7th Station ~TV, movies, games~

[Celedam]

Continuing with The Magicians, I just finished Season 1.

Oh yeah, this is the good stuff.

And now, four days later, I just finished Season 2.

While being sick, doing obligatory Christmas stuff, and cleaning out an apartment. If I didn't have all of that, I'd be most of the way through Season 3.

I should've watched this years ago, when I first heard about it…

viewtopic.php?p=232368#p232368

At least now I (mostly) understand the context of that video.

[Celedam]

^ I've arrived at that episode. Context fully understood now.

(and yes, my pace has slowed down in the past week. i've been… busy.)

Gods, I love this series.

[Celedam]

A bittersweet "lifelong journey in an instant" kind of thing.

That feeling is starting to hit hard.



Fantastic lands, secret organizations, time loops, alternate timelines created by time loops, pocket dimensions, shadow realms, god-controlled metaphysics…

And within this framework ("cosmology" is the proper term of art in worldbuilding) are so many opportunities for characters to wander off for minutes or decades to do… whatever. Go on a quest to save the world, or just get smashed because it's the end of the world. And every time those characters return from… wherever, things are that much more complicated. It's both tragically epic and epically tragic, and I love it.

'Tis a shame it's all limited by the realities of being a TV show for edgy twentysomethings. They're doing a damned good job, considering. But in other hands, in another medium, I could imagine it to be literally a neverending story.

(In addition to my previous examples of stories that give me similar feelings, see also Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber.)

[Zunu]

^ Have you seen the miniseries production of Neverwhere? It's from 1996 so the video quality is PAL level bad, but I was quite into it back in the day.
...And now I'll have to fish out the DVD set from the closet, sigh, or perhaps endure the commercials on PlutoTV. The radio production is quite good as well.

Anyway if you liked Neverwhere, you *might* enjoy the Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab. I recently recommended it to a friend and was kind of surprised that he unreservedly loved it. For me it scratches the exact same London themed urban fantasy itch that Neverwhere did. Other series that I can also recommend in a similar vein are the Matthew Swift series by Kate Griffin and the Marrowbone Spells duology by Shannon Fay.

[Celedam]

Have you seen the miniseries production of Neverwhere? It's from 1996 so the video quality is PAL level bad, but I was quite into it back in the day.

Yes. It was very much a product of its time. I watched it as part of KTEH San Jose's famous "Sunday Night Science Fiction" block, while I lived out there.

(only in Silicon Valley in the late '90s — when broadcast television still mattered — could a PBS station get record numbers by showing Japanese anime and British sci-fi/fantasy to lonely young geeks dreading the return to work Monday morning.)

...And now I'll have to fish out the DVD set from the closet, sigh, or perhaps endure the commercials on PlutoTV.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm_I7kvbHlllJduUbq8yD8QOedYu6inmT

Anyway if you liked Neverwhere, you *might* enjoy […]

It's not urban fantasy per se that I enjoy. Most of it is Hot Topic bullshit, which is why I dragged my feet on The Magicians. And I have no particular fondness for London either.

But thank you for the recommendations.

[Zunu]

^ I always forget how many complete older series can be found on YouTube, thanks.

Anyway, back on topic, I recently watched S1 of Solo Leveling. It was okay but it seems overrated to me.

Spoiler: show

The main character gets so OP so quickly that the battles lose any sense of risk. And he turns from this nice friendly guy into kind of a dick, implying that he w only friendly before because he was weak and had no choice. And now with S2 it seems they've given him even more of a glow up? He's essentially Superman at this point.

Has anyone here read the manhwa? Wondering if the story gets more interesting.

[Celedam]

^ I can't stand that format, but if you're interested…

https://mangadex.org/title/32d76d19-8a05-4db0-9fc2-e0b0648fe9d0/solo-leveling

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Fantastic lands, secret organizations, time loops, alternate timelines created by time loops, pocket dimensions, shadow realms, god-controlled metaphysics…

Now we can add "a pencil sketch of the Brakebills campus, inside the mind of a psychopathic, god-killing monster" to the list.

[Zunu]

I don't really have the patience for manga/manhwa but appreciate you.

All this Magicians talk has made me look up the recent activities of Stella Maeve. Seems she had a recurring role in an FX show called Mayans M.C. in 2022/23. Not all that recent but she does have a young daughter so acting might not be her first priority right now.

[Celedam]

^ I enjoy manga well enough. Have since high school, when it started appearing at my comic shop.

It's specifically that "long webtoon to be scrolled through on phones" format that I can't stand. It seems to dominate manhwa/manhua, and it's starting to creep into manga as well. It's a cheap trick used by bad artists who really want to be animators but can't (or won't) do the actual work of animation.

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But in other hands, in another medium, I could imagine it to be literally a neverending story.

So, turns out the episode "The Side Effect" (4x07) says exactly that.

Unnecessarily preachy, in a "so on-the-nose that it parodies itself" sort of way, but essentially correct.

[Celedam]

Unnecessarily preachy, in a "so on-the-nose that it parodies itself" sort of way

I'm onto Season 5, and it's getting worse. I'm starting to see why people got tired of, and gave up on, the series at this point. The sincerity, the earnestness is gone.

And of course, that was Quentin's role in the group. How meta.