Catching up on Taskmaster s20, the most recent two episodes:

Episode 3 -- I got to see this episode on actual UK TV (on catch-up), with not just the ad breaks but also with really annoying ads, and also with cafemassolit's cats periodically distracting me, heh. So that was an interesting experience! As for the episode itself, WTF is Maisie wearing XD ( spoilers from here )

Episode 4 -- ( spoilers )

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Also, this seems as good a place as any to talk about the stuff I watched on planes. (I also read on my return trip, but have not yet finished the new RoL book, because my phone battery was low and either the USB port on my seat or my cable weren't working, and I didn't feel like trying to fish out my powerbank from the backpack stuffed with half a dozen books from England, so I had to switch over to watching the in-flight entertainment).

Thunderbolts* -- it has been a while since I watched anything MCU related -- OK, less time than I thought, because I did watch Agatha All Along in Nov'24, but even that was almost a year ago, and I guess Deadpool and Wolverine was technically also MCU. Anyway, still a while, and much longer since I've watched a 'main storyline' kind of thing, with GotG 3 in summer 2023, and it was 2022 when I was watching anything MCU related regularly. And I still have not seen, and chose not to bother with, though it was also on offer, Captain America: BNW. ( More, with marked spoilers )

The Ballad of Wallis Island -- This is a kind of movie I would've never even been aware of before my descent down the Britcom rabbit hole, but because Tim Key co-wrote and is costarring in it, it was mentioned on Elis and John (John was grousing about not being invited to the UK premiere, except he probably was and couldn't go and forgot) and also qwentoozla went to a special screening in LA, with the creators there, and posted about it. I probably still would not have gone to the effort to track it down, because I always find Tim Key at least slightly annoying, but as I was scrolling through Virgin Atlantic's entertainment list, the movie was right there, near the start, and I was like, hey, I'm on a Taskmaster-adjacent trip to the UK, I should watch a Taskmaster-adjacent movie as part of the experience. And I did, and actually really enjoyed it, and found it both funny and moving.

( More with spoilers )

qwentoozla's write-up also mentioned that the film was an expansion of a short film that could still be found on YouTube, so, because I'm always curious to see different versions of the same story if it's a story I like, I went and tracked it down (part 2). And I don't know what I was expecting from the short version, but my main takeaway is basically that everything I liked best about the feature film was new to it -- Herb's backstory, Herb/Chris and Nell, Charles's backstory, where it leaves Charles -- and also the acting was SO MUCH BETTER. I mean, it makes sense, right, because it's the same people after 18 more years of practice, and as writers they had both the same extra years of practice and a bigger canvas to work with. But everything just works so much better in the 2025 movie. I'm glad I watched it first, because I probably would not have bothered with it if the short film had set my expectations first.

And also I tried War of the Rohirrim, and made it a couple of scenes in but it was too anime-y for me, and nothing interesting was happening, so that also didn't last very long.

The rest of the time on the plane I watched random TV shows that were available to me, and might as well capture my thoughts here, although I didn't watch anything in full, and mostly not in any kind of coherent way either.

Fleabag, season 1 -- Well, that was a bit darker than I enjoy my comedy. Like, I did find it really well done -- in particular ( SPOILERS from here )

Peep Show, season 9 -- I've been aware of the show for a while, but had no real interest in it, despite enjoying David Mitchell as himself on WILTY. But I decided to give it a shot, hoping to catch Dobby (the character played by Isy Suttie, i.e. Elis's wife, for reasons-for-the-trip-adjacent reasons). It was a season that didn't have Dobby as a regular, but I did get her for an episode later on, which suited me -- but there in the very first episode I watched was Tim Key again XD Dobby was adorable! I wish there had been more of her (but, like, I already think Isy is adorable). I was reasonably amused by David Mitchell's character, although he feels like the worst parts of his comedic persona + choices that make me dislike him. This was my first exposure to Robert Webb, and I was originally a lot less fond of Jeremy, but he did kind of grow on me by the end. Some of the scenarios did make me laugh, though. If I had easy access to this, I'd probably watch more series, but mostly for Isy...

On the way back, having run out of British shows I recognized as something I wanted to watch (I also gave The IT Crowd a shot, but did not make it past the first scene -- the laugh track was annoying me, and I really wasn't finding it that funny), I switched to an American show I'd heard good things about:

Abbot Elementary -- looking up the titles, looks like it was the first 5 episodes of season 4. At first I wasn't finding it that funny, but I think it's just that I don't find the younger characters (Janine, Gregory, and Jake) that funny, and once the show moved on to episodes more focused on the older cast, I was more on board.( Spoilers ) I also found the principal lady a lot of fun, and quite enjoyed Barbara the Jesus-referencing kindergarten teacher. It's not something I feel invested in enough to want to watch more of, but it was a nice way to pass the time on a plane.

I then moved on to a British show whose title I *didn't* recognize, and didn't quite have enough time to finish out the series:

Amandaland -- I did not realize until looking it up later that this was a spin-off of something else. I think I made it 3 episodes in, and it might not have even been the full 3 episodes, until we landed. This one was a show where I didn't actually recognize any actors (except, retrospectively, I do know Joanna Lumley, who plays Amanda's mum, I just didn't recognize her now she's older). Mal looked intensely familiar, but looking at his filmography, I've not seen him in anything, so presumably what I recognize him from is Doctor Who gifs on Tumblr... Who I did recognize in the credits was Holly Walsh, as one of the writers, as I've enjoyed her on panel shows. Mal was definitely my favorite character, and I also like Anne and Della (the chef). (Possibly the fact that I liked both Della and Anne a lot means I should finally watch Derry Girls, like people have been telling me to do for ages...) As for the show itself, I did find it suitably engaging. My favorite moments were ( spoilers ) From reading the Reddit thread on this show, it sounds like the season maybe goes downhill / the resolution is not as good as the setup, so maybe it's just as well that I didn't finish it out.