Watched 16 August – 24 September 2025, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nWith shows of this caliber taking several years of production time between seasons, who thought it was a good idea to provide absolutely zero plot resolution with the finale?
\n\nSome great episodes, but I’m already annoyed that I’ll probably have to rewatch this season in 2027.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2022/12/31-andor-season-1/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2022/12/31-andor-season-1/", "date_published": "2022-12-31T19:24:46+00:00", "title": "Andor, Season 1 ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 11–28 December 2022, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nStar Wars: we live in a society
Me: omg so true!!
Watched 22–26 January 2022, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nBrings me back to when TV shows didn’t take themselves super seriously and writers had to include mini cliffhangers before commercial breaks so you wouldn’t change the channel. I love the bits where you can see the seams, like when characters are driving and you can tell that the road projection framerate stutters because it doesn’t match the camera. If only people weren’t scared of pillarboxing this show could have been shot in 4:3 and look even cooler.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2022/01/14-station-eleven/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2022/01/14-station-eleven/", "date_published": "2022-01-14T22:36:41+00:00", "title": "Station Eleven ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 21 December 2021 – 14 January 2022, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nA miracle unfolding in slow motion. Pure, clear, and brimming with understanding. Every episode destroying me and building me back up, each time a different person. I wasn’t ready.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWatched 17 December 2021 – 3 January 2022
\nCool animation, but the presence of lightsabers in every single episode reveals a frustrating lack of imagination.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2021/04/24-for-all-mankind-season-2/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2021/04/24-for-all-mankind-season-2/", "date_published": "2021-04-24T10:58:02+01:00", "title": "For All Mankind, Season 2 ★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 22–24 April 2021, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nOnce again this show attempts to strike a good balance between People Drama and Society Drama, but this season’s timeskip tilted the scales and made it clear that the long game is always going to be about the societal outcomes first. Character moments are less emotionally effective as a result, but boy is the spectacle of the alternate timeline geopolitics worth the tradeoff. Season 1 got me invested. But now I’m excited.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2021/04/23-for-all-mankind-season-1/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2021/04/23-for-all-mankind-season-1/", "date_published": "2021-04-23T02:43:06+01:00", "title": "For All Mankind, Season 1 ★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 19–22 April 2021, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nI’m super into this space trauma and societal progress nerdfest.
\n\nIt may sometimes feel predictable and clichéd but I just want to engross myself in this alternate history, and the level of realism is more than good enough to support that by my standards.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2021/02/03-the-expanse-season-5/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2021/02/03-the-expanse-season-5/", "date_published": "2021-02-03T12:15:11+00:00", "title": "The Expanse, Season 5 ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 16 December 2020 – 3 February 2021, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nThis series has built so much, and gone so far. The transition from “Game of Thrones in space” to one of the most poignant human dramas in science fiction has been a true joy to witness.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2020/06/09-rick-and-morty-season-4/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2020/06/09-rick-and-morty-season-4/", "date_published": "2020-06-09T01:56:23+01:00", "title": "Rick and Morty, Season 4 ★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 11 November 2019 – 2 June 2020, rated 3 out of 5 stars
\nMy diagnosis: Rick and Morty has gone too meta. I want to laugh because the show is funny, not because the writers are clever.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2020/03/11-the-outsider-season-1/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2020/03/11-the-outsider-season-1/", "date_published": "2020-03-11T19:10:15+00:00", "title": "The Outsider, Season 1 ★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 13 January – 9 March 2020, rated 3 out of 5 stars
\nFirst half was great: intriguing mystery and plot developments, great characters. Then the mystery is completely resolved, and the second half is mostly seeing the characters catch up with what the audience already knows and doing lots of talking in cars. It ended with a whimper, and I was disappointed.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2020/02/07-the-good-place-season-4/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2020/02/07-the-good-place-season-4/", "date_published": "2020-02-07T16:08:24+00:00", "title": "The Good Place, Season 4 ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 13 October 2019 – 7 February 2020, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nA perfect conclusion to the most wholesome show I’ve ever seen. Life sure is a wave.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2020/01/16-black-mirror-smithereens/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2020/01/16-black-mirror-smithereens/", "date_published": "2020-01-16T13:33:05+00:00", "title": "Black Mirror: Smithereens ★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 16 January 2020, rated 2 out of 5 stars
\nThe most boring Black Mirror episode yet. Did you know people look at their phones a lot?
