Obviously you've never seen this!

Well thanks for making ME feel old with this comment! Gah! :P

Battlestar's score is fantastic. Crazy to think that it was his first time scoring a TV show and that he was only in his mid-20s when he started on it. Outlander and Rings of Power are a couple of my other McCreary favorites.

Most likely Andor, which I think is definitely a better show, but it kind of depends on what you're looking for. If you want fun, straightforward action/adventure, you might prefer The Mandalorian. If you was a slower-paced but ultimately more complex and rewarding show, go with Andor.

However I would say that while Season 1 of The Mandalorian wouldn't really be hurt by not being a Star Wars fan, Season 2 (and presumably the forthcoming Season 3), are much more tied into pre-existing Star Wars characters and lore. I still wouldn't say you have to be a super familiar with Star Wars to enjoy the show, but it definitely caters to fans in a way that Andor has almost zero interest in doing.

I much prefer watching weekly. I like having a new episode to look forward to each week, and it gives me time to think about and digest each episode. I really only ever binge shows that I don't care about as much, probably paying half-attention at times while I do something else. If it's a show I am really into I want to space it out more, even if all the episodes are already available.

I agree that it's a lot tamer than the game, but I'd also put in the caveat of "so far". There's definitely some stuff from the second game that could be pretty bad.

I would say however that the violence is not gratuitous the way that a lot of other zombie-based media is. There are plenty of times when the show could have easily been more graphic or taken things up a notch and they've decided not to. I think it's a good choice though, it keeps the focus on the characters rather than making a spectacle out of the violence. But I also think they may be doing it so that some other particularly violent moments later will hit harder.

You mentioned Ethernet cable, but will you be out of wifi range? If it's not too far from the house (and depending on your wifi setup, obviously) that might still work.

Yep, same boat. I have enough other stuff I still want to watch on the services I already subscribe to that I can't justify adding another one, even though I really want to check out Poker Face.

I might consider adding Peacock for a month or two next time I unsubscribe from something else, but at this point it's really getting tough to justify so many subscriptions, even though most of them have at least one or two shows that I'm really interested in.

It also helps that The Last of Us is a pretty easily adaptable game, all things considered. Not to diminish what they've done with the show so far, but it was already quite a tightly-paced and well-structured story as video games go. Most games would need a lot more work to get them into a place where it could be a compelling TV show. (Even the sequel is going to be tougher to adapt, I think.)

It could certainly make a good show if it was done well. However the Red Dead Redemption games would be much harder to adapt than The Last of Us. The story is much longer and more meandering than TLoU, which is pretty tight as games go, both thematically and narratively.

I'm curious what shows you're thinking of that started out bad before getting good. I can understand why you'd rather not give examples (presumably because you don't want it to devolve into debates about specific shows), but most of the ones I can think of are older ones when they had a lot more episodes to make and more time to fill.

Maybe something like Star Trek: The Next Generation? Or even stuff like Buffy and The X-Files (which I don't think started out bad but it did take them a season or two to really get their footing).

Generally speaking though I feel like very few shows I've watched in recent years are like this. Due to shorter seasons and more serialized storylines, they usually feel like they've been pretty well thought out beforehand compared to shows from the 90s or early 2000s. Or maybe I'm just not watching those shows.

I really appreciate the "previously on" segments as well. It annoys me that Netflix often doesn't have those because it's like they're assuming that everyone is bingeing their shows.

No problem! I highly recommend at least giving it a shot! One other thing that's probably worth being aware of is that there are quite a few time jumps between episodes in season 1, including a big one that results in a few of the main characters being played by different actors. That threw some people off, but I think it was necessary for the story they're telling and was ultimately a good way to do it.

I definitely think it's worth watching. I hesitate to compare it too much to the original Game of Thrones because there are some pretty big differences (mainly the fact that House of the Dragon more or less follows a single storyline and cast of characters rather than jumping around like GoT did), but in terms of the quality of writing, directing, acting, and overall production values, I think it measures up to the better seasons of GoT. Cinematically it's more on the level of the later seasons, but the focus on building characters feels more like the early seasons.

The first half of the season is a little slower, but I still found it engrossing, and the second half is even better, and really has me excited to see what happens next season.

One criticism I've heard leveled at the show, which I suppose is fair if you think it's a problem, is that there's not really a clear person you want to root for. There aren't any obviously heroic or good main characters like Ned Stark, Jon Snow, or Samwell. To me that's one of the things that makes it interesting (and there are certainly still characters that I liked), but I can see how it might make it harder for some people to get into the show.