Hidden Gems of Netflix's Watch Instantly

Late to the party but only 1 episode in, Away is compelling and very well written.

Dominic Knight wrote:

In terms of BBQ, I liked Chef's Table BBQ episodes. While I find Chef's Table deeply pretentious, I found the BBQ series the most enjoyable to learn about different BBQ traditions and some of the best pitmasters.

Seconded. Being from Charleston, I enjoyed the Episode with Rodney Scott. All 4 episodes were really good.

I just watched the ending of The Good Place.

Loved it. Worth the watch.

Paleocon wrote:

I just watched the ending of The Good Place.

Loved it. Worth the watch.

The whole series is a joy.

Nevin73 wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I just watched the ending of The Good Place.

Loved it. Worth the watch.

The whole series is a joy.

We have 3 or 4 left. So good.

I'm a total wuss when it comes to horror-themed anything, and as such, I generally have to establish firm mental blocks around October each year when all sorts of new media comes out to avoid letting myself get lured in and subsequently terrified. However, when I went to look for something to watch during lunchtime today, I failed my saving throw roll and got suckered in to The Haunting of Bly Manor. I figured I'd put the first episode on, get spooked within the first 20 minutes and find something else to put on instead... but I ended up completely entranced, and power-binged all 9 episodes today. Suffice it to say, The Haunting of Bly Manor is perfectly splendid, and not at all what I feared it was going to be.

I’m rewatching Hill House before I dive into Bly Manor. Despite different stories I just can’t get enough Flanagan. I normally can’t binge—I can only manage an hour and a half or so, if that, before I feel like I have to stop staring passively at a screen. I enjoy this show so much though, the way the story is constructed, the way it’s shot. I ended up watching three hours last night.

I’m currently on the Two Storms episode, in which the whole family gets together. The way the camera moves through the space, and the story moves through the characters... It just blows me away.

fangblackbone wrote:

Late to the party but only 1 episode in, Away is compelling and very well written.

I’ve finished and it maintains it’s quality. There are of course, as with anything, moments that don’t work as well as others but they are very rare. Over all it’s an incredible emotional journey with imperfect people working together in an attempt to accomplish something astonishing.

merphle wrote:

I'm a total wuss when it comes to horror-themed anything, and as such, I generally have to establish firm mental blocks around October each year when all sorts of new media comes out to avoid letting myself get lured in and subsequently terrified. However, when I went to look for something to watch during lunchtime today, I failed my saving throw roll and got suckered in to The Haunting of Bly Manor. I figured I'd put the first episode on, get spooked within the first 20 minutes and find something else to put on instead... but I ended up completely entranced, and power-binged all 9 episodes today. Suffice it to say, The Haunting of Bly Manor is perfectly splendid, and not at all what I feared it was going to be.

My wife and I watched the first episode of Bly Manor last night and absolutely loved it. We also loved Hill House a couple of years ago, and like BadKen, I tend to enjoy all things Flanagan, so I can't wait to continue with the series.

Mixolyde wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I just watched the ending of The Good Place.

Loved it. Worth the watch.

The whole series is a joy.

We have 3 or 4 left. So good.

The Donald Trump stand in in season 5 is pitch perfect.

I haven't seen Hill House. Is it similar on the "horror" scale as Bly Manor is? I.e.

Spoiler:

Plenty of supernatural tension, but basically no jump scares or graphic violence. And a perfectly delightful story to be told.

If so, I'll have to give that a shot, too.

Hill House is primarily a story about a family that got messed up by trying to flip a haunted house when the kids were young. Lots of family drama. BUT...

It has quite a bit of disturbing imagery, a few jump scares, and some very creepy ghosts. I just finished rewatching it, and I don't recall any over-the-top gore. For example, one of the children as an adult gets beat up pretty badly by some thugs, but all you end up seeing are some bruises and scars on his face. The father gets his hand cut by an electric fan, and the camera lingers on the wound a bit longer than even I would have liked, but mostly any physical violence is suggested rather than explicit.

There are a couple instances where you get a quick close look at

Spoiler:

the "bent-neck lady," which is a ghost with a broken neck which appears several times to the youngest daughter

(Honestly, not much of a spoiler, since it first happens early in the first episode.)

In all his work, Flanagan is more about interpersonal drama and psychological terror rather than gross-out horror. Shirley Jackson (The Lottery, We Have Always Lived in the Castle) was praised in reviews for the 1959 novel on which the series is based because it was much more about creating fear in the reader's mind than descriptions of violence. Flanagan doesn't borrow much from the book, to be honest, but I think he is faithful to that concept of concealing most things and letting the viewer fill in the blanks. As with most great horror, viewers can imagine things much more horrifying than anything shown on screen.

