That's fair, and like for guys like Patrick Stewart who have been doing Shakespeare thier entire lives (Which BTW, he's been doing daily Sonnet readings on his twitter if you haven't seen them. Soothing af), okay, fair enough, but there's like /high schoolers/ doing these shows and I just have to look at them like "What species are you!?"

Although, speaking of languages, have you seen that video from a few years back that the Globe Theater put out about their performances in as-close-as-we-can-possibly-get-to-historically-accurate Shakespearean accents? It's like listening to a completely different show, it's amazing.

I rewatched Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in it's entirety, for the first time since high school last night, and I'm really wishing I had done so sooner, this movie is so entirely my shit, it's just like the perfect cozy movie. I've re-watched bits and pieces here and there, but there are entire sections I had just completely forgotten about. (I'm also WAY more familiar with Hamlet now than I was back then, so I was able to like... get the concept? better than I was back in HS, I guess?)

I don't really think there's anything I can add to the discussion, it's amazing, we all know that, but if it's been a while since you watched it, it's worth the rewatch.

I also got to have the amazing conversation with myself about trying to figure out who played Hamlet for like 80% of the movie, cause he looks almost /exactly/ like Alfie Allen, but Alfie Allen would have been like 3 when this movie was made. And then discovering, right medieval fantasy series, just the wrong actor. Apparently Alfie Allen is a spitting image of a young Iain Glenn in the right light. So TIL.

On the subject of Mary Poppins last night, and well, everything else. This is stunningly well done.

*flashbacks to recording multiple hours worth of LP's without a mic turned on*

*pours 2 shots*

Something to do with embedding it I think. I just copied the link and went directly there and it worked fine.

https://youtu.be/fkDKBNTWIpw

I discovered another rad machining channel.

I find Music Map to be really helpful for this. Just search for a band and it gives you similar bands and then you can click through if you find one you really like and just sort of follow the roads of similarity all over the map. Really fun way to kill an afternoon and find a bunch of new bands.

In this case, start with Celldweller and go from there. https://www.music-map.com/celldweller

(I'll recommend Scandroid though. It's the same artist as Celldweller, he just wanted to have a separate stage name for the Scandroid project. Scandroid, the self titled album, is easily my favorite complete album of synthwave I've ever found. Highly recommend."

SO. FARSCAPE. Let me tell you a little something about the best sci-fi show ever made.

One part Jim Henson company puppets. One part early ought's sci-fi television. A big ol' heaping spoonful of batshit crazy. Equal measures Ben Browder and Claudia Black. Sprinkle in some of the craziest, coolest, and most unique character concepts and storylines. Mix thoroughly, add some hallucinogenics, and hey presto you've got yourself a Farscape.

The short pitch: John Crichton, an astronaut (Ben Browder) is developing new experimental spaceship for NASA when he is unceremoniously swallowed by a wormhole, thrown halfway across the galaxy where he immediately accidentally kills the brother of an insane military captain of a human adjacent species and crash lands into a living ship full of alien prisoners of the militaristic human adjacent species, who are all in the middle of a prison escape. One of which is a living plant, another is basically a toad. And that's basically the first 5 minutes of the pilot.

Farscape has a special place in my heart for a lot of reasons but for the most part it's because it's one of the few sci-fi shows that is able to go to those truly /weird/ bits of sci-fi. Those ideas where you're watching a usual primetime sci-fi show and go "Oh man wouldn't it be awesome if X thing happened. yeah, but they'd never do it."? Farscape is the show that does those ideas. And executes them with an intelligence, humour, and heart, while still making everything feel alien, that almost no sci-fi I've ever seen has managed to pull off. For example, Moya, the living ship.... this beautiful creature:

Is a cool concept, and in most sci-fi shows a living ship would show up, and it'd be a thing for an episode, and everyone would move on with thier lives. But no Farscape makes her a real character in the show, she has emoitions, and feelings, and desires of her own. There are entire episodes, hell, arcs, that revolve around her relationship with different members of the crew. And so not only did they go to the effort of making the living ship a real fleshed out character, they added Pilot, this lovely fellow:

Who was genetically grafted into her to act as a user interface. But he's not just that, he is connected to her, physically, mentally, emotionally, they share the wants and desires, and goals, they are two characters that have been together, quite literally, since they were both children. And that gets /explored/ a /lot/ what other show is gonna have that sort of depth with the environment and an 8 foot tall puppet? And make it work, so damn, well.

There's another one I really want to talk about but I won't because it's major spoilers, and well, I'm not a monster.

I wasn't kidding when I said I consider this the best sci-fi show ever made, it manages to be absolutely batshit insane, and yet heartfelt, and honest to it's characters, and will make you feel things you didn't know you could feel, and then you blink and for a moment remember you're looking at a 6 foot tall hunk of silicone.

It is, for me at least, one of the prime examples of how you put characters, and their stories up front and centre, so even when the universe they're living in and the things happening to them are completely ridiculous, and even when the character is the craziest alien design you've ever seen, it still works, because you care about the character and who they are (god guy or bad guy, they're all fantastic). And because of that, they can get away with the /most/ ridiculous concepts, and it still works because you've bought into these characters and you care about what happens to them.

(THAT SAID. It's still an early ought's sci-fi show so it has it's moments of groan worthy cheese from time to time. Closest I can compare it to is like, season 3 or 4 SG-1 after they got out of their really awkward phase but before everything was super polished. But it get's out of it's awkward phase pretty quick and into the really juicy stuff.)

It's all available on Prime, and if you're anything like me, it'll change your life. Or at the very least how you look at story telling in a syndicated television format. And what more can you ask out of life, really?

(And I'm just gonna leave you with this moment, in case you arn't already sold...

Yeah, there's an episode that's like 40% Looney Toons, and it's /amazing/ and makes PERFECT sense in context.)

This one is bingeable. Kids in The Hall. 5 seasons of a group of Canadian 20-somethings (Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson.) doing the weirdest, wildest, most out-there sketch comedy they could get away with on television in the 80's/early 90's.

Available on CBC Gem: https://gem.cbc.ca/season/kids-in-the-h … 4b1467fea2

and since that's probably gonna be blocked outside Canada, a VPN or other *cough* sources *cough* are available.

Some highlights:

Scott Thompson was openly gay at the time, and a lot of their sketches involved gay characters and themes, and just generally trying to push the limits of what they could get away with, and how many homophobes they could annoy.

And since we're talking about Dave Foley, go watch NewsRadio. Personally speaking, it's one of the best sitcoms ever made.

Dave Foley plays the new news director for a New York news radio station (Hence the name. Do ya get it? Do ya?), as he tries to wrangle the out of control employees and eccentric billionaire owner. (Also stars Stephen Root, in one of my favorite roles of his. And Joe Rogan in his first acting gig, and he's fucking /hilarious/.) Also holds the unfortunate title of being the show Phil Hartman was working on when he was murdered.

Available on CTV's streaming service: https://www.ctv.ca/NewsRadio/Video/S1E1 … 1462213#/1

Or probably elsewhere.

Well as one of the 3 resident Canadians about these parts, I'm not about to let an American posting Letterkenney first slide.

Also Teague:

Out of curiosity, have you ever heard the phrase "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."?

I. Love. This. Theme.