I’ve noticed that as I progress through the first season of Lion Force Voltron, that the episodes get more exciting. One I just watched had Lotor within the grasp of victory, as the Voltron Force was killed. It took deux ex machina to bring the team back to life, but even still Planet Arus was devastated from Lotor’s attack. Another thing I like about the later episodes is that the robeasts are more and more actual robots.

I've done nothing today but binge on The Great Pottery Throw Down. If you're looking for a competition show where everyone roots for each other, this is it. There is some beautiful art being made. There's drama and excitement...will it come out of the kiln in one piece or has it exploded? Lots of fire! Think The Great British Baking Show but with pottery. Pretty sure this was created because that show moved off the original BBC channel but that's just my theory.

The music used during the show is also really nice. I really recommend this one.

I really enjoyed Amazon's version of The Tick and was quite disappointed when I read it was cancelled. I'm the guy who really enjoys the 2001 live action version. I've watched it a few times and have enjoyed every viewing.

I don't know that you'd be able to get it all in during a free trial - that said, I highly recommend The Man in the High Castle. I'm almost through season 3. It may not hold up as it gets to the end (season 4 which is out), and is mostly tangentially related to the book, but I've enjoyed it so far.

I streamed Firefly last year. Gotta be honest, I was underwhelmed. It's short enough and it had enough likable moments that I would encourage you to scope it out at some point anyway, if only to participate in conversations about it. For those who have seen it and have any interest, here's my ranked list:

1. Ariel
2. Objects in Space
3. Serenity (movie)
4. Our Mrs. Reynolds
5. Out of Gas
6. War Stories
7. Heart of Gold
8. Bushwhacked
9. Trash
10. The Message
11. Safe
12. Serenity (pilot)
13. Jaynestown
14. The Train Job
15. Shindig

Well, month's almost over and my TV watching will soon slow down. So far i've watched almost 3 seasons of NYPD Blue, just over a season of Falcon Crest. NYPD Blue is just such an incredible show, love the writing on it. It has changed some since i got to S7, but still really good.
I've also almost finished (and plan to by the end) Centennial, the mini series from the 70s. A wonderful show, with many great episodes. It is a pretty sad show though, with lots of deaths . Started The Witcher and Stargate SG-1 as well. It's...good so far. Not great but good. Henry Cavill is amazing as Geralt. Also have watched some The Virginian and Wagon Train episodes. Can never get enough of those (there's so many episodes of those shows, i doubt i ever will get through them lol)

Last night I was using Vimeo on my phone to watch a show I got for free at Airventure Oshkosh last year. It’s called Plane Resurrection ​​​​​​, and deals with the restoration of warbirds. I got tired before the episode was over, so closed the app and planned to resume the episode today. Unfortunately, it started over when the episode wouldn’t reload.

I streamed the second season of The Tick this morning. I noticed that they tamed the violence and some of the language from the first season, making me think maybe I wasn't alone in finding those elements a bit off-putting for The Tick. This season's key strengths are the arcs of Dot, Miss Lint, and Superian. One of the most entertaining scenes in the entire series is a riff on the "Can You Read My Mind?" scene in Superman featuring Superian. There are a lot of moving parts in this season, yet it feels smaller somehow than the first. I think maybe that's because there's no Jackie Earle Haley as The Terror. Mind you, I'm glad they didn't try to recreate The Terror, as that would have felt formulaic and uninspired, but I missed his gleefulness. Miss Lint is the more interesting of the two villains, but she doesn't get to be fun in the same over-the-top way. She does, however, get stuck in a costume with a bizarre, over-the-top breastplate that demonstrates why what works on the printed page doesn't always work on the screen. I'm disappointed there wasn't a third season, because it is a fun show and they really seemed to put it all together by the end of this second season.

FYI for anyone interested. The first episode of Picard, “Remembrance,” is streaming for free on Youtube for a few days, if you want a taste. The first episode of The Owl House, "A Lying Witch and a Warden," is still available on Youtube, too.

Well. Here it is, the last day of the Challenge. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. I’ll probably still watch tv next month too.

I think this was my worst run in any challenge as long as I have been participating. I had a fair amount of stuff to get through on the DVR, but just couldn't get into most of it. I'm sure I will scatter it into my plans as time goes on, but I couldn't muster the energy to dive into much of anything this month.

I thought I might get Twin Peaks finished before the month ended but it's looking like that's not going to happen. The Phil Silvers Show and Star Trek have taken over - I just like them far better. I'll finish S2 of Bilko tonight (6 episodes left) and possibly S3 of Star Trek (4 on this one). They'll be a nice cap for a very productive month.

