Nostalgia is Fun, But It's Fun Watching and Reading New Stuff Too

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's Friday, and that means I'm here to talk about some of the things that I watched this year so far that I enjoyed and are recent releases. By recent, I mean in the last year or so (2025 to 2026). So, let's get into it.

Right now I'm currently doing a re-read of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. I actually read this book back in January when Brad lent me the first three books in the series while I waited for surgery. I haven't read books 4 to 8 yet, and I don't know if I actually will, but I liked the first book enough to buy my own copy of the paperback for the book a few weeks ago when I was at the drugstore for something. I'm re-reading it right now so I can do a review of it on the blog since I didn't do one back in January.

I did a review on this book two months ago, but the only other new book that I read is The Weight of Everything by Steve L. Morgan. Go check out my review of the book to get my full thoughts on it.

I haven't seen any new movies this year, because I don't go to the movie theatre anymore, but I have watched some recent TV shows. The first was the first season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. While there are some legacy characters in this show, as well as a host of legacy actors, this show doesn't focus on them as much as it does the younger cast who appear in this show. I had so much fun with this show because the characters were unique and while we've had characters who were cadets attending Starfleet Academy before, as well as stories that take place in that school setting, getting to see it on screen for the first time as the focus of a show was awesome for me, as a life long Star Trek fan. 

After that, I watched the first season of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord on Disney+. It was a really good show. As I mentioned in my review of the first season, I was unsure about whether I would watch it or not, just because villain centric shows and movies are not my thing, and while I liked Darth Maul in Episode I, I thought they could've done less with him given that he was killed (supposedly) in that movie. I also tried to start season 1 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and got eight episodes in, but haven't gotten back to it, because I haven't been in the mood for it this past week.

Last year, when I was watching Andor, I kept seeing a show about a group of young adults in their twenties living in New York City in the 2020s. I was intrigued by it, so I put it on my watchlist on Disney+. It's called Adults and I finally got around to watching the first season after I was finished with Maul, and I loved it. Season 2 is premiering at the end of this month. So we'll see how things go.

Currently, I'm in the middle of the fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. It is a way better season than season 3 was, however, I have one big problem with it, and it's a problem that the show has had for the last couple of seasons. SNW has always been about experimenting with different genres and filming styles. We had the storybook fantasy episode in season 1, way too many horror episodes for my taste, a musical episode, and a live-action/animation hybrid crossover episode with Lower Decks, which is still one of my favourite episodes of the entire show so far. But I found that in season 3 they experimented too much and the story got lost in the shuffle. Season 4 is suffering from that too a little bit. Like, this week's episode was filmed like a film noir show (like Spider Noir) and it wasn't necessary to do that. For me it distracted me from La'An's storyline as well as Una's and just became visually unappealing. It took me out of the world that Una, M'Benga, and Uhura were dealing with.

The people working on SNW have done their best to make every episode stand alone from the others. Which is fine, but when the story of each individual episode isn't necessarily strong enough, the jarring nature of changing genres and visual styles makes them even harder to enjoy. Especially when they're changing it constantly. And, so I don't know what show I'm going to be watching week to week anymore because of that. Which makes next season a bit worrisome to me as it's the final season and there are three characters who don't transition to TOS, so I'm afraid they will kill off these three characters or get rid of them in a way that serves the story, but doesn't serve those characters.

As a whole though, season 4 is a lot better than season 3 was. So I am enjoying being with these characters again after a year apart. I just hope we have a more satisfying ending to the season than we did with season 3.

Nostalgia is fun. I love watching movies that came out during my childhood, or from the decade I was born in, that I didn't get to see growing up. But, I also enjoy stepping back into modern day and watching or reading books, movies, and TV shows from now. I like having the balance of watching old shows, mixed with new shows. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back next week with a review of Dungeon Crawler Carl and I might try to do a movie review or two next week too. We'll see though. Until then, have a great evening and a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.