Category: Television

If you’re looking for a new series to watch this weekend, below is a list of some shows I just recently watched.

What We Do in the Shadows
Based on the 2014 movie with the same name, What We Do in the Shadows is a comedy that came out last year on Hulu. If you’re a fan of mockumentaries like The Office and Parks & Recreation then you’re going to love this show. What We Do in the Shadows follows the lives of three vampires who’ve lived together for over 100 years, on Staten Island, in New York. It’s the funniest and dumbest thing ever, I highly recommend it.

Tehran
I started watching this series with low expectations because my friend undersold it to me but it turned out to be really enjoyable to watch. I think I binge-watched the whole season over two or three days. The show focuses on the conflict between Israel and Iran with an interesting storyline involving Mossad agents living in Iran trying to infiltrate it from the inside. If you were a fan of Homeland then this is for you. Tehran is available on AppleTV+.

The Queen’s Gambit
You’ve probably heard about this show since everyone has been talking about it for the past couple of weeks. The Queen’s Gambit is a mini-series that recently came out on Netflix and is about a young orphan girl who discovers and masters the game of chess. I really liked the show but this one I think was actually overhyped. The way everyone has been talking about the show led me to believe it’s the best thing to come out this year but it’s not. It’s fun to watch, but it’s not the best thing ever.

Ted Lasso
This was another show I think was overhyped. Ted Lasso originally started as a character in a 2013 NBC Sports promo and now turned into a proper TV series. Ted Lasso is an American football coach who is hired to coach a professional soccer team in England. Ted has never played soccer in his life, nor does he know the rules so it’s pretty funny watching him get to grips. But, that quickly wore off for me after a few episodes and honestly, the series trailer and the original NBC Sports promo show the funniest bits. Ted Lasso is available to watch on AppleTV+.

It’s getting harder to find shows to watch since I’ve basically watched everything on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Amazon video but thankfully, there are still new shows coming out all the time. Here are some recent ones I’ve watched:

Cobra Kai
If you’re an 80s kid you’re going to love this. Cobra Kai is a TV series that is a sequel to the original movie starring both Ralph Macchio (karate kid) and William Zabka (the kid he fought). It’s a series that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is pretty funny at times especially how they keep making the karate kid look like a bully in the original film and Zabka the victim. This series recently became available on Netflix but has been out for two years (it was a YouTube Original) and so there are two seasons to watch.

Euphoria
I had been putting this series off for some time because I thought it was going to be very teenagery but wow, what an incredible series. I think this might be one of my favorite shows I’ve watched this year. The story, the art direction, the music, the cast, everything about it is just so amazing. Euphoria follows around a bunch of young high school girls who are all friends showing us their different stories. It’s dark, it’s shocking, it’s controversial and it’s really entertaining. If like me you’re a fan of Sex and the City and the series Girls, then you’re going to love this. Euphoria does to Girls what Girls did to Sex and the City. I highly recommend this show, I binge-watched it over a weekend and it’s definitely a must-watch. Euphoria is on HBO.

Raised by Wolves
I just finished watching this series last night and I have mixed feelings about it. The show started off great and interesting, but then past the halfway point, I started losing interest. I was then hoping things would turnaround towards the end of the season but it just didn’t do it for me. I know a lot of people loved it and it scored pretty high on IMDB so I don’t know, maybe its because one of the main characters played by Travis Fimmel (Ragnar from Vikings) started getting on my nerves the same way he started pissing me off in Vikings, or it could be because I wanted the show tp head one direction (more adventure) but it took another (more philosophical?). If you’ve run out of things to watch then I’d watch this, it’s also on HBO.

Nat Geo will be premiering a 20-minute film on the Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre tonight called “Kuwait Culture”. Here is the synopsis:

The 20-minute film entitled “Kuwait Culture” explores the various aspects and features of the colossal project, envisioned as a beacon of art, creative and scientific thinking in Kuwait. Spread over an 18-hectare site, it encompasses 6 museums including the museum of Natural History, Science & Technology, Fine Arts & Theatre, Museum of Islamic History and the Space Museum, all tied together by a central street, a covered thoroughfare forming ASCC’s spine shaped like human DNA. The new National Geographic Abu Dhabi film gives audiences a rare glimpse into the massive and complex task of building the Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre, which started in 2016, and involved over 3,000 suppliers from different companies working together to deliver the mammoth project on time.

