The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: Shale on March 30, 2008, 09:07:42 PM
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I know not many people here watch TV regularly, but there's no reason those of us who do can't have a topic instead of shoehorning things into the Movies thread every so often.
So, what are you watching at the moment?
I'm keeping up with:
Torchwood - The X-Files-ish spinoff of Doctor Who, for those of you who aren't Yakko. The second season's been consistently okay but nothing special, which is kind of disappointing after the first, which had some really shitty episodes but also some pretty awesome ones.
Doctor Who - Okay, not right now, but the fourth (thirtieth, whatever) season is due to start a week from yesterday; close enough. It's the best SF on TV at the moment, and is assured at least one or two absolutely classic episodes every season because Steven Moffat is awesome.
Reaper - Just started this a couple of weeks ago, and have torn through all 13 episodes since then. Kick-ass. Imagine Kevin Smith recreating Ghost Rider in his own image. Great writing, awesome supporting cast.
I've been following House religiously since Season 2 and will resume whenever it's supposed to come back from hiatus. The writing's been on a decline lately but the title character still rules.
And finally, OK fanservice, frightening as that sounds: I picked up the complete set of Buffy last week, since it was (a) cheap and (b) written by Joss Whedon, and have begun making my way through that; six episodes into the first season right now. Not bad.
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Buffy really picks up around Season 3 as well Shale. Ignore the OK factor, it really is pretty sweet.
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This season I watch:
Heroes: Enjoyable, if fluffy.
Chuck: Awesome show. Still fluffy, but well written and very entertaining.
Journeyman: Curses! This was cancelled. NBC Monday night was awesome when these shows were all in a block. This may have been my favorite, and it was really picking up a lot of steam near the end.
30 Rock/The Office/Scrubs: Bad me. I watch these at work on Thursday after everyone leaves...not like my boss would care anyways.
Shale, what are you watching Reaper on? I know I looked into full episodes on the CW site a few months ago, and they didn't even have 1. Wanted to watch this show, but it conflicted with some of the few other shows I was watching at the time.
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I'm torrenting it. I'd watch it on regular CW if I got CW, but I don't; TV reception out here blows and basic cable isn't much better.
Journeyman was awesome, yeah. By far the best show I saw last fall, with Heroes and House in decline, and it's a damn shame they canned it.
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Only show I watch right now is Lost. Which, I still maintain, has some of the best writing and character work on TV. Gripes about a meandering central plot will be summarily ignored, as that's a secondary concern to me...which is not to say it's not important! And at least they've got better about actually answering (some) questions. It's abundantly clear from the fourth season episodes that some people do get off the island, at the least.
Watched the first season of Heroes after it came out on DVD. Entertaining fluff, but I'm not interested enough to watch the second season (which apparently got really bad, really fast).
Otherwise? Uh. I stopped watching Simpsons like six years ago because it stopped being funny.
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Only show I make time to see is the Simpsons. I know most of the DL doesn't like it, but it's been funny enough for me, and this season has been even better than normal.
DVD collections I've watched recently:
Heroes season 1: on disc 5. Pretty good.
Harvey Birdman season 3: watched the first disc, still need to watch the second.
Drawn Together season 2: still awesome. South Park wishes it was this funny.
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TV shows! You ask "What've you been watching lately" but I might as well just list all the shows I've watched.
- Scrubs is pretty much the first one I ever got interested in, it is hilarious. Moreso in earlier seasons, but the fact that it stayed so strong for like five freaking seasons (and didn't decline much, really, from what I've seen of the sixth so far) says a lot.
- Arrested Development. Just recently got around to watching all the episodes in order actually. It is extreme win.
- Heroes, I've seen a season of plus a few eps of the second season, which seems notably worse. I'll probably catch up someday, the first season was entertaining.
- I saw a season of Dexter. It was pretty good! Nobody I know has ever talked to me about this show.
- Peep Show. British comedy. Awful, awful black humor, naturally I love it.
- What haven't I mentioned? Uh, Firefly I guess, that's hardly current talk but hey. Also non-current, I've seen episodes from that swiftly-canceled show Freaks and Geeks and they're hilarious. Should get the rest of that sometime.
Guess that's basically it, unless I start going back to Looney Tunes stuff I watched as a kid. Weren't those Road Runner cartoons awesome? They totally were! And so were the Animaniacs!
EDIT: It occurs to me that none of this stuff is from actually seeing it on TV. Friends' DVDs or torrents and such are the way to go.
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Big Bang Theory: Awesome, smart ass nerds + random hot chick = comedy
Heroes: Season 1 ruled, Season 2 was okay, director basically said he realized he made mistakes and plans on fixing them, so hopefully Season 3 or 2.5 or whatever the fuck they're on is good.
House: Aside from House pulling random shit out of his ass on a regular basis, good show
Boston Legal: Denny Crane!
Scrubs: Yeah, seen season 1-3, most of 4-6, and all of 7 so far. Still an awesome show
Veronica Mars: Roomate bought all 3 seasons, first 2 seasons are pure win, onto season 3 now.
Those are what I actually pay attention to, anything else I'll only watch if I'm bored and its on.
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I'm torrenting it. I'd watch it on regular CW if I got CW, but I don't; TV reception out here blows and basic cable isn't much better.
Journeyman was awesome, yeah. By far the best show I saw last fall, with Heroes and House in decline, and it's a damn shame they canned it.
I found it shocking that they actually bothered to show all the episodes though. I thought it would be yanked off the air after 4 at most. At least NBC let the filmed episodes all run.
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As far as what I've been watching while it's actually on TV (as opposed to DVDs), it's pretty much just the Simpsons and Two and a Half Men, and that's when I'm babysitting. Charlie Sheen is yay.
DVDs? Batman: TAS and season 1 of Mission: Impossible.
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~We need more love in here for Reaper. It's a seriously well written show that I fear for the future success of. I really wish I knew what secret phrase I could throw at you guys that would make you more likely to watch it.
~House is House. I miss Chase, because he was awesome and dreamy. Kutner is pretty fun, though. New season = wash.
~I watch Two and a Half Men from time to time. Excellent traditional comedy. Not much more to say.
~Watch a lot of repeats of Frasier. I dunno. I really like this style of show.
~And then there was the Venture Bros. Excellent cartoon series with a constantly expanding mythology that, so far, fits together snugly. The characters are remarkably fleshed out and seem to only be gaining depth. I think it returns to new episodes in JUNE, and I look forward to it every day.
~I watch Bones, which is a really frustrating show that seems to not realize what it wants to be. It jumps from hokey campy nerd-lust to "Good lord, son!" dramatic at the drop of a hat. Needs to have 100% less people dissolved in bathtubs. Otherwise, it can be a load of fun.
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Venture Brothers- Awesome, awesome, awesome show. Totally rocking sendup of shows like Johnny Quest, the Hardy Boys, etc. I actually know the guy who plays Dean Venture. He did a lot of voice work for CPM. Hella nice guy.
Eureka- Surprised and saddened that Shale didn't mention this. Premise is kinda corny, but the writing is awesome and funny. The acting is actually very good too for a cable series. Colin Ferguson has the comedic timing of a god.
Arrested Development- Also got done watching everything in order. Great show. This show does not make fun of Andy Griffith in any way. I can't stress that enough.
South Park- After the utter win that was last season, this season's been kinda disappointing. They're trying too hard. The last ep was pretty good, but they went overboard on the Heavy Metal references.
Heroes- Waiting, hoping. Adam Monroe was the only good thing in Season 2. Know what this show needs? William Shatner as William Shatner. His power? Being William Shatner. His superhuman charisma actually being superhuman.
Space: Above and Beyond- Also started rewatching this. Better TV sci-fi than Firefly. Yeah, you heard me. Starts off slightly corny and is hamstringed by 1995 special effects, but it was amazingly good for it's time and settles into an amazing war series. Who Watches the Birds? is one of the best episodes of television ever.
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Eureka's not running for another three months or so, although people who haven't already been introduced to it definitely need to watch the first two seasons. The writing is quality and Colin Ferguson is, as has been mentioned, the man. (So is Taggart. Taggart rules.)
And speaking of which, the latest episode of Reaper guest-stars Erica Cerra. Watch iiiiiit.
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Eureka is that Sci-Fi moving with the super smart town right? Saw season 1 of it and thought it was pretty cool, but never seemed to remember when it was on. I will say I felt like a total douche when I found out his hot daughter was like 15... although I know they purposely made her look older early on.
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Space: Above and Beyond is totally not better than Firefly. Firefly is the reason to keep breathing. Not that Space is actually bad in spite of all logic it is pretty cool. In space Australian dollar is king.
Venture Brothers - I am not watching this, but have season 1 on DVD and ahve had for ages, just chiming in the this is awesome and go watch it Otter.
The Might Boosh - This is fucking awesome. It is where the Old Greg clip came from. Old Greg is not the most surreal thing in the show. It is pure unadulterated awesome for like the opposite reasons to Venture Brothers but they are both brilliant.
Scrap Heap Challenge - The only Television I actually watch because it is on around dinner, which is thankfully replacing the god aweful current affairs programs that used to be watched. As an added bonus it is actuallly good stuff. They get 2 teams of friends from workplaces with engineering experience, give them an expert to advise and help, free run of a scrap heap and have to make ghetto things to compete and see who wins. Noteworthy things so far have been a boat made out of half a horse float going against a hydrofoil that weighed 2 tons (!!!!!!), tunelling machines to dig through a few feet of concrete and then to dig through reinforced concrete, snow mobiles. One time on a show I missed they apparently made a "gatling" gun as my familly referred to it, probably some kind of automatic belt fed home brew fire arm but still fucking impressive given they have 12 hours to work in and machining a gun barrel is pretty crazy precise (they lost apparently because they used up the belt or something and had to start manually loading each round, I never did find out what they were doing).
It spits out some interesting engineering and mechanical feats and shows just how rough you can put something together if it only has to last a couple of runs.
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I don't watch TV.
Ok seriously -
* Torchwood - Saw umm ... the creepy alien one, the Night Travellers one and the ... disappearing/missing people one. The latter nearly made my eyes pop out of my head when the girl barged into a room and caught Jack and some guy at it. Pretty interesting stuff so far. I really wanted to watch it ever since it started after enjoying Jack on Dr Who but since tv access is limited where I stay I haven't had the oppurtunity till recently.
* Dr Who - The new series is starting? Awesme.
* Stargate - What? <_< Caught a bit of this when I was able to sneak out the tv the other day. Might see if I can catch some more.
* Bones - New series starting apparently. Never watched it but read the books.
* Reaper - Going to see what I can do about watching this. Not really sure it's my type of thing but if it's for a good cause =/
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Venture Brothers - Watch this occasionally. Very good mockery of Johnny Quest and other similar shows.
South Park - Yeah, this season's pretty bad. Last season was good, which is good because otherwise I probably would have stopped watching, but this time... every episode has been outright surrealistic. Cartman and the Diary of Mr. Kitty was funny, at least.
Futurama - Still the funniest damn show on being aired repeatedly on television. Waiting for Comedy Central to finally air more episodes instead of replaying the movie over and over.
Arrested Development - I've probably watched Season 1 from beginning to end 3 times or so now. Need to find out if any of my friends has Season 2 or Season 3 and will let me borrow them. Alternately, there should be a station that plays nothing but Futurama and Arrested Development 24/7. But I'm fairly sure the sheer awesome of such a station would bring about world peace or something like that, and that would be bad.
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CT:
My mom and sister read the Reichs books, and they both say that the character is similar in name and occupation only. Otherwise, the show is completely different.
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And plus three awesome points for actually letting Shale and I bludgeon you into Reaper. THREE WHOLE POINTS.
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Robot Chicken's pretty much the only show I go out of my way to catch. The mix of snark, audacity, and nostalgia is the draw, and the format generally yields at least one good laugh per episode, which is more than I can say for plenty of other stuff.
I watch reruns of JLU pretty regularly, although they've been on since this summer so I've actually caught it all. Same with Justice League before that. With luck they'll stick Batman Beyond in that time slot soon, because I haven't seen that.
Any and all Futurama hype is obviously approved. Although the next movie needs to come out goddammit.
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Hmm. Yes, okay. Let's see.
Lost: See El Cid's post, really. There's been... a lot of crap on this show (much of Seasons 2 & 3 qualifies, here), but goddamnit if Season 1 wasn't basically pitch-perfect all the way through. I mean, really. Also, Season 4 has been damned solid so far and I'm really psyched to see how things play out when it comes back. Benjamin Linus for the fucking win.
Battlestar Galactica: Am I seriously the only one who watches this? How is that possible? Again, see the caveat I provided for Lost, but reduce the amount of crap by... a pretty large factor, and add somewhat better writing/acting (generally) and much better central storyline focus. Even though a clunker episode comes along here and there, I can basically forgive it all for the Season 2 finale and first four episodes of Season 3. That and all the other amazing stuff the show has done. Plus, it's intelligent sci-fi. Whoda thunk it? Colonel Tigh for the fucking win.
South Park: I've actually really liked this season so far. I don't mind at all when the show gets surreal and bizarre. Or even preachy, as long as it stays funny. I wouldn't consider myself a huge South Park fan (except for maybe Imaginationland), but it's still solid and worth watching. Butters for the fucking win.
Scrubs: Looking forward to the return, even though Season 7 has sucked pretty badly so far. The show really did hit a steep decline starting with Season 6, and they probably should have called it quits there. Oh well. Janitor for the fucking win.
Arrested Development: Haven't actually watched it recently, but yeah. It's hands-down the best comedy ever. Every single character for the fucking win.
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I actually enjoyed season three a lot, Strago. The Others are such conceited dirtbags, and being immersed in their world gave Jack/Kate/Sawyer plenty of material to bounce of off. Also, points from turning Juliet from "Oh god, creepy bitch must die," to being...well, still creepy, but interesting, if not quite sympathetic (granted, getting the hell away from Ben is a motivation I can totally understand).
Ben Linus hype is totally seconded, of course. Eminently hatable but far too interesting to kill, the guy's so good at being a creepazoid that you start to wonder if he's acting at all.
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*AD hype goes here*
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Finished season 1 of Buffy today. Pretty impressive on the whole; does a good job with the action/horror atmosphere and, shockingly, I know, the dialogue is frequently awesome. Plots weren't much to write home about, but not enough of a weakness to really hurt things. The Pack/Angel/Puppet Show/Nightmares was a nice sequence of episodes; each one diverged from the cliche enough to keep me interested, with a really amusing twist in Puppet Show's case and plain good execution in the other three.
Edit: Also, this is mainly just a weird coincidence, but the season finale is the second time in three weeks I've heard an undead character say they can't perform CPR because they don't breathe. If you can't exhale, then how the hell are you talking? Ahem.
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So tonight's Scrap Heap Challenge was fucking nuts. They had people making monowheels, like motoroised ones. That you sit inside the wheel of. Ghetto ones done with 12 hours work. Then they did 3 hundred meter dashes with THEM HAVING TO RIDE IT EACH ONCE and then once around the go cart track. These things looked super fucking scary. Both teams went into it with a fair bit of interest in the design stuff for each of it (Some tunnellers against a group of wrestlers, all Brittish) then when it came to it everyone was scared shitless of the machines they had made.
Ended up with the wrestlers winning by sheer guts when the oppositions rider on the go cart track had a bad start and almost lost control and having the centre mounted part (you know where they freaking SIT) spin around the wheel. Scared the shit out of him and he went slow all around the track. They went into that with a 30 second lead. Wrestler guy just went fucking nuts (this is a guy who freaked a little when he was the first person to ride one of their ghetto ones, there was no practice runs on real ones by the way) and shaved off a bit over 2 minutes from the times, maybe even close to 3 to win.
Just absolutely amazing stuff. I cannot hype this show enough.
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Doctor Who's back! Watch the damned show, people.
First episode of S4 was good but not great, mainly because the alien menace wasn't menacing. Had some very funny moments, though, and then the scene toward the end when...well, if you've seen it you know which one I'm talking about. Not sure how I feel about the changes to Donna yet.
Also, Torchwood had a finale. Way, way, way, way, way the hell better than End of Days, not that that was hard. Don't buy Jack shaking *spoilers* off so easily at the end, but other than that it was a fine episode. Want Season 3 before next year, aargh.
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Tv, eh?
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer: in its 33rd season, the only straight TV news worth watching.
Boondocks: Boondocks the comic strip meets Samurai Champloo. What's not to like?
Shin-chan: Best. Dub. Ever.
The Daily Show: yeah.
Also Boston sports.
This TV strike is great! It seems to have weaned my girlfriend off Gray's Anatomy, though I still put up with the constant reruns of Law and Order and CSI she and my housemate seem to like so much.
Show I'd watch if it were still on TV: Get Smart.
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Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii justified all the faith I had in Catherine Tate's return. She had some great scenes, and bounced off David Tennant in a way Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman never could - at best they came off as rebellious teenagers, not equals, and always came back to the whole "Doctor knows best" mindset. Donna actually acts like an adult instead of a Doctor groupie. Awesome episode overall to boot. I repeat from the first post - watch the damn show.
Buffy: Finished season 2. Kick ass, despite a slow start. "Passion" in particular had some of the best suspense/horror scenes I've ever seen in a TV show, Spike/Drusilla/Angelus made for interesting villainy (and Spike had some highly amusing moments pre-wussification, e.g. "Halloween"), character development was strong across the board, and the action and comedy elements continue to be very good. Definitely seeing why the show gets hype.
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The episode(s?) of the new Doctor Who that people should watch for certain other than the Master ones (Because the Master is your god) is the ones with the Familly in them. They are holy shit disturbing to how much the Doctor usually is just completely and totally fucking with people.
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News: Reaper has been renewed for 13 episodes as a mid-season replacement.
Views: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAW!
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Lost has been quite fun, recently. Exciting episodes for the most part, with solid storytelling and a nice feeling that the plot is really moving towards something that matters in a big way.
Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica has been fucking phenomenal. Words cannot express how happy it has made me. Why does nobody else watch this?
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It's a plot by trekkies to drive you bonkers?
Only TV I've been watching of late that isn't sports is the WWE. It's fun in small doses.
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Man, it's a plot by a single Trekkie who was always completely obviously more intelligent and creative than all the other trekkies. How does that at least make you even a tiny bit interested?
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I've actually gotten out of the habit of watching Sci-fi. I blame how awful Star Trek: Voyager was. The bit of Reaper I saw was decent as well.
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Firefly and the way it was snatched away from me before it could even get started burned me off on Sci Fi for about a decade. A friend of mine swears by BSG though, hear season 3 is poop though.
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I cannot vouch for season three, though I've yet to hear anything bad about the series. That said, I'm watching TV mostly through friends forcing dvds upon me, and so I have recently seen Firefly, which is great writing and interaction, as well as most of season 1 of BSG, which has the above mentioned awesome of Firefly, as well as the dramatic tension and added depth one gets when the cast is flawed instead of being untouchable paragons of goodness and light, or at least thoroughly tamed by them in Jayne's case (Though Jayne is probably more awesome than anyone short of Commander Adama)
Aside from that, will also occasionally contemplate going out of my way to watch Two and a Half Men, which is a sit com that's surprisingly funny and well written, and which comprises the entirity of what I watch on actual tv outside of the stray bit of hockey I might catch.
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Firefly and the way it was snatched away from me before it could even get started burned me off on Sci Fi for about a decade. A friend of mine swears by BSG though, hear season 3 is poop though.
Strongly disagree about Season 3. The beginning of it, especially, is completely effing awesome. There's some crap in the middle areas, definitely, specifically starting around the halfway point, but there was a similar amount of even more offensively bad crap in Season 2. Both are still awesome. And Firefly being snatched away from you is a terrible reason, when BSG is now in its final season and it's not like their contract is suddenly going to be pulled out from under them or something. Seriously, watch it.
