Endlings S2 premiere - May 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but I am just beginning to master it. Maybe. Where were we?

Well, let us see. DDS2 is done and gone. The ‘Punisher: One Last Kill’ – ditto, and both left me feel… just as the new, second season of ‘Endlings’ left me feel – uninvolved. Pause.

Here is the thing. The A.I. is getting everywhere, short of YouTube and TV, and it is beginning to be felt. It is just a tool that ought to be mastered, and so it is – it is being mastered, but that means that, yes, the old crafts of painting, writing, etc., are being pushed out, but also the tense is important. The A.I. has not been mastered yet, so there are many crappy works out yet, or at least – soulless ones. DDS2, ‘One Last Kill’, and ‘Endlings’ S2 (so far), all feel like they were made with the use of A.I., perhaps masterfully, perhaps not, but also – soullessly. They hit all the right notes, but there is no music.

Of course, on the other hand, there is the individualism and the digitalism of the modern world. The first means that there is a market/audience for everyone, but it is a relatively small and select one – you need to know which notes to hit. It is a hit and miss game, and not everyone is winning.

The second means that it is easy to find what you are looking for online in general, and you can order it online too, rather than buy in a bookstore or wherever. The bookstores that I know in Toronto sell office supplies, tableware, and similar paraphernalia and not just books and magazines & newspapers anymore. They are trying to survive – just not as bookstores. Fair enough.

A special call out to the various RPGs – they are going especially digital especially fast, and the physical aspect of their franchises, such as books (rulebooks, modules, etc.) are fading. Well, they are a specialist luxury market, so is anyone surprised here? Given that the world economy itself is going through some tough times? I am not.

Where does this land the ‘Endlings’, S2? The S2 premiered with an episode about Japan’s wolves – they were specific subspecies the grey wolf species that lived only in Japan, and now one subspecies is gone for good, and the other… may or may not be surviving, in fact – people aren’t sure, and they may not be looking on purpose – some things are best left alone for everyone’s sake…

My point here, meanwhile, is that Ms. Suta and her cohorts just might have downloaded the wolf articles from Wikipedia, fed them to ChatGPT, and Ms. Suta just narrated the resulted, uh, result, in her trademark tone of voice. There were hardly even any theatrics that ‘Bizarre Beasts’ (BB) are famous for – this time, apparently, team BB had a contract to executive, an obligation to fulfill, a job to be paid for, and they are beginning to do it – the ‘wolf’ episode is just the premiere of S2. S1 of ‘Endlings’ had variety in it, as team BB authentically explored the themes of extinction, de-extinction, and conservation… with limited success, but they still did it… probably without the use of A.I. Now… I am not so sure; where BB will go with ‘Endlings’ S2 from here is an open question (besides the obvious). Since this is real life, however, it just might suck…

This is it for now – see you all soon!