Media Notes (October 2025)
It’s been a while since I last made a note of what I’ve been watching.
Both US and UK media seem to be in a slump.
Only Murders in the Building and High Potential deliver exactly what it promises to deliver, no more, no less. A bit routine, but that’s what streaming media has been missing.
I’ve found the Marvel and Star Wars media to be completely uninteresting. The last Star Wars series I enjoyed was The Acolyte but apparently everybody else hated it.
Superman was fun, but it was also excessively faithful to the comics I loved as a teen. It is probably the closest thing to a live-action version of the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League International we’re going to get.
I’ve mentioned before (I think? I wrote about it somewhere I’m sure) that I got a decent Blu-Ray player this summer. The fact that I’ve got a disc player now also meant I’ve been getting what’s left of the DVD collections of many I know, which as meant a rewatching of too many old movies to recount.
Another thing I did was go through the discount Blu-Ray sections of the retailers here in Iceland that still sell discs and buying every cheap movie that had more than 6.0 on IMDB.
This has led to a few oddball finds.
Bullet for a Badman, a Audie Murphy western that would have been completely by the numbers if it weren’t for Darren McGavin (of Kolchak: Night Stalker fame) having a blast chewing the scenery as the villain.
Raid 2, which I’ve seen several times over and own the DVD. But since it’s a favourite I figured I might as well get the discounted Blu-Ray and rewatch it.
Appaloosa, a Marlon Brando western from 1966. Well-directed by Sidney J. Furie but has John Saxon doing an unfortunate performance of a Mexican villain, brown make-up and horrible fake accent and all.
The War-Lord, a Charlton Heston vehicle that, despite being made around the same time as Appaloosa (1966), felt like a throwback to the fifties in style and presentation. Pretends to be a historical movie but seems to be largely based on made-up myths. Also has instances of (highly) dubious consent.
Five Graves To Cairo, a Billy Wilder movie that is a genuine classic. It’s not perfect, but many if not most viewers won’t notice the missteps. Solid cinematography, story, and editing.
Other than that, I’ve been continuing my exploration of Thai BL and GL series, which have surprised me. There’s a lot of pap, to be sure, but some of these series are made by queer creators both behind and in front of the camera and have a level of sincerity that makes up for a lot of faults:
- Rewatched Not Me in anticipation of the upcoming Burnout Syndrome. Not Me is a queer thriller/drama centered on the protest and activist groups in Thailand and the adjacent art and performance scenes. Manages romance and solid social commentary both at the same time.
- Watched Ossan’s Love Thailand as well. Can’t say it was good, but the slapstick humour and the charm of the leads was enough to keep me watching 'til the end.
- The best recent series, though, has without a doubt been Rearrange The Series. It shouldn’t be as good as it is. A time-travel series that starts with middle-aged man who dies and wakes up in the body of his younger self and sets out to save the lives of his friends that died when they were young. It’s a solid production where even the relative inexperience of the actors mostly works in their favour. The best Thai BL series of recent months, IMO. So good that I’m absolutely going to rewatch it soon.
- Another solid series has been Us a GL (so, lesbians) drama that is overall just one of my favourite recent series in general. Also on the rewatch list.
The GL scene in Thailand is shaping up quite differently from the BL side of things (for a variety of reasons that might be interesting to outline at some point in the future). Three of the biggest stars in GL (Becky Armstrong, Freen Sarocha, Faye Peraya Malisorn) have separated from their agencies. Faye has set up her own independent production company. On a smaller scale, Dangerous Queen is produced by Snur Entertainment and is owned by one of the lead actors.
But one of the more interesting developments has been the production company Motion Minds Entertainment and their series Roller Coaster The Series because, by all accounts, it’s led by queer women both in front of and behind the camera. They’ve made a point of doing things differently from other companies from putting in the work to make sure all of the performers felt safe on set when shooting racy scenes (apparently women-only shoots for those scenes), hiring predominantly queer actors, and not policing the personal relationships of their performers.
The result is one of the more interesting queer romance series I’ve seen in a long while, one that would serve as a textbook example of the queer female gaze. Worth a watch.
Other interesting experiments in GL series are WeTV’s romantic comedy GL series: Queendom, Denied Love, and Love Design.
Denied Love is a relatively simple story that relies heavily on the strong friendship of the leads (they’ve been friends since they were teens) shining through. Thankfully, they are quite charming so it works. The uncensored version was a little bit too racy for my tastes.
Queendom, still ongoing but close to wrapping up, has been the surprise of the season. The concept is the incredibly tired body-swap trope but somehow they’ve managed to keep it interesting despite the trope fatigue. Much of its success is down to the second couple in the series. They’re older, as in they’re in their thirties, not twenties and they completely steal the show in every scene they’re in.
Love Design has just started but looks to build on the successes of the other two series with what is probably a winning formula: feelgood queer romantic comedies.
Only You featuring Lingling Sirilak Kwong and Orm Kornnaphat has been genuinely quite bad. Their previous series was a romance called The Secret of Us. A bit by-the-numbers – not a criticism, more that if you want a solid queer romance that follows all the conventions and fulfils the expectations, you will be satisfied with The Secret of Us. Only You is shaping up to be a bit less well-executed.
The absolute best videos featuring LingOrm aren’t their dramas, though. It’s their two turns on the cooking show Kitchen Pom. They did one show a year ago and another recently and both episodes are chaos incarnate, which is funny if you think kitchen chaos is funny.
Much of the other recent or ongoing BL series generally didn’t work for me. Shoddy writing, half-baked concepts, and extremely uneven acting. Some, especially the comedies, I might revisit, though.