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2020/01/10-fleabag-season-2/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2020/01/10-fleabag-season-2/", "date_published": "2020-01-10T23:10:17+00:00", "title": "Fleabag, Season 2 ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 8–9 January 2020, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nHow can this show be both the funniest and saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time? How can it be so potent, accomplishing so much with just a few short episodes? Now that I’ve tasted the emotional high of Fleabag, I’m afraid I might never again allow a show to waste my time with padded out writing. I absolutely loved the first season, but I had to put myself back together after this one.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2020/01/10-fleabag-season-1/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2020/01/10-fleabag-season-1/", "date_published": "2020-01-10T22:34:22+00:00", "title": "Fleabag, Season 1 ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 20–23 December 2019, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\n\n\n\n“They shouldn’t have just locked him up.”
\n
\n“He pencil fucked a hamster.”
\n“Yeah, but he’s obviously not happy. Happy people wouldn’t do things like that.”
\n“Fair point.”
\n“And anyway, that’s the very reason why they put rubbers on the end of pencils.”
\n“What, to fuck hamsters?”
\n“No, because people make mistakes.”
Despite my incredibly high expectations, I was still blown away by this show in ways I don’t even quite understand. Exceptional in every way.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/12/27-nathan-for-you-finding-frances/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/12/27-nathan-for-you-finding-frances/", "date_published": "2019-12-27T06:06:34+00:00", "title": "Nathan for You: Finding Frances ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 26 December 2019, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nPeople aren’t normal.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWatched 9 September – 20 October 2019, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nWatching Succession I often found myself at one of two extremes: either laughing and cringing at the sheer debauchery of it all, or depressively contemplating how the real world is probably even worse.
\n\nThis duality seems to be the show’s core mechanic. The writers know that now, seemingly more than ever, reality is stranger than fiction. If you want to satirize it, you have to take it down a notch first — like putting on those special glasses so you can look at a solar eclipse. So Succession is a very impressive oxymoron: a satire that is also a toned-down version of reality. It’s gripping, though-provoking, hilarious entertainment. I just don’t understand why Connor is there.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/10/24-one-punch-man-season-2/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/10/24-one-punch-man-season-2/", "date_published": "2019-10-24T22:41:15+01:00", "title": "One-Punch Man, Season 2 ★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 9 May – 24 October 2019, rated 2 out of 5 stars
\nOne-Punch Man is lost. The charm, variety, and incredibly kinetic animation that set the show apart are nowhere to be found in season two.
\n\nThe writing has no redeeming qualities to offer. It’s all over the place. The outrageous premise of the series was fun for a while, but it doesn’t seem strong enough to sustain being prolonged like this. The writers compensate by spending way too much time on a huge number of underdeveloped characters and subplots that I couldn’t care less about. In the end, none of those plots and characters even get any resolution; if there is a cohesive thematic undercurrent to this season at all, I was too bored to notice it. Meanwhile the main characters get so little airtime that I struggle to piece together what happened to them over the course of a dozen episodes. They are on screen only just enough for you not to forget what show you’re watching. It’s maddening.
\n\nThis series has clearly been kicked into a lower gear, setting itself up to coast on the merits of season one for as long as possible. I won’t be sticking around.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/10/12-el-camino-a-breaking-bad-movie/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/10/12-el-camino-a-breaking-bad-movie/", "date_published": "2019-10-12T02:56:19+01:00", "title": "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie ★★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 11 October 2019, rated 5 out of 5 stars
\nI didn’t know how much I wanted this, just as much as I wasn’t expecting to cry in the end. Yet here we are.
