If Shrinking is the Apple TV show, that’s been renewed for a Season 4.

Finished Legion. Was not a fan, especially of the 3rd season. The Loudermilks were fascinating though, I would have watched a whole show based around them and the Birds. Have to say, never expected this show to feature a redeemed/heroic (?) Shadow King (this seems to be the only point of the show). Crazy that the other X-Men show of the same time, The Gifted, decided to have the incest Nazi twins become heroes too.

Also finished my rewatch of Dollhouse. I was surprised to learn that I feel almost exactly the same way as before. The last episodes are rushed (the early episodes also have their problems), and I hate everything about the 2020 setting. But it’s still a pretty great show with some interesting concepts. The main thing I found on this rewatch was that I think you could cut Paul. After the first season, he doesn’t really add anything. The romance isn’t even half-baked because it never really gets there in the first place.

Core gameplay is the same, but significant things were added to parts of the game, like an island you can eventually visit, 14 heart events for spouses, etc.

Stardew has tons of mods. If the clock is stressing you out, there’s probably a mod for that. You could use cheat mods to get around some of it (teleport home, change the time, change your money, etc.).

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That’s so messed up, but unfortunately it’s not the worst one I’ve heard of.

It’s got nothing on ‘There’s Something About Miriam.’ An early 2000s bachelorette style reality TV show where the woman was trans, but they only reveal that at the very end, and in a purposefully transphobic way (‘I used to be a man’ or something along that quote).

There’s a podcast and a documentary about it. The woman in question, Miriam, eventually killed herself. When you see the reveals, it’s horrifying how she’s treated. I’m not completely unsympathetic to some of the guys, because it is the early 2000s and it would have been rough on them because of homophobia and transphobia (some of those guys just suck though), but anyway, everything about the situation sucked. I believe it never even aired.

Reality TV was a mistake. Just look at that 2000s reality TV show that helped boost a child sex trafficker into government.

Finished Haunted Hotel S2. Shame it had to come out in this era, it’s a pretty fun show but eight episodes is somewhere between a third and a half of a season. Maybe one day shows will be given the time to breathe again, this show especially has been popular with everyone I know. Even the grumpier ones that don’t generally like this type of show.

Finally started Legion after so many people recommended it to me. So far (a little into season 2), I have a love/hate relationship with it. I’m definitely not the target audience. But it does have it’s moments, and a few of the characters intrigue me. I don’t know what the ending is like, as I’ve never seen it, but based off of the comics, I keep expecting to find out everything we’ve seen is literally just people in David’s head, but we’ll see. That would be a little predictable. Also, this has been the best version of the Shadow King so far (I don’t care for him in the comics).

Almost done with Dollhouse. My opinion hasn’t changed from my original watch all that much, it’s still a great show imo. The creepiness of the early episodes, and the Whedon self-insert dialogue bragging about having enough power to treat women however he wanted aside. Not looking forward to the final episode, though. Never cared for how it ended.

But are users who are doing this unsubscribing? Because if they don’t, maybe that’s what Netflix is aiming for. I don’t pretend to understand the way of con artists executives.

It’s not hard to get people to watch. Produce good shows with actual seasons (minimum 13 episodes, preferably somewhere around 20 for certain types of shows). Then let those shows run for multiple seasons to continue to build up a fan base, so you can start to make money on merchandising. Make sure to always film a proper ending and avoid cliff hangers for the series finale to increase rewatchability. In fifteen years, you can have multiple shows that have at least 5+ seasons/100+ episodes, greatly increasing variety and rewatchability.

I haven’t used Netflix in ages, but their UI was horrible. Considering trends for the past twenty years, I can’t imagine it got better. I’ll never forgive them for deleting the reviews. Often, the Netflix reviews were the best reviews (that was not universally true).

But inevitably, they will increase prices, add more ads, then start spamming those 5+ seasons/100+ episodes shows made fully from AI slop.

As a former MMO player, I absolutely hated anything that required playing with a group. I mostly played solo (although back in my LotRO days I had an awesome guild to occasionally play with). I remember this being one of the reasons I liked ESO (I haven’t played an MMO in ages so I don’t know if anything changed or my memory of that is bad).

If something required a lot of group play, I was likely to stop playing it and find something else. It really depended on how easily I could ignore the group content.

Curious to see Nintendo’s numbers in comparison.

And yeah, those prices are insane. At a certain point, just pay for a PC and have access to whatever you want. Plus, you don’t have to pay an additional fee for online features. It doesn’t have to be the best gaming rig ever, especially for most people. And recoup the money spent on a gaming rig by escaping the closed eco system. Wait for good sales on PC games or turn to the high seas.

And honestly, outside of Nintendo, I haven’t seen a console exclusive game on Xbox or PS5 that I’ve wanted to play in years.

Those prices though. People can still game without consoles, and with the way they’re destroying the economy, it seems people are realizing they can ditch the consoles for other options.

Finally near finishing Young Justice. The last season is all over the place in terms of quality and stories I actually care about. Very unsteady show, but I generally like it when it focuses on the original cast.

Been rewatching Dollhouse (2009) and it’s better than I remember it. Some of those early episodes though, especially that Whedon self-insert that brags about being an untouchable creep 🤢. But after that so far it’s been good (not looking forward to watching the terrible finale all over again though).

Night Court’s still great, imho. Hopefully you’ll like it just as much on the rewatch!

This.

I know people want to think this is the problem, but people paid for cable, which was all of this. High prices, ads, and lower quality experience as they started cutting and/or speeding up shows to fit extra ads in. And on top of that, people then paid for premium channels like HBO just to access some sort of quality. And cancelling could be a nightmare.