I don’t have Nat Geo so hopefully they’ll publish the film online after it airs. If you do have Nat Geo, the film premiers tonight at 7PM (Kuwait time):

Premier: Monday 21 September 2020 at 7:00PM
Repeat: Tuesday 22 September 2020 at 8:00AM
Repeat: Tuesday 22 September 2020 at 2:00PM

Here is the link to the documentary on the Nat Geo website.

The 1992 IMAX documentary ‘Fires of Kuwait‘ is now available on Hulu to watch. The film is a testimony to the remarkable resourcefulness and heroism of the men and women who extinguished and controlled over 600 burning and gushing oil wells sabotaged by retreating Iraqi troops in the aftermath of the Gulf War. The movie was frequently showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater but I never got the chance to watch it. But, Hulu recently partnered up with IMAX to exclusively carry 16 of their movies one of which is Fires of Kuwait so I’m finally gonna get around to watching it.

If you have Hulu and haven’t had the chance to watch the film, here is the link. If you don’t have Hulu but want to know how to get it to work in Kuwait then click here.

Thanks Eddy

If you have Amazon Prime Video here is a good show for you to binge-watch, Hunters. The show is based in the 70s and stars Al Pacino as a leader of a secret team of Nazi hunters. The first season is only 10 episodes long so you’ll be done over a few days.

This post originally was going to be about how you should watch the show Little America on AppleTV+, but then it was going to be a post about how you should watch For All Mankind on AppleTV+. But, I’ve now discovered and gotten hooked on the AppleTV+ series The Morning Show“>The Morning Show so this post is about how you might as well get AppleTV+ and just binge-watch all three.

Little America
This is a really great feel-good series, something we all need right now. There are 8 episodes available and each episode is a different story based on a real-life one.

For All Mankind
I was hesitant to watch this at first, I knew it was space-related but that was about it so I thought it was going to be a space story based on real-life events. 5 minutes into the first episode I realized, I was wrong. Not going to spoil the idea for you but it’s a show based on the space race of the 60s, but none of the events on the show match what actually happened in real life. It’s much more interesting. The show stars the incredibly talented Joel Kinnaman from The Killing and Altered Carbon and I think it might be the best show I’ve watched this year.

The Morning Show
I started watching this last night after being disappointed by Defending Jacob and I couldn’t stop watching it. I initially started watching it hoping it was similar to one of my all-time favorite shows, The Newsroom and although it isn’t as good, it got me hooked. I’m now more than halfway through the series and looking forward to finishing it up tonight after I’m done with work. The show has an all-star cast with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell.

Apple had a promo going on where if you purchased certain hardware from them they’d give you a year of AppleTV+ for free. I’m not sure because I wasn’t paying attention when I signed up but I was able to get a year for free I think because I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro. But if you haven’t purchased anything from Apple recently then they’ll give a one week free trial which should be more than enough time to binge-watch all three shows. Have fun, here is the link.

Update: Oh not sure how I forgot but if you’re a fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia, then you should also watch Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet on AppleTV+. It’s funny and stars Mac and Cricket.

[This is a spoiler-free post] I just wanted to take a break from the usual Coronavirus related news and talk about how great the TV series ‘Homeland’ was. The series finale aired yesterday and what a great ending to such a great show. I can’t believe it’s over after 8 seasons or that they managed to keep it exciting all the way through till the end. I’m so glad it went out the way it did.

If you haven’t watched ‘Homeland‘ you really should.

Post by Tarek J

So, as with my films of the decade, here are according to my not so humble opinion, the best shows of the decade. Since I can only limit it to 20, it’s likely that a lot of your favorites aren’t on here. It’s also important to note that I am nowhere near as well versed in TV as I am in cinema, so maybe I’m not even the right guy for the job. Finally, some of these are still running, and they’ve been amazing so far, but if they ruin themselves near the end (ahem GOT ahem) I might have to publish a retraction. Oh, and before you throw a fit, I haven’t watched Bojack Horseman or Mr. Robot, so they’re not on here due to ignorance note preference. So without further ado, here they are:

20) Chernobyl
19) Watchmen
18) Black Mirror
17) Atlanta
16) Louie
15) High Maintenance
14) The Crown
13) Curb Your Enthusiasm
12) Mindhunter
11) True Detective

10) Girls
There may be certain shows that are more deserving of this slot than Girls, but in writing this article I wanted to keep in mind the shows that weren’t just great but also defined the decade for me, Girls introduced us to the kind of female led storytelling that brought us a new voice in the form of Lena Dunham (let’s keep her annoying public persona out of this), the creator and star of this little gem. Filled with moments both hilarious and heartbreaking, the show wasn’t afraid to explore some darker edges of relationships, and most importantly gave us unpolished insights into the lives of millennial women, warts and all. Ad to that the bragging rights of discovering and launching Adam Driver’s career, and ending the show with some of the most emotionally satisfying final episodes, and you got yourself a winner. Let’s just hope this isn’t a fluke in Dunham’s career, and just the first of many greats.