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To far. I am not a huge Sci-Fi follower of television. Firefly got stolen from me, Farscape which I vaguely liked and watched in patches got rudely put down by existence (a lot less the network's fault there). I will stick to genres that won't consistently be screwed over and give it very little support over all.
The face that I am over television kind of helps there though. Also that I am a spiteful arsehole and will poke my eyes out to spite my face.
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Your face probably had it coming.
Buffython continues. Season 3 was quality; not quite up to the second season's standard, but that's not exactly a low bar to set. The Mayor was a neat villain and there was good character work throughout, especially when he and Faith got their dynamic going (which should have happened a bit sooner, but eh, nitpicking), and the finale was impressive.
Edit: Reaper renewed? Kick ASS.
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News! Beginning with the 2010 season, Steven Moffat will take over as producer and head writer of Doctor Who. Anybody who's followed the series knows why this is awesome.
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Meh fits here best I think.
Bill Hicks, Sane Man - Worth what I payed for it. Bill Hicks was awesome. Really good stuff. His material get repetative the more performances you see, shock though, that is stand up.
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Reaper- All the hype here made me watch the limited number of episodes they have on the CW website (Think it's maybe the last 5). Fun show, although I wish the beginning ones were more easily accessible.
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Battlestar Galactica last night was effing phenomenal.
*throws sharp object at Grefter*
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What was that? Your girly show about frilly pink dresses was fabulous? Whatever.
Dexter - This is cool.
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Seconding Gref on the Dexter hype. Listened to some of it while reading in the other room, it was very enjoyable. I should catch more of it.
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Scrap Heap Challenge - I haven't hyped this for a bit since later seasons of it haven't had as many crowning moments of awesome (It is Brittish, so short seasons and are showing it daily where it appears to have been a weekly show, so flying through them), they generally are at their best when they have to do something a little bit abstract or just have a specific goal, a lot more specialist vehicles where I have seen lately. Still fun easy to watch while eating though.
Tonight though was awesome. None of this teams head to head thing. They got an all star team and the general public to make stuff. Public had as long as they wanted for it I think. Anyway, it was just vehicles again, racing. But the awesome is that it was make them out of furniture. So you have pool tables, baths, baths with toilets, dinner tables, a three piece washer/dryer/dishwasher set and all sorts of cool shit like that. Pretty awesome.
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I told you guys forever ago that I saw the first season of Dexter and it was really cool! No one listened!
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Because nobody gives a shit!
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Can't say I agree about Dexter. The novelty wears, the narration grates, the supporting cast sucks.
I don't tend to go in for cop shows in the first place, though, so take that with a grain of salt if likes you some CSI and Law & Order.
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I don't mind CSI when it isn't mimicing The Core with epic failure at science. I don't watch it, but I won't turn it off if someone has left the TV on and I am getting some food. Law and Order is massive fail.
Dexter plays with some fun things to do with Serial Killers. It has that whole "I am an emotionless killing machine" thing going on which is pretty clearly a complete and total lie that the guy is telling himself and uses it to justify things. He might be emotionally retarded, but he is still feeling things. And there is some other fun things. I won't exactly go out and buy it right now. So the show isn't Venture Brothers good, but it is worth a look is all, just kind of cool.
Edit - Disclaimer: Most of the time CSI is The Core level fail at science.
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Okay, so the latest season of Doctor Who just ended and it was fucking awesome. Donna is easily the best companion of the last four years, barring maybe the first version of Jack Harkness, the episodes were generally high-quality and included some really great genre pieces, and the finale was pure fanservice cheese but so goddamn good at it. Definitely ended Davies' run as head writer on a high note.
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I have lost track of the modern series. Is this the Master stuff or is there more that I am just to lazy to actually get up to date with? Cause it would have to be amazing to beat the Here Comes the Drums stuff.
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This is new stuff, yeah. I'd be a bit surprised if you liked this finale better than last year's just because the whole thing with the Master was so completely in tune with your tastes, but it was damned good (and again had perfect casting for the nutjob supervillain). Awesome season in general, though.
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You can never go wrong by collecting all of X-Files and watchng them . . Nip/Tuck, the Tudors, and Girlfriends. If I watch TV, I literally only catch Family Feud, Jerry Springer or Maury always on. Still watch those, oddly enough. Maury: "You are NOT, the father." Me: "Unh unh unh unh unh guuuurrrl you kno u wrong."
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Shale: A day we've been awaiting... new season of Eureka starts July 29th.
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Woohoo!
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Been watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I had heard of the show before, but never really watched it until now. It's about a bunch of guys who may or may not all be related running a bar and being sarcastic assholes to each other. Easily the funniest show I've seen this year, and probably the funniest one I've been introduced to since Flight of the Concords. Incredibly funny, and, most importantly, free online. www.hulu.com has all of the first three seasons, and has actually bought the rights to do so so unlike TV Links it won't suddenly go down. Sure, everything else on the site is crap, but the site's still worth visiting for this show alone.
Gotta hand it to the advertising department for the show: putting up the first 3 seasons online has definitely made me want to catch the fourth season when it's on TV.
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Massive massive seconding on It's Always Sunny. I have endangered my health to watch the three seasons over at hulu. Reminiscent of AD for me (although it's obviously not quite the same thing) and kind of shocking because I'm not used to the idea of a good TV show that hasn't long since been canceled. All I can really do is suggest you take the three seconds to grab a free account at that site you can at least watch the first episode; if it's the kind of thing you'd find funny (which certainly doesn't have to be the case), you'd probably know pretty soon into it.
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Eureka- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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I obviously missed something important on Eureka I take it.
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Yes. Yes you did.
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Nobody's mentioned Deadwood?
Fucking cocksuckers.
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Flight of the Conchords is awesome.
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:) ;-) :-* :P :P Dollhouse Premiers Friday!@!!!@#!!! :) ;-) :-* :P :P
Now, hopefully it won't get cancelled after two episodes. Fucking Fox
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Battlestar Galactica's now four episodes in to its final stretch of ten. Now, this whole season (these four and the ten before them) have been completely phenomenal, but Friday's in particular... goddamn, it nearly had me in tears by the end. More of you need to watch this show.
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:) ;-) :-* :P :P Dollhouse Premiers Friday!@!!!@#!!! :) ;-) :-* :P :P
I saw the first ten minutes or so at NYCC. It was pretty good stuff.
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SHIT. I have a date on Friday ni----
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Oh, well. I'll just tape it. ^_^
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You can always date later. A show premiering is something special, man.
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SHIT. I have a date on Friday ni----
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Oh, well. I'll just tape it. ^_^
Damn, you and Tai really hit it off together, huh?
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You can always date later. A show premiering is something special, man.
JOSS WHEDON >>>>>>> ANY GIRL
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He has a point. Bros before hos.
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If you are not watching one of the following shows, you are missing out: House, Burn Notice and Psych.
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What exactly are you missing out on by not watching House? The repetitive nature of every episode? The characters that seem deep and fleshed out but really turn out to be stagnant and flat?
Maybe the show's better than I give it credit for, but though I liked it at first, it just seemed... repetitive. If you've seen one show, you've seen a good deal of them.
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That's pretty much why I stopped watching. I like the formula, which is why I gladly stuck with it for four seasons, but by the time the new team was situated it just got aggravating.
Burn Notice I need to watch.
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I want to pick up the Burn Notice box set. I saw parts of season 1 and it was fantastic. Haven't been able to catch any season 2 or 3 stuff though.
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Fox is showing Dollhouse on a Friday? Ouch, that's kind of a death sentence right there. Nothing on that day has worked out for Fox for a decade.
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It's also Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku, which probably doom it right there when combined with Fox (they're good together, but combined with Fox...death...)
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I like House due to the Holmes references, really. That's about it. Don't watch it regularly, though.
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Don't watch it regularly
Sound advice.
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Well the Dollhouse pilot was pretty damn good. Here's hoping they can keep it up for the full season (and beyond, if Fox isn't a bunch of dicks).
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I think the words of Christopher Titus come to mind.
"And I know for a fact that there IS a God, because I survived three seasons on the Fox Network."
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I think the words of Christopher Titus come to mind.
"And I know for a fact that there IS a God, because I survived three seasons on the Fox Network."
Damn I miss that show... There was no good reason to cancel it :(
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Public service announcement: Reaper is coming back on the air two weeks from yesterday. Watch it or I will give Orion your home addresses.
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So yeah, Life on Mars is the first TV show in ages to get my interest. It's well written, stylish and damned interesting.
Of course, by the time I finally really get into it, ABC cancels it. I remember why I gave up on TV before.
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Try watching the original? It's British, so it's still short, but it's got an ending. And a sequel!
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It's also British, so I'll pass.
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Have I mentioned that I very much enjoy Chuck? It's got Adam Baldwin in it, so I shouldn't need to give any supporting evidence.
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It's also British, so I'll pass.
You say this like it's a bad thing. I do not comprehend.
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Have I mentioned that I very much enjoy Chuck? It's got Adam Baldwin in it, so I shouldn't need to give any supporting evidence.
I also very much enjoy it, minus the constant plot-hole they need to constantly drive through.
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I forgave them when I saw they cast Scott Bakula as Chuck and Ellie's dad. This was after they cast TRON!!!! as Captain Awesome's.
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So yeah, Life on Mars is the first TV show in ages to get my interest. It's well written, stylish and damned interesting.
Of course, by the time I finally really get into it, ABC cancels it. I remember why I gave up on TV before.
Fail Dune. Fail very hard. It is named after DAVID BOWIE. How the fuck can you stand watching a shitty American remake? The entire THING is pure Brit. 70's/80's Brit at that (so less Chav). It is a fantastic series that I highly reccomend and Ashes to Ashes isn't bad either.
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Anybody who isn't watching Batman: The Brave and the Bold really should be if they like Silver Age comics. This week, Batman teamed up with a group of alternate-universe Batmen to fight an evil Batman. How is that not the perfect TV show?
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Anybody who isn't watching Batman: The Brave and the Bold really should be if they like Silver Age comics. This week, Batman teamed up with a group of alternate-universe Batmen to fight an evil Batman. How is that not the perfect TV show?
I can only handle so much camp!
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Anybody who isn't watching Batman: The Brave and the Bold really should be if they like Silver Age comics. This week, Batman teamed up with a group of alternate-universe Batmen to fight an evil Batman. How is that not the perfect TV show?
This. I was expecting more of the same tripe we've been getting post-JLU, but B&B is actually really fun to watch. The episode with Aquaman was my favorite so far, mostly because of Aquaman himself.
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BUMPING!?
Anyway, lots of shows are finishing the season (or series, in a few cases) this past week and this upcoming week. I have comments on lots of them!
Beware of possible spoilers!!!!
Dollhouse
So after the cliffhanger the week before, we get to see what was in store for Echo and Alpha.
...eh...I don't like Alpha's motives at all. Maybe I've just seen it done too often already, but it seems a little weird. Granted, the show is built on mental weirdness to begin with, but...yeah, I prefer the grey villains that show had build up before then by far. On a positive note, I like the actor and style of the character, so if I just ignore his exposition, I think it will work out.
I'm happy the show moved along with the base of the plot, and the character that appears to be leaving at the end I'm so happy did (horrible acting skills...really, really shitty). Hopefully they stay gone. I've seen cats that could act better than them.
The premise of the show I like, and have found it particularly interesting. Now that it seems like there's an underlying plot, I'm really in to it. Hopefully FOX won't cancel it >_>
Scrubs
One of my favourite shows is over...but damn that was great. As always, Scrubs does wonders with using music to make the moments, and the final sequence (last ~5 minutes or so) was damn perfect. Season 7 was pretty weak, but Season 8 made up for it a lot. Sad to see it go, but it a least ended on a high note. Not much else to say - I think things came to a decent conclusion, and even though something ended up exactly how I expected it to...it was done a lot better than I thought it would be, so it was overall executed well. Watch this if you haven't already, or I force you at DL Con.
Really looking forward to the Season 4 finale of Supernatural.
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Well, I mostly watch whatever my roommate's watching if I watch anything (she's into Heroes, Law & Order, Lost, to name some well-known ones).
Medium
Just consistently by far the best program we watch. I never hear anyone talking about it outside my apartment, which confuses me because to me it's so much better than so many programs I do hear people talking about.
House, Law & Order SVU
Are also pretty good.
There's a lot of programs I've found watchable but nothing special (other Law & Orders, Heroes, Family Guy, Numbers).
Then programs that I find actively bad (The Office, Scrubs, My Name is Earl, Lost--although to be fair I catch one in ten episodes of Lost at most and I'm told you can't watch it that way).
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Really haven't had time for TV for a while. Not since leaving for Europish? I only consistently watch the Propaganda Hour (TM) and Public access anymore. Though, pimping of The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Flight of the Conchords is always necessary.
MC's dislike of The Office seems to indicate that she has no sense of humour.
EDIT: Oh, I do remember being introduced to an awesome British TV show by a few friends while I was there. I forget the name of it. Misanthrope runs a bookstore, gets a gullible manpet, is constantly harrangued by sassy female stock character. All very British. Pretty funny despite my description of it. Can't remember what it's called though.
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That's Black Books.
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MC's dislike of The Office seems to indicate that she has no sense of humour.
Friends I know who like the Office (and Dilbert, for that matter) seem to be people who have screwed up office situations themselves. I just...can't relate at all to the Office--to me, people act more like rational, believable human beings on Japanese gameshows than they do on the Office.
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Probably why you dislike Scrubs too. Scrubs is the most true-to-life medical show (that was) on TV. Physicians have a MASSIVE dislike of House, Grey's Anatomy, etc.
Yes, people actually do act like that in real life in the medical world. It's very, very realistic.
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Since I'm in Japan I'm a whole season behind on Supernatural, but at someone's (maybe it was OK's?) suggestion, I found the DVDs for rent at the local video store.
I'm really getting into it. The early episodes feel like homages to bad horror flicks, and the cast plays with this pretty blatantly. Much appreciated. Apart from the weekly horror-movie episodic plots, there's a very Joss Whedon-esque main plot tying it all together. It wasn't until the third season that this underlying plot really got me 'excited about what happens next' instead of just simply enjoying the atmosphere of each episode on its own.
Highlights? Sam and Dean's dynamic works well and really developes later on. Fun to watch. Also, Dean in general is oozing with badass tropes, and it somehow works with his character and works into the plot and the general theme of 'Hunters are each their own unique snowflake of psycho'. (Yes, that's a theme.)
Midway through Season 3 and hoping that it doesn't end on -too- big of a cliffhanger as the 4th season isn't out in Japan...
Couldn't find 'Reaper' or 'Life on Mars' in the rental store...
Need more suggestions of good TV...
-Djinn
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MC's dislike of The Office seems to indicate that she has no sense of humour.
Friends I know who like the Office (and Dilbert, for that matter) seem to be people who have screwed up office situations themselves. I just...can't relate at all to the Office--to me, people act more like rational, believable human beings on Japanese gameshows than they do on the Office.
The Office is really, REALLY awful. Thank you for living, MC.
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Wait, Metroid looks for realism in comedy? That's, like, mutally exclusive. Entirely misses the point of the genre (or, indeed, the medium, but that's beside the point.)
*watches mostly reruns of things, wanders away from conversation*
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Crappy-workplace comedy is funny largely because it rings true with the audience. If you haven't been in the situations it parodies, there's not much to laugh at.
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Probably why you dislike Scrubs too. Scrubs is the most true-to-life medical show (that was) on TV. Physicians have a MASSIVE dislike of House, Grey's Anatomy, etc.
Yes, people actually do act like that in real life in the medical world. It's very, very realistic.
Ironically, my aunt, who is a nurse at Mass General, HATES Scrubs. She thinks it's disrespectful. Loves the other procedural medical shows though.
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Wait, Metroid looks for realism in comedy? That's, like, mutally exclusive. Entirely misses the point of the genre
Actually a huge part of the genre is relateability. Generally you need to be able to process jokes in under 3 seconds or they're not funny.
Show a 7-year-old a stand-up comedian doing sex jokes, and they won't find it funny, and may be a bit traumatized. Not that you couldn't explain the joke to the 7-year-old but they may not even want to know the explanation, and simply find the fact that adults act this way disturbing. (Actually that's a pretty good summary of my reaction to the office).
As for realism, yeah, seeing as the only comedy I didn't list as low-tier is Family Guy (which tends to focus around a talking baby and a talking dog) I don't think you can blame me of seeking that in comedy. Though...come to think of it I like the Daily Show too--that might count as realistic! >_>
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Not the same thing. Realistic is a situation that has or you could easily imagine happening to you in real life. Comedy depends on taking that same situation and either taking it to ridiculous, over the top heights or having the situation happen similarly, but having character react in a sort of "what everyone WISHES they could do in that situation" manner. While bad things happening to people can be sorta funny in a guilty-pleasure way, it's equally likely to induce sympathy ("Ouch, done that, that sucks man"). By making it ridiculous, you bypass the sympathetic response. It's no longer plausible enough to invoke sympathy, yet relatable enough to maintain Willing Suspension of Disbelief and make logical sense to the viewer.
(You don't of course have to actually leave the bounds of reality to achieve a feel of over-the-top, since naturally reality can be stranger than fiction.)
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Watch Black Books. It is God. I am going to see Dylan Moran this month doing some stand up actually (Watch Dylan Moran acts as well).
The Office is incredibly uncomfortable to watch, that is what Ricky Jervais does though. The American version is fucking horrible and rapes it to death though. Creepy and awkward of Jervais just comes off as overt disgusting bullying in the US release. Also what the fuck you do a DIRECT COPY OF THE SHOW THAT IS IN THE ENGLISH FUCKING LANGUAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.
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I watch: Chuck, Heroes (Only because it's on after Chuck), Reaper, The Office, 30 Rock, Dollhouse, and sometimes Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Chuck is a consistently amusing show, and I really hope it comes back (Stupid Jay Leno and stupid NBC programming decisions), although I felt the season finale wrapped it up enough so that I at least won't be completely crushed if it doesn't.
The Dollhouse finale was kind of ass, and despite there being a million questions the show could still answer, they already dropped the ball on something kind of easy. Alpha was massive fail, and I came up with a better character in about 10 seconds.
SCC had an awesome finale, and although I don't always catch it, I'd love to see it come back though. The rating imply otherwise though.
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Watch Black Books. It is God. I am going to see Dylan Moran this month doing some stand up actually (Watch Dylan Moran acts as well).
THAT'S the fucking show. Black Books. Yes. It is good.
EDIT: That's Black Books.
Oh also that.
The Office is incredibly uncomfortable to watch, that is what Ricky Jervais does though. The American version is fucking horrible and rapes it to death though. Creepy and awkward of Jervais just comes off as overt disgusting bullying in the US release. Also what the fuck you do a DIRECT COPY OF THE SHOW THAT IS IN THE ENGLISH FUCKING LANGUAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.
Honestly, I don't get this. The British version is great but the American version is hilarious as well. Probably has something to do with the gap between British humor and American humor, or something. Or you only watched something from the first season where the show was too busy trying to copy the British show before they realized it was funnier to go for a different sort of awkward.
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Or you only watched something from the first season where the show was too busy trying to copy the British show before they realized it was funnier to go for a different sort of awkward.
That would be it, because unless I have missed something they shitcanned it after the first season down here on free to air beecauuuuse, first season was fucking horrible. You only get one season before I stop caring.
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I don't know if you can access it, but Hulu.com has the episodes on there. I think it's only accessible in the US though because of bureaucratic retardation; I know I couldn't watch anything on while I was in England. Anyway, if you can access it I'd recommend checking out a later season or something. At least "The Dinner Party" or whatever it was called. Season 4 or something.
