Media diet for December 2024

Posted on 5 mins read View source

I watched no movies and 73h 28m of TV shows:

📺 TV Shows

  • Arcane – Both seasons (18 episodes with 12h 38m)
    • The most toxic fans on the planet LoL gamers were correct: You can watch this show just fine without ever having played a single minute of the game. Sadly they were wrong about this series being extraordinarily good. It was fine. I am whelmed. This might be partly due to all the hype having come from the time when only S01 was released, which was a fair bit stronger than the second one. But in trying to understand what made this connect so well with so many people, I came up short. Some of the things the fanbase seem to cherish and celebrate the most made me roll my eyes instead. I’m sure this must sound like I went into this with the desire to hate on it, but I wasn’t. Enough people I trust had recommended it besides all the online hype, so I really expected/hoped that it would touch me as much as it did some of my friends – and I’m glad that this was so special for them! I wish it had been for me as well.
  • The Penguin – Miniseries (8 episodes with 7h 46m)
    • Now that’s more like it! I still remember my utter disbelief when I realized that Colin Farrell played the Penguin as the credits rolled on The Batman. I wonder why Cristin Milioti isn’t in more things – I don’t think I’ve ever seen her not nail it. Matt Reeves’ Batman universe is on par with Nolan’s work for me now, something I wouldn’t have thought possible for a while.
  • Mr. & Mrs. Smith – Miniseries (8 episodes with 6h 31m)
    • Solid! Donald Glover nails it as expected, and Maya Erskine is a formidable counterpart. It was short and sweet, and whatever happens next here is fine with me. If it remains a single-season mini-series, I’m glad to have gotten it. I’ll gladly watch a second season – either with the same cast (seems the most unlikely option), or with a new cast as it becomes an anthology series.
  • Yellowstone – All 5 seasons (53 episodes with 45h 12m)
    • What the hell did I just watch?! For half a decade I have been waiting for this show to finally conclude so I could watch it. Since it started airing I’ve been hearing nothing but praise, even seen it compared to The Sopranos. People must have lost their god-damn minds. Where would one even begin explaining the many ways in which this misogynist, misandrist and just generally reactionary piece of crap fails to meet the bar just for decent entertainment. Mentioning it in the same sentence as actually good television is downright blasphemous. And while it absolutely got worse as it went on, it was a ridiculous soap opera from the very beginning. Not for a second did it have the makings of a serious drama – it’s what dumb people think a smart show looks like.

💬 Late Night

  • The Daily Show
    • December 2, 2024 - Sally Yates
    • December 9, 2024 - Ben Wikler

🎧 Music

I scrobbled 849 tracks on 23 days in December 2024:

🎶 Top 10 Tracks

  1. The Blues Brothers – Do You Love Me / Mother Popcorn (You Got to Have a Mother for Me) (12 plays)
  2. The Blues Brothers – Who’s Making Love (11 plays)
  3. The Blues Brothers – Soul Man (11 plays)
  4. The Blues Brothers – I Don’t Know (11 plays)
  5. The Blues Brothers – Messin’ With the Kid (11 plays)
  6. The Blues Brothers – Opening: I Can’t Turn You Loose (11 plays)
  7. The Blues Brothers – From the Bottom (10 plays)
  8. The Blues Brothers – Riot in Cell Block Number Nine (10 plays)
  9. The Blues Brothers – Guilty (10 plays)
  10. The Blues Brothers – Rubber Biscuit (10 plays)

This is basically just me listening to The Definitive Collection, one of the greatest live-music albums of all time, almost a dozen times after getting into a bit of an argument with my girlfriend about The Blues Brothers. For complex reasons this band holds a pretty special place in my heart – something I had failed to communicate well. So due to having to talk all this out, naturally this album was on my mind again… and in my ears. On repeat. As it should be. 🎵

🧑‍🎤 Top 10 Artists

  1. The Blues Brothers (179 plays)
  2. Daft Punk (64 plays)
  3. Die Ärzte (55 plays)
  4. Blumentopf (49 plays)
  5. Seeed (46 plays)
  6. Jan Delay (30 plays)
  7. Antilopen Gang (29 plays)
  8. P.T. Adamczyk (23 plays)
  9. Hilltop Hoods (21 plays)
  10. Fettes Brot (20 plays)

📚 Books

I’m really digging this series now – the second part builds really well on the foundation from the first one, and it is greatly elevated by the now-forged bond between the two central characters. I didn’t enjoy book three quite as much, but that’s mostly because it feels like laying more groundwork for the final book – I (already started and) expect book four to surpass the third book just like book two did the first one.

🎙️ Podcasts

I listened to 14 episodes across 4 podcasts in December 2024:

I wrote and backdated this post after I built my automated media diet tooling. Published on 2025-05-30.