9) Ramy
With just one season under its belt, Ramy already made its way into TV pantheon status for me. It’s smartly written, wonderfully performed, and most importantly it introduced the world into the life of a modern Muslim trying to make it in a western world without whitewashing or hiding any of our cultural quirks and flaws. The show depicted its characters as real humans, full of all the complexities that came with it, while hilariously pointing out all the extremities we deal with in our families (conspiracy theories, male chauvinism, hypocritical religiousness,etc). The first season of Ramy was an almost perfect 10 episodes of comedy drama and character building, and I can’t wait for season 2.

8) Game of Thrones
A few years back, and this might have landed in the top three. It’s first 4 seasons were utter perfection, and after a slight drop in season 5, it started to gather itself up for an excellent if flawed season 6. Seasons 7 and 8, however were a different story and are the sole reason this show was pushed down so low. Looking back, however, no show defined the decade and collective experience of an international audience as much as Game of Thrones. Marked with the impossible task of creating an adult fantasy genre, risking alienating most of the audience, it ended up being the most successful show in HBO’s amazing history. This all comes down to excellent source material, incredibly deft casting, unprecedented set design and VFX for a show, and creating year after year of heart stopping memorable moments from Ned on the chopping block, the Red Wedding, the Red Viper, and of course The Battle of the Bastards.

A bunch of new shows came out recently but below are currently my favorite three I’m watching right now. They’re still all new and ongoing with only a few episodes released so you can jump into them fairly easily.

Star Trek: Picard
I grew up in the 80s watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was one of my favorite shows ever and was really the only Star Trek series I ever got into. This new series continues off from the movie Star Trek: Nemesis which I’ve watched but don’t really remember which means if you haven’t watched it you’re fine. You also don’t need to be a Star Trek fan or to have watched a Star Trek series to enjoy it. Personally, while watching the show I kept wishing this was somewhat like the movie The Expendables where all the aging characters from the original The Next Generation show would back to form an aging crew that sail off into the galaxy to kick ass. It hasn’t happened so far but I’ll keep wishing! This show is available on Amazon Prime but you need a CBS All Access membership to watch it.

Avenue 5
Another sci-fi show but unlike Star Trek this one doesn’t take itself to seriously. Avenue 5 is a comedy by the creator of the show Veep that takes place in the future aboard a luxury space cruise ship. The show stars a bunch of comedians including Hugh Laurie from House and the always super annoying Zach Woods from The Office. Only three episodes are out so far and you don’t need to be a sci-fi fan or a geek to get into it. The show is available to watch on HBO.

The Outsider
I started watching this show thinking it was based off the 1967 novel The Outsiders which I read as a kid and the 1983 movie which I also watched as a kid and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featured an all-star cast which included Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and Diane Lane. Turns out this show was actually based off the 2018 Stephen King novel and thats when I realized it was called The Outsider not Outsiders. But even after I found out about the mistake I couldn’t stop watching the show. The Outsider stars Jason Bateman and revolves around the murder of a young boy. A really well put together show with a filming style that reminded me a bit of Mindhunter and The Killing. Five episodes are out so far and the show is available to watch on HBO.

There are some other new shows that have come out recently but I haven’t started watching them yet. If you have one I should start watching right away let me know!

There is a new reality show on Dubai TV called The Astronauts where 12 candidates from different nationalities compete to become a real life astronaut. One of the candidates who is also the youngest competitor on the show is Bader Al Moulah, a Kuwaiti architect.

The Astronauts reality show is done in cooperation with the BBC and led by the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. It’s in Arabic and airs on Sundays at 9PM on Dubai TV and Wednesdays at 9PM on Dubai One with English subtitles.

You can follow Bader on instagram @the.travelling.architect and the show @theastronautsar

I canceled my live TV cable connection around 5 years back and signed up to Amazon Video, HBO, Hulu and Netflix for my TV fix. In addition to subscribing to those 4 I also have a YouTube, F1 TV and a UFC Arabia subscription bringing the total number of subscriptions to 7. But, even with all those subscriptions, I was still missing out on a lot of content, mainly shows on the History Channel and Food Network so I recently decided to sign up to Philo.

