Tag Archives: Amazon

If We Controlled Your Remote… 8/31/18

Posted on August 31, 2018 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Early this morning, Amazon released the 10-episode first season of the new original series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan (John Krasinski, The Office) is a former Marine, the sole survivor of a helicopter crash that killed 12 of his fellow soldiers. For the past four years, Ryan has spent his days behind a desk, working as a CIA analyst, studying financial markets and transactions in Yemen, looking for suspicious activity. As the series opens, Ryan discovers an unusual pattern of bank transactions, and thinks he has identified the next Bin Laden, a possible terrorist named Suleiman. But when he takes his data to his new boss, he gets a lot of pushback. Ryan got off on the wrong foot when he first met his new boss, James Greer (Wendell Pierce, Suits, Treme, The Wire). Greer also has a chip on his shoulder – he was a former Base Chief who just returned from a forced leave after an incident and now finds himself demoted to Group Chief for a team of analysts. However, it isn’t long before Greer sees some merit in Ryan’s findings, and Ryan suddenly finds himself thrust into the field, ending up in the middle of a dangerous and deadly situation.

I had never seen any of the five Jack Ryan films, nor read any of the books, so I didn’t really know what to expect from the series or the character. However, John Krasinski is fantastic in this role, which is drastically different from his more comedic Jim Halpert on The Office. The pilot takes its time to introduce the characters and set up the premise, but by the end of the episode, it has really hit its action-packed stride, and I am really looking forward to checking out the rest of the season! The series comes from creators Carlton Cuse (Lost, Bates Motel, Colony, The Strain) & Graham Roland (The Returned, Almost Human, Fringe) and has already been picked up for a second season of 10 episodes, so there’s plenty more to come.

Binge-watch the entire first season now on Amazon!

Share
Posted in If We Controlled Your Remote | Tagged , | Comments Off on If We Controlled Your Remote… 8/31/18

If We Controlled Your Remote… 4/13/18

Posted on April 13, 2018 by , and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice #1

Danger Will Robinson! Early this morning, Netflix released the first season of a new reboot of the sci-fi series Lost in Space, which updates and modifies some things from the classic 1965 series. The Robinson family — Marine John Robinson (Toby Stephens, Black Sails), his wife aerospace engineer Maureen (Molly Parker, House of Cards, Deadwood), and their three children, Judy (Taylor Russell, Falling Skies), Penny (Mina Sundwall, Freeheld), and Will (Maxwell Jenkins, Sense8) — is part of the 24th colonist group, which has left Earth in search of a better life on a new planet. They are aboard the Resolute space station, when they are forced to evacuate. Their Jupiter 2 escape ship crash lands on a mysterious planet. Everyone in the family has gone through rigorous training for this mission, and each brings some sort of skill to the table, but are they really prepared for what lies ahead?

Immediately upon their arrival, the Robinsons face one danger after the next, until Will befriends a strange robot with special abilities. Meanwhile, another Jupiter ship also crash lands on the planet. This one containing a roughneck/smuggler named Don West (Ignacio Serricchino, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Bones), and a mysterious woman secretly assuming the stolen identity of Dr. Smith (Parker Posey, Search Party). It is only a matter of time until this ragtag group will eventually come together and must work together in order to survive their new environment. But who can really be trusted? Everyone seems to have secrets they are hiding from one another, including the robot!

As the series opens, viewers are immediately thrust into the thick of the action as the Robinsons struggle to survive their harsh new environment. Through flashbacks, the series slowly reveals the characters’ backstories and pieces together the events that ultimately led up to the Robinsons’ crash onto this unknown planet. Where are they? How did they end up here? Who is “Dr. Smith”? Where did the robot come from? And what happened on the Resolute that caused the crash? The first two episodes of the series have some really tense moments and unexpected twists. I look forward to seeing what other turns of events, mysteries, and adventures await in the rest of the 10-episode first season!
 
Jump with us to see else we think you should watch. Continue reading →

Share
Posted in If We Controlled Your Remote | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on If We Controlled Your Remote… 4/13/18

If We Controlled Your Remote… 2/23/18

Posted on February 23, 2018 by

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Early this morning, Amazon Prime Video released the second half of the first season of The Tick, giving viewers 6 additional fun-filled episodes to enjoy. The Tick is set in “The City,” home to various superheroes and villains that do battle on a daily basis. When Arthur (Griffin Newman, Vinyl) was a young boy, he witnessed his father being crushed by a spaceship that had been brought down by a super-villain named The Terror (Jackie Earle Haley). While the government claimed to have proof that The Terror had been killed, Arthur didn’t believe them and has spent his entire life trying to find proof of this. His mother and paramedic sister, Dot (Valorie Curry, House of Lies, The Following), both thought he had gone crazy, and so Arthur spent some time getting psychiatric help.

[Recapping the first half of the season…] One night, while Arthur is investigating some mob activity, he crosses paths with a giant blue superhero named The Tick (Peter Serafinowicz, People of Earth, Spy). At first Arthur thinks he’s seeing things, but the overly-confident but slightly dim-witted superhero encourages Arthur to embrace his destiny and become his sidekick. Arthur reluctantly dons the bulletproof moth costume that he stole from the mob and continues his mission to prove that The Terror is still alive. During this effort, Arthur joins forces with Overkill (Scott Speiser, The Young and the Restless), a viscous masked vigilante who is also looking for The Terror. The Tick and Overkill couldn’t be more different — while The Tick uses his fists to knock out his victims, Overkill murders the bad guys by tearing them to pieces.