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Vegas- Seen almost the entire series just by osmosis, since dad watches it all the time. It had pretty good production values and was entertaining enough fluff.
Been watching Mythbusters. Haven't sat down and watched any episodic TV since playmakers went off the air several years ago. I do want to watch Burn notice though.
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Oh people are reminding me of other shows I've seen.
Mythbusters: watched with Laggy and Asdla. Excellent show.
Chuck: file under the decent to pretty good range.
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Since I'm in Japan I'm a whole season behind on Supernatural, but at someone's (maybe it was OK's?) suggestion, I found the DVDs for rent at the local video store.
I'm really getting into it. The early episodes feel like homages to bad horror flicks, and the cast plays with this pretty blatantly. Much appreciated. Apart from the weekly horror-movie episodic plots, there's a very Joss Whedon-esque main plot tying it all together. It wasn't until the third season that this underlying plot really got me 'excited about what happens next' instead of just simply enjoying the atmosphere of each episode on its own.
Highlights? Sam and Dean's dynamic works well and really developes later on. Fun to watch. Also, Dean in general is oozing with badass tropes, and it somehow works with his character and works into the plot and the general theme of 'Hunters are each their own unique snowflake of psycho'. (Yes, that's a theme.)
Midway through Season 3 and hoping that it doesn't end on -too- big of a cliffhanger as the 4th season isn't out in Japan...
-Djinn
Yeah, that was me. I think I'm (was?) the only Supernatural fan here. I'm really, really looking forward to tomorrow night - it's set itself up for something big, and Kripke hasn't disappointed yet. The over-arching plot picks up a lot in season 4 - huge amounts. There's the plot during season 1 of trying to find the father and learning about the origins of the family disaster, but there's a bigger one that's been revealed now in the 3rd season that you're on. It spirals a lot during season 4. If the 4th season is out on DVD, I can loan it to you at DL Con.
As for the cliffhanger...eh. It is and isn't a cliffhanger. You'll see.
Really looking forward to see what the end of season 4 will do for season 5, the last season of the series. Damn, lots of good shows ending ;_;
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Andrew's Season Finale Analysis
House: Depends almost entirely on what they end up doing with it. The episode itself was fairly standard fare, until they decided to go with the all out mind screw. I will admit a degree of indecision about whether or not the twist was a cheat. The season finale episode itself had plenty of hints about it, but whether or not the previous episode had hints to make it more viable remains a question.
Psych: Great episode that really fell flat at the end. It really felt like they wanted to do a longer episode, which is a shame, because the entire build up was fanfuckingtastic.
Burn Notice: Awesome all around. It did everything really well.
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Been watching Deadliest Warrior. Comes on Spike on Tuesday nights. Takes two warrior cultures (Vikings versus Samurai, American Green Berets versus Russian Spetsnaz, etc.) and pits their weaponry against medical dummies and computer simulations. Amusing just to see how much damage these things can cause.
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Yeah, that was me. I think I'm (was?) the only Supernatural fan here. I'm really, really looking forward to tomorrow night - it's set itself up for something big, and Kripke hasn't disappointed yet. The over-arching plot picks up a lot in season 4 - huge amounts. There's the plot during season 1 of trying to find the father and learning about the origins of the family disaster, but there's a bigger one that's been revealed now in the 3rd season that you're on. It spirals a lot during season 4. If the 4th season is out on DVD, I can loan it to you at DL Con.
As for the cliffhanger...eh. It is and isn't a cliffhanger. You'll see.
Really looking forward to see what the end of season 4 will do for season 5, the last season of the series. Damn, lots of good shows ending ;_;
Definitely a "was" there, I'm really enjoying the series. Surprisingly enough, it's popular in Japan, too. I figured it must have had -some- amount of popularity here since it was available for rent, but when I started telling my classes about it, I got a lot of "I love that show!" reactions.
The first of such conversations actually occurred with my Japanese tutor.
"Hey, I gotta tell you about this awesome new American TV show I saw recently! It's a ghost-hunter series called Supernatural, it's about these two brothe-"
"Supernatural?! Really?!"
"Uh, yeah... have you heard of it?"
*pulls out her cellphone and shows me that her background is Sam looking kickass*
"The older brother's my favorite, but I like this picture of Sam!"
Me: >.>;;
And I had spent a few minutes mentally preparing how to describe the series in Japanese, too! ;_;
-DJ
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Expose (Yourself to) them to Black Books. Or try Life On Mars. Something really outlandish.
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...well, all I can say about Season 4 is that it ends on a massive (though stylish) cliffhanger.
Otherwise, I saw the character twist about halfway through the episode. I was expecting it to happen, but it worked nicely. This will be an interesting catch-up in Season 5. Can't wait to see it.
Also, definitely prefer Katie Cassidy over Genevieve Cortese for Ruby. Oh well. I think Katie Cassidy's look and voice fit her more.
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Ok, I feel like ranting a bit on Supernatural thus far.
SPOILER WARNING...though only 2 of us actually care about it here >_>
First off, Ruby had to have the most anti-climactic death in the series thus far. Wow, that was...pathetic. She's arguably one of the strongest, most influential demons, and...yeah. Not her best showing >_>
Ok, so... Ruby turning traitor. I like the interesting parallels here. We're led to believe that there really are good demons in Season 3. This also seems like it's holding true as we continue through Season 4, when the angels are introduced. Castiel, Uriel, Zachariah, Anna...all with very different motives. Uriel supports Lucifer, Zachariah cryptically states that he's running the angels for his own agenda via trickery, Anna threw away her angelic nature due to the lack of free will and general assholery of the hierarchy of angels, and Castiel joins the humans after he sees that the difference between angels, demons, and humans is much thinner than he's lead to believe.
So this really supports the fact that Ruby might be true to her initial statement that she's really helping the brothers. I mean, if angels can display such variable attitudes, why can't demons?
Well, apparently demons are purely evil. Or not necessarily evil, but at least more united in their agenda than the angels. Lilith and Ruby ran the Winchesters for a loop - Lilith's recent "let's make a deal" seemed to drive home the thought that killing her was the right idea. Nicely done deception, demons.
So the entire purpose of everything was influenced by Azazel - create special children to open the gate for Lilith, break the seals, then kill her to release Lucifer.
Honestly, I think I'm rooting for Lucifer at the moment >_> Outside of Castiel and Anna (the latter of whom might be gone for good ;_;), the angels are generally assholes. I mean seriously, engineering his escape just to have a chance at beating him for good and beginning the war of hell on earth? Dicks. I have the funny feeling that there is going to be HUGE problems in Heaven - and the angels will be getting their asses kicked. >_>
Once again, I feel the need to reiterate that Katie Cassidy > Genevive Cortese for Ruby. The bitchy look of Cassidy > Genevive's nicer look...although the nicer look seemed a lot more unnerving to begin with this season.
Predictions for Season 5 (the last season)? Castiel will be back after kicking some archangel ass (3rd most popular character after the brothers? Yeah...). The angels will have some huge problems, and probably regret doing what they did. Zachariah in particular is going to get raped. Anna...I would hope she returns. I'm interested to see what Lucy looks like. Bobby will surely have a role to play, and maybe we'll see Jo, Ellen, and some of the others in the next season. Either way, looks promising.
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Oh, right, I also watch Legend of the Seeker from time to time. Based on the ever beloved writings of Terry Goodkind! Luckily, they have no issues straying from the source material, although the actual episodes generally tend to follow some part of the book, just with heavy rewriting. Today's episode, which was quite excellent, was made by mixing up parts of book 1 and book 7 or 8. I'll admit, part of the draw is watching something I read come to life when it would otherwise seem impractical (Speaking of, I'll be very happy if the Song of Ice and Fire series works out).
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Ok, I feel like ranting a bit on Supernatural thus far.
SPOILER WARNING...though only 2 of us actually care about it here >_>
This is like the only series I -don't- want to be spoiled on... Damn you, OK. You've made a post only *I* can appreciate, but since I'm a full season behind, I can't actually read it.
This is some kind of multiple-person triple fail...
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I felt like ranting in public, give me a break >_>
And hey, Grefter sometimes reads spoilers, so maybe he'll see it!
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ugh. hate Supernatural. so. much.
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I don't care about Supernatural and therefore have not read your spoilers.
Spoil something good next time OK. Watch all of Ashes to Ashes and talk about it to spoil me on something.
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Dollhouse got renewed! This is unexpected and awesome.
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Scrubs
One of my favourite shows is over...but damn that was great. As always, Scrubs does wonders with using music to make the moments, and the final sequence (last ~5 minutes or so) was damn perfect. Season 7 was pretty weak, but Season 8 made up for it a lot. Sad to see it go, but it a least ended on a high note. Not much else to say - I think things came to a decent conclusion, and even though something ended up exactly how I expected it to...it was done a lot better than I thought it would be, so it was overall executed well. Watch this if you haven't already, or I force you at DL Con.
There was something about the ending sequence that really bothered me: apparently in the future, JD totally forgets about the son he already has in favor of this new one Eliott pops out.
Anyway, Chuck got renewed. WHAT UP.
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Scrubs
One of my favourite shows is over...but damn that was great. As always, Scrubs does wonders with using music to make the moments, and the final sequence (last ~5 minutes or so) was damn perfect. Season 7 was pretty weak, but Season 8 made up for it a lot. Sad to see it go, but it a least ended on a high note. Not much else to say - I think things came to a decent conclusion, and even though something ended up exactly how I expected it to...it was done a lot better than I thought it would be, so it was overall executed well. Watch this if you haven't already, or I force you at DL Con.
There was something about the ending sequence that really bothered me: apparently in the future, JD totally forgets about the son he already has in favor of this new one Eliott pops out.
Anyway, Chuck got renewed. WHAT UP.
Ouch... I should not have read your post.
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Spoiled about the ending of Scrubs? ;_;
And Dollhouse renewed is good. I heard Joss had planned for 5 seasons to culminate the plot - maybe he'll get the chance.
What's not that you liked about le Supernatural, Mik?
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YES! at Chuck getting renewed. I mean...it's not surprising, since there was both a big campaign to save it, and it's numbers were pretty solid anyways (Same as Heroes, but worse demographics). Also happy, if completely baffled at Dollhouse getting renewed. I can only imagine that Fox's potential pilots for next season were incredibly bleak, because Dollhouse's ratings are complete shit.
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What's not that you liked about le Supernatural, Mik?
The brothers. Individually, and especially together. They annoy the hell out of me. Every other episode is a recycled plot where they get separated and end up cathartically proving how much they [love/hate] each other. It also bothers me that women seem only in the show to be victims. The older brother's voice is very annoying. Their lying is completely implausable. Most importantly, ther show is still on the air.
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What's not that you liked about le Supernatural, Mik?
The brothers. Individually, and especially together. They annoy the hell out of me. Every other episode is a recycled plot where they get separated and end up cathartically proving how much they [love/hate] each other. It also bothers me that women seem only in the show to be victims. The older brother's voice is very annoying. Their lying is completely implausable. Most importantly, ther show is still on the air.
To be fair, most of the men are in the show to be victims as well.
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The brothers. Individually, and especially together. They annoy the hell out of me. Every other episode is a recycled plot where they get separated and end up cathartically proving how much they [love/hate] each other. It also bothers me that women seem only in the show to be victims. The older brother's voice is very annoying. Their lying is completely implausable. Most importantly, ther show is still on the air.
You frame it so badly. The brothers' relationship is what sells it for me. Maybe you just have a completely different kind of relationship with your own siblings?
The show doesn't really have many prominent female characters. And the episodic females have a pretty broad range of personalities. Most of them aren't the 'damsel' types. And the victim count for the occult horrors seems to be pretty evenly spread between male and female. It might be confirmation bias. The show presents itself as 'cheesy horror flick of the week - with some overarching plot sometimes!'. The 'damsels' of cheesy horror flicks are pretty numerous, so it's probably just what you're expecting.
There have been a few too many times where the brothers' lying has been implausible. Especially in later episodes. The early episodes were more 'monster mystery of the week' and so they focused more on how the brothers managed to get by the normal authorities - and it also showed them failing at it a few more times.
By season 3, that storyline was getting old, so they handwave it more often and let the viewer fill in the gaps based on previous shows. Honestly, I think the series is making the right choice there from a storytelling perspective.
I could be a bit biased, too, but that's how I see it. The show plays with all of my favorite tropes for its genre, and it's one of the few series I've enjoyed that -didn't- have a strong female lead(s), so it's something of a rarity for the American shows I like. *shrugs* It comes together well.
-Djinn
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Also happy, if completely baffled at Dollhouse getting renewed. I can only imagine that Fox's potential pilots for next season were incredibly bleak, because Dollhouse's ratings are complete shit.
As near as I can tell, it was making money for the station despite the low ratings. Combination of good numbers online and on DVD sales and the fact that it's really cheap to produce. The fact that it wasn't dropping off from its leadin shows probably helped too.
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Which is pretty respectable for a FRIDAY NIGHT DEATH TIME SLOT.
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Oh, also, Scrubs isn't over. More of a good show is good, I guess, but it feels like a waste of a perfect series finale.
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Really? Huh...yeah, a good show, but...mmm. That is the waste of an excellent finale. Bah.
Oh well, hopefully it will be ok. I don't know...how are they going to end it now? Bah.
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Hmm, so it is. Zack Braff, Sarah Chalke and Judy Reyes are leaving the show, though, though apparently Zack and Sarah are going to do guest spots for like six episodes. The rest of the cast are going to be "regulars who can give priority to other projects."
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Must be a related to the Interns spin-off.
Well, as long as they aren't re-using the same cast members exclusively, that's good. JD's and Elliot's story is basically done with (as are the rest of the characters), so focusing on them would be kind of pointless.
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You frame it so badly.
Well, yes. It's because I hate it so much, you see.
The brothers' relationship is what sells it for me. Maybe you just have a completely different kind of relationship with your own siblings?
Yeah, we get along without really any drama whatsoever. We certainly don't beat each other up every other episode due to a) unresolved issues or b) demon possession.
The show doesn't really have many prominent female characters.
Yeah, they all die (literally) in a fire to add a little poignancy to our strapping young lads' story. Convenient, that.
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Yeah, we get along without really any drama whatsoever. We certainly don't beat each other up every other episode due to a) unresolved issues or b) demon possession.
You must lead a very boring life. I feel sorry for you.
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You must lead a very boring life. I feel sorry for you.
I would say who relieves my boredom, but you already know, don't you? I'm not sure if this means you should feel sorry for me or vice versa. But someone's sorry. I'm quite sure of that.
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I thought the point of Supernatural was being western-made primetime yaoicest.
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And this conflicts with OK liking it how, exactly?
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You must lead a very boring life. I feel sorry for you.
I would say who relieves my boredom, but you already know, don't you? I'm not sure if this means you should feel sorry for me or vice versa. But someone's sorry. I'm quite sure of that.
Random question - how much of the series have you seen?
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most of season 1 and 2, and snippets of season 3 and 4. My ex-girlfriend loves it, and has played it all on dvd, often in my presence, to my regret.
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Must be a related to the Interns spin-off.
Well, as long as they aren't re-using the same cast members exclusively, that's good. JD's and Elliot's story is basically done with (as are the rest of the characters), so focusing on them would be kind of pointless.
They didn't even MENTION Bob Kelso, which makes me sad, as he is my favorite character.
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He was off sleeping with whores.
Pushing Daisies: Started, watched through the sixth episode. Good show, if overly saccharine at times (to wit, whenever Ned and Chuck are together unchaperoned). Love the writing, and the style really works.
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Reaper.
Fuck the CW. Seriously. 33 episodes over 2 seasons sees the end of an awesome show.
Not sure how I feel about the end of the series - the finale was good in a couple ways, kind of insulting in a few others. The last 3 minutes...would be good if the series wasn't ENDING >_>
Ok, As soon as I saw Andi bat her eyes after talking to Gladys, I knew she was going to sacrifice herself like that. The "God works in mysterious ways" thing...like I said, should have happened if the series was continuing. Leaving it at Sam and Andi kissing after they say that, "we're happy because we're finally, truly, together forever, even if we're damned for all time" would have been the way to end it. The last bit...ok, has some symbolism, but...bleh. Didn't particularly seem integrated into the story. Meant the series ended on a sad frustrating note, instead of a sad yet sappy note. Kind of sucks it sputtered out instead of ending in a flash, but...
So, I guess overall, it had some awesome points (Sock high on toad, the opening with the Devil having Sam dance like a monkey), but it feels a bit incomplete for a series ender, but that might be because it was a bit abrupt, so I think it overall ended as well as it could (though could have been way better). Still, the show was awesome, and to see it go is very sad.
Oh, and, "Ok, we're going to have sex" *falls over a couch* Was awesome. I love how the series plays (...played) those two characters.
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Finished Pushing Daisies. It was completely awesome, and the lack of a proper resolution is a fucking crime. Watch it anyway, because the style, writing and characters are all top-notch.
Dammit, now I want some pie.
Also watched a bit of Supernatural, and I can see where Jim's coming from. I'm not writing it off yet, but the nigh-exclusive use of women as throwaway victims does grate.
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Watched the first three seasons of Bones on DVD. The characters work well together, and forensic anthropology/crimefighting is an interesting backdrop to the character development. Funny how that works.
Watched the first episode of Showtime's Dexter.
Fuck that shit is psychologically scarring.
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Dexter was scarring? Bones creeps me out more than Dexter.
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Are you talking about the characters or the shows?
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Both.
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While I don't quite get the Bones creepiness...
I had only watched the first episode of Dexter when I posted, and it's a well-preserved visceral reaction. After having watched about 8 episodes now, I'm feeling desensitized to the sociopath-as-hero concept which disturbed me in that 'creeping horror' way.
I'm a fan of cheesy horror movies, but Dexter (the series) is more subtle. It's a well-made series from what I've seen, though there's definitely a part of me that has a problem getting behind the idea of 'rooting' for the sociopathic serial killer. The first episode is particularly scarring because the writers are trying very hard to induce that balance of disgust and likeableness in the title character.
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Dexter is one of a very few shows that actually benefits from being narrated by the main character.
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You make a good point, I remember it worked pretty well in Dead Like Me, but I'm struggling to think of any other examples where it helped the show very much.
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Scrubs.
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Scrubs.
I need to watch that, I hear good things. And more importantly, the only bad things I hear aren't really that bad.
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On the other hand, Scrubs is at it's best when the person narrating it isn't JD.
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I picked up the first two seasons of Animaniacs today. Plot? Actors? Who needs 'em.
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I picked up the first two seasons of Animaniacs today. Plot? Actors? Who needs 'em.
...
I want that. ;_;
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I picked up the first two seasons of Animaniacs today. Plot? Actors? Who needs 'em.
I bought that for my brother for his birthday. Looking forward to watching it.
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This year's Twilight Zone marathon is only the 1980's TV series.
I am very, very, VERY angry.
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There was a 1980's twilight zone?
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Yes. Mid-80's. It was bad, mostly ironic for the sake of being ironic and with none of the wit that the old series had. The 2000 revival was... alright. Some good stuff in there, but the 80's one was just bad.
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Finished the second season of Supernatural. I like the single-episode stories, but it gets really, really annoying how the Winchesters lose about 80 points of IQ whenever the story arc comes into play. Innocent people die left and right around them (both genders, contrary to the initial impression), but as soon as the innocent has a recurring credit they'd rather let the forces of hell overrun the world than lose somebody on their side. Yeah, the meta-reason is obvious, but they completely failed at working it into the story.
Edit: Also, I like how their big victory so far has been to shut a barn door after about a million cows walked through it.
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Finished the second season of Supernatural. I like the single-episode stories, but it gets really, really annoying how the Winchesters lose about 80 points of IQ whenever the story arc comes into play. Innocent people die left and right around them (both genders, contrary to the initial impression), but as soon as the innocent has a recurring credit they'd rather let the forces of hell overrun the world than lose somebody on their side. Yeah, the meta-reason is obvious, but they completely failed at working it into the story.
