5 – Umbrella Academy Season 2

This is a really good show. I have liked both seasons quite well, I think that the second season is the better season of the two as it is more consistent across the board. All of the stories work well for the characters and it goes deep on issues during the time period they were in and that still linger today. However, it isn’t higher on my list, because I feel like season 1 has higher highs, more memorable moments. In season 2, it is more consistent and good across the board, but the standout moments feel like they are are lacking to me. With that said, I’m ready for Season 3 to come out because it’s a really good show.

4 – Ragnarok

This one was kind of a surprise for me. I thought that the premise looked interesting, kind of a Norse mythology set in modern times and I’ve had solid luck with the European shows on Netflix like The Rain and Dark. This was a very good show. The plot line was interesting throughout all of it, and while not all of the twists were shocking, some of them were very well done. And the story just felt like it had a lot of heart to it that you don’t always get in shows. It’s a short series but it leaves you feeling like they’ve wrapped it up in a solid spot, but also that you could see more story ready to be told.

3 – The Order Season 2

The Order was one of my favorite shows from 2019, so I was glad that it was getting a second season. I will say, I’m not sure that the second season quite lives up to the first season. I think that the plot doesn’t have as focused a bad guy as the first one does. But you still get all sorts of good moments and funny moments in it. Jack Morton is still somehow likeable and unlikeable all that the same time, and the Knights of St Christopher are still a lot of fun in this season. I think that it gets bogged down in trying to play too much with a middle ground and too much with Jack and Alyssa when it would have been better served keeping some of it’s wonder. Overall, really fun still and really such a B movie style for the plot still.

2 – Lucifer

A show that’s been around for a while, but Netflix kept recommending that we check it out, and clearly, I’m glad that I did. Tom Ellis is amazing in this show as Lucifer, and while the theology is all over the place, no one is watching it for that. They are watching it for a snarky Lucifer and his long suffering partner as they solve crimes. There is so much going on throughout the seasons, and all of them are really good. And there’s more of it coming, which is nice. Netflix got this after Fox dropped it, so there is still fun story to tell with a lot of really good characters in it. This would be just another procedural show if it wasn’t for how good the characters are in the show.

1 – Locke & Key

Finally, we have Locke & Key, and I feel like I’m about ready for a rewatch of this. This is one of my favorite shows of all time. It is a young adult show, kind of, but it is more than that, as it delves into a really weird and unique world where there is a magical door and magical keys that can do all sorts of crazy things, however, not everyone wants to use them for good, nor is everything around them good. I feel like they did a very good job of adapting what isn’t a YA comic book into a YA show while still keeping a lot of the sense of whimsy, almost, that comes from the keys in the show and still even keeping some of the horror along with it, it is just tamed down a little bit. Again, a show that really gets it’s casting right and the character development right.

So yes, I was able to come up with five shows, and I realize there are even more. The second season of Disenchanted came out this year, and I watched The Dragon Prince, plus shows like Another Life, Nightflyers, The Witcher, Agents of SHIELD, and Into The Badlands were ones that I watched this year as well, so I had plenty to choose from, could have even done a top 10. But I really like those top 5 and would highly recommend all of them.

What are some of the best new to you shows from 2020 (doesn’t have to be released in 2020, just that you’ve watched for the first time this year)?

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Earth is in need of help, as is pretty common in sci-fi. So a group of scientist, colonists, and others head out into deep space to find a mysterious object, the volcryn, that seems to be giving off the same energy signature as telepaths on Earth do. Yes, there are telepaths on earth, and there is even one on the ship, Thale, who is dangerous, but also might be their only way to contact the volcryn. However, from the get go, things are not going like they should on the ship, the Captain Royd Eris is hidden away only showing up as a hologram, things are breaking down, and for this mission, everyone is on edge. As they go further into space and get closer to the volcryn, more things go poorly and it is clear that someone on the ship does not want them to reach the volcryn, all while the main character, Karoly d’Branin becomes more and more obsessed with finding reaching their end goal. Will they survive all the way to the end?

This show reminded me a lot of Helix, another SyFy channel show, set in space. It’s about who you can trust, or who you shouldn’t trust on the ship. And if what you’re going after is going to be worth the cost. I think that it Nightflyers, without delving into too much plot detail, is fairly standard in a lot of it’s handling of sci-fi tropes. I don’t think that’s always a bad thing, because there are a lot of interesting story elements, but for the most part, it feels fairly typical to stuff that I’ve already seen and stuff that has been a part of sci-fi for a long time. It does delve into some interesting areas about grief and humanity, but for the most part it leans into the horror and sci-fi elements in ways that you’d expect.

So while the sci-fi elements might not always be the most unique, I thought that it did a good job blending the elements of sci-fi and horror. And in the horror you actually get some more unique things, which tie back into the sci-fi nature of the show. With horror, I do believe that it is a bit all over the place at times. You some where it’s very psychological and other times where people are being frozen or jump scares or a pathogen loose in the air. But I have a soft spot for the blend of horror and sci-fi in my heart, because both of them can really dig into issues that would be too abstracted in a more realistic setting.

I think that the concept of the show works, I think while it is fairly standard, the story of the show works. I feel like they mess up some pacing in the show, there’s a large time jump for no good reason at one point in time, just to set-up the next horrific thing happening. I think the time jump is confusing as well, because it’s a slow burn show. Most of the elements are played out slowly over a long period of time and it works well in the show. You can tell the story is based off of George RR Martin, the Song of Ice and Fire series has a slow burn as well, and this matches it where a lot of the horror is based things and confusion moving slowly and building tension versus jump scares.