What’s really killed the TV experience is shorter episode counts and less seasons. TV works as long form story telling, and a popular show gets everyone talking and speculating about it, but this can’t occur with short episode counts and cancelling things within one-two seasons before they can build up their audience.

Then there’s cancelling shows without giving them a proper finale, which leads to not wanting to get invested in TV in the first place, and is effectively worthless for a streaming platform because few people want to watch something without a proper finale. To be fair, this has been a problem since time immemorial for TV, but is far more noticeable when it’s easy to rewatch and binge.

Add on top of that decreasing attention spans, and social media like TikTok and Youtube inevitably bleeds away your audience.

Sure, people whine and complain about price hikes. But do they actually cancel? I’ve rarely seen people actually care enough to do something. Obviously a place like this is biased towards dropping these services, but the average consumer doesn’t care. And sadly, these price hikes are generally based around the idea that they’ll lose some people, but the price hike for the shumcks that will continue to use it at higher prices will ultimately make them more money than trying to retain the customers who weren’t paying. When that no longer becomes the case, you’ll see them offer some ‘buy a year’ deal for cheaper price nonsense or something. Eventually, they’ll create a ‘value’ bundle for all streaming services in one. And when that’s too expensive, don’t worry, they’ve got your back because they’ll shave a few dollars a month off your bill if you sign a two year contract.

Surprising no one, another show is cancelled, lol. At least it made it to a ‘season 3.’ Hopefully it has a proper finale, and the change in showrunner doesn’t shoot it in the foot.

Unfortunate for fans of the show. Honestly, it felt more like a Kingpin epilogue than anything else to me.

But aside from that episode, the continuation did nothing for me personally.

Sometimes I can’t tell if these decisions are greed, or just rich people trying to make the world a more miserable place.

There’s going to be massive ‘attempts’ to crack down on piracy soon, because in this economy, a lot of people are going to just stop putting up with this (and when I say a lot, I don’t even mean close to the majority,but even optimistically 5% of people dropping this stuff would be huge).

Because generative AI has been built off the backs of everyone, whether they consented or not. Because AI companies (Nvidia, Facebook, pick a company) have pirated enough material to keep any individual in jail for life, and yet they have no consequences and can profit off everything.

If generative AI can not be used for commercial purposes, it also cripples the ability to replace artists, writers, etc., with an AI that stole all their work in the first place and is regurgitating it. Generative AI isn’t the issue, and it won’t go away (I wish it would, but the world doesn’t work that way). It’s the way it’s being used. Take the profit out of it, and we can all (to some degree) benefit from it. Take the profit out of it, and stop them from hoarding and destroying books/knowledge, destroying the environment, destroying your economy.

I’m sure people more well-read into generative AI can give a better example than a layman who is tired of billionaires and trillionaires doing whatever they like with no consequence, destroying our environment, our jobs, our economy, and now our souls along the way.

2026 is so depressing, lol. I’ve noticed this with some (non-gaming) Korean media, where the writing feels very AI (and I’m kind of suspecting a lot of it is considering East Asia’s quick embrasure of it).

All of this is easy to legislate (not necessarily fix because people will just lie and face no consequence if they’re rich). Ban generative AI for commercial purposes.

Anything with art, being that games, illustration, even writing feels tainted these days. Those of us who don’t want gen AI are going to have to find ways to form our own communities (and hope we can trust the majority of people in them).

On the bright side, I’m suddenly feeling okay with not getting to play a lot of the Switch 2 games.

I wish I could watch Pluribus for the first time again.

Apple seems to be on fire lately.

Been watching and/or trying a lot of stuff:

Young Justice - Just starting the 4th and final season. The 1st was okay, I somehow came to like the characters by the end. Fast forwarded most of the 2nd season after the timeskip. It was still good when it actually focused on its original characters.

The 3rd season was by far the best so far, but had the issues of the 2nd where it focused on too many characters. The tighter focus in the beginning on Violet, Brion, and Forager, as well as more focus on the main cast, worked well. Also, the twist on the Judas Contract was actually satisfying, even though they really should have taken the time to build up Tara’s character more rather than focus on Outsiders nonsense.

Orphan is the stupidest name of all time. As a Cassandra fan, I just can’t, lol. I hate it so much. I do wish we’d gotten more of that Bat team in S3, it would have been more effective than focusing on most of the Outsiders characters, and their stories would have probably been more interesting tbh.

I want to see more Cassie, so inevitably I’m sure S4 will focus on more random, meaningless side heroes I don’t care about. Kori and Raven are the only two missing Titans here. But I know better than to think they’d ever let Kori appear, because god forbid in a show with Dick and Barbara together she be allowed to exist, lol. Maybe I’ve missed a cameo of the two along the way though.

Lanterns - It’s been fun so far. Glad to see John Stewart getting some screen time. Still irrationally hoping Jessica Cruz would show up, lol.

Helluva Boss - Not crazy about it so far, though it occasionally has its moments. I mostly just like Moxie and Millie.

Patlabor Early Days - Only watched one episode, but it was excruciating to get through. Not sure if I’ll bother with any more.

Futurama - Just getting into season 5. I watch this one occasionally. It’s a bit mixed overall, but some episodes have been great, and there’s usually something at least mildly amusing. Just reached the alternate dimension in a box episode the other day.

Yeah, if you’re a Scrubs fan, it’s good. It feels like classic Scrubs, and the new characters all work for the most part. It’s nothing like the spin-off/season 9 if that’s what you’re afraid of.