The fourth season of Ted Lasso is out on Apple TV August 5.

The post Ted Lasso S4: We Speak to the Newcomers! appeared first on Goggler.

The first three episodes of Furious is out now on Disney Plus.

The post Furious: We speak to Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Scoot McNairy and Jake Lacy appeared first on Goggler.

The first three episodes of Furious is out now on Disney Plus.

The post Furious: We speak to show creator Elizabeth Meriwether appeared first on Goggler.

The first two episodes of Lucky drops on Apple TV on July 15.

The post Lucky: We speak to Lauren Neustadter appeared first on Goggler.

The first two episodes of Lucky drops on Apple TV on July 15.

The post Lucky: We speak to Jonathan Tropper and Cassie Pappas appeared first on Goggler.

Season 3 of Silo is now showing on Apple TV.

The post Silo S3: We Speak to Jessica Henwick and Ashley Zuckerman appeared first on Goggler.

Season 3 of Silo premieres on Apple TV on June 3.

The post Silo S3: We Speak to Alexandria Riley and Common! appeared first on Goggler.

Could it be, as media expert Marshall McLuhan said, because the medium is the message? Are some stories inherently better suited to animation? It’s certainly not the fault of the visuals. Netflix clearly splurged. The effects for the bending and fight scenes are spectacular, the firebending especially. Yes, the moments when Aang wraps himself in rock-armour look eye-roll worthy. But honestly, he doesn’t look much different from The Thing.

So it isn’t the special effects. And it definitely isn’t the mise-en-scène. The live action is a feast for the eyes. The costumes are exquisite, the sets immersive. Aang and his friends spend a lot of time in Ba Sing Se, and the Earth city looks like it’s been lifted from a Chinese period drama. This is a genuine celebration of Asian cultures, the very thing Shyamalan’s film so blatantly ignored.

Could the problem be the acting, then? Many of the characters don’t quite feel like themselves. Aang and Uncle Iroh aren’t as whimsical as their animated counterparts. But Gordon Cormier and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee still capture the deep wisdom and reverence for life that both characters share. Elizabeth Yu plays Azula with less maniacal glee and a more measured calm that I actually rather like. And newcomer Miyako is superb as Toph.

I instinctively wanted to blame poor Sokka (Ian Ousley), on both the acting and writing fronts. He was fine in season 1, but across the seven episodes of season 2 I developed a Pavlovian response to him. Every time Ousley appeared, I cringed in anticipation of whatever lame joke was about to fall out of his mouth and the inevitable explain-the-joke follow-up.

The more I thought about it, though, the less convinced I was that the fault lay with the acting. Ousley is spot-on in his delivery; he’s mastered Sokka’s mannerisms, quirks and physical humour. With my eyes closed, I’d be hard pressed to tell the live action and animated Sokkas apart. So how is it that the animated Sokka was genuinely hilarious while Ousley’s is a strange blend of bland and cringe?

My theory is that the live action Sokka’s problems stem from Netflix not trusting its viewers with complex, uncomfortable things. The animated Sokka was a touch sexist at the start. He held firm beliefs about what girls were good for and struggled to accept that the Kyoshi warriors, an all-girl clan, could best him. Netflix obviously worried that Sokka’s mild misogyny would offend modern audiences. So they made him PC. And that, I believe, is why he’s a pale shade of himself.

Sokka’s sexism isn’t just essential to his humour. It’s a fundamental part of who he is and how he grows. Sokka grew up as the eldest male in the Southern Water Tribe. The weight of his people rested on him. With his father and uncles away at war, he had no male role models. He wasn’t a misogynist so much as a teenaged boy learning how to relate to women – and to himself. His journey towards maturity was beautiful to watch.

Netflix essentially neutered Sokka. And he’s symptomatic of the larger problems dragging the live action down. The animation never let its status as a ‘kids’ show’ stop it from exploring deep, often dark themes. Sokka proves that. I’m genuinely impressed how deep Ousley’s portrayal of Sokka’s trauma over losing Princess Yue was. But when live action Sokka isn’t mooning over Yue, he’s the butt of jokes. It’s one or the other.

So, is the medium the message? Is this just a story that lives and dies in animation? I don’t think so. Everything Netflix needed was on screen: the budget, the effects, the costumes, a cast that genuinely understands these characters. The magic of the original was never trapped inside its animation cells. It lived in a willingness to hand children a war, a genocide, real grief, and a boy fumbling his way towards being a decent man – and to trust that young viewers could hold all of it at once. That’s not a property of the medium. It’s a choice. And it’s the one choice this adaptation keeps refusing to make. Season 3 doesn’t need better firebending. It needs more nerve.

Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender is now streaming on Netflix.

The post Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender Is Better. It’s Still Too Polite. appeared first on Goggler.

Season 3 of Silo premieres on Apple TV on June 3.

The post Silo S3: We Speak to Graham Yost and Rebecca Ferguson! appeared first on Goggler.

To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the line-up when I saw it. Paris, New York, and London are meccas for every travel show going — they’ve hogged the spotlight for decades, if not centuries. What could Nat Geo possibly unearth that hasn’t already been picked over by every listicle and Insta influencer to boot? So it wasn’t a surprise that the episode I enjoyed most was Mexico City.

Even for Antoni, Mexico City was a first, and each place he visited felt like a genuine discovery. And what a city. Over fifty minutes we go from El Nido de Quetzalcóatl — a serpent-shaped architectural marvel you can actually stay in — to the Arena México, to watch an artform of a different kind: female lucha libre fighters going at it in the ring. Along the way we hear how young Mexicans are reshaping their city and country, breaking away from the tired perception of Mexico as the land of Narcos and nachos.

Something I loved about Antoni’s other travel show, No Taste Like Home, is his interest in immigrant stories. As he reminds us in just about every episode, he’s the child of Polish immigrants, and on that show, he took celebrities like Awkwafina and Henry Golding on journeys to trace how their family histories are bound up with food, memory and migration.

He carries that same interest into Best of the World. Nearly every restaurant, bar, and bakery he visits is run by immigrants, from The Tamil Crown in London serving roti and roast, to the Taiwanese-born bartenders of NYC’s Double Chicken Please. Antoni spotlights how immigrants enrich the places they come to call home, and their stories of remaking themselves somewhere new are universal and quietly stirring.

The other thing that sets the show apart is Antoni himself. Think of the mainstays of the genre: Joanna Lumley, Michael Portillo, Eugene Levy, Griff Rhys Jones. Spritely though they all are, their average age is pushing seventy-plus, and no matter how many times Joanna Lumley declares everything “absolutely fabulous,” watching can feel a little like your grandparents recommending holiday spots.

Antoni is much younger, and a good deal fitter, than the average travel host, which lets the show be more adventurous. He joins a cycling club and power-pedals through Montmartre, then goes open-water swimming in the icy waters of London’s Canary Wharf. And no matter how much Griff or Michael Portillo might secretly fancy it, no producer alive would let either get body-slammed by a luchadora at the Arena México. Antoni does, though, he’s got health insurance.

Ultimately, Best of the World is no stretch the best travel show ever made, but it’s a pleasant escape for a few hours. Antoni is an affable host, genuinely curious and open-hearted about connecting with the people he meets.

If Nat Geo renews it, I hope they ditch the well-worn North America–Europe circuit. The Mexico City episode is the proof: the further off the beaten path, the better the show gets. The world’s a big place, and most of its best cities are still waiting their turn in the spotlight.

Best of the World with Antoni Porowski is now streaming on Disney+

The post Best of the World Is at Its Best When It Leaves the Beaten Path appeared first on Goggler.