Would I recommend this show? It was pretty enjoyable and because it’s one season only, I think there are enough interesting horror and sci-fi elements in it that makes it worth checking out. The world building for something that basically only takes place on a spaceship is done really well. There’s a good amount of depth there, and that depth builds throughout the whole of the show, not just the the start with an info dump, but you never feel like they are info dumping on you and that you don’t have the information that you need. If you enjoy fairly heavy sci-fi with a good dose of horror thrown in, it’s definitely a show that is worth watching.

Have you seen the show, read the novella? How do they compare, is the novella worth reading if you’ve seen the show?

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For me, this is a short campaign, not a big massive game, but something that you can play when you want to play a horror based game for a little bit. You could certainly put this towards the end of a longer campaign, basically, survive this and meet the final boss, but you’d have to make whatever is causing the issue not play in the normal rules of the game, because you’ll probably have some higher level spell casters.

This game is about one last run, one last mission for a group of mid level characters, 5-12 range, where they know that they are doing, they aren’t experts, but they aren’t bad, and they, for a hook, have been brought in for a big score, one dangerous mission, Hell’s Run.

Hell’s Run is a shipping run up the coast of the continent, through an area where the veil between worlds is thinner and strange things happen. But the score of this mission is going to be worth it, it’s a retirement mission for everyone on the ship, including the captain of the ship, and have the players create the captain. Give them the parameters that this is someone that they all know and care about and let them create them and create a back story for them.

Immediately on the voyage things needs to start going wrong. Food spoils that shouldn’t have spoiled because it was packed wrong, a crew member becomes sick while another goes crazy, weird things are happening before they even get to Hell’s Run. But nothing so bad that they can’t complete the mission, this is still a driving factor for the Captain and for most of the crew, though some will want to mutiny, if they can do it, again, it’s retirement and fame. As they get further along, the disease should crop up again on a few crew members and something or someone, probably the first mate, should end up going overboard in the night and be lost at see, even though they are a veteran sailor and the weather was fine.

That first whole part is about building suspense and you can go as fast or as slow through it as you’d want. I’d recommend this being a couple sessions, that should build tension and kind of build in a claustrophobia. Have the players do things to try and cleanse or stop whatever is happening, and still have stuff happen. Have the crewmen say odd things and the Captain start to slowly and subtly change on them.

Then we get to Hell’s Run. It’s called that, obviously, because some malevolent force is on the other side of that veil, probably brought there to protect whatever the players are after by creating this treacherous sea lane.

This is where you get to have fun with it, it should be fairly obvious by now that there’s someone who is sabotaging the ship, and have that ramp up big time and make it even more obvious. More crew members getting sick, and while it doesn’t kill fast, it’s basically always fatal, and start rolling at the end of each session to see if a player character gets sick. If one does, just let that player know with a few details of how to play it and when to start showing it. And have the Captain go insane and possibly someone become possessed, as the DM, this is one of those times where it’s you against the players, kind of, you won’t shoot down a crazy idea still, but you’re going to make it hard for them and who knows if all of them will survive.

Now, have some fun with the horror elements. I’m not thinking, for the most part, of using random ghosts or stuff the players can fully fight. If there’s some tragedy in a backstory of a player, dead parents, whatever it might be, play with that for the horror elements. Give them things to fight that then disappear, give them monsters that make no sense, visions and the ship changing on them so one day the sails are white the next they’re read. All the potatoes turn into turnips that bleed, which might just be beets, but as much as it’s meant to be horrific, make it crazy and disturbing as well, all the while, slowly whittle down the crew, have them die in various ways, and do a lot of it off screen. Have the players find the weird stuff that leads them to a dead crew member, not witness it themselves.

Then when a player gets sick, see what the players can figure out. See how they react to the situation, see how they search for a solution. If they have someone who can cure a disease, let them, but this is a game taking place on a ship where things are going missing and being destroyed, healing a disease will work for some time, but eventually they’ll run out of components needed, unless there’s a Paladin, where, maybe play around with the rules of the disease, make it a curse instead or an alien entity in the body that needs a living host to survive.

Play this out for a handful of sessions and then reach the promised land with whatever crew there is left. With the Captain, if he’s still around after going insane and probably making some crew walk the plank or something like that. And I’ll leave it up to you if there’s a return voyage home. Maybe it’s a paradise they find on the other side and they decide to stay. Maybe they just make it through the weird visions and what’s known as Hell’s Run and find themselves on the river Styx and sailing into hell itself. Or they could do a voyage back, I’d probably not do that unless you’re planning on making it go even faster.

This game is meant to be dark, so warn your players ahead of time. I haven’t talked about it much because I tend to play with close friends who I know will let me know if I’ve gone too far, or we tend to keep it quite lighthearted, but there’s a concept known as the “X Card” basically, it’s an agreement that if something at the table, some role play or whatever it might be, is making someone uncomfortable, they can touch the X card (if it’s physical) or just say something like “End Scene” and the scene will end and the it’ll move onto the next thing, no questions asked. For running a horror game, there is some buy-in that things will make you uncomfortable at times, but definitely set-up an “X Card” of some sort for this game so players or DM always can move it along to a new scene, no questions asked.

Would you play in a game like this? Do you like elements of horror or strong horror themes in your games?

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