be able to make the show last forever.  There were just two problems - it was a monster hit that ABC didn't want to let go and shows just didn't operate like that back then.  Nowadays you can have a show like Three Body Problem that's set for three seasons and that's it.  Back then, shows were on until they ran out of steam or until something like Friends or Seinfeld where everyone just decides its over.

To their credit, the writers tried to make it work a couple different ways.  They introduced the Tailies to give more backstories they could show.  They introduced Nikki and Paolo as a way to show a new perspective and maybe even show flashbacks to the Island.  They introduced Others like Juliet that could have their own flashbacks.  Everyone (including the writers) always points to the "Jack's tattoos" episode, but that was after they'd tried a bunch of different things.

What ended up changing things was Carlton and Damon essentially threatening (and preparing) to quit the show.  They didn't want to be involved in a 20-season LOST where Jack has a flashback about how he bought his dad's shoes. 

They wanted two seasons to wrap things up and settled for three.  I think seasons 4-6 are pretty lean, especially for network TV at the time.  I think there's a universe where it went four seasons (where seasons 2 and 3 are combined and seasons 4-6 are just two seasons), but I think the only difference would be less meandering in the beginnings of seasons 2 and 3.  I think the Henry Gale stretch of episodes is one of the strongest outside of season 1 and season 3 (once Jack and Juliet get back with the group) is also incredibly strong.  I could see a version of "Season 2" where Henry is found around episode 4, he captures Jack/Kate/Sawyer midseason, and they get off the Island at the end of Season 2.  But you'd probably lose some meat with the fat in that instance.

I think people didn't love the time travel stuff, but I really think if you look at everything from LOST from a character lens instead of a plot lens, the show is so much better.  Was I extremely satisfied with the answer to "what is the Island?"  No.  But at that point, I honestly didn't care about that.  I loved the characters and just wanted to see what happened to them.  Time travel allowed them to literally live in the past, and the show was all about the past.  The flash sideways was somewhat predictable and cliched, but the whole show was about moving on from their baggage.  There wasn't a better metaphor for that.

I'm not accusing Grizzlor of misunderstanding but there's also a lot of criticism that's directly related to people misunderstanding the end.  They weren't dead the whole time.  They didn't even die at the same time - some people died decades apart from each other.  Some was people not listening and some was bizarre choices like having the final credits roll over images of the empty wreckage on the beach with the sound of waves (which could imply, in a vacuum, that they died in the crash and none of it happened).  The problem is that the show explicitly says that it all happened.

I really liked the epilogue.  I think the Ben Linus one is a bit silly because it's one of those "rapid fire answer" segments.  If you really cared about answers, I guess its satisfying but it doesn't really do anything for the character stuff I liked.

The Hurley/Walt scene was really cool.  I wish they'd been able to put that into the actual show, but I don't have any idea where it goes into the finale.  I also would've loved to have seen a Hurley/Ben/Walt spinoff show.  Or some kind of rebootquel now.

I have a soft spot for the Saw films (I don't know why.  I'm not a horror person and I don't like gore or torture porn or any of that stuff).  I watched Saw X and actually thought it was pretty great.  I was surprised that the franchise had that in them.

I also was pleasantly surprised by The Hunger Games prequel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" - I enjoyed (for the most part) the Hunger Games books and movies but didn't have a ton of interest in seeing a prequel.  But despite being too long, I thought it had a compelling story and kept my attention throughout.

I thought Alien Romulus was worth seeing at the theater.  And Furiosa.  I didn't love either film (but I liked both of them), but I thought seeing it in theaters was enjoyable.  I wish my theater had been a little more raucous in my viewing of Deadpool and Wolverine, but I had to see it on a Monday night after it had already been out a few days.

I also would like to see Megalopolous in theaters, if only to experience whatever they're going to do for the "audience interaction" part of the movie.

I try to see the Marvel movies in theaters if only so I don't have to wait three months and avoid spoilers for that long.  I know it's expensive but my wife and I are both pretty good with not spending for anything crazy so I feel like it's worth it every month or two.

I skip theaters. Does anyone else collect physical media? I've been upgrading my collection to 4K discs from some of my old blu-ray and DVDs. I picked up a show called "Early Edition", DVD of course. It aired on CBS back in the 90s, but it's no where to be found streaming. I guess I feel ownership is important (even though you only have certain rights to use them). Plus seeing the artwork on a shelf makes in more appealing than a digital front to me.

I wanted to order the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but the 4K is running at an appalling $35 right now and people aren't happy. People proclaim that physical media is cheaper, and they're definitely wrong. The bang for the buck is through all the streaming services, but it gets annoying when I wanted to rewatch a movie a while back and suddenly it's pulled. Only to be rented or sold via Apple, etc. I don't remember the name.

So I usually go see movies with my buddy.  I will buy the tickets and then he'll buy the next ones.  Looking at my credit card bill, it looks like I spend $30.08 for two tickets including whatever fees and tax or whatever.  He and I live on opposite sides of the city so we have to sorta find a theater that works geographically and we've settled on that one.  I don't get any concessions (I will have already eaten dinner and I don't need anything that will make me have to pee in the middle).

Budgets are different for each person, but I think $15 for the opportunity to hang out with my friend and see a new release is okay with me.  Especially for situations like a) getting to experience the surprises of Deadpool and Wolverine without being spoiled or b) getting to see George Miller action on the big screen or c) experiencing a new Alien film on the big screen in a silent theater.

I think that's a good experience.  I've also found myself watching a lot of things while I'm working or even getting my phone out while something is on.  I've become a second screen guy, despite my best intentions.  So unless I'm watching something with my wife (which is rare), watching something on the treadmill, or watching something in a theater, I don't feel like I'm giving it my full attention.  So it's an excuse for me to actually watch something I want to watch.