Edit: Also, I like how their big victory so far has been to shut a barn door after about a million cows walked through it.
I always got the impression that Supernatural was less about them being 'Big Damn Heroes' and more about watching them get more and more fucked up with each passing case.
...And even more important than even that is that each episode feels like a bad horror movie, which is the reason I've enjoyed it. Best episode I've seen so far has to be the one where they stop a haunting on a Hollywood set for a horror movie. It was wonderfully self-aware.
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Well, yeah
I always got the impression that Supernatural was less about them being 'Big Damn Heroes' and more about watching them get more and more fucked up with each passing case.
Well, yeah, but when they have the opportunity to be...not Big Damn Heroes, really, since a BDH moment doesn't generally involve shooting your own father in the heart, but heroes of some sort, and instead just stand there looking angsty until the villains get what they want, that's annoying.
...And even more important than even that is that each episode feels like a bad horror movie, which is the reason I've enjoyed it. Best episode I've seen so far has to be the one where they stop a haunting on a Hollywood set for a horror movie. It was wonderfully self-aware.
Oh, agreed. I did say I like the stand-alone stories.
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I'm also rewatching all of Babylon 5 because it's been a decade since it finished and I was 10 years old when it started, so I figured I probably missed or have forgotten some of the finer points. All of season 1, for instance. Just heard Delenn say "If you value your lives, be somewhere else," which is still one of the best Big Damn Heroes moments (speaking of which) in all of television.
Other stuff....the writing's as sharp, and the characters as good, as I remember. Ivanova is particularly awesome, and they handled the Sinclair/Sheridan transition pretty damn well, given the retarded constraints the network put on them. The weakest part of the third season, which is otherwise a superb arc, is the lack of development for Clark. I'm perfectly willing to believe a person like that exists, but give me a reason why. Is he a xenophobe who really believes what he's saying? A megalomaniac? Machiavellian? Just plain nuts? He's had maybe three minutes of screen time in the entire series and they didn't even try to answer those questions before making him a major villain.
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I have given thought to watching Bab 5 since JMS was one of my favorite Spider-Man writers ever, (and I've followed Spidey for a long time, and read at least the first decade of spidey-stories, too. I still need to read the late 70s and all of the 80s, though.)
For a non-fan, how well has this aged, would you think?
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The writing is quite good. The CGI is goddamn laughable, and the sets are pretty hit and miss. Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas are probably the best duo I can think of, which totally offsets that, however.
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Pretty much that. If you have any tolerance for blatantly dated visuals in the name of plot and characters, give it a shot. It's not like it'll cost you anything to try out (yay Hulu).
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Speaking of Hulu, they just put Spaced on it. Good stuff, for certain. Has something for everyone, including man on androgynous manlady for the Nius. Also, a subversive who trained a dog to smell people worth over a quarter million pounds and attack them.
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Hell's Kitchen: a British man screams at people for forty minutes. This really wouldn't be compelling if I didn't like British accents so much.
Dexter: I actually don't think they went nearly far enough with this. Before long Dexter has pretty much just turned into a good guy; his victims are all unambiguously, unsympathetically evil so it's way too easy to root for him. The show tries too hard to make me like him, to the point where the show engineers a convoluted way for someone else to kill a guy he obviously needs to kill, just because that guy was really likable too and it'd just be too much for Dexter's image if he did the job himself. I'm talking about events near the end of season 2, by the way, as I haven't gotten to season 3 yet. I'll probably continue with it anyway, it's certainly not bad, but I'd really prefer it if the show got back to dwelling on what an evil, insane person Dexter is. This is starting to feel like the show where the lone vigilante does what the process of law can't, instead of the show where a murder-obsessed lunatic performs ritual killings for reasons that only make sense in his own internal universe.
24: Speaking of vigilantes, I am partway through the first season and only eight years late. Judging by all that I've heard, I was expecting a Marty Stu in Jack, but that's mostly averted, I think, or if it isn't then I'm prepared to accept it because Kiefer Sutherland sells it. Like Spider-Man, he will ultimately come out on top but he's a desperate, exhausted, overpowered mess all the way there and that does a lot to keep him from being annoying. Jack's smarmy superior, Mason, is pretty great too.
EDIT: Haha, I love Drazen's plan in the season finale. "We need to trick Jack Bauer into being absolutely livid with blind rage towards us so that he'll come after our lives. After that, things should be pretty good."
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I finished the first 3 seasons of Buffy on Hulu and have since moved on to Angel because there is no more Buffy.
GOD, I wish there was more Buffy. The show was more than a little superior to Angel, and it had the presence of the compelling Xander Harris.
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Early Angel is better than the fourth season of Buffy anyway. It's a pretty big dropoff from 3, although it picks itself up again the next year.
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Anya, "Something Blue", and "Hush" would like a word with you.
Angel didn't heat up at all until Season 2. It had basically one season of true glory and then got fucked over with the whole Connor/Cordy/Jasmine bullshit.
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I really want to get into Entourage but their short seasons plus wanting to spend money to have the hard copies is always in-opportunistic as they're never on sale anymore!
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Anya, "Something Blue", and "Hush" would like a word with you.
Every scene even tangentially related to Adam says "hi." Also, Connor was a high point of Season 3. It was only after he aged up that he dragged the show down like a lead weight.
Speaking of Whedon shows, I got the Dollhouse DVDs. Epitaph One lived up to the hype.
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Adam only sucked in the "Final Boss" context, but Buffy big bads tended to be crazy-well done.
The Master > The Mayor > Angelus > Glory >>>>>>>> Adam >>> The First > Willow dear god EVERYTHING was greater than Willow.
He'd have otherwise been OK. The Initiative didn't bother me at all, because there were hints of such an organization as far back as Season 1.
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There's something wrong when -I- revive this topic. But anyways.
Friend recommending I watch Torchwood and Dr. Who, normally I trust this friend's taste but damnit this is television we're talking about. Want second opinion.
With the knowledge that the one TV show I watched and still like is Firefly, am I likely to enjoy these two?
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Doctor Who's good stuff, but not that much like Firefly. It's monster-of-the-week sci-fi. I'd say give it a try and see if you like it, but more because it's good on its own merits, and it only takes forty minutes to sample than because of similarity. The first episode of the modern series is "Rose," if you want to try it.
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Warning, I went off on a tangent.
If you want some good times then the old series is incredibly cheesey fun. Some of the Doctor's are better than others. Second Doctor was kind of meh from memory, stuff with the First Doctor is really old a beat up and some episodes are lost forever (BBC had a fire in their archives) but the First Doctor is a cranky old bastard which makes for hilarious good times because one of the longest running successful television serials started its run with a 60+ year old man yelling at everyone. Third Doctor brings back cranky old bastard again but John Pertwee is far more likable than I found William Hartnell (Again, First Doctor is a really cranky old bastard which is awesome, but not really likable). Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor) runs are of course absolutely timeless classics, still probably the best (although new series has some amazing episodes! The Library is great).
Fifth and Sixth Doctors are both functional but kind of let downs after Tom Baker, not much they could really do about that, certainly admirable efforts on their parts (not going to knock these two actors! Both did good jobs, but Tom Baker was... a little TO into the role to be honest and kind of owned it for his 7 years in it). Seventh Doctor is wow completely different. Sylvester McCoy on the series when it finally tanked and in no part because of him (Shitty scripts and just everything behind the scenes going all kinds of fucked pretty much), the guy did an amazing job and honestly is worth checking out in his other things, technically longest running Doctor although only actually was active in the role for 3 years. Good stuff kind of more nonsense than the older doctors, but his time the role has definitely stuck. Series is better watching it now than it was at the time apparently.
New stuff! Eighth doctor does not exist. Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston was good and at the time seemed to be showing a lot of promise for the new Doctor, then he stopped and we got David Tennant. David Tennant may be a better Doctor than Tom Baker (I think I need to rewatch some Baker stuff) but regardless of how good Tennant is as a character, this is the best the show has ever been. Great scripts, huge budgets and the production value just shows. It is a lot of fun if you can get into it.
Personally I consider it a series you could pick up anywhere of and probably have a lot of fun and there is nearly an endless amount of it you can pick up. The new stuff is great and doesn't rely on the old series at all to be good, but if you do get into the retro stuff the new series is even more rewarding.
Torchwood is a bit more GRIMDARKREALISM but yeah probably gets a few more gags in there as well. Worth your time if you are a fan of the main series I think but I wouldn't really watch it on its own.
YOU MISSED SARAH JANE ADVENTURES. Doctor Who for kids, this is actually pretty cool and there is even cross over between this and the main series. Premise is one of the companions of the Third and Fourth Doctors went back to her regular time on Earth after PAN DIMENSIONAL SUPER PIMP ADVENTURES and is kind of bored. She has some of the tech from her adventures with the Doctor and a robotic dog helper from the old series. They fight crime. Well more they have much smaller scale stuff dealing with aliens and time travel stuff and pretty much you Doctor Who stuff on a much smaller scale and a tad less THE ENTIRE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM IS GOING TO BE EATEN BY A SPACE BEETLE AND THE SPACE BEETLE WAS MADE BY THE DALEKS WHO HATE THE SPACE BEETLE and more kid friendly plots as Sarah Jane is helped by the local kids. So it is kind of Neighbourhood Watch for Space Aliens. My favourite part is that it is the same Actress that has always played Sarah Jane, kept the role since the 1960's.
Oh yeah have I hyped The Master enough before yet? Doctor Who is where The Master comes from and The Master is the best thing ever. Suffice to say Doctor Who has the Grefter seal of this shit is fucking fun.
Edit - Oh yeah and I can't hype the Family episodes enough. That shit is just fucking WOW. Tennant showing probably more range than the other Doctors have ever had the chance to in the role.
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I think if there was a synopsis of a show that described my life, it would be Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The story of borderline-alcoholic underachievers who spend most of their time in a dive bar, YEAH. Plus, there was a musical episode, they solved the gas crisis, and Danny DeVito is usually drunk while he's on screen.
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Prison Break.
So a Japanese friend of mine recommended this to me, and I was embarrassed to have never heard of it. It's overall pretty entertaining. It has a decent base concept that necessarily creates a lot of action. The actors are also very talented (except the teenager, who is painful to watch). The only problem I have with the show is its production decisions. By this I mean its tendency to kill off characters right as it introduces a bunch of plot seeds that would have been able to carry the show for the next 20 episodes or so. In other words, right as a character becomes interesting, they kill them off. It's really jarring. And the whole show seems to be built around this misdirection attempt at storytelling.
It's not LOST-level asspull surprises, but it's still pretty obvious narrative misdirection and the character's death often comes off as cheap instead of logical or meaningful.
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Well, I knew it was only a matter of time before Dollhouse got cancelled. Oh well.
Friday Night Death Spot claims another victim.
At least it got a second season, and might have a relative conclusion? Maybe?
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I'm bummed too. One of the few TV shows I make time out for. It was uneven, but it was awesome. I wonder how far out they had shot/at least you kind of know where it was going too.
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Whedon said he was going to make the season 2 finale something that would work as a series ender, after the way the ratings nosedived in September. So at least there's that?
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http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/11/12/morning-roundup-dollhouse-is-done-sting-stings-oscar-trims-legends/
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Hey Grefter, you know John Simm is coming back in Doctor Who, right?
Also, I went through the whole run of Chuck so far in the last week and a half or so. That is good television.
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Get the fuck out. That is going to be awesome and win and all kinds of awesome like Jazz Daleks.
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I speak nothing but truth. John Simm's Master is the villain, and, just to make absolutely sure that this is the best thing to ever happen in the world, Bernard Cribbens comes back and gets upgraded to companion status.
One month from Thursday. I can't fucking wait.
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Double post!
Also, WATCH THE WATERS OF MARS. It doesn't have the Master in it, but it rules. Goddamn that was great.
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Christ, Supernatural was depressing tonight.
Excuse me, I need to cut myself.
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Just avoid getting spoilers or blood in the topic.
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Caught the pilot of Chuck on Hulu finally. Liked it enough to go and DL the first season. Fun show. Took me a while to realize Bryce Larkin is the guy from White Collar. I totally identify with Chuck, so the series is fun. Morgan is hilarious, as was Harry Tang (glad they got rid of him before he got annoying, though). Can't really find much of the second season though, so waiting on it.
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The last like... five? Episodes in Season 2 are on Hulu, but they kind of spoil a lot of "mystery" stuff in the early going.
More importantly, one of the first episodes in Season 2 has the best scene ever in television, where Sarah and some other chick fight and end up in a gym shower. It goes from there, and it rules.
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The best part of that fight is that there is no reason at all for the other chick (who is, I believe, Nicole Richie) to be able to last five seconds in a fight with Sarah, but she can anyway, because otherwise they wouldn't end up beating the shit out of each other in a shower. And we're all better off because of it.
Re: piracy, there's a batch of the second season floating around on the various torrent sites. I'll dig up the link when I'm back on my computer if you want.
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Sounds good, Shale. PM it
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No, the best part of that fight is that Nicole Richie gets beat up.
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Speaking of awesome, the ep of Burn Notice I just watched just had Bruce Campbell posing as a motivational speaker. Hilarity ensues.
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That is a fantastic episode. It's one of the few recent episodes of the series I've seen and it hits everything perfectly. Michael's cover is great, Bruce Campbell's as funny as ever and the two guest stars work well. I need to see more Burn Notice.
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So...yeah, my dirty TV secret (which isn't all that secret because I mentioned it before) is that I watch Legend of the Seeker. I watched it spordically the first season (and apparentally missed out on lots of crappy filler episodes!), but I started rewatching late in the season around the time when they started introducing more plot related things. Lately though, the show has been kind of awesome. Solid acting, and the show is really interesting about setting up moral dilemmas. Just of note, it doesn't really follow the path the books does (And...is also far better than the books, but that isn't too difficult). Although I think the darkness of the show now doesn't say mesh with my initial views (that I made before I even realized that it was based on something!) that it would be the return of fun weekend Channel 5 Sci-fi/fantasy fluff, the change for the darker has been for the better.
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And now for something completely different!
TMNT: Turtles Forever. With the show canceled, the people behind the latest TMNT series decide to wrap it up with a crossover between their show, the awesome 80's series and the original comics. It was an absurd amount of fun and everybody who loved the old show when they were five should see it.
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Watching Chuck Season 2. At the Christmas episode. They just won the BEST REFERENCE EVER AWARD.
Sgt. Al Powell.... too fucking awesome. It's a shame that Paul Gleason died or we could have had a full Die Hard reunion. If Bruce Willis shows up I think I'll lose it. I already fell out of my chair laughing when I saw the good Sergeant.
EDIT: Aw... he was criminally underused. I did like the phone call to Big Mike though.
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Supernatural season 4. Watched all of this in roughly 4 days. Good stuff. It's nice to see a series improve as it goes on instead of the usual. Writing got wittier, though the cinematography isn't quite as good. I'm guessing they switched teams or something. The plot twists got about 300x less predictable in the episodic storylines. Whoever they have writing their misdirection needs to be paid more.
I've always liked the show, but the first 3 seasons I was just enjoying the 'cheesy horror movie' feel. This season actually feels like I'm watching a decent TV program.
The over-arching plot is little strained, though. Resurrecting Lucifer? In an -occult- setting!? What will they think of next? >.>;;
Ruby's performance in the season finale was pretty amazing though. I didn't really care for the character OR the actor until then. Nice.
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I've always liked the show, but the first 3 seasons I was just enjoying the 'cheesy horror movie' feel.
I thought you were watching it for the copious yaoicest.
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Hey Djinn!!!!!!!!!
Ok, I feel like ranting a bit on Supernatural thus far.
SPOILER WARNING...though only 2 of us actually care about it here >_>
First off, Ruby had to have the most anti-climactic death in the series thus far. Wow, that was...pathetic. She's arguably one of the strongest, most influential demons, and...yeah. Not her best showing >_>
Ok, so... Ruby turning traitor. I like the interesting parallels here. We're led to believe that there really are good demons in Season 3. This also seems like it's holding true as we continue through Season 4, when the angels are introduced. Castiel, Uriel, Zachariah, Anna...all with very different motives. Uriel supports Lucifer, Zachariah cryptically states that he's running the angels for his own agenda via trickery, Anna threw away her angelic nature due to the lack of free will and general assholery of the hierarchy of angels, and Castiel joins the humans after he sees that the difference between angels, demons, and humans is much thinner than he's lead to believe.
So this really supports the fact that Ruby might be true to her initial statement that she's really helping the brothers. I mean, if angels can display such variable attitudes, why can't demons?
Well, apparently demons are purely evil. Or not necessarily evil, but at least more united in their agenda than the angels. Lilith and Ruby ran the Winchesters for a loop - Lilith's recent "let's make a deal" seemed to drive home the thought that killing her was the right idea. Nicely done deception, demons.
So the entire purpose of everything was influenced by Azazel - create special children to open the gate for Lilith, break the seals, then kill her to release Lucifer.
Honestly, I think I'm rooting for Lucifer at the moment >_> Outside of Castiel and Anna (the latter of whom might be gone for good ;_;), the angels are generally assholes. I mean seriously, engineering his escape just to have a chance at beating him for good and beginning the war of hell on earth? Dicks. I have the funny feeling that there is going to be HUGE problems in Heaven - and the angels will be getting their asses kicked. >_>
Once again, I feel the need to reiterate that Katie Cassidy > Genevive Cortese for Ruby. The bitchy look of Cassidy > Genevive's nicer look...although the nicer look seemed a lot more unnerving to begin with this season.
Predictions for Season 5 (the last season)? Castiel will be back after kicking some archangel ass (3rd most popular character after the brothers? Yeah...). The angels will have some huge problems, and probably regret doing what they did. Zachariah in particular is going to get raped. Anna...I would hope she returns. I'm interested to see what Lucy looks like. Bobby will surely have a role to play, and maybe we'll see Jo, Ellen, and some of the others in the next season. Either way, looks promising.
Now you can read that post from 8 months ago!
Unfortunately...
Christ, Supernatural was depressing tonight.
Excuse me, I need to cut myself.
Still can't elaborate on this one!
^_^
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Same as the above, don't read if you care about Supernatural spoilers.
I can agree that Ruby's actual death was anti-climatic (apart from the fact that it was -her- who gave the brothers the means to kill her in the first place, so we get some irony or whatever). It's the few minutes she was alive between Lilith's death and her own that made the scene so fascinating.
She wasn't evil in the same way most of the other demons were. She didn't care about human lives, and her goal was to revive Lucifer, but she didn't seem to be doing that out of malice. She very clearly was a parallel to Anna's own thoughts about angelic nature. Lucifer being originally an angel who 'fell' like Anna. Real Paradise Lost stuff.
And she spelled out her motives to Sam so clearly, too. She really had no intention of hurting the brothers, she basically idolized Sam and it took everything in her to keep her secret. She herself seemed surprised she could do it. But once it finally happened, she could let it out, she could finally show Sam her true self and now she had a chance to 'convert' him openly. She talks to him in almost a motherly tone, telling him it's okay, they're just finally letting a fallen angel out of its cage. Things will be good now. Keeping in mind the idea that most demons are just humans who have survived hell long enough to become twisted, the other 'good' demons we met in the previous season explained that they just don't want to be in hell, and they'll do anything to get out and stay out. From the perspective of someone who sees Lucifer as just another fallen soul being tortured in hell for the simple sin of disobediance (and later, rebellion, but this is from Ruby's perspective), she's saving her sympathetic 'father'.
It's really not that much different from the general theme of Supernatural: Stick by your family at all costs.
I think the fact that she was so devoted to Sam that she would turn her back on him to face Dean (thus causing her untimely demise) is pretty telling, too.
