I think 90% of the strength is fanservice/nostalgia.
What we really need is someone who has never seen or hear of the original Karate Kid movies and have them watch it. I’m not sure that group wound be as enthusiastic about it as we are. My wife is pretty close to being one of those people and she liked it OK, but after S1, I forced her to watch the movies and now she likes CK even more.
I gave up at season 2 because it was telling the same story over and over.
Somehow I always found “No retreat no surrender” (at least the final fight) better than Karate Kid so watching Cobrai Kai was never high on my list
I tried to like Cobra Kai, I really did, but it just didn’t do it for me. I watched into the second season I think.
This doesn’t completely run counter to what you’re saying, but I will say that my reaction to seeing Karate Kid when I was young was to shrug apathetically and then ignore its existence until Cobra Kai came out. I understand there could be a nostalgia tug anyway because it’s still throwing back to something in my childhood, but I rolled my eyes at the very idea of this show and only ever gave it a glance because of persistently strong word of mouth, and I don’t feel like I was at all predisposed to like it.
I do agree with Clovis that it began recycling its own story somewhere along the way, and because of it I can’t muster any real excitement about its continuation, but I’m still in for this final season.
I don’t even remember if I watched s4.
Not only did I not like the original Karate Kid, I actively disliked it. I still really enjoy this show.
Jeeze, two people quitting befofe they got to the school fight. Its like someone saying “I ate 80 of this ice cream and never got to the hot fudge.”
Seek out the school fight from S2. Its an incredible set piece filled with amazing choreograpby.
Some bad news from the Netflix front. The numbers for Blue Eye Samurai arent looking good.
It only hit the top ten in its opening week and never peaked at 1. Netflix has released two full episodes on youtube meaning they like it but are desperate to get people to watch it. The rumor mill ia saying that its on the higher end of the service for watch completion (number of viewers who finish the entire season after starting the first episode) but without higher initial viewers that likely wont be enough.
Sadly, this amazing show might go down the same path as Inside Job. Animation needs gigantic numbers to get renewal, and it doesnt seem likely this will pick up at this point.
Its a shame. I think this would have killed on Max. Scavengers Reign has been in the top 10 for weeks and while I really enjoy that show it doesnt come close to touching the highs of BES.
Long story short, watch it if you havent because its incredible and needs all the help it can get, but don’t get too attached.
I have never seen any of the original Karate Kid movies except the Next Karate Kid with Hillary Swank, and I kind of liked it when I was younger. I have Cobra Kai on my list but it’s not very high up and it’s a slow moving list. If I get to it, I will let you guys know.
My expectations for Cobra Kai were in the gutter. I didn’t even start until S3 was about to release, also because the word of mouth was pretty strong. I still haven’t watched the Coming To America sequel because I generally expect such things to be cash grabs and disappointing overall. So while Cobra Kai isn’t necessarily “great”, it’s way better than it deserves to be and far exceeded expectations. Zapka is awesome.
I was like “I’m pretty sure you told me it was safe to give up when I didn’t like season one” so I went and got the receipt. Can I remember to pick up prescriptions when I’m out? No, I can’t. But do I remember who gave me advice three years ago on a forum? Yep.
For a long time, this was the best we could hope for from Ralph.
He also had a hilarious cameo on Entourage. He’s in a fight with Drama over whether he’s the reason Drama is banned from the annual party at the Playboy Mansion.
When you learn who is the real culprit…!!
My sides
While this is true, on my seasons ranking list in this rewatch, S1 currently sits 4th out of 4, so take that how you will. There is a clear jump in quality between seasons made with Youtube Red money and seasons made with Netflix money.
The two best set pieces of the series are in S2E10 and S3E10, and the best karate scene is in S4E9.
My comments before still kind of stand. Its a melodrama comedy centered primarily around high school kids in a karate war in Los Angeles. Its patently ridiculous but some fun storylines arise throughout. If taken too seriously, its not great. As a piece of turn off your brain schlock, its probably too good. I find it exists best somewhere between.
welcome to wrexham season finale
i reverse-spoiled myself here. for some reason, in between finding out the season result when it happened and months later watching the tv show about it, i flipped the memory. i watched the whole season thinking, “well, they’re gonna lose”. like every episode i’m like, “that’s nice, but they lose”. and it gets down to 5 minutes of stoppage time up 2 points and i was never in doubt i just thought wow so unlucky to lose here, that’s gonna suck for them.
5-bag season
I think there is maybe only one or two other Survivor hanger-ons like me left here but this season is delivering hard.
Finally watched the first episode of Blue Eye Samurai. My first reaction is that it is objectively great, no doubt about it. Someone here I think was talking about Netflix trying to push it harder for a broader audience, but I doubt this is going to catch on with mainstream North American audiences. I am very out of touch with the way younger people think, but for people my age (mid 40s) and up, Japanese animated boobs are a deal breaker just because sexualized anime carries heavy connotations of creepy incel comic book store guys. This is stupid but I think it’ll give a lot of casual watchers some cringey feelings when the cartoons get naked.
