Another year of ardent media consumption has passed. As every year before, I went to explore new genres of media, sought out new formats and streaming services, to boldly go, where no one has gone before. For the year of 2025, this means that I (partially) dived into the genre of anime, embraced storytelling via comic books and finally got some streaming services to watch some movies and shows that are long overdue. In no particular order I herewith present my tops and flops.
The Highlights
Star Wars by John Ostrander (Marvel Unlimited)
What if …?
This includes Star Wars Republic as well as Star Wars Legacy, which I read. They can be considered an alternativ canon, which give characters, that fall short in the movies, more time to grow. Quin-Lan-Vos, Cade Skywalker and Darth Krayt are especially noteworthy. Writing-wise, this is the best the star wars franchise has to offer.
Ghost in the Shell (Prime Video)
Enter the real matrix
This is one of the most complex movies I have seen so far. There is so much detail in every seen, especially in the dialog, one could (and should) write a thesis about it. And the music…
Andor (Season 2) (Disney+)
The peak of Star Wars television
There is not much to say about it. I am very satisfied with how it concluded.
To the Wonder (Youtube)
Beautiful nature propaganda
Explores the kazakh culture in china. Stunning capture of the landscape (probably to increase tourism around this region). I also liked the songs, that are performed in the native language, it is really captivating and makes me almost cry. The main protagonists mother has become my new female celebrity crush
Night Sky (Prime Video)
Yet another lovely Firefely
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Severance (AppleTV+)
I could not enjoy it equally, but it was very restorative
It has it’s lenghts, but I like the concept and the mystery about it. I will optimistically wait for its third season, the second I have not watched yet.
Heartwarming and poignant story of colonialism
Reminded me of an ARD-Eigenproduktionen / BBC-Original series. The showrunner decided to keep the languages of each faction, which makes this show very immersive.
Born for the Spotlight (Netflix)
Powerful and Inspiring
My critique currently suffers from recency bias. There are some flaws, namely that the show sometimes becomes too melodramatic, but in other scenes, I shows off some really powerful performances (I think powerful is indeed the correct word here), that also have a lasting effect. Especially Cheryl Yang.
Foundation (Season 3) (Prime Video)
Respect and Enjoy the P(e)ace 🤚🏻
When Apple announced that they would adapt Foundation and Empire I was immediately hooked. This book is one of my all‑time favorites, a science-fiction book written by none other than Isaac Asimov. In the world of Foundation, there is this science called psychohistory, that combines history, sociology, and statistical mathematics to predict the future. There is an obligatory empire, that rules about the entire galaxy and a faction called Foundation, that the psychohistory-science gave rise to and which seeks to prevent a cataclysmic event (that of course, the empire does not believe in, so they have a war about it). In the book, Asimov introduces a character called The Mule, a mutant, that this science did not predict and who quickly seizes control over the entire galaxy with his superpowers. The mystery around his character leads to one of the biggest plot twists in history, which the show would have to do justice to.
Lee Pace as Brother Dude, an absolute must watch.
And it did. Partially. I skipped the first two seasons of the show and watched a recap, because I knew that the adaptation does change certain aspects, especially the empire, which is led by a dynasty of clones in the show. I found that this side-plot is the one carrying the show, and in this season, it also explores the robots of this world (in Asimov’s works, robots are a recurring topic). The other part of the narrative, that also appears in the book was ok, I am very glad that the book got finally adapted, despite some changes (mainly regarding some characters’ roles in the story). What it succeeds in is capturing the spirit of the books, and I think the show does a very good job of keeping the antagonist mysterious and entertaining. The visuals … they are stunning, not only for a TV show, in general. Also, I can recommend listening to the soundtrack whilst reading the books, it is very well done. I can’t wait to see how the story continues.