I meant to watch my Fan Collectives this month, but never got around to them. Might watch them next month anyway. I have Alternate Realities, Borg, Captain’s Log, and somewhere, Q.

I finished S3 of Star Trek last night and managed to squeak in those last 4 episodes of The Phil Silvers Show. It was a good month.

Thanks for running things, shadokitty!

Thanks for hosting, shadokitty!

I finished the challenge off last night with episode 4 of The Great Pottery Throw Down which was my unexpected find this month. I also was able to finish off The Librarians which has been on my DVR for a couple years now. So while not my best challenge, I did get some good watches in!

Fell way short of my goal, too much going on. But I did manage to get through a number of unwatched series. Looking forward to next year!

I pulled an all-nighter and squeezed in the first season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan to wrap up this year's challenge. I'm acquainted with that universe, but more secondhand from a friend who's discussed the books with me than from my own exploration. Making Jim Greer Muslim was an interesting update, and I have a hard time guessing whether Clancy himself would have come up with that if he'd started telling his stories today, but I liked the choice. I also appreciated putting Greer and Ryan at odds in the beginning of their relationship. I guess I'm just a sucker for relationships that start off bad but become good as mutual trust and respect are earned.

The story itself feels like low-hanging fruit: Mousa bin Suleiman, an Islamic extremist, plots with biological weapons. Clancy's stories were often of their times and this is that, yet I can't help feeling this story lacked the depth or richness I associate with Clancy. The most humanizing thing about Suleiman is his treatment of his prisoners, but that's nullified when we later learn of his ulterior motive. He's ultimately just a garden variety screen villain with an elaborate scheme. The show does use Suleiman and other characters, including the titular Jack Ryan, to call out the abuses of the American hegemony, but stops short of committing to any actual values.

The best microcosm is in "Sources and Methods", when Jack and Greer hire a human trafficker to help them find Suleiman's fleeing wife, Hanin, and their daughters. Jack unleashes on the trafficker, literally striking a blow for morality, only to have Greer chastise him for his holier-than-thou self-righteousness. "Sex trafficking and murder are bad, but don't be a dick to people who do those things" is a weird message, though it was also my highest ranked of the eight episodes. The series has earned some backlash for its social insensitivity, such as a transphobic joke in "Black 22" and Islamophobic French people in that same episode and "French Connection".

"Black 22" also has a subplot about a U.S. drone operator launching an unauthorized strike to kill one of Suleiman's henchmen to stop him from raping Hanin. He's in big trouble over arbitrarily sending a drone missile to kill someone, right up to the point where someone on the other end of the phone decides to shrug it off. The rest of the drone operator's story is so absurd I can't find a way to summarize it that makes any sense. "Black 22" was my least favorite episode of the season.

Jack Ryan himself is easily recognizable in this incarnation. He's attentive and diligent; willing to follow a hunch; and entirely comfortable speaking up no matter how powerful anyone else is in the room. One thing I always appreciated about Clancy's stories was that he made his characters do the legwork. Jack falls somewhere between George Smiley and James Bond, an action hero sleuth. Jack's most compelling character trait is that he rejects cynicism. I found this iteration of Jack somewhat simplistic and naive at times, but there is something refreshing after twenty years of movies and TV shows pushing us further into shades of gray to having a protagonist for whom right and wrong are too well defined to blur easily.

I wasn't conscious of it until I looked later, but my three favorite episodes were the three not written by series creators Carson Cuse and Graham Roland. I looked ahead and they only wrote three of the second season's eight episodes together, so I'm hopeful it'll be more thoughtful. But if that second season doesn't show enough growth, I may not bother with the upcoming third. My Jack Ryan screen rankings:

1. Patriot Games
2. The Hunt for Red October
3. Clear and Present Danger
4. Jack Ryan Season 1
5. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
6. The Sum of All Fears

Looking Back

I feel like my 2020 TV on DVD* Challenge was more about housecleaning than exploration. I went into 2020 setting quotas for myself to justify my streaming subscriptions, and consequently almost everything I watched came from one of those sources. I even managed to incorporate The Criterion Channel! My only disc viewing was the DVD release of the Twin Peaks revival series, which I checked out from the library. I feel really good about those subscription fees this month!