Philo is an internet television service that allows you to stream live TV channels as well as watch them on demand. There are over 50 channels on Philo including Food Network, History Channel, HGTV, Discovery and Motortrend. Since I signed up I’ve been mostly binging on Forged in Fire and Wheelers Dealers, two shows I like but previously only got to watch in hotel rooms during my trips.

I downloaded the Apple TV app for Philo and I found it fairly easy to flip through the channels and watch stuff, but it can be a bit overwhelming when there is so much TV. You can choose to watch shows currently playing live or watch older episodes that are archived and the combination of the two means you spend a lot of time just flipping through a ton of channels trying to figure out what to watch.

There are two main issues with Philo with the first being the price. Although it’s one of the cheapest options you can sign up to for watching live TV, it still costs $20 a month. That’s the most expensive subscription I have at the moment and to make matters worse, it’s full of commercials! At first, I didn’t mind the commercials because I hadn’t watched any in ages, but then when I realized I couldn’t skip through them and that they popped up frequently, it started getting really annoying very quickly. I wouldn’t mind paying $20 for live TV but to pay $20 and be forced to watch commercials I don’t think I can handle that.

It’s been less than a month since I subscribed to Philo and I am yet to decide if I will continue with my subscription or not. I’m still enjoying a bunch of shows and so I might keep the subscription going for another month or two before I make my decision. Like other subscription services, you need to use a VPN or a Smart Proxy service (which is what I use) to trick Philo into thinking you’re living in the US or you won’t be able to access the service.

If you’re looking for ways to stream live US channels, Philo is currently the most affordable route I’m aware of. For more info you can visit their website here.

UFC 242 is taking place this coming Saturday in Abu Dhabi. Because the fights are taking place right next door, the event timings work really well for us with the first fight starting at 9PM on Saturday.

If you want to watch the fights live then the easiest way to do so is by downloading the UFC Arabia app from the Kuwait Apple Store (I’m guessing its the same for Android devices). For $4.99 a month the UFC Arabia app allows you to stream live Pay Per View (PPV) events at no additional cost, in addition to the weigh-ins, post-fight press conferences, and various other videos.

I just signed up to it to try it out based on a recommendation from a friend who already tried it out. The commentary is in English as well not in Arabic. If you can’t find the app in the Apple Store it’s most likely because you’re not in the Kuwait store so make sure you have an Apple account registered with a Kuwait address. Alternatively, you could just go to the UFC Arabia website and sign up there. Link

Recently I decided to upgrade my TV life to 4K. It wasn’t something I planned for, I was at Xcite picking up something and decided to take a walk in the TV aisle and got amazed at how sharp the footage was on their 4K TV’s. Since Amazon Video, Netflix and YouTube now support 4K, I decided I might as well get a new 4K capable TV. I ended up with the Samsung NU8000, it cost me around KD260 for the 55″ which is pretty reasonable compared to some other TVs.

So what I didn’t know about upgrading to 4K was that I’d need to upgrade a whole bunch of other things as well to get 4K working. At first, I thought I could just upgrade my Apple TV to the new 4K version and that would be it, but then I found out my sound system receiver which I plug everything into wasn’t 4K compatible. So I had to go out and buy a new AV receiver that was also 4K compatible. Then I found out that my HDMI cables also weren’t 4K compatible (surprisingly 4K HDMI cables aren’t a marketing gimmick!). So I had to go back out and buy new 4K capable HDMI cables. In the end, to get 4K working at home I had to buy a new TV, new Apple TV, a new AV receiver, two new HDMI cables and then on top of that, upgrade my Netflix membership to the more expensive 4K package ($15.99). So was it worth it?

After fiddling a ton with a bunch of settings on my TV and AppleTV (mostly the HDR settings), I finally got everything working the way I wanted it to. Not everything is shot in 4K (or HDR) but most of the new shows and movies are. I think the most impressive things visually I’ve watched in 4K were David Attenborough’s new Netflix documentary “Our Planet“, the documentary series “One Strange Rock” that’s directed by Darren Aronofsky and hosted by Will Smith, and finally the Netflix Sci-Fi film “I Am Mother“. All three were 4K and had HDR so the footage was super crisp and impressive, especially some of the darker scenes in “I Am Mother” where HDR I think made a lot of difference. HDR is a technique used to get a more dynamic range of luminosity in the footage and most TV’s nowadays I believe have it. You can clearly see HDR at work in some scenes, but it’s difficult for me to put in words (but I’ll try). If you’re watching TV in the dark and there is a dark scene and suddenly a beam of sunlight shines through a crack in a wall and hits the camera, the sunlight looks super bright to the point you squint because HDR helps keep the dark areas of the screen really dark. Not sure if that made sense but basically you can get a lot more range of darkness and lightness in the same scene at the same time.