Sifu
Helped me to grow
This is the only new game I got this year. It’s quite a unique experience, a souls-inspired-Kung-Fu-action-singleplayer game, which has only five levels, but a lot of substance in them. I am not very familiar with this genre, because it often leads to a lot of (unnecessary) frustration, but not in Sifu. When I first started the game, I could not beat the (in hindsight relatively easy) boss of the first level. When you die in Sifu, you can either let the character age or decide to restart the level. When the character reaches a certain age, the game is over and must be played from the beginning. I did not want to let my character age too quickly, so I restarted the level over and over again. After 2–3 days, I finally beat him, but then there was the second level, much more difficult, and the end boss was just too hard. Reaching him took 20–30 minutes in every run, and fighting him did not leave much time to come up with a strategy before I went down, so I had to try again and again. The game also offers a training mode, from which I made heavy use of, which allows you to practice the different kung-fu moves on regular enemies. Over time, I got better and reached the final boss, which I still think is one of the most difficult bosses I have ever seen in a game. Maybe there is an idiomatic way to fight him, but I don’t see it. What I did, after countless deaths, was to exploit one of his jump attacks that made him stand still for 1–2 seconds to deal him a small amount of damage every time he performed this, and after approximately 25 hours of total playtime, I won. This was what I thought. The story took a twist from there, which I will not spoil, but it encourages the player to explore himself and think about his actions. Reddit-post , which dives into the game’s central theme, but be warned, it expects you to have played the story.
Design-wise, the game can be considered a genuine love letter to Hong Kong action cinema. It includes various references, that I did not get immediately, but there are obvious ones, like a hallway fight inspired by the South-Korean movie Oldboy or the fight in the snow that reminded me of the finale of Kill Bill: Volume I. Also, I think this game’s club level is the closest I have played so far to a John-Wick experience. The music in this and the other levels is spot-on, and in one level you can even fight yourself through an expedition of an art museum, which contains, well, a lot of art and references. Sometimes, the game’s real world and mythology melt together, which I can describe only as a piece of art.
The game taught me that with enough time and training, you can acquire almost every skill. In the end, patience is the decisive factor, and it can rightly be considered a virtue, that can be cultivated through experience, reflection and repetition.
The Lowlights
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 3) (Paramount+)
Did not hit it
My experience with the Star Trek franchise is, to put it plainly, limited. My realm of expertise only encompasses this show as well as the Kelvin-Timeline movies (which I admire, except Into Darkness, which turned later out to be a shallow copy of the classic The Wrath of Khan, which I had not seen then). This show, that’s for sure, definitely lives up to its name. Last season, there was a musical episode, which I deem one of the most enjoyable experiences I ever had with a television episode. This season was not. Strictly speaking, the show does not completely adhere to the case-of-the-week pattern, and in the last season, the plot was squeezed into its final episode, and then continued throughout season 3. And this is my biggest issue, because first, the show already proved that it does not need an overarching narrative in order to be interesting, and second, the conclusion of this … I got some real Rise of Skywalker vibes in the finale to be honest, when the fate of the galaxy is at stake in a battle between two overpowered entities embodying good and evil. Really, I just waited for the moment where the woman would scream “I am all the Jedi”. It was extremely uninspiring and poorly done. The other, more isolated episodes were uninspiring too, the holodeck episode was — as it is common for this type of episode — not the best and the Ortegas episode (yes, it has been three seasons and we finally got an Ortegas episode) had the thickest plot armor I have seen in years.
What also let me down this season was Anson Mount’s portrayal of Cpt. Pike, where there was not much to do with him, story-wise and acting-wise. My disappointment led me to watch the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, which could also be called SNW: Season 0, because Anson Mount, who was introduced through this season, steals everyone’s show with his charismatic acting and makes it his. From what I have heard and read, Discovery is very unpopular amongst Star Trek fans, because it deviates a lot from the usual formula. I, for my part, really enjoyed what I have seen, and can only recommend it to everyone who has fallen in love with SNW, but be warned, the quality will only degrade after season 2.
