Clearly I have become a TV person over a movie person in terms of consuming a visual narrative. The standout shows for me this year have been (anything) Yellowstone related (there are always some weak points in those shows but the highs are very high) and The Bear.

I think this was confirmed to me when we finished watching Gladiator II. I can see what they’ve done here but I just didn’t care enough for the characters, even though the groundwork for these characters was established 10-15 years ago (whenever the first movie came out).

Which then got me thinking that the most important part of any creative narrative, is the story. Without the right story, it doesn’t matter if the visuals are great. It doesn’t matter that you’ve got Denzel Washington speaking the words. It never reaches the levels it could reach. Sometimes stories in room to breathe.

Maybe I’m just wired to accept episodic material, on the basis of my steady diet of serialised comic stories when I was younger?