The Egyptian-themed supervillain Ramses IV (Michael Cerveris, Fringe, Gotham) is the head of the city’s criminal underworld. Along with his disgruntled, electrically-charged underling Ms. Lint (Yara Martinez, Jane the Virgin), he is trying to get back the stolen moth costume — it is part of an important, secret weapons system. As the first half of the season comes to a close, Ms. Lint finally learns that The Terror is indeed still alive, and so she kills Ramses in order to take his place as The Terror’s number 2. Meanwhile, The Tick, Overkill, and Arthur figure out the purpose of the moth suit/weapon — it has the ability to kill an alien being, and the intended victim is The City’s Superman-like protector Superian (Brendan Hines, Secrets and Lies, Scorpion). However, Ms. Lint manages to capture Arthur and has him stripped of the costume and shackled to a chair with a hood over his head. In the final moments of the mid-season finale, The Terror removes the hood, revealing himself to Arthur, but first he calls out “Alexa, play ominous music” to set the mood and then turns to Arthur/the camera and yells “Cliffhanger!” (Now that’s a way to end a mid-season!)

This is the third time The Tick has been adapted for television — there was an animated series in 1994 and a live-action show in 2001. While I enjoyed both of these prior versions, this new show is easily my favorite one yet. The series feels like a much better version of NBC’s failed superhero workplace comedy Powerless, with even better production value and more action. The series has a comic-book like feel and can be over-the-top and comical at times, but the characters still feel grounded in reality. There is a wonderful mix of humor, action, mystery, and suspense. Each episode flows effortlessly into the next, which is why yesterday I sat down to watch the pilot and two and a half hours later I was already finished with the first half of the season. I’m really looking forward to seeing where the story goes next and seeing what other fun characters get introduced in the second half of the season.

Check out the full season now on Amazon.

I’ll also be watching/recording Thunderbirds Are Go, Celebrity Big Brother, and The Graham Norton Show.

Share
Posted in If We Controlled Your Remote | Tagged , | Comments Off on If We Controlled Your Remote… 2/23/18

If We Controlled Your Remote… 2/1/18

Posted on February 1, 2018 by , and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Jenny’s Choice

Late tonight (early Friday morning), Amazon is putting up the entire first season of Absentia, starring Stana Katic (Castle). Katic plays FBI Agent Emily Byrne, who disappeared while hunting one of Boston’s most notorious serial killers and was later declared dead. Six years later, she’s found in a cabin in the woods, barely alive, and with no memory of her missing years. In the meantime, her husband has remarried. Not only that, but she finds herself implicated in a new series of murders. Patrick Heusinger (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) plays her husband Nick, another FBI agent who struggles with guilt that he stopped looking for Emily. And now he’s supposed to bring her in for the new murders. Wanting to prove her innocence, Emily goes on the run, but she ends up putting herself and her family in even more danger. The show also stars Cara Theobold (Downton Abbey), Neil Jackson (Sleepy Hollow), Angel Bonanni (False Flag), Richard Brake (Game of Thrones), Ralph Ineson (Game of Thrones), Paul Freeman (The Dogs of War), Bruno Bichir (Narcos), and Patrick McAuley (The Conjuring 2).

This may be too much of a drama for me, but I want to support Stana Katic in her first big project after Castle, especially after the way ABC treated her by firing her at the end of (what turned out to be) the final season. And the fact that Patrick Heusinger is quite good-looking doesn’t hurt! LOL

Check out the entire first season on Amazon late tonight/early Friday morning.

I’ll also be watching/DVRing The Big Bang Theory, Top Chef, Will & Grace, A.P. Bio, Beat Bobby Flay, Chicago Fire, Impractical Jokers, & S.W.A.T..
 
Jump with us to see else we think you should watch. Continue reading →

Share
Posted in If We Controlled Your Remote | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on If We Controlled Your Remote… 2/1/18

If We Controlled Your Remote… 1/12/18

Posted on January 12, 2018 by , and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Early this morning, Amazon Prime released the 10-episode first season of the new anthology series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. The series is a co-production with Channel 4 in the UK, which already aired 6 of the episodes this past fall. Each of the standalone episodes have been adapted from futuristic and sci-fi short stories written by author Philip K. Dick. The episodes have been penned by a mix of American and British writers. Each episode also features an amazing cast of recognizable actors, including Steve Buscemi, Greg Kinnear, Timothy Spall (Harry Potter), Jack Reynor (Sing Street), Mireille Enos (The Catch), Anna Paquin (True Blood), Terrence Howard (Empire), Sam Witwer (Being Human), Rachelle Lefevre (Twilight), Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel), Mel Rodriguez (The Last Man on Earth), David Lyons (Revolution), Maura Tierney (Parenthood), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones), Ruth Bradley (Humans), and many more.

I watched about half of the episodes, a mix of the British and American ones, and couldn’t help but be reminded of Black Mirror. This series often depicts a somewhat bleak portrait of the future, where science and technology have become an even bigger part of our lives, bringing both the good and the bad. While I found the writing to be a bit more compelling on Black Mirror, this series does provide some really interesting topics of conversation, as well as an excellent cast. A couple of the episodes also delve into the world of aliens, which I don’t recall any episode of Black Mirror doing…yet. I really enjoy these kinds of anthology shows. While everyone seems to be binging entire seasons in a single sitting these days, this kind of series lets you enjoy episodes at whatever pace you want, jumping around to whichever stories or cast you find yourself most interested in. I look forward to checking out the rest of the season’s adventures.

Check out the entire first season now on Amazon!

I’ll also be watching/recording Child Support, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Taken, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
 
Jump with us to see else we think you should watch. Continue reading →

Share
Posted in If We Controlled Your Remote | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on If We Controlled Your Remote… 1/12/18