Explaining it this way feels like I'm cheapening it. Genevieve's performance in this scene is what really sold it and completely changed my opinion of her as an actress and of Ruby as a character.
Out of curiosity for Season 5... without giving anything else away... have any of Jo, Ellen, other major characters from past seasons, shown up at all? Or are they basically forgotten loose ends?
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I definitely do agree with your assessment of Ruby's character (and didn't think about some of those significant points until you pointed them out, i.e., the "back turned to Sam"). I...still prefer Katie Cassidy as an actress to Genevieve Cortese...Gen worked for this season, but I think Katie's look is much more fitting. Though Gen's unnerving look...probably made her easier to trust, I suppose?
As for your question...people return. Kripke doesn't forget people.
...also hard to believe episode 10 has already aired...season's almost half over.
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Highlights from Season 4 that made me go 'Hey, I'm watching a decent TV show.'
- Sam's demonic detox.
- Bobby verbally bitchslaps Dean when he gives up, thus avoiding a season's worth of emo. Nicely done.
- Genevieve's performance in the season finale.
- The Siren episode. Dear god I did not see that coming.
- The prophet episode. Nice shout-out. Trolling your own fans is also fun.
- The episode 'Jump the Shark'. Mostly for the title, which completely threw me off when they got to the twist which did -anything- but allow the show to Jump the Shark.
- The dialogue in Siren episode. Holy crap, who wrote that episode, it just had so much good dialogue... Also, Sam has good taste in women. Finally.
- Post-Grace Anna and Castiel's first talk. Predictable, but memorable. Deserves a mention here, but not as good as the rest of this list.
- Movie monster episode. It was novel, and the writing was snappy.
The special effects for the Angel wings were also pretty, but that's more in line with what I had originally watched the show for.
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I think Life is my new favorite wacky-detective show. Charlie Crews is hilarious.
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The Morganuptual is possibly the funniest thing I've read all year. My favorite entries:
Goethe: Grimes hates this guy even though he is unsure of what he did historically.
Cymbal Banging Monkey: Grimes owns one and it cannot be touched, wound or stared at for long periods of time.
Overalls: Grimes knows nothing of fashion but even he knows that everyone in construction should wear overalls.
Air: Shall not be humidified or dehumidified. Free Air! No Oppression!
Ankle Bracelets: Based on a movie viewing experience as a child, Grimes distrusts those with ankle bracelets. Cohabitant can decide whether he/she values his/her ankle bracelet over Grimes' trust.
Barcelona: Shall not be brought up in conversation.
Blue Footed Booby: All documentaries and specials that air on television concerning the blue footed booby must be recorded and saved.
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The Morganuptual is possibly the funniest thing I've read all year. My favorite entries:
Goethe: Grimes hates this guy even though he is unsure of what he did historically.
Cymbal Banging Monkey: Grimes owns one and it cannot be touched, wound or stared at for long periods of time.
Overalls: Grimes knows nothing of fashion but even he knows that everyone in construction should wear overalls.
Air: Shall not be humidified or dehumidified. Free Air! No Oppression!
Ankle Bracelets: Based on a movie viewing experience as a child, Grimes distrusts those with ankle bracelets. Cohabitant can decide whether he/she values his/her ankle bracelet over Grimes' trust.
Barcelona: Shall not be brought up in conversation.
Blue Footed Booby: All documentaries and specials that air on television concerning the blue footed booby must be recorded and saved.
This... sounds amusing. What is it?
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Chuck. Watch it, live it.
(Specifically, those are the contractual obligations for anyone moving in with Chuck's best friend, Morgan.)
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Inside Chuck's wallet, a note:
"Chuck,
I O U one condom.
Your pal, Morgan."
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Dead Like Me: Fun, if depressing, show. Between it and Pushing Daisies, I'm wondering exactly what it is with Bryan Fuller and dead women with men's names.
Edit: Also, I cannot stop thinking of Rube as Inigo, accent or no accent.
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Monk- Series finale was tonight. Was well done, classy, all around acceptable ending to a good show.
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Did they actually tie up the plot? I stopped watching the show regularly a while back, but I'd still like to see the explanation behind his wife's death.
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Did they actually tie up the plot? I stopped watching the show regularly a while back, but I'd still like to see the explanation behind his wife's death.
Yeah.
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Neat. Guess I'll Hulu it when it goes up.
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It's worth watching, yeah. Decent end to the show.
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Neat. Guess I'll Hulu it when it goes up.
Make sure to watch both parts.
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Doctor Who: The End of Time. Two good ideas that each deserved a full storyline, shoehorned into the same one. Shame.
Still, it had John Simm and Timothy Dalton.
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“I think the Internet message boards used to be a lot funnier 10 years ago, and I’ve sort of stopped reading their new posts.” - ” Matt Warburton, current Simpsons writer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/arts/television/08simpsons.html?8dpc
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Well, he sure showed us.
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http://cinemablend.com/television/Leno-To-Get-His-Old-Time-Slot-Back-After-Olympics-22134.html (http://cinemablend.com/television/Leno-To-Get-His-Old-Time-Slot-Back-After-Olympics-22134.html)
Bad news, bitches. Just look at the URL. Yup, Jay Leno is getting his old show back.
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That means NBC might put something I want to watch on at 10 instead, so I'm all for it. Also, whoever's writing Conan's material since he moved to the Tonight Show needs to be fired in this deal, preferably with actual fire.
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Burn notice- 7 episodes into season 1. It's the first time I've made an effort to sit down and watch the series, and I haven't been let down. Very good core cast (Can't go wrong with Bruce Campbell as a drunk, lecherous retired spy), sharp writing, and a very engaging setting and story. The episodes move fast and the bad guy of the week story is mixed in nicely with filling in Michael's backround and figuring out why he got burned noticed in the first place.
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They should really just let Conan be Conan and say screw the old fans of the Tonight show. Conan is that funny where he can replace those old fans for newer, hipper, sexier ones.
VIVA COCO!
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Burn notice- 7 episodes into season 1. It's the first time I've made an effort to sit down and watch the series, and I haven't been let down. Very good core cast (Can't go wrong with Bruce Campbell as a drunk, lecherous retired spy), sharp writing, and a very engaging setting and story. The episodes move fast and the bad guy of the week story is mixed in nicely with filling in Michael's backround and figuring out why he got burned noticed in the first place.
Yay~
Andrew and I have been watching Season 2 (he got the DVDs for Christmas) and I've been wanting to post about how awesome it still is. I'm excited for the current season starting up again later this month.
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Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, 3 episodes so far - It's a super sentai. Wasn't really interested in revisiting my Power Rangers fanboyism of days long past, but the show keeps getting hype so I gave it a shot, and it's been pretty fun. Helps that it's got some of the best choreography I've seen in a toku, and the characters are all very colorful. Ryuunosuke, Shinken Blue, is a particular source of lulz for me.
The combining robot is standard fare, but it has a cool hat, so I'm pretty okay with it.
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Sam was a Seal. Normally I wouldn't correct something like that but it irks me for some reason.
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The premier of Chuck was good. Quite good indeed. I will miss Tony Hale, though.
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Agreed on both counts. And there's more tonight! Life is good.
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Sam was a Seal. Normally I wouldn't correct something like that but it irks me for some reason.
My fault. He's still awesome.
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I'm watching How I Met Your Mother, midway through season 3 now. Barney is completely awesome.
Ted's main love interest of the season being a doctor played by Sarah Chalke, though? I'm not sure how that's going to work out.
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I'm watching How I Met Your Mother, midway through season 3 now. Barney is completely awesome.
Ted's main love interest of the season being a doctor played by Sarah Chalke, though? I'm not sure how that's going to work out.
Well, at the time, we thought Scrubs was done and so it was just kind of a joke. Now it's typecasting.
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I am watching the Niel Patrick Harris Awesome Show that wastes time with other characters than the Willow Chick way to often.
In other news I feel like I should summarise another popular TV Show.
I am watching the Charlie Sheen Awesome Show and why the fuck is there any other characters in this shit? Seriously they ruin the show. Fuck you viewing public for wanting to watch another washed up painful comedian and wasting Charlie Sheen on this crap? The kid isn't horrible, but barely needs to be there other than for something else for Charlie Sheen to be Charlie Sheen at. Seriously you should just devote half the episode to Charlie being a smart arse to a wall and then the other half him banging hot chicks. This show is horrible and painful to watch and it is depressing that this is the most successful thing an awesome actor like Sheen has been in for years. So dear viewing public FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU HARD.
This is the smartest thing you have said in ages Shale. Two and a Half Men sucks big fat donkey cocks.
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Chuck started the season off with a bang, and the horrendous Jay Leno program that they almost killed it for tanked while its ratings are (for an NBC show) through the roof.
So in summation: Everyone in NBC is a remarkable idiot.
EDIT
Is this the sort of statement that will guarantee me never getting a job in my field?
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I have never watched a minute of Two And a Half Men, and I am mysteriously okay with that.
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EDIT
Is this the sort of statement that will guarantee me never getting a job in my field?
If so, NBC could never hire anyone outside again, since this was generally agreed to be a horrendous blunder (Hence them ordering a record number of pilots for next season, moving Jay back to his old timeslot at random time without things to fill it immediately, everything mocking them for it, etc...)
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So dear viewing public FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU HARD.
So very much.
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Not only is the new season of Chuck awesome, it's now the highest-rated show on NBC that isn't named The Office or 30 Rock. Fuck yeah, fourth season.
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I don't understand how Shale can criticize them giving Jason fucking Segel camera time on HIMYM, though.
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Burn Notice: Remains awesome.
House: Having watched last season on DVD again, I've come to the conclusion that the entire final arc was actually really quite strong when viewed in sequence. The gaps between new episodes kinda lessened the effect when it was airing on TV, but seeing all the episodes in a row really gave a feel for the ups and downs. This season has been okay.
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Burn notice: Finished up season 2. I need to start watching season 3 as it appears. Man is the show badass.
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Supernatural starting back up and Dollhouse ending on Friday. Man.
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Dexter. Good stuff. On Season 2, after the episode where x picked up b from the "gym."
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Let's Make a Deal: Possibly the best daytime televison currently out there (which isn't saying much, granted). It probably benefits from my not being old enough/bothering to watch the original, as I find Wayne Brady to be an interesting host. At least, it's a lot better than his previous shows.
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Whoa, they changed the opening to the Office.
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Doctor Who season 5 started this weekend. Matt Smith is friggin' amazing.
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Buffy binging. Got up to the end of season 3, ran out of DVDs. Breakdown.
General- Buffy, despite having compelling character writing (admittedly, with excessive angst quotient) is at its best when it's just letting villains chew screen time. So yeah, that'll probably bring some sense to the season breakdown chart.
As an aside, I have to think that, had I watched this show during its original run, I'd be a lot more attracted to red heads.
Season 1- Works quite well. I really like the Master (arguably the best villain on the show, funny enough), and he ties together what is otherwise 100% monster of the week stuff quite nicely. Very snappy, quick moving, quickly establishes everyone and gets to work, everything a Season 1 should be.
Season 2- Excels at high drama. the last couple episodes were great. A lot of the rest of the season was just building up to maximizing the impact at the end there, with occasional interludes of Spike or Angelus being entertaining. That said, Angelus suffers a bit because... I dunno, him as a world-threatening thing is a definite stretch, unfortunately. But granted "there's this thing, it'll let him suck the world into hell", it works very well.
Odd bit of fridge logic though. While obviously, by the end of Season 2, they knew there would be a Season 3 and it would hurt the show later (as well as being kinda gratuitous on the deus angst machina scale)... it really would have been simpler to just turn Giles, no? Suck out the soul, bam, instant eager access to everything he knows.
Season 3- Flounders in the early going. I think they wanted everything to be intentionally awkward because, well, it would be considering the end of Season 2, but still, it wasn't much fun to watch up until Wish. After that, you get lots of Faith being awesome, the predecessor to Greatest STory Never Told, evil lesbian vampire Willow, all great stuff. Good stuff, just backloaded.
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Fuck yeah, Chuck Season 4 is on the way. 13 episodes, with another extension order if we're really lucky.
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This is mostly to CK's month old post, but as a general: I watched Buffy when I was around 17-19 when it first ran and liked it a lot. I'm thinking about rewatching it now, how does it hold up after all these years?
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It held up pretty well for me when I watched it last year. The special effects are dated, but good writing is good writing.
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Fuck yeah, Chuck Season 4 is on the way. 13 episodes, with another extension order if we're really lucky.
What else does NBC have that anybody even likes anyways?!
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NBC doesn't have anything that people like outside of the Office/30 Rock one-two. From a business standpoint, I wouldn't blame them if they just canceled every single prime-time show they have and started over.
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NBC doesn't have anything that people like outside of the Office/30 Rock one-two. From a business standpoint, I wouldn't blame them if they just canceled every single prime-time show they have and started over.
Parks & Rec and Community are probably better shows right now, though they don't pull very good ratings. They're basically the Office of five years ago: critical acclaim, underachieving ratings.
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Community, I imagine, will pick up in popularity. It's pretty funny; I'd place it somewhere between It's Always Sunny and The Office. Parks and Rec, now... I simply don't like that show.
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I didn't care for the first season. I think it's really found its legs, though.
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Parks & Rec started off really rough, but it's first season was only six episodes and by the last one it was already pretty good. This second season has been fantastic, I think. I'd say it's my favorite comedy currently on the teevee. I also like it more than I ever liked the U.S. Office, to which it's most often - for good reason - compared.
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Community is really good. I've only seen 5 or so episodes and they've all been great. It's currently about on the same level as 30 Rock for me and it has a lot of potential. Parks and Rec has been getting really good too. The Office has been slipping lately and with the improvement Parks and Rec has made I'd say it's now the better show.
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Community is really good. I've only seen 5 or so episodes and they've all been great. It's currently about on the same level as 30 Rock for me and it has a lot of potential. Parks and Rec has been getting really good too. The Office has been slipping lately and with the improvement Parks and Rec has made I'd say it's now the better show.
Community is a little inconsistent. I mean, "Modern Warfare" is one of the best half-hours of TV I've watched in years, but they also have some lows.
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Chuck finale last night was great. Final fight doesn't quite match the awesomeness of the wedding fire fight, but Jeffster's music video was fucking hilarious and the episode does so much else right that it's forgivable. A pretty great seasonal cliffhanger, all told.
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I think part of what made it good was that they knew they had gotten renewed and so they didn't have to conveniently wrap every single thing up just in case, this time.
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Eh. It still worked last season really well. Last season was still better on the whole, but thats not taking anything away from this one.
Oh, and if you see Jeff and Lester, remember they are extremely dangerous.
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Eh. It still worked last season really well. Last season was still better on the whole, but thats not taking anything away from this one.
Oh, and if you see Jeff and Lester, remember they are extremely dangerous.
Well, the last season basically had two finales. The second-to-last episode was the "if we get cancelled" finale, and the last episode was the "if we get renewed" finale.
Also: JEFF?
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Also: JEFF?
On tour this summer with Earth, Wind, Fire & Rain.
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Chuck is the best hour-long show on Television. The finale was like sex, only afterward I didn't wake up sobbing.
As to CK's analysis of Buffy Season 2:
Remember, Spike explicitly DOESN'T want to end the world. So Vampires have motivations outside of "Kill everything" (like Slayers Mozuko). GRANTED, Spike is a pretty fucking weird vampire, but still. They're shown consistently to have individual motivations, et cetera.
In other words, turning Giles wouldn't work at all because Giles would still fucking hate Angelus and would never give him squat.
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Chuck finale: Not QUITE as good as season 2's, due to a bit too much retconning and season 2's ending just being an amazingly high bar to reach. Still, really great stuff. Can't wait for season 4.
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I'm pretty much a "pick one show to watch entirely on DVD" person nowadays; I haven't bothered attempting to keep up with airdates in ages.
Just finished up all of Avatar: The Last Airbender; borrowed all 3 seasons from a friend of mine about a month ago. Damn what an awesome show. Just plain fun almost all the time, and I agree with the messages of the more serious parts. Almost all my "complaints" are artifacts of the fact that you can only do so much in 22 minute plots, and even then the creators stuffed in a bunch of two-parter episodes (and a four-part finale) to get around this. Managed to sneak a reasonably decent haul of death and destruction in the background past the "It's a kid show" censors too. Incredibly strong cast all-around, though the "22 minute episodes" thing and need to generally focus on Our Heroes means that the show usually has to cook up excuses for only featuring a few members of the secondary characters in any episode. Everyone should watch it. (Also then you can appreciate OK's previous Azula avatar & El Cid's earlier Eiro avatar).
Pretty coincidental I caught up before the movie comes out, though glad I did. Moderately worried about some of the things I've heard about the movie - M. Night Shamalyan is an erratic director - but could be awesome. We'll see, I guess. (Famously, the casting drew a giant outcry in that for a series based largely around Chinese martial arts with a splash of militarist Japan, Night managed to cast... a bunch of White-Americans and Indian-Americans. Well, I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt, but it's still bizarre, especially for Aang, who is blatantly the Dalai Lama with kung fu.)
Also for whatever it's worth, the show I watched before Avatar: The Wire. Everyone who is moderately interested in cop shows should definitely watch this. Actually anyone moderately interested in social policy and inner city poor should watch it. Okay, basically everyone should watch it. Seriously. You will not be able to watch bad cop shows the same way again.
For those not familiar with it, The Wire, rather than focusing on big splashy society murders, instead notes where police do most of their actual work: the drug trade. It also shows both sides of the coin in having plenty of scenes involving the drug dealers, the kingpins, the people caught in the middle, and by the later seasons a whole bunch of other stuff (Season 2 has the dockworkers union, Season 3 and beyond politics, Season 4 the schools, and Season 5 the newspaper). Just great, gritty stuff. David Simon the creator is definitely swinging his political ax in parts - he thinks the drug war is a giant expensive failure and bureaucracy will chew up your soul - but since he pretty effectively shows WHY, I can't complain. Lots of great characters and good plotting.
If I have a complaint, it's that Season 5 is notably worse than the other seasons, probably because it hit too close to home - David Simon is a former journalist (who spent a year hanging out with cops researching a book) and Season 5's newspaper focus is obviously too close to home. For a show with lots of nuance - villains with good sides, good guys motivated by the wrong reasons, etc. - the newsroom has HEROES and VILLAINS and never the twain shall meet and also THE BOSSES ARE DESTROYING REAL JOURNALISM. Season 5 also features some drastic 180s in character arcs to make the plot sort of work, and it still holds together less than the earlier seasons. Still really good, to be clear, but not as exceptional as the earlier seasons!
Also, as a semi-random comment, The Wire shows just how much things change in a mere 5 years (especially when other cop shows are still featuring, say, 70s ideas of mobsters as villains). In Season 1, drug lookouts still use public phones. By season 2, they're on cells. By season 3, they're on anonymous pre-paid cells bought with cash out-of-state. In season 5, they're sending coded photos to each other.
So yeah. Go watch The Wire.
Also NECRO REPLY PRETEND IT IS 2009 SPOOKY MUSIC IS PLAYING
I'm also rewatching all of Babylon 5 because it's been a decade since it finished and I was 10 years old when it started, so I figured I probably missed or have forgotten some of the finer points. All of season 1, for instance. Just heard Delenn say "If you value your lives, be somewhere else," which is still one of the best Big Damn Heroes moments (speaking of which) in all of television.
Other stuff....the writing's as sharp, and the characters as good, as I remember. Ivanova is particularly awesome, and they handled the Sinclair/Sheridan transition pretty damn well, given the retarded constraints the network put on them. The weakest part of the third season, which is otherwise a superb arc, is the lack of development for Clark. I'm perfectly willing to believe a person like that exists, but give me a reason why. Is he a xenophobe who really believes what he's saying? A megalomaniac? Machiavellian? Just plain nuts? He's had maybe three minutes of screen time in the entire series and they didn't even try to answer those questions before making him a major villain.