Should you upgrade to 4K? If you’re looking to get a new TV then yes it’s a no brainer. If you don’t have an external sound system or a device like Apple TV and are instead, just planning to use the streaming apps that you can install directly on the TV, it’s not gonna be too expensive to get 4K working. But on the other hand, if you do have a full setup like mine and one that you purchased a while back, expect to spend quite a bit to get 4K up and running properly. If you play videogames you’ll also have the added expense of having to upgrade to the 4K capable PS4 or Xbox as well on top of all the other expenses I mentioned earlier. But, I do think the combination of having 4K and HDR is worth it since it has elevated my TV viewing experience a lot more than when I had upgraded my TV from 720P to 1080P. So do it.

I’ve been pushing everyone I know to watch this new mini-series on HBO called Chernobyl. Three out of the five total episodes are out so far and frankly, I think it’s the best thing on TV right now and I was saying that even before Game of Thrones ended. If you do watch it make sure you also listen to the Chernobyl podcast by the show’s creator since its a perfect companion for the show.

If you don’t know anything about the Chernobyl disaster that’s great, you won’t believe this is all based on a true story and really happened. If you do know about the Chernobyl disaster that’s also great since you also won’t believe this all really happened.

If you’re looking to fill up your free time this Ramadan with some TV shows, here are a few I’ve recently watched and liked. They’re fairly new so hopefully you haven’t watched them yet.

After Life
If you’re a fan of Ricky Gervais then you’re gonna love this show. It’s not funny in the same way his other stuff is funny since the subject matter of After Life is a bit sad and serious. This show actually reminded me of how when Louis C.K. came out with Horace and Pete which was also had a dramatic and serious subject with humor injected into it. After Life is available to watch on Netflix.

Black Monday
I’m a sucker for any show based in the 80s so when a friend told me about Black Monday I knew I had to watch it. The show is based around the big stock market crash of the 80s, but it’s a comedy and not a true life depiction of the actual events that took place. Black Monday has an all-star cast that includes some favorite actors of mine including Don Cheadle, Andrew Rannells (from GIRLS), Paul Scheer (from VEEP), and Ken Marino (from Party Down and Burning Love). It’s a Showtime series so it’s not available on the usual Amazon Video, Netflix, Hulu or HBO streaming services, but Showtime do offer a free trial subscription which you could use to binge watch the show.

Huge in France
I found out about the comedian Gad Elmaleh around a year ago from a Moroccan friend who was surprised I hadn’t heard of him. Gad is also Moroccan and is a super popular comedian in France. He released a stand-up special on Netflix called American Dream which was his first stand-up in English and it was hilarious. Now he has a new series on Netflix called Huge in France in which he plays himself, a super popular French comedian who moves to the US where nobody knows or cares who he is. A really funny show and very easy to get into.

Love, Death & Robots
This show caught me by surprise since I started watching it because of the name without knowing what the show was about. It turned out to be so good that I binged watched the whole season in just one seating. It wasn’t that hard to do since the episodes are fairly short, around 10 or 15 minutes long. Love, Death & Robots is an animation where every episode is a different animation style and a different story line not connected to the previous episode. Some episodes are extremely violent and gory while others aren’t at all so it’s difficult to recommend the show for everyone since it would be sort of a Russian roulette of gore, nudity and violence. A good litmus test would be watching the first episode, if you can get through it then you can handle the rest of the episodes. This show is available on Netflix.

You
Finally, this show was my least favorite on this list (and it’s also the oldest one), but it’s one of those shows you dislike but yet can’t stop watching. The show is about a guy who gets obsessed with this girl and uses the internet and social media to stalk her. It has a pretty high rating of 7.8 on IMDB which is surprising since although I couldn’t stop watching it, I wouldn’t have given it that high of a score. You is also available to watch on Netflix.

Have any other new show you’d recommend? Let me know in the comments.

Update: Just watched the first episode of the new HBO mini-series Chernobyl. It’s sooo good!