Amazon Prime Video (30 episodes)
For my Amazon trial, I scoped out The Tick's two seasons and the first season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. I liked both and I'm glad Amazon went to the trouble, but neither emerged as my favorite of their respective franchises. I think maybe Amazon's 8-episode arc structure doesn't work as universally as their algorithm dictates. There were moments when I felt conscious of both being structured to fit that format, and it took me out of the story each time. I know storytelling is calculated, but I shouldn't feel that it's calculated. I'm unlikely to subscribe regularly, but I might indulge a month here or there depending on what else is going on. I could see myself dropping CBS between Star Treks for it.

CBS All Access (32 episodes, 1 short)
The biggest thing for my challenge this year is that I finally watched Twin Peaks, after hearing about it for decades. I'd be lying if I said I was in love with it, but I did enjoy it overall. If nothing else, I can now actually participate in conversations when it comes up. Thanks, BobO'Link, for also giving it a whirl this month so I had a fellow newb to kick it around a little! My favorite DVD Talk challenges are the ones where several of us watch the same thing and go back and forth about it. A big part of my enjoyment of this year's challenge came from chatting about Twin Peaks and Dallas. (I didn't watch Dallas this month, but I can always chat about it!) I could have streamed it from Hulu, but elected instead to stream it from CBS All Access to have something to show for subscribing to that beyond Star Trek. I did, of course, watch the month's new content, the final Short Trek, "Children of Mars", and the first two episodes of Star Trek: Picard. I have some nits to pick (digital shuttlecraft not among them), but mostly I've enjoyed the return of Jean-Luc Picard.

The Criterion Channel (2 movies)
I took a break at one point to watch Criterion's 13-film British Hitchcock collection, which obviously wasn't for this challenge, but Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was! Criterion also included Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces, a feature-length assembly of seventeen scenes deleted from the movie that functions as a sort of ancillary work. (Pro-tip: Searching Roku for the movie will not turn up that it's on Criterion. I tell you this so if you are a Criterion subscriber that you don't unnecessarily rent it from another digital service.)

Disney+ (74 episodes, 1 movie, 2 specials)
The lion's share of what I watched throughout the month was Star Wars content. I started the challenge with the first season of The Mandalorian, and subsequently managed to get through the first three seasons of The Clone Wars, including the movie that preceded the series. Gotta admit, I fell for "Baby Yoda" just like everyone else. Plus, I dig Giancarlo Esposito. I've enjoyed his work ever since Nothing to Lose and Homicide: Life on the Street. The Clone Wars designs are neat, but the animation has not aged well, especially dialogue scenes. By the end of the second season, they started to get away from the rote and repetitive "Clones v. Droids, Grievous escapes" relentless action and into some character and relationship arcs. As the third season concluded, I saw some genuine depth and began to see why the series earned the praise that it did by time it ended. I also scoped out a pair of National Geographic specials about the Titanic. One was great (Titanic: 20 Years Later with James Cameron) and the other was awful (Drain the Titanic).

Hulu (9 episodes, 2 specials)
I have plenty on my watchlist on Hulu, but most of them are long running series and I wanted to concentrate on shorter series so I could maximize my variety. Consequently, despite being an ideal TV streaming service, Hulu ended up my most neglected. (Though had I chosen, I could have streamed Twin Peaks from Hulu, which would have made CBS All Access the least used.) My selections consisted of The Dana Carvey Show's whole eight seasons (a few flickers of creativity but I can see why it was axed so early); the lone episode of Bob's Burgers released so far in 2020 (okay); and both of last year's Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials recreating episodes of Norman Lear's All in the Family, Good Times, and The Jeffersons. Aside from Woody Harrelson as Archie Bunker, most of the casts were wonderful. The highlight of either special was surely the appearance of Marla Gibbs as Florence Johnston.

Netflix (1 special)
I don't have a Netflix account, but my friend does and I was able to stream John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch. It was alright. Not as satisfying as I'd hoped, but worth my time and I would definitely impose on my friend to stream a followup if Mulaney should make it.

YouTube (1 episode)
For whatever reason, the current Star Trek aftershow, The Ready Room, is on YouTube instead of CBS All Access. I like that Wil Wheaton is the host, but being on YouTube makes it highly likely I'll forget all about it. At least it's free!

My thanks to shaddokitty for organizing the threads this year, and to everyone who gave me something to think about through the month!

I always enjoy this challenge because of the unlimited content available. Thanks to Trevor's encouragement, I got started on The Wire. I did stop after the 2nd season but I'll be ready to dig back into that come March. I'm glad to hear I can expect it to get even better.

I got through tons of stuff. I did fall just short of my goal of 200 TV hours, but that was more of a result of going out of town the last 2 days of the month.

Thanks, all! I kept up with the conversation here frequently even if I only posted sparingly.