Yeah, I was very surprised at how Babylon 5 handled that plotline. I figured from the start that Clark was just a figurehead of the Real Bad Guys, and once he started getting smeared for various Bad Things and President Clark Eats Babies, and when Babylon 5 foolishly made Clark the figurehead of their protests, that, well... Clark would "step down." Or be assassinated by his own supporters. Or something else that would reveal the REAL BAD GUY and also make the Earth Force war more problematic since you just lost your big evil figurehead. But no, they decided that Clark was indeed the Big Bad Guy himself, which was just lame because what little we see of him doesn't seem very impressive.
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I always assumed he was a figurehead who then decided he could call the shots on his own. That's why he goes from being successful and all sneaky and shit to having Minitru, Minipax, Miniluv and Miniplenty.
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Another season of Doctor Who in the can, and damn was it good. Smith is awesome, the dialogue was great, and even where the plot didn't exactly make sense it was still fun. Now I have to wait until Christmas for more, and I am sad.
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Been watching a fair bit of Mythbusters of late. The premise of the show is simple (Test shit), and it's a lot of fun. I also stayed up way too late on saturday watching I (almost) go away with it, a show about criminals who go on the run after committing a crime.
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Burn notice season 4: Jesse sucks. He's not only boring and fails to shake up the dynamic of the show at all, he eats up a ton of camera time as well. Maddie and Nate have barely been seen this season and management's been pushed to a minor role while he gets a ton of camera time. He really needs to be written off at the end of the season.
Kendra's been okay, at least.
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Ahh Burn Notice. Season 1 owned, season 2 was still good, and season 3 I quit watching halfway through...
As for me
Psych: Still the only show I actually watch on TV
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Burn notice season 4: Jesse sucks. He's not only boring and fails to shake up the dynamic of the show at all, he eats up a ton of camera time as well. Maddie and Nate have barely been seen this season and management's been pushed to a minor role while he gets a ton of camera time. He really needs to be written off at the end of the season.
Kendra's been okay, at least.
People care about Nate?
Yeah, big fan of Kendra, but his Mom has gotten pretty ample screentime. Her interaction with Jesse is good times at least.
I'm pretty sure the whole season is leading up to a whole "No, Management. YOU are the demons" ending anyway.
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The only show I watch on TV, besides anything on ESPn is Entourage.
Into season 7 and it is still kicking ass.
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Top Shot- Been watching/catching up on this for the past week or so. Entertaining. Premise is they take a bunch of firearms specialists (Marine snipers, professional rifle and pistol shooters, archery experts, show shooters, etc) and test them with ALL things that shoot things that kill you. Been pretty entertaining. They've done bows, throwing knives, slingshots, four kinds of pistols, two kinds of shotguns and five kinds of rifles in a ton of different scenarios. It's amusing though, as you can really tell peoples' strengths and weaknesses, and just goes to show you how hard using weapons on that level is and how specialized the skillset for each weapon/situation is.
Kinda sad though, the guy who pretty much eliminated almost everyone from the competition got knocked out cause he had to go first/be the guinea pig in the latest challenge.
Rob, you watching this?
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I have never heard of it. TV goes completely off my radar till September usually.
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It's on the History Channel. Past eps are up on Hulu
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In a similar vein, check out Deadliest Warrior on Spike (think I've plugged it before, don't remember). Highly entertaining show where stuff gets blown up and sliced bloodily. Highlight of this past season was Vlad the Impaler's sword, which makes a katana look like a dull butterknife.
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Thats not really a similar vein...
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It is, since if the weapons are evenly matched it comes down to how well their experts can shoot. As was the case when they did Navy Seals vs Israeli special forces.
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In a similar vein, check out Deadliest Warrior on Spike (think I've plugged it before, don't remember). Highly entertaining show where stuff gets blown up and sliced bloodily. Highlight of this past season was Vlad the Impaler's sword, which makes a katana look like a dull butterknife.
I preferred Human Weapon. Two guys travel all over the world to train with masters of pretty much every fighting style.
Apparently when Navy SEALs undergo CQC training, they're doing it under the assumption they're having to engage in CQC because chemical weapons have been deployed and they can't see. So they take everyone out to a field, hose the whole thing down with pepper spray, and make people fight on it.
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I've seen that show before, and it is pretty good also.
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Anyone seen a show called, "The League"? It's a show on FX that follows It's always Sunny Thursday nights.
The show is about a group of friends who are in a Fantasy Football league together.
It's Hella funny, and I'd recommend it to anyone with a heart beat!
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Finally got around to watching Firerfly thanks to the all mighty power of Netflix instant viewing.
Short Version: Fully lived up to the hype surrounding it.
Longer Version: Man, this getting canceled really was a travesty. The setting, although a bit jarring at times, was fun. The characters were fantastic. The individual episode plots were solid all around. The only thing lacking was a strong metaplot, and we were just getting into that. It was just a very strongly written and realized character drama that tugged a couple strings in my heart as someone who approaches fiction in a similar manner. It really is a terrible drag that the show ended right where it did. You could finally see a lot of threads start to tie together, character relationships beginning to blossom and more metaplot emerging.
The downside is that, having now watched the TV series, my opinion of Serenity has dropped. It sits in a really weird spot. As an individual work, I found it quite solid. As a "capstone" to Firefly though, it falls short. I'm still not quite sure what the intention was, but it feels like a really weird continuity reboot + pick-up from the end of the series. Which just doesn't really work for me. It criminally underuses some characters (I'm mainly look at you, Shepard) and feels like it resets the majority of character relationships. Also, the nature of a well written character drama made the Joss Whedon death thing all the more irritating in retrospect.
I really sort of wish he'd tried to do something like a couple episode, direct to DVD miniseries follow-up instead of a feature length movie. But alas, some things are not meant to be.
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Just curious, does Netflix have all the episodes? Cause there were like 3 episodes on the DVD collection that didn't actually air on TV.
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It does.
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This season of WCG Ultimate Gamer just ended. Reality show where people play different video games for $100,000. I started watching it because Justin Wong was on, but it turned out to be pretty entertaining. A lot of the typical reality show DRAMA, but some pretty cool stuff too. Maybe I should try to get on next season as Ugly Old Man wildcard contender.
http://www.hulu.com/wcg-ultimate-gamer
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Does anyone still watch Chuck? I kind of randomly dropped it and I want to know if it's worth it to actually stay with it? I kind of thought they had played out what they could really do with it.
Fringe, which I picked up on the other hand, is great fun. Solid job of mixing enough stand alone episodes to survive on Fox with a great overall mythos arc.
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Chuck hasn't gotten back to the level of sheer awesomeness it had in the latter half of the second season, but it remains very solid.
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Saw an advance screening of The Walking Dead. All of you who are cool should be recording the premier on Halloween. Those of you who aren't will be home alone and watching it.
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Burn notice: It's baaaaack! Good, solid return episode and I like the way it deals with the fallout from last season. Michael doesn't just magically heal up and return to full strength, he has to fight his way through the injuries and problems from the last few episodes of the previous half season.
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In case you missed Community, catch it on Hulu. The episode is called "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons", which should tell you all you need to know about it.
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I could listen to Chevy Chase say "Faaaaaaaaaaat..." all day.
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Archer- Bought the first season today and watched it. Absolutely hilarious takeoff of spy shows. If you dug arrested development's humor, give this a try. First season is 25 bucks on bestbuy's site, and was worth every penny.
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GameFAQs managed to convince me to watch a TV show (something I haven't done in years):
My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic
It's...pretty good. First couple episodes were bad and obviously a pilot. Next few episodes I was thinking "this is pretty good, but I'm still feeling a bit old to be watching this". Then the show really takes off. It's made by the creator of the Powerpuff Girls, except with more characterization and less punching; and the characterization is really quite good (like, there's two different tomboy characters with very distinct personalities). And for all that it's a kids show, it doesn't really treat the characters like kids; they have adult responsibilities, adult problems, no obvious parental figures, etc. Hmm...let's talk about the characters.
Twilight Sparkle: The highly competent main character. Twilight is basically a scientist type who doesn't know how to socialize. Like...they're about to have a slumber party, and her reaction is "oh, hold on, I read a book on this once. *runs to get book* it has a checklist and everything!"
Pinkie Pie: Literally Pinkie from Pinkie and the Brain. Like...this video is so accurate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCpdDS3L2xs (accurate for Pinkie anyway. Only somewhat accurate for the Twilight being the Brain--in that Twilight usually isn't the one with an insane scheme--there are other characters for that).
Fluttershy: Extremely timid, underconfident biologist who obsesses over flora and fauna. Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls is a somewhat reasonable analogy.
Rainbow Dash: Loves flying, brags constantly about her skill, complains when people slow her down, obsesses over being cool, and has a bit of a selfish streak.
Rarity: Vain fashion designer, obsesses over small details. Strangely in the running for best character in the show just because of how well she's executed.
Applejack: A bit of a redneck--happy to help someone out, but has a strong independent streak when it comes to accepting help herself. Happy to get dirty doing physical labour on the farm, but can't stand the thought of getting dressed up in lace.
Spike: Token male, which gives him a lot of good one-liners. Also token dragon.
It's hard to think of a major character I dislike. Unless I can count the Cutie Mark Crusaders, in which case yes: they are awful.
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Bronies 4 Life, yo.
Battlestar Galactica: This was a show that I had been introduced to when it was at its popularity peak, and it's easy enough to understand why it was popular. The show explored a lot of relevant themes and had a fairly hard-science approach to science fiction, which was appreciated. The characters were generally solid and the show was pretty good at making sucker-punch drama moments feel appropriate, which is more than I can say for just about any show that uses sucker-punch drama moments.
At any rate, I watched much of the show as it was coming out, but I left for Japan in the middle of the final season during the writers' strike. So I had never gotten around to seeing what happened in the last 10 or so episodes. I was probably subconsciously worried that the conclusion wouldn't live up the grandiose plot and character development the series was known for up to this point. And really, those fears weren't unfounded - as a member of the fanbase, my exposure to all of the Wild Mass Guessing had pretty much played out all of the possible conclusions for the series so any hope of 'surprise' was lost. I felt the ending was... fitting. It was certainly the type of ending I was hoping for, but it didn't really feel very moving or 'complete' when it was all done.
The overtly religious "God is Real, Skeptics be doomed" message was a bit of a turn-off, too, for all that the series had been pushing it since the beginning. I was kind of hoping for a more real-life explanation in my relatively-hard-science-fiction, even if the series had been tackling issues of faith and God all along. I guess I would have been happier if it had been more ambiguous about the existance of God, and just kept the issue on 'faith'.
I will say that the use of flashbacks focusing on the characters' pasts that led them to ending up on the Galactica was a great touch and the most satisfying part of the finale episodes, so it wasn't all bad and I'm glad I watched the series all the way through.
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I'm still bothered by their pretty obvious change as to when the show took place. Bugs the crap outta me.
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Taking a break from movies to watch some TV. I'm watching Burn Notice season 3, and catching episodes I missed.
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Bronies 4 Life, yo.
I object to the term "Bronie". >_>
(And sure, I realize that 88% of the 4chan My Little Pony fans are male, but...I'd wager that's because regular 4chan is even more male).
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I forgot about this thread!
Ditched TV, have only Hulu Plus and Netflix to save me now .
So I watched all of Bones and Ugly Betty. Also, 30 Rock, King of the Hill, Royal Pains, Glee, Soul Eater, ...
I'm pretty sure I watch more TV now, without TV, than I ever did when I paid for satellite.
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Picked up the first season of Batman Beyond. Oddly enough, reminds me of the 90s Spider-man cartoon in how it handles writing and the like. Production values are higher of course.
(That's anotehr way to say it's really good and I need to pick up the rest of the series.)
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I'm pretty sure I watch more TV now, without TV, than I ever did when I paid for satellite.
Likewise. Ain't the Internet grand?
Also, I caught the first episode of Breaking In. Fun workplace comedy-slash-heist show, starring Sam from Reaper, and Christian Slater doing his level best to be Ray Wise from Reaper.
Edit: Also Michael Rosenbaum, being completely unrecognizable. I didn't even realize he was in it until I read the wikipedia page. Granted, this is mostly because he had hair.
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Picked up the first season of Batman Beyond. Oddly enough, reminds me of the 90s Spider-man cartoon in how it handles writing and the like. Production values are higher of course.
(That's anotehr way to say it's really good and I need to pick up the rest of the series.)
Batman Beyond is glorious, yes.
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The season already ended, so I'm not sure when they're going to rerun it, but watch Harry's Law on NBC. It is glorious.
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Sam Axe movie is on tomorrow night. So watching that.
Also finished (re) watching season 3. The cop character was a dud, but I loved some of the use of recurring characters. Fantastic ending to the season as well.
I'm pysched about the show restarting next month now.
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Bronies 4 Life, yo.
I object to the term "Bronie". >_>
(And sure, I realize that 88% of the 4chan My Little Pony fans are male, but...I'd wager that's because regular 4chan is even more male).
It is meant to be an all-inclusive loving term for fans. It is a term for everypony.
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Holy shit, this week's episode of Community was amazing.
Yes, I would like a clip show made up of footage shot just for this episode.
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So someone in TV DID watch the Clerk animated series.
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So someone in TV DID watch the Clerk animated series.
I think they were actually riffing on 30 Rock more, for doing a clip show that same week as their 100th episode.
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Holy shit, this week's episode of Community was amazing.
Yes, I would like a clip show made up of footage shot just for this episode.
I though it couldn't get any better and then the Dean's cartoon closed the show and was the best part of an episode filled with awesome moments.
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What made it was that the Dean voiced everyone.
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Archer season 2 finished. :( damn it. Can't wait for season three in the fall.
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That was the best new-Who premiere since....ever, really. The Eleventh Hour was good, but it was also Moffat trying to write like Davies, while this is Moffat doing his Blink/Fireplace/Library thing, and it's fantastic.
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Breaking Bad is well worth your time. It gets to a level of intensity and emotion I've never seen on a TV show before. Season 1 is wonderful, season 2 and 3 are even better.
As is usually the case, the pilot is enough to tell you if you'll like the whole series or not.
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Caught the first three episodes of Game of Thrones on HBO while I was in a hotel room last night. They got some stuff wrong, but damned if the Lannisters aren't perfect.
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They are, but it's sad they're actually trying to make a character out of Joffrey. He's so much more fun as a one-note whiny momma's boy/
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Batman Beyond- Finished. Season 2 is really good when it wants to use the rogues from Season 1, and otherwise tends to be largely comedic episodes (which is fine, though odd by comparison). Though the excepts to this dynamic are the best episodes. That said, it's weird losing the cohesive background villain from the first season, although this is more because the subsequent series were into season-long stuff I suppose.
Season 3 was basically the prototype for Justice League. Terry and Bruce's dynamic keep it working well, although sadly the villains for this season were pretty weak so it was a definite step down overall.
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Batman Beyond was at its worst when it tried to come up with new rogues for Terry. One-off villains generally worked out okay, but the only recurring one I actually thought made a good nemesis was Inque.
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Well, like, in Season 2, an episode with Shriek or Spellbinder meant "okay, we can skip villain backstory and focus on Terry", so good overall. The one-shots were pretty decent, as noted.
Season 3 though... Starro? Lame. (those episodes are good for completely unrelated reasons) Kobra? Lame. Big Time? Needed to be back on Season 1 to have the right effect.
Though yeah, Inque was the only recurring villain to be interesting or threatening in her own right, setting aside Blight having the story arc in Season 1.
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Watch the Doctor's Wife Who fans~
(I'll probably have bad dreams about House tonight >.> Also - baaaw <.<)
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It's not online yet! Believe me, I'm checking. I've been waiting for this episode since a year before it was announced.
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/me pokes Shale
Season finale was yesterday~
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Mid season finale. Those bastards! One months-long cliffhanger a year isn't enough anymore?
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Sherlock Holmes- fucking brilliant. Just saw the first movie/episode and was pretty floored. It's not only well cast, but it's got brilliant writing and the visuals are awesome as well. Love the nicoten patch touch as well.
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Burn Notice: Some thoughts about the new season.
A: They are clearly spinning their wheels as far as the main plot goes at this point, though it sounds like it picks up next week. I did enjoy Maddie and Nate having fair sized roles in the episodes, though.
B: If this is all they are going to do with Jesse, they should have killed him off at the end of the fourth season. His conflicts and plot have been resolved, and he's no more important now than recurring characters like Barry. It's a shame, because Jesse grew on me some on the rewatch of S4.
C: That all said, the early theme of the season- Michael trying to live a normal live after being a spy and dealing with people who burned him- is pretty interesting. I always figured he would have a Quantum leap style ending with Burn Notice, and everything we've seen up to and including this season points to this.
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Dare I say it, but the spark is back in Eureka. Now if they can just get Taggert and Stark back...
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Kicking this up, since I've been watching TV of late.
Burn Notice: Halfway through season 6. (Current). The show peaked already. It's still entertaining and I enjoy watching it, but now there isn't a hell of a lot for the show to do. They've gone away from the client of the week format to focusing heavily on Michael and his personal problems. Sam, Jesse, and Maddy have all been reduced to supporting roles to the latest in Fi/Michael angst. I love this series, but it needs to wrap up soon and finish with a bang if possible.
White Collar- Season 4 (current). Love this show. USA does great work with it's series. Like Burn Notice, it revolves around the hero solving the crime of the week, while he seeks redemption. The writing is incredibly sharp and the supporting FBI agents are great. Tiffani Thiessen even does an outstanding job with the thankless role of being Peter's wife. Agent Jones plays buttmonkey/minion too often for my tastes, but that is literally my only complaint. Sara Ellis needs to be on camera more, I love how she works with the cast at large and Neal in particular. The strength of the show is about Neal and Peter's relationship. They are opposites as far as morals and personality go, but they work extremely well together. It's made clear that both men value the other's friendship more than just about anything- Peter nearly throws away his career more than once to protect Neal, and Neal throws away a massive fortune and a life of ease to protect Peter and his wife. It makes for compelling viewing.
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Game of Thrones (Season 1): I've really enjoyed the books, so I figured I should watch the show. Finally got around to it. Not bad! Very beautiful. Not the most faithful adaptation, but for that it's a really good one. It doesn't do stuff the way it's done in the book just because that's how the book did it. It also doesn't try to fit in every little detail, for which I thank my lucky stars. I am curious to see how it follows through, since some of those changes will prove to be significant as we move forward, but I have faith they can carry a thread.
Now we just need GRRM to finish the next damn book before the series catches up with him.
Sherlock (BBC), Season 2: Even though I really enjoyed Robert Downey Jr's version of Sherlock, I LOVE Benedict Cumberbatch's. (Can I also take a moment to marvel over how delightfully English his name is? Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch! Okay. Aside over.) Martin Freeman also plays a wonderful quintessential Englishman, which is exactly what Watson needs to be, so I fully enjoy watching this adaption. As someone who's read (most of) the Holmes stories and been a fan since the age of 8, I really like what this adaptation does to the stories.
As with Game of Thrones, it's a great adaptation because it doesn't slavishly tie itself to the minutiae of the stories. I do like the sprinkling of details and in-jokes from the originals, I admit. Early Season 1 spent a lot more time making those heavy-handedly obvious, probably in the same way that TV show pilots go out of their way to be explicit about plot points and personalities (in order to establish this all firmly in the mind, so there's no mistaking where this is going). Season 2 is a shade more subtle.
The show's take on Holmesian villainy is quirky. Not entirely sure how I feel about that yet.