I'm only halfway through Bly Manor, but my main takeaway so far is that Hill House has more "menace" in its ghosts. If you're okay with kicking things up just a notch or two, I'd recommend it.

Thank you both. I’ll try it out next weekend, sometime when it’s bright and sunny outside.

Tscott wrote:

If you're okay with kicking things up just a notch or two

BAM!

Add a little EVOO to boot!

BadKen wrote:
Tscott wrote:

If you're okay with kicking things up just a notch or two

BAM!

Spice weasel!

The Chef Show with John Favreau and Roy Choi continues to be fun watching if you like cooking shows. Just watched part 1 of season 3.

Interesting take on Jason/Jian Yu.

mudbunny wrote:
Ego Man wrote:
mudbunny wrote:

I am Canadian, and what I call BBQing, is actually, I have come to understand, grilling.

I started watching The American Barbecue Showdown. Wow. So much I didn't know, and a hell of a lot of personality and skill. Worth watching if you are a fan of BBQing.

The judges, OTOH. I like the judges, judges, but the hosts? Meh. Dump them. I would have liked to see more explanation of what they liked and didn't like in the judging parts.

Just be aware that that show is heavily Texas focused. Texas BBQ is fine, but there are other parts of the country that have their own specialties.

I would love to see shows about that as well. Any links?

We're three (or four?) episodes in and has anyone else noticed that they are wearing the same clothes every day?

Nevin73 wrote:

We're three (or four?) episodes in and has anyone else noticed that they are wearing the same clothes every day?

This is done on a lot of reality competition shows. Contestants and sometimes judges will have one set of clothes they use for interviews and even competitions so that comments they make about one contest can be edited seamlessly into another contest. A contestant might have said something about their first contest that perfectly matches the story the editors are putting together for the third contest. If the contestant is wearing the same clothes in every interview, that bit of dialogue can be dropped into their commentary for any episode without continuity problems.

"Reality shows" are anything but.

Same reason they wear the same clothes both days on Great British Bake Off, so they can splice together the footage from either day however they want.

Huh. I didn't know that.

Holy carp I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it through Bly Manor with Carla Gugino’s Dick Van Dyke accent. It’s like... half RP and half what... Cockney? Midlands? Those aren’t all that similar, but it’s so bad I can’t tell.

I’d love to hear one of our British goodjers’ take on it.

Enola Holmes was pretty good.

BadKen wrote:

Holy carp I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it through Bly Manor with Carla Gugino’s Dick Van Dyke accent. It’s like... half RP and half what... Cockney? Midlands? Those aren’t all that similar, but it’s so bad I can’t tell.

I’d love to hear one of our British goodjers’ take on it.

As a native Scot currently living in England I can say i had to turn it off all the accents are awful. I love horror and really enjoyed Hill House but I could not get passed the accents. I will just rewatch the Innocents again

Paleocon wrote:

Enola Holmes was pretty good.

Yes, my girls LOVED it. I also enjoyed it quite a bit. Hope this starts a really nice franchise.

On Friday, my 8 year old had the day off from school. She loves mysteries and has been reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries and wants to dress up as Sherlock for Halloween. I'd told her about Enola Holmes and she loved the idea, even asking to change her costume plans to Enola Holmes (her mom has already started on the costume so I think we're just going to say Enola dresses like Sherlock). So she and I made a plan to watch together on her day off, and she was very excited and I was cautiously optimistic, but I knew it could easily not work out: my daughter is incredibly easily scared of depictions of conflict or even just kids being sneaky. I did my best to prepare her, talking about how there would be some fights and some tension but that we know of course Enola is the hero and will win the day in the end. From the start of the movie, it seemed cute and charming and my daughter was very engaged with it...but we only lasted about 25 minutes. Enola sneaking around her own house at night led to major distress, and when that was soon followed by Enola on a train car trying to sneak away from some person who might do her harm, my daughter was officially out. Argh! So frustrating. We had a similar experience a few months ago when she and I started Avatar the Last Airbender together. I was super impressed that she actually made it through more than a dozen episodes despite occasionally being scared, but after an episode where the three kids snuck into a town in disguise, it just tripped some anxiety switch in her head and she decided the show suddenly too scary and she could not watch it anymore. These are things I think she would really love if she could just accept that sometimes stories have conflict, but I know I'm not going to get her there by forcing it. Oh well.

Loved the Haunting of Bly Manor. It was less jump-scary, but equally emotionally gripping, when compared to Hill House. The American actors doing bad English accents were much more noticeable than the English and Dutch actors doing great American accents in Hill House, but I accepted it pretty quickly.