Here lizard, lizard, lizard

Saturday afternoons when I was a kid meant one thing: Creature Double Feature. Two monster movies back to back on local TV, usually with a budget for the commercials that rivaled the budget for the films themselves. I didn’t know the word kaiju then. I just knew I wanted more of it.

Godzilla was the constant. Man in a suit, miniature city, absolutely magnificent. I didn’t need the lore. I didn’t need the mythology. I just needed something enormous to knock over a building.

When the modern remakes started arriving I was there. The 2014 film. King of the Monsters. Godzilla vs. Kong. I’m not a deep-canon guy — I couldn’t tell you the difference between Ghidorah’s origin stories across continuities — but I’m a committed casual. I show up. I enjoy it. I don’t apologize for it.

Which brings me to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV+. This series has been a genuine surprise. It found something the films sometimes miss: human characters worth following between the monster sequences. It earns its quiet moments because you actually care who’s in them.

Season 2 is underway now and I am one episode behind. I’ve been told Godzilla makes an appearance and that is enough to bump everything else down the queue. The kid who spent Saturday afternoons on the living room floor is still in there, and he has opinions about when the King of the Monsters shows up.

Some things you grow out of. Some things just find better production budgets.