Watching Episode 3 of Series 2 on Monday or Tuesday. Then back to waiting. :(
Downton Abbey: Yep, another British show. Downton Abbey is a fantastic character drama. Despite its token similarity to my interest in other British shows, it is actually a little surprising that I like this show: I generally have *very* little interest in the time period 1880-1950. That speaks a lot to the show's ability to speak in character rather than plot. I watched all of Series 1 in one go, then watched Series 2 followed by Series 1 again when Series 2 came out. Not sure when Series 3 will hit Hulu/Netflix, but once it does I think you can guess what I'm going to be doing.
How I Met Your Mother: And here's a non-British show. I don't remember whether I've mentioned watching this or not. I was very late to the party -- didn't start watching it until Season 6 was midway through -- but I'm glad I came around to it. I'm a NPH fan from days of old (Doogie Howser was one of my favorite re-run TV shows; love him in Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog; and he does stage as well as film, which is always a plus for me), but I am going to shame-facedly admit that my being drawn to this show is probably a LOT like the twenty-somethings of the 90s being drawn to Friends. It's a sitcom about being a twenty-something in the city. I'm a twenty-something in the city (sort of)! I can RELATE.
Actually, I only wish I could relate. It's a lot more like I feel like I have a life and interesting stories to tell because of the show. Oh well.
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I don't have cable/satellite, so I only get my TV through Hulu and Netflix. As a result, I have yet to catch up on Burn Notice (still need to watch Season 5), and I don't pay attention to new shows. I also miss out on commercials. I didn't realize how weird this is until recently, because I'm a shut-in and I hang around nerds who don't watch TV. When I visited my parents, they started talking about their favorite commercials, and I had to keep saying, "I haven't seen that."
I feel even MORE isolated and alone now.
At least I have TV...
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Isolation for not watching TV is that edible - in fact I entirely forgot people -watched- TV
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There is a reason I didn't abandon TV until after college.
It's scary how "out of the loop" you can feel in a group if you don't know what's going on with "your shows."
Luckily I now hang out with aforementioned nerds who also don't have TV service, and the only time I feel weird about my lack of regular TV watching is when I'm around the few people I know who still pay for cable/satellite: my family.
That said, I am the hipster of streaming in my neck of the woods, and I can now count 5 converts on my tally. That's 5 different people who, without any particular evangelising, I've converted from cable/satellite to streaming only. The main factor? Cost. I pay $17.99 a month for Hulu Plus and Netflix. They regularly pay $150+ a month for cable or satellite. It's insane.
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Why do people still pay for cable again.
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Sports.
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Because it could be cheaper than buying everything on DVD? I dunno, that is my only choice since streaming is not a thing here other than Internet shows.
That said this was going for 2 for 1 at $20 each so
Breaking Bad - as good as advertised and well worth my $40 after just 3 episodes.
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a-whoops
cmd v
TV show: Shameless, now to Season 2. Everyone in the house likes it. Picking up on bad British slang. Very funny show. Have the hugest fantasy-crush on McAvoy, win-win situation. Premise: single father imbibing in alcohol to sate/demolish his cognition and reality that he has 6 very unusual children (now 8) with no help from a useless lesbian runaway mother.
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Game of Thrones: Finished the first season. The first season was fairly faithful to the book, which means it was pretty damn good. It made a few things more obvious than the book did (I had no idea who the two mystery men talking in the dungeon during Arya's point of view were until watching the show), which I didn't mind. I also enjoyed the scenes that were added into the show since it no longer had to adhere to only the handful of limited-point-of-view characters the book dealt with. In particular, the scenes with Cersei and Robert and Cersei and Joffrey were wonderful and did a good job of making Cersei seem like more than just an evil bitch--something, mind you, that doesn't really show up until her point of view chapters in A Feast for Crows.
I hear season 2 cuts out a lot of stuff which is disappointing. Also, was Jon Snow always such a bitch or is he just that way in the show? It's honestly been so long since reading the first four books that I've forgotten.
Breaking Bad - Almost done with Season 3. I watched the first season and the first half of season two a really long time ago, finally re-watching and watching the rest. It's... OK. I like fiction that tries to make you sympathize with generally awful people, so it's nice in that respect, except that it does very little to make you sympathize with anybody. The storyboarding could be better, too, since I spend a lot of my time wondering how this show can go on to 5 seasons without the protagonist getting caught. It really seems to me that the only reason he gets out of certain situations is because the show got the greenlight for another season.
Always Sunny - Rewatched all the seasons. Trying to find out if Hulu Japan carries the ones being broadcast now so I can keep watching them.
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Star Trek DS9: It's... something. I rewatched the first few episodes. My impression is that it was the best of the Star Trek franchises. A few characters really click early (Odo and Quark are wonderful from the start), a few don't. Sisko and Jake in particular are kind of eh. The really cheesy dialog and special effects makes me realize how much better TV has gotten in the past 20 years. That said! I've enjoyed it so far.
Fenrir: Did you need subs to watch Breaking Bad? I usually have subs on with dialog heavy shows, and BB is no exception there.
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You know how TNG gets good when Riker grows a beard? DS9 has several of those points, one of which is Sisko shaving his head and growing a beard. Season 1 only has a few episodes I would call good (Duet is probably the best one) but its not quite TNG season 1 bad so I don't encourage skipping it entirely. Garak gets introduced in a season 1 episode, and Garak fucking owns.
I think it's pretty apparent in the early seasons that there was some fighting going on behind the scenes between the people who wanted to tell huge story arcs and the people who wanted to make another episodic series. Most of the latter ended up losing and going to Voyager, which kind of didn't give a fuck about story arcs or character building and it showed.
e: Quark pretty much stays awesome forever, btw. I want a show where he and Garak run the Chamber of Commerce together.
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I never watch anything in english without subtitles.
The Wire was fantastic but everybody knows. Snoop is yattaf.
Hustle (Only watched the first 4 seasons) was classy, fun, british. You should watch it now, especially because it's better than almost everything on TV and no one else is going to remind you it exists in this life.
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Rob: Yeah, I remember DS9 picking up a few seasons in. I am juts surprised at how cheesy parts of it look now, but it is a 20 year old series at this point.
I just finished season 4 of Breaking Bad (Excellent) and Season 2 of Sherlock (Also excellent). Every time I watch a TV show of that quality, I am reminded of Berke Breathed's quote about how dumb movies got, while how much better TV is.
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Babylon 5 aged even worse, though. DS9 got off easy.
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Been watching Young Justice recently. Season 1 is whatever, but season two has Nightwing which makes it insta-win. Good stuff so far!
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If Wishes Were Horses and In the Hands of the Prophets were quite good as well. Most of S1... yeah. I actually forgot how much of a twit Bashir was early in the show. (He was still fantastic in wishes, I just love the dynamic there with the two Daxes. Poor guy)
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The fact that the writers realized how annoying Bashir was and tried to fix that is impressive. Writers on other Trek shows seemed to think "Oh, you think Wesley's obnoxious? You just haven't SEEN HIM ENOUGH TO APPRECIATE HIM."
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Twit Bashir is still a higher level of characterization than anyone on Voyager gets besides the Doctor and possibly Tuvak. Fuck off Tom Paris, Seven of Nine and especially Janeway. Related to that, I am glad that Q barely appears in DS9. Q worked for the very last episodes of TNG, but I generally found him to be incredibly obnoxious in more than tiny doses. Characters with that level of power are just not conceptually interesting.*
*EXCEPTION: One of the few decent Voyager episodes was where Q goes to Voyager and has Janeway serve as a mediator on a dispute with a suicidal Q. Of course the character work is done by a guest and carryovers from TNG, but what else can you expect from a series that turned the Borg from a deadly threat to something Janeway wrecks before breakfast?
DS9 is at it's worst when it is on throwaway episodes of the week. Oh my god, Melora was preachy when it wasn't outright bad. On the flipside, the intro three episodes of season 2 are very good and raise a lot of good points about heroism and what it takes to be a leader. Related to that ,Vedek Winn is hands down one of my favorite villains in Star Trek. She just *drips* slime, and is constantly able to avoid being caught for her misdeeds.
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From what I've read, Bashir being a bit unlikable was intentional; they wanted a character who could be the butt of jokes, contrasting the more grounded and seasoned Sisko, Kira, etc. They just took it further than they really should have and thus accelerated his character development to compensate.
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The reason the Doctor from VOY was such a good character is that he hated everyone else, and that was something the audience could identify with.
Regarding Q, I think he works when used the right way. I don't care for him so much as someone who just fucks with people out of boredom, but the episodes where he exists as "the GM" are interesting to me. When you make him into an antagonistic figure he generally doesn't work as well, because you really can't have him opposing the characters directly. It's like having your players try to fight the GM. If your GM is an openly-antagonistic player then your adventure will probably be shit. How I think he works best is when he is someone who is placing obstacles in the crew's path because he is legitimately interested in seeing how and if they can get past them. That's particularly what he's doing in Tapestry: he genuinely wants Picard to make the decision he did, but he also wants to make sure Picard is deciding that on his own. He will reward him but it has to be earned.
Anyway Kai Winn is pretty slimy but nobody's a better villain than Gul Dukat, and that's a fact.
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That episode on DS9 with Q is rightly regarded as one of the worst in DS9 history, so it may be coloring my view. I do find Q in general to be more of a gimmick than a character though.
Dukat is great, but Winn is villainous in a different way. Whatever else you can say about Dukat in the early seasons, he is open in his evil. Winn is every backstabber and hypocrite you know from real life, who uses her religion and influence to avoid getting in trouble every time. The strength of DS9 villains is one reason the show is so solid, I have to say.
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I've always remembered Bashir as being pretty okay even before the character development, but that's probably because of all his scenes with Garak.
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If we are talking early you have a point. Dukat is dynamic, though, and Winn is not. Also he's got way better lines. "The real victory isn't to beat your opponent, it's to make them realize they were wrong to oppose you in the first place."
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Dukat is an amazing villain, no arguments. The scene where he coldly threatens that freighter smuggling weapons is such a perfect microcosm of Cardassian society and Gul Dukat in general. "You have 15 seconds to comply." He is pretty disturbing even when he is nominally aligned with Sisko. Winn just caught me off guard with how good she was. I did not remember the character until I rewatched. The Garak and alternate universe episodes have been highlights of the season so far. It says something about how fucked up a universe is when Quark is unquestionably the most heroic person there.
They already start seeding the Dominion in season 2 (they're mentioned twice, no one really pursues it).
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Smiley was pretty decent in the Mirror Universe, too. I regret the lack of a Mirror Dukat, though. I feel like I would have really enjoyed him as some renegade Cardassian abolitionist.
E: are you up to The Wire yet? I base my entire fucking life on the lessons I learned from it.
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Up to season 7 now. DS9 has always been my favorite of the Star Trek series, and rewatching it has confirmed it. The series really finds it's focus in season 3, when they add the Defiant and the Dominion starts to become a factor. The overarching plot is very good and well laid out. Even bit characters like Quark's mother evolve through the series, along with the main plot and characters. By forsaking the usual exploration and villain/character of the week theme of previous star treks, they manage to build up a very strong cast (including Garak, Gul Dukat, Cai Winn, Rom, Nog, etc). It's hard to pick a favorite character. Bashir is up there, as are Sisko and Odo. The entire cast is just fantastic from top to bottom, and that is due to just how heavily they are all developed.
The good: Overarching plot, characters. The Dominion are likely the best villains in the Star Trek universe.
The bad: A lot of the S1-2 episodes are terrible.
The ugly: Any episode with Lwaxana Troi. For that matter, most of the TNG tie-ins are awful outside of Worf and O'Brien.
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Blah.
You know, I barely get to watch any shows I like anymore. So, let's review some of the shit I have been watching (and some good stuff).
Carrie Diaries - Oh god. Yeah, remember when I said Sex and the City 2 was bad? Yeah. Uh...the lead does look a lot like Carrie, but shit man. It does not work as a prequel for the series. Too teen drama. Boring, honestly. It still has some of the awesome ridiculous moments ("SPREAD YOUR VAGINA!"), but is overall a teen drama.
Pretty Little Liars - HAH. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh god this show. So, it's based on a young adult book series. And it is so ridiculously out there. I swear, the "villain" is a fucking wizard. I can't take this show seriously, and yet it is ALL drama. OF COURSE it's popular with that demographic. The story is ridiculous, and definitely something an immature child would come up with. Just...awful. It's like Degrassi where the ENTIRE purpose is seeing people unhappy. Just bad.
House Hunters Everything - FUCK THIS SHOW AND ANYTHING RELATED TO IT. Just...argh. How does it go for so many episodes but Arrested Development, Pushing Daisies...much better shows are canceled? I swear, it's scenery porn at its finest. I don't ever get an erection while watching it. So fucking bad.
Hart of Dixie - So promising to start out with. I was REALLY hoping they'd go with a different medical drama...but that premise got dropped to turn it into a regular TV show about a girl and a town's misadventures...IN THE SOUTH. It had a lot of potential in the first season, and it feels like they gave up to write something easier. At least it is somewhat entertaining.
Glee - I like Glee. But damn it goes back and forth. Some episodes are great, some are offensive. I feel like the storylines don't go anywhere, and it's hard to suspend disbelief. My biggest issue is...well, they try to be both ridiculously off-kilter AND srsbsns. Seriously, report Sue to the FBI. CHRIST.
Smash - This is...the best show on TV right now. It is excellent. I love the music, the drama is balanced, there's smart humor. Also, one of the STRONGEST pilots EVER. A lot of places said it started to crash after that...but it's excellent still. Original songs are amazing, and I would totally see either Bombshell or Hitlist on Broadway without hesitation. Just so adult, but BALANCES it all very well.
Archer - Also great as always. So behind on it though. Still, good show. Funny as hell, and everyone should watch it. Current season seems like it's going for more standalone episodes, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Hart of Dixie
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Smash - This is...the best show on TV right now. It is excellent.
On all of TV? You're so wrong you might as well be NEB talking about what makes a game good. I mean its not even the best show on its own network and it's on NBC.
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Doctor Who- Watched series 1. It's weird, the show reminds me of Buffy but sorta in reverse. For whatever reason the random adventure episodes are the ones I find myself enjoying more than the more arc-driven ones. Unexpected.
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Finally got around to watching the first season of the new Dr. Who (Series 1 I guess, like CK?). It is damn good fun.
Eccleston feels incredibly underrated and really sells a lot of powerful moments. "Dalek" is just a solid episode for him on the whole. The "Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, everybody lives!" scene from "The Doctor Dances" I find incredibly moving. I honestly feels like one of the best, raw emotional moments I've seen on TV in a while. I'm actually kinda disappointed he only did one series. He really grew on me quite quickly.
Rose is... eh. She grates a lot. She has this above average Mary Sue feel and just... blarghle. Don't really like her.
Captain Jack is great generally while he's around.
Steven Moffat needs to do more episodes in general. I see that this gets resolved a bit later on. The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances are incredible.
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Steven Moffat needs to do more episodes in general. I see that this gets resolved a bit later on. The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances are incredible.
SPOILER WARNING: This is not true. It turns out one two-parter a year is pretty much his limit for high-quality material. Sadly.
Speaking of which, I finally got around to the Christmas special from four months ago. Not great, but solid. Nice use of an old-school villain (who is, the Internet informs me, the Who version of Yog-Sothoth. Seriously.), Ian McKellan is involved, the supporting trio was played really well. Especially nice since the previous Christmas ep was basically the low point of the entire new series.
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SPOILER WARNING: This is not true. It turns out one two-parter a year is pretty much his limit for high-quality material. Sadly.
Aww. Well, at least he does those?
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Doctor Who (Series 2): Picking up where Eccleston left off, Tennant does a fantastic job of portraying the Doctor. Although similar, Tennant's Doctor is a lot less pathos ridden and tends towards viewing the world as a lot more awesome than the 9th.
He is also a lot darker, when you really get down to it. One chance. That's all you get.
Rose continues to be Rose which is not a praiseworthy feat. The phrase "Shut up, Rose!" was uttered muchly. There are some generally cool episodes here (I was quite fond of the Doctor vs Satan), but I think I'd consider series 1 stronger? The series ends on a high note, though, leading us into the third feeling much better about life. >_>
Doctor Who (Series 3): Probably the strongest series yet. Starts with the phenomenal The Runaway Bride, which is the perfect lift after the conclusion of the previous series. The Doctor's new companion, Martha Jones, is enjoyable and infinitely less stupid than a certain other companion.
The Daleks are, unfortunately, feeling a bit overexposed at this point, but what can you do?
Just a mixture of really fun and really gripping episodes this series. Blink is still fantastic and well worth watching, but Human Nature and The Family of Blood are WOEFULLY underappreciated. Those episodes generate ALL the feels. And, in retrospect, they really set-up for the arc the Doctor takes in series 4.
The Master is an amazing villain and really helps this series end on a strong note.
Doctor Who (Series 4): Probably the strongest series, helped out a lot by the most enjoyable of the Doctor's new companions, Donna Noble. Just a great season and has a ridiculously strong end with episodes 9-13 all being completely stellar.
Unfortunately, we do see the return of a character that I did not miss, but bleh.
Just brilliant on the whole, even if the end does leave me with this sad sensation that life is totally unfair sometimes.
I've also finished the specials that bridge series 4 and 5, but I think those deserve their own post.
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Doctor Who (Series 4): Probably the strongest series, helped out a lot by the most enjoyable of the Doctor's new companions, Donna Noble.
I salute your impeccable good taste, sir.
Series 7 is back in swing and going pretty well thus far. I mean, it's only three episodes in and I haven't seen the third one yet, but Jenna Louise Coleman is doing well and Matt Smith is keeping up the air he had in the first half of the season, playing up the ageless-codger part of the character more than in S6.
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Human Nature and Family Blood are probably high points of the series for me outside of Master related things. Tennant at his best. The points that embody the cold force of nature that the Doctor can be that is kind of periodically in the character from back in first and second generation (mostly when he is a cranky old fuck).
Rare to not see Silence in the Library hype, which is one of the ones I thought would be right up your alley. Blink is also quality, but is something of an internet phenomenon these days.
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I am actually a huge Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead fan. It is actually, I want to say, close to my first experience with the show as well? I think I may have seen the Adipose episode (or a part of it) first.
I just thought the entire run of episodes from (Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead, Midnight, Turn Left, The Stolen Earth, and Journey's End) was great and chose not to specifically call any of them out.
I only specifically mentioned Blink since, despite being faddy, is definitely on the list of episodes to watch if you're just going to watch a couple.
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Picking up DS9 after watching seasons 1-4 years ago and then getting distracted. Halfway through S5 now and it is pretty consistently excellent. Dukat just made his big power play. I figured the freedom fighter act wouldn't last, but I didn't quite expect that. You go into the episode assuming it's going to be all about an attack on the station and it turns out everything hinges on a fistfight with Worf, and a cardassian stuck in a crawlspace. Actually pretty great! "I yield. I cannot defeat this klingon. I can only kill him."
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Ciddy, I read that review guy you linked me to. He's very hit and miss. His head his so far up his own ass at points that it is painful (See: His bitching about mirror universe episodes when unironically praising freaking episodes with Ferengi in them). Also.
Elim Garak: It's vile.
Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying and happy.
Elim Garak: Just like the Federation.
Quark: And you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.
Elim Garak: It's insidious.
Quark: Just like the Federation.
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I'm actually going to do this episode by episode at some point, but for now...
Doctor Who (Series 4 Specials): Didn't see Planet of the Dead. Outside of that though, solid. The slide in the Doctor's character is interesting, entertaining, sensible, and fairly well built into. You buy it. The finale is pretty goddamn good and ridiculously, amazingly, awesomely camp for large sections of it.
Also, Time Lords? Total douchebags.