It’s safe to say that there is no other show I am currently watching that has such a great creative potential. Every week, I tune into a new episode, not knowing what is awaiting me. It is a show, that despite its lows this season, highly regards its viewers and always comes up with something new. Therefore, I can forgive the series what it has done in this season and I am eagerly looking forward to its next, that will be released in 2026.
Yellowjackets (Season 3) (Paramount+)
Lost, again
To be quite frank, I have fallen victim to this genre of show over the recent years, which usually starts with an interesting premise (here: a teenage-girl-soccer-team that crashlands crashlands in the Canadian wilderness, and has to overcome the unrelenting environment while (lit.) getting consumed by the abyss of humanity), but then never concludes its ideas, either because it got cancelled (e.g. Raised by Wolves) or because its final episodes are just underwhelming (an often quoted example is Lost). It seems that this show will fall into the latter category, because its third season almost added nothing to the overarching plot. The two storylines (one in the present and one in the past) don’t seem to converge at all, they only create an illusion of progress. The “who-done-it” plotline set in the present takes way too much time (half of the 10×55 minutes to be precise) and concludes in a very strange, unsatisfying, cliffhanger‑y way, while the past plotline reveals that the girls could have actually escaped the wilderness, but they did not, because, apparently, the wilderness has become a part of them. From a plot perspective, this does not make much sense, but I guess the show must run a few seasons longer, so that Paramount+ has some new content to offer.
When you watch this type of show, you are making a huge commitment, because for every mystery they disclose, two more are opened, and this takes time, 2 years approximately, to release a new season and then you have to wait two more years to hopefully get an answer. It is a gamble, with time as the stake, and I firmly believe, that the stakes are too high for what is returned by this show. Watch at your own risk!
The Studio (AppleTV+)
We are making a movie, not a film
Maybe I have become delulu, but I can not seem to understand why this piece of media has received so much accolades after its debut on AppleTV+. From its childish humor, the unnecessary cursing and shouting and screaming, to the sheer amount of cameos and pop-culture references (notice my introduction) that feel extremely written in, so that the show can appear current and relevant, the show falls very flat. A lot of money went into the production, for sure, the visuals, the actors they could get, but there is no substance to this show. Someone in Hollywood is probably thinking, that if and only if you use the f-word over and over again, that this is the key for making a show “mature” and “complex”. The characters constantly argue with each other, which I don’t find entertaining at all. I also think that what the show wants to tell us, the issues that plague Hollywood, that have led to a perceived decline in quality and workplace satisfaction over the recent years, could be done in way less time, because the premises grow old very fast. There is an entire 1‑hour episode dedicated to Ron Howard, a famous movie director, where the lead protagonist can not bear himself to tell him, the person he admires most, that he would like to cut a scene from his movie. They could have also made a 5‑ to 10‑minute SNL sketch out of this, which would have been funny, but not a 1‑hour episode.
I think its fair to compare this show to Born for the Spotlight, which deals with similar topics in the taiwanese film industry, that is not so different from Hollywood in the end. In its first episode, it features a scene where a young actress, while playing a corpse on a movie set, must suffer a lot of pain because one of her co‑actresses is repeatedly stepping on her fingers. This scene, that only lasts 3 minutes, perfectly captures the pain young actors have to endure to succeed in this type of business, and the recklessness of the people that are already a part of it. The Studio has an entire episode dedicated to Seth Rogen repeatedly ruining a scene because of his incompetency, which (I suppose) acts as critique of a major issue in Hollywood, where studio executives would interfere in movie productions, where they have no idea what they are doing, therefore limiting the creative potential of the filmmakers. Despite the two shows tackling different topics with the above mentioned, the first better utilizes a short amount of time with its scene, to tell its message while the second requires a full hour. And only partially succeeds, in my opinion, because it feels more like an elongated TikTok clip, that becomes boring very quickly. Definitely not worth anyone’s time.