\n\nIt doesn’t escape the TV-to-film curse of feeling incomplete and slightly outside its comfort zone and somehow wrong. But taken as the missing Breaking Bad episode that time forgot, it’s absolutely flawless.
\n\nYet I don’t think it would have worked had the show just included this back then as its final final episode. We needed the wait, and it was worth it.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWatched 29 June 2019, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nI started off a bit disappointed, because this seemed like little more than a duller version of Patriot; the writing felt meandering, the humor more surface-level, never as witty or pithy. Turned out I was looking at it wrong: it’s more of a drama than I’d figured from the premise, with the comedy falling a bit further into the background than it does in Patriot. It’s its own thing, delicately balanced, and a few episodes in it really clicked.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/05/22-game-of-thrones-season-8/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/05/22-game-of-thrones-season-8/", "date_published": "2019-05-22T00:00:00+01:00", "title": "Game of Thrones, Season 8 ★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 21 May 2019, rated 2 out of 5 stars
\nIt is still mindblowing that this show could get made, but it’s a shame that it couldn’t quite fill its own shoes towards the end. Guess I’ll read the books, then.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/04/05-love-death-and-robots/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/04/05-love-death-and-robots/", "date_published": "2019-04-05T17:32:00+01:00", "title": "Love, Death & Robots, Season 1 ★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 27 March 2019, rated 2 out of 5 stars
\nThere is only one episode that actually delivers on what I was hoping for, combining great animation with stylish art direction and exploring cool, mature themes: Zima Blue.
\n\nThere are four of five others that aren’t plain edgelord teenager bullshit, but they’re nothing to write home about.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/03/02-nathan-for-you-season-2/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/03/02-nathan-for-you-season-2/", "date_published": "2019-03-02T11:21:00+00:00", "title": "Nathan for You, Season 2 ★★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 25 February 2019, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nI constantly fight myself on whether I truly love or actually hate Nathan for You. I think that’s probably the point, so I can’t help but respect it.
" }, { "id": "https://letra.studio/2019/01/04-black-mirror-bandersnatch/", "url": "https://letra.studio/2019/01/04-black-mirror-bandersnatch/", "date_published": "2019-01-04T00:00:00+00:00", "title": "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch ★★★", "tags": [ "notes", "reviews", "tv" ], "content_html": "Watched 3 January 2019, rated 3 out of 5 stars
\nBuilding it around the concept of “choose your own adventure” itself did not make any of the choices and outcomes anymore engrossing or thought-provoking — the experience of rewinding to take different paths made everything feel muddled and disconnected. I think the stakes should have been higher, giving the viewer fewer opportunities to fix mistakes.
\n\nThere is a glimpse of interestingness near the beginning when the medium-unique twist is revealed, but it gets lost as the narrative branches off and grows in possibility space, with some storylines dropping the idea altogether.
\n\nIt’s a fun ride, and then it’s over. Though I might have to give it another go. Also: the poster is really neat.
\n\n\n\n\n\nWatched 15 December 2018, rated 2 out of 5 stars
\nWhat if haunted house movie but
\n- ten hours long, lots of repetition
\n- cheesy, artless direction
\n- all spoken lines are monologues
Watched 7 January 2018, rated 4 out of 5 stars
\nI understand that it might not be to everyone’s tastes, but I loved the simplicity of this one. Tense, cinematic, more grounded than the average Black Mirror episode. Includes what’s probably the best-designed piece of tech in the entire series, and not a single shot of clumsy CGI. Could have done without the boring tree scene, but otherwise one of my favorites.
\n\n\n\n\n\nWatched 7 January 2018, rated 3 out of 5 stars
\nBlack Mirror seems to be getting more samey, with ever-less varied stories that rely way too much on lampshading (i.e. the plot acknowledging its own silliness to avoid looking absurdly implausible).
\n\nThis episode had some great ideas, but it felt like the biggest manifestation of those problems. Plus, it breaks what I took to be an unwritten rule of Black Mirror: no cross-episode continuity. The idea that all of this weird shit might be taking place in the same universe only detracted from my experience.
\n\n\n\n\n\n