m_d_h: (Default)
VirtualExile ([personal profile] m_d_h) wrote2021-01-27 09:51 pm
Entry tags:

TV, etc.

I enjoyed the first season of Elite, but the second season felt like somebody had told them, "That first season was great, can you do that again?"  I mean, the same plot with the same conflicts as before?  Throw in a few new characters, and, well, at least they didn't try to resurrect the dead characters ... but ... it felt like a remake of the previous season so I quickly lost interest.  Even the gay guys were stuck with the same problems they had before!

Whereas the second season of Outlander was so different from the first.  I may yet return to that second season, but the Paris intrigue was so different from the brutal conflicts between the Scottish and the English, it felt like a different show.  The other extreme from Elite's second season.

But the past few days I've been watching Occupied on Netflix, a Norwegian political thriller about a slow Russian takeover of Norway, possibly patterned on some of the slow Russian takeovers that have been happening along other parts of Russia's western border, but with some near-future twists.  For example, the US has withdrawn from NATO as Trump seemed to want, and the EU has aligned with Russia against Norway in order to take over Norway's rich fossil fuel reserves.

As the show begins, Norway is led by its Green Party, yay, and they've decided to end all fossil fuel production and replace it with advanced nuclear power, yay!  But then all hell breaks loose as the rest of the world gangs up on Norway to keep pumping that oil and gas out of the earth for their hungry industries.  At first the Green Prime Minister tries his best to keep the peace via appeasement and compromise, but ... 

There's not much romance in this show, straight or gay, but it seems the US Ambassador to Norway is gay, if you watch very carefully, it seems that other fella hanging around at the Embassy is his male spouse.

Oh, this evening there was a scene with one of the Free Norway recruits having his hair shaved off, which is what I'm about to do to my own hair ... but I doubt I'll like it on myself as much as I liked it on this actor.

-----

I don't want to turn into somebody who watches TV every night, but it is winter, it is still Quarantine, we're back to a five-day work week this week, and T just wants to play video games after dinner every night, so ... watching some TV by myself is OK this week.  I think I was getting tired of reading a lot, especially all the frightful news on the Internet back before Boring Biden took over.  TV feels like a treat to me because I usually don't watch that much.  And there's some high-quality foreign TV on Netflix!

I do want to get into HBO's Euphoria, I've started watching it a couple times -- but late on weekend nights after I've become intoxicated and then I don't remember much and have to start over.  So, after I finish or tire of Occupied, that's next in the TV queue.

I have a hell of a time remembering TV and movie plots, which often makes it fun to rewatch stuff I've already seen.  Back when I was watching Buffy for the first time, I occasionally kept notes to remember the various plot twists in between sessions.  When I watch TV with T and too much time goes by in between sitting down to watch the next episode, I need him to explain the context for me.  Being intoxicated just makes it worse.  I like watching TV while intoxicated, but then I can't remember much about what I saw.  So, it is better for me to rewatch familiar shows while intoxicated, and save the new stuff for when I'm sober.

Another thing I do when intoxicated and rewatching stuff -- I don't pay full attention to what's happening on the screen -- because I already know what's happening -- so I might also be writing in my journal, or playing with toys, or playing a game on another screen, or chatting with friends.  Sometimes, especially during Quarantine or way back when I lived by myself, rewatching something familiar is a way of keeping myself company, like having an old friend or a sibling hanging out with me, not necessarily paying attention to each other, while we each do our own thing.

I mean, it can be nice to have T in the house, downstairs playing his video games, while I'm doing my own thing upstairs.  The main obstacle I find with having T in the house is that he feels offended when I play with my toys while he's here.  It has also been awkward when I've had fuckbuddies over to visit me while T is here -- even if we aren't making out, even if T isn't jealous -- he can become openly judgmental about people who he didn't choose to be his friend.  The guys I choose for fuckbuddies don't have to meet T's standards, but he's not good at handling it in person, and there's no way I could have a spanking or fisting hookup while T is here.  So ... the need for the condo or a similar space while I continue living with T.

Sometimes I think living next door to T would be fine, like in adjoining townhomes or condos.  It's not like I want him to disappear.  But if he had responsibility for his own bills, and I had privacy as needed ... it was all going pretty well back when T was spending every other weekend in NYC visiting B.  I could have people over, I could play with toys.

We'll see what the end of Quarantine brings, and this belated resumption of T & B's relationship, and the resumption of my own hanging out with people other than T.  But that's still a number of months away.