Doctor Who (Series 5): Welcome the 11th Doctor. He is an odd one. He takes a while to get used to but, once you do, he is a good Doctor. He does take some getting used to, though.
Meet Amy and Rory. They are fun as well.
Also, more River Song. Yey? I dunno. I just can't get into her.
The series itself is... okay? Eleventh Hour is great (and the best intro episode of the new series). Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone are pretty good. Vincent and the Doctor is fun, as is The Lodgert. Finale is kinda cool and concept, but just doesn't ring with me.
Yeah. I dunno. My feelings on this series are not strong.
Took me a while to really start feeling Smith in the role, but once he gets into it, it is great!
Doctor Who (Series 6): ...ah. I see what you mean, Shale. Yeah. I... don't care for this series on the whole. The overarching plot is pretty... argh. It starts out fairly promising and then just gets weirder and more unsustainable.
There are some cool elements to it. The Silence are pretty awesome and very well handled!
And then completely ignored!
Honestly, their gimmick would have been best for a two-parter instead of series+ spanning plotline.
There are some okay/solid episodes this series, but none that immediately jump out at me as super hype (I know, burn me for not fanboying over The Doctor's Wife!).
There some bad ones, though. Oh yes, there are those.
A Good Man Goes to War. Never have I been so let down by foreshadowing about what will happen in an episode since "This is the story of how I died." Did have the amazing, unintentional hilarity of doing the BIG REVEAL at the end and then, since it was Netflix, transitioning so we could select the next episode.
The impact of the BIG REVEAL was slightly overshadowed by the next episode being called "Let's Kill Hitler!"
If this episode had delivered on what it promised? This could have been hype. As is... it was just sort of lame.
Similarly, the Wedding of River Song, while decent for the most part, completely fell apart at the end. It also makes Smith's character arc as the Doctor REALLY inconsistent and erratic. While part of his character (the erratic and inconsistent), I would have appreciated it portrayed as a little less bipolar.
Also the final resolution is stupid.
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The less River is involved in a particular episode of season 6, the higher the odds that it will be watchable. S7 returns her to the premise that made her seem like an interesting character in the first place - a fellow time-traveler who deals with the Doctor as an equal and friend, with the added wrinkle that they never know exactly what the other person remembers at any given point (fuck the "they go through time in the opposite order" thing from S6, incidentally).
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I miss Captain Jack, on that note =(
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House of Cards so so so good so witty so funny so southern idlewild
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Star Trek: The Original Series- So I watched all of season 1. The early episodes are fascinating. It has this odd reliance on suspense you don't see nearly as much as the show goes on. Much as they show is actually pretty successful at creating that emotion though, it definitely improves overall as it progresses. About midway through you start getting episodes like Conscience of the King, Balance of Terror, and Arena which are just great. The last in particular surprised me because, despite what it's famous for (it's the lizardman episode), the setup is absolutely fantastic and really took me by surprise.
You can tell its 60s tv of course. Show can get downright uncomfortable when male-female interaction is a key element of a scene. Although Space Seed at least is intentional about that, probably one reason it's one of the episodes that holds up the best.
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Well, that and Khan himself, who is just fantastic as written, and Montalban does a great job of playing him.
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The Wire- Finished season 4. S3 feels better , but S4's still a lot of fun.
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Watching Sons of Anarchy, just saw part of the first season. It's a hell of a lot of fun so far. Katie Segal's character in particular is a lot of fun to watch in action- she is playing the mamma from hell once again, abet in an entirely different way than she did with Peggy Bundy.
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Yeah, Sons of Anarchy is pretty good. I saw Tig @ the Convention Center in Boston. He is sweet.
So my Scandal blurb apparently should have been placed here.
Re: Movies
« Reply #1937 on: August 28, 2013, 05:12:57 PM »
QuoteModifyRemove
Scandal Season 2 is on Netflix now! (-:
And House of Cards ain't uploaded yet. Ya'll get with it.
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I watched the first few episodes of Arrested Development season 4 at my brother's place last weekend. It was startlingly bad. What happened, Hurwitz?
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I found the Lindsay/George Sr episodes very bad, the Buster/GOB episodes good, and the rest average/watchable. You can't skip to the good episodes with this season unfortunately.
It's nowhere near the old series (It's been too long anyway) and pretty much every new character is annoying. But it's at least an interesting experience in storytelling.
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The Lindsay episode was like 50% goofy Indian caricatures. Really? I can't express any interest in watching the rest of it, don't have Netflix streaming anyway.
Sometimes you just can't go back.
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To be fair (Spoilers)
The Indian caricatures come from Lindsay being, well, Lindsay, and the indian guru being, well, Maeby.
George Sr's episodes were way sadder to me since he actually was one of my favourite characters (like 4th favourite but whatever it's Arrested Development) but his episodes barely registered a laugh.
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Lessee...
Supernatural Season 1: What can I say. I dig paranormal, monster of the week stuff, this does it competently.
Star Trek TNG: Been watching this again. Jumped randomly into Season 4 randomly because I felt like it, skipped episodes if I got bored. Forgot apparently Season 5 was where they decided "Man, let's only have good episodes."
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Breaking Bad: All caught up now, that masterstroke
Game of Thrones (S1E5): Oh Ned, you rolled -20 on your intrigue check
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Dexter season 8.
Remember when this show wasn't the worst thing in the universe? Those were good times.
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That was easily one of the worst endings I've seen in years. My original idea where Dexter makes a ceramic pot with help from the guiding hands of Ghost Dad would have been an improvement.
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Breaking bad: Welp. Final episode is in a few days!
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Avatar: The Legend of Korra Book 2
So, this has been interesting thus far. It is definitely improved over Book 1, but still shares some of the pacing problems of its predecessor (little plot points slam into you very quickly and things tend to escalate very quickly).
Speaking of escalating quickly! Korra tends to do that. Really hard. Really, REALLY hard. Like, her first reaction to ANY problem is to immediately break the law and/or threaten to murder someone.
Like... chill, Korra. Chill.
The series definitely seems to be building really heavily towards the hammer of reality crashing down on Korra's head. She's in the wrong an amazing amount and if it doesn't bite her in the ass, I'll be shocked.
Edit: Oh, right. Bolin and the buisnessman. They are unending hilarity.
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Avatar: The Legend of Korra Book 2
Look at their eyes. You will never unsee it.
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I've given myself -two episodes a week- limit.
Almost done with True Blood Season 4. Huh! It's taking a bit for Sookie to come into her own, but man they've really played up the camp in this. Love it. I don't remember why I stopped watching True Blood while in GA, but Lafayette would say "Mmhmm, bitch."
Been watching Buffy on the elliptical. .... You know, Allison Hannigan (Han?? whatever) is an awful actress.
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In early seasons she isn't so great. On the other hand she is a red head in a show for nerds that ends up playing a lesbian and makes out with Seth Green on the way. This explains a lot of popularity.
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What awful standards. Everything else I've seen her in, she's still awful.
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Sleepy Hollow:
Pilot:
... oh yeah. I'm on board.
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Sleepy Hollow:
Pilot:
... oh yeah. I'm on board.
The Crazy Train don't stop.
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Game of Thrones really picks up during Season 2 where like 6 new factions and 20 new characters are introduced. I was puzzled by the show being seen as nuanced when it was all about the Starks vs the Lannisters.
Everything is interesting right now except Jon Snow, who's still Stock Fantasy Character having Stock Fantasy Adventures in the north.
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Yeah while tv season 2 is better than book 2, it still has some of the same problems. Namely the entire Jon Snow and the Wildlings thing being utterly pointless.
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Short TV reviews time. For the new shows.
Agents of Shield (ABC): The Woman in the Flower Dress was good. It took a while to start moving the plot up. I hope it starts getting better. And more cameos PLEEEEEEEEEASE.
Dracula (NBC): I sorta zoned out but the story is more interesting. I'll give it another episode. It feels very much like....
The Originals (CW): ;_; WHY put this against NCIS AND AoS?!? It's actually good but damn you time slot! (NO TEENAGE DRAMA HERE NO SIRREE)
Tomorrow People (CW): ...Teenage drama. It's eh. (Should have put The Originals here)
Sleepy Hollow (FOX): I BOW TO THE LORD! This show is AWESOME!
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The Khaleesi plotline was kinda pointless too, but I didn't really mind. Mormont Quatermain's cool.
Her antagonists were very pathetic in that season finale though. Tip: If something is setting you on fire, try to move out of the way. Also: Have... a few guards and stuff? Especially if you've just murdered a bunch of people?
Cersei was so great I almost forgot about the perpetually raised eyebrow for one minute. All the Lannisters are the best.
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Brooklyn Nine-Nine is kind of amazing.
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The Khaleesi plotline was kinda pointless too, but I didn't really mind. Mormont Quatermain's cool.
Her antagonists were very pathetic in that season finale though. Tip: If something is setting you on fire, try to move out of the way. Also: Have... a few guards and stuff? Especially if you've just murdered a bunch of people?
Cersei was so great I almost forgot about the perpetually raised eyebrow for one minute. All the Lannisters are the best.
The House of the Undying sequence was probably the most disappointing book-to-screen translation I've seen so far (haven't watched season three, mind). The book sequence is a cavalcade of surreal imagery that (in retrospect) clearly foreshadows the worst events of the third book and suggests enough about the future to function as a hub of fan speculation. TV sequence is empty corridors and then sneery jaundice victim gets torched.
Cersei's shining (book-long) moment of incompetence is still a ways off. She's just getting warmed up!
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So in summary, the most insufferable and only out and out bad parts of huge books are the worst parts of the TV series.
Yep.
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Is anyone else watching True Detective?
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I think I've honestly seen like, 3-4 people in chat ask this question independently.
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Are you sure it wasn't just three different supers?
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Archer Vice: Been watching this. It's Archer but with a Miami Vice drug setting (Blame Mallory). It's attempting to more grow the characters in serious directions which is something but eh. It's just not as funny as earlier seasons to me. I don't like the change in scenery and plot that this season has entailed.
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Also watching other shows.
Dexter- Watched most of season 1 today. Fantastic stuff. The big plot twist with the killer I saw coming a mile away. (It hasn't been revealed who the real killer is yet, but it's screamingly obvious who it is). I've heard this series gets real bad later on, but I'm enjoying it for now.
Burn Notice- Finished. The last season was much better than the previous two, which were largely mired down in the problem of 'what the fuck do we do with Michael unburned?'. This season largely ignored the previously established format of villain/victim of the week-work on overarching plot to focus on one of the series's main themes- Michael's struggle with morality and right and wrong. It was also extremely dark. There is a lot more bloodshed. This is a big deal, as Michael kills like one person in the first four seasons of the show.
It's not as good or fun as earlier seasons, but it's good times. One thing Burn Notice did well until the end was constantly hammering home that old characters/mistakes would come back and haunt the characters in later seasons. There were a lot of callbacks in the 7th season, and most of the callbacks were good.
E: Dexter! Been marathoning this. I am about to start the last episode of season 3. S3 feels like a stepdown in quality. Skinner just isn't as compelling a story as Bynie in S1 or and the Bay Harbor Butcher in S2. It's still fun. Dexter is wrestling with turning from a loner into a family man, with all the baggage that entails. Wedding should be fun. Probably the best part of the show is how the supporting characters are changing over the seasons. Maria in particular has gone from total incompetent to seriously good detective. I'm expecting her to find something out about Dexter at the end of this season or soon enough.
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S3 is easily the weakest of the first four seasons (which are, as a whole, a seriously amazing run of television), but it's still solid. Sadly once you wrap up season four things are going to go downhill in a hurry.
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Season 4's been a ton of fun, yeah. I like how Dexter's dad has turned from a character in a flashback to a voice for Dexter's madness. Even as crazy as Dexter is, he's really advanced a lot in terms of being able to relate to people. The show does an outstanding job diagramming the mind of a madman in an a plausible fashion.
Also, it's worth repeating: Deb is *totally* unstable. She's as unstable as Bynie or Lila or the other lunatics who come and go on the show. The only reason she has any grip on sanity is due to her serial killer brother keeping her upright, which is all kinds of fucked up. Even more fucked up is that a lot of her issues are due to her father ignoring her for Dexter.
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I still think the worst change from the original novel was Dexter not letting Bynie kill LaGuerta and then escape.
E: in the book it's LaGuerta who gets grabbed while tracking him not Deb.
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Halfway through S7 of Dexter, the Russian dude was just arrested. I will do my big rant when I'm done with the series, but *what the fuck* to Deb's final scene with the shrink.
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Everything they do with Deb from here on is going to be "what the fuck."
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I don't think you're supposed to find True Detective as hilarious as I do.
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Once writers wrote "dick for brains" into Dexter's character is when I started hating the show. At least I had Deb to keep me going with the BS, but man my love for the Dex fell hard after S6. I'm glad I'm done with the show.
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Everything they do with Deb from here on is going to be "what the fuck."
All I will say about that is that everything Deb usually did made sense, even if it was completely fucked up and terrible. Series spoilers:
The final four seasons lose a lot of their heart and soul without Rita and the stepkids there. They also lose a lot of the tight pacing, as the police never come very close to catching Dexter. The villains weren't much either which hurts. The show also seems to largely try and whitewatch/redeem Dexter. How often does he use the plastic room after S5 anyway?
Anyway, the two major issues that everyone has with the series applies to me.
1. Debster. Just... fucking Debster. The worst part? As *incredibly* fucked up as it was, it was compelling TV watching. Poor Deb. Watching Hannah and Deb feud for the last two seasons was really... something. They feuded like women fighting over the same man, which is what they were doing. Hell, Zack even called it when he saw the two together in the keys. The worst part? Deb doesn't seem to ever fall out of love with Dex, even when she hates him. I really thought the ending was going to be Deb and Dex running off together as lovers with Harrison after being uncovered as a Serial Killer.
2. That last episode. It was bad and should feel bad. Poor Deb. Deb dying itself wasn't terrible persay, but like everyone else who watched the show I was super attached to the character.
Also, a special bonus issue!
3. They went too far in redeeming Dexter for his crimes, I think. *shrug* I do like the concept (Robert Jordan used this with Rand Al Thor) that masks you wear can become the real person, but I can see why there was some criticism.
I was going to post a fairly lengthy rant diagramming everything that the series did wrong after S4, but there's no point. S6 gets my vote for worst season by a mile. S8 at least had tons of Deb and Dexter stuff, which is cool.
Fun series, my issues aside. You watch the first four seasons because it's dark, compelling TV. You watch the final four seasons for trainwreck value.
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Showtime actively vetoed any ending where Dexter would die, which is why we got the Lumberjack Epilogue. Which in turn is more than enough reason to punch the next Showtime exec you see in the face. Plus everything with Deb forgiving Dexter for all the shit he pulled, up to and including getting her killed, just rang more and more false as S8 wore on. Her burial at sea was where it tipped over from bad drama to terrible comedy for me.
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Re ending: For what it's worth, Jennifer Carpenter denied that particular rumor, but it wouldn't surprise me. Second part...
I don't have trouble buying Deb forgiving Dexter for anything. She had no real family or human connections besides for Dexter and she was a completely broken person to the end. She spent her entire adult life chasing either Dexter in romantic partners and *actually claimed to fall in love with him what the fuck*. I think she was incapable of really blaming Dexter or showing him anything but blind adoration. It reminds me more than a little of the dynamic between Trinity and his wife.
Also the entire substory with the therapist who knew Dexter really sucked and was only useful as a way to bring rapproachment to Deb and Dexter before the series end.
Related to that, I don't at all buy Deb showing any interest in Quinn in the end, but it fucking beats the Debster storyline.0
Edit: Deb's death is such a rehash of what happened to Rita in style and substance. Dexter in general had a big problem with generating new content and ideas after S4, but that last episode was real bad about it. [/size=1pt]
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White Collar: I started watching this at some point and got Ash into it. Jesus the guy who plays Neil Caffrey is pretty. Show is fun. Plots are a bit weak, but characters make it work.
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He was in Chuck, too! You should watch Chuck.
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So up until the last minute, How I Met Your Mother had a really solid finale. And then they peed all over it.
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Hm. I think I watched the first 6 or so episodes of this season and then just forgot about watching it. I blame a lack of cable and having to watch the show on CBS' website to keep up. ain't nobody got time for dat
I've been enjoying White Collar a lot. I don't even care that it keeps getting more and more ridiculous. I work in marketing. The main character is a con man. It's fun times. Also, yes, he is ridiculously beautiful. So I don't mind that either.
For rewatching old shows, House, M.D. is now on Netflix. I think I've got plenty to keep me occupied.
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White Collar: into the third season. This site is just damned fun. All the characters are great - it's like Burn Notice if everybody was on Sam's level of awesomeness.
Orphan Black: started this last week, and I'm now into the second season. This thing is addictive. Great concept, amazing acting. Tatiana Maslany is unbelievable. And the writers are way too good at cliffhangers.
(Sopko alert: Matt Frewer is involved!)
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Game of thrones yesterday just fucking murdered Inigo Montoya in the most gruesome way possible. Jeeeeeeesus.
That might have almost been too much for me, this was way worse than even the Red Wedding (maybe because I really didn't expect it) I'm still super grossed out
I don't really understand House of Cards because at its heart it's still kind of a dumb show with all the usual trappings you'd see on TV shows (Fairly addictive sure) but the politics talk is a really high barrier to entry
I guess that most people watching the show kind of ignore the politics or just only vaguely get it.
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Sherlock- Watched season 3. Thought this was less strong than the first two seasons. The villain of the final episode was kind of dumb in particular. He's blackmailing the world, yes. So just kill him. It reminded me a lot of Rand's speech about how to deal with Grandael when he destroyed Natrin's Barrows in The Gathering Storm. Other than that, there was lots of fun and the two actors who play Watson and Holmes have fantastic chemistry.
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Agents of SHIELD- So this happened. The first half of the season is largely lame, the fifth (Girl in the Flower Dress) and eighth (The Well) being the only ones I felt were actively good and with at least one (the second, 0-8-4) being actively bad. Second half is better overall despite amplifying the single most annoying bit of the early episodes, the wangsty trust issues. But at least those are justified at the time because, y'know, that's that part of the show that corresponds to the second Captain America movie. Also had entirely too much Victoria Hand.
It's a bit weird how long the show took to get interesting because it always had the components to be good; the cast is diverse, Coulson is Coulson, they can pick up bits and pieces of a larger Marvel Universe without having to dedicated acres of plot space to them and when they elect to do stuff like "well yeah, of course there's random people with superpowers out there, it's still a Marvel universe" or "wait, Asgardians are visually indistinguishable from humans, why WOULDN'T one happen to like the place and decided to stay?" and general they can elect to show impact from larger events (ie movies) or build the universe at large and both lead to interesting episodes. But when the show doesn't have something to pay attention to and instead dwells on the cast, it fares poorly because basically it's written like a soap opera (... or an X-men comic really). Amazingly, at the end the shakeup in the cast dynamic does away with all that nicely and look, these guys are friends and don't need to whine constantly because they are here to get shit done. Very nice.
Despite some in and out praise for everything after episode 17 (HEIL HYDRA and all that, gosh whyever would the big reveal in Cap completely upend a show about ground-level SHIELD agents I couldn't tell you) and the snark about soap operainess the real standout is episode 15. Gosh, a named supervillain that isn't shoehorned into the metaplot (metaplot is nice and all but you can have a villain who's an active villain during their entire episode without making them also a minion of your big bad in this kind of show) and a cool cameo that actually gives us a little insight into a side character from the flicks and leaves them a plot thread that could be used all kinds of ways if they elect to later? Very nice.
Speculation (I haven't been keeping up, so if the previews invalidate this then I guess I record my wrongness for posterity: Skye is an Inhuman. Bit of a longshot, but straight up alien doesn't mesh with her not immediately scanning as something else all those times she was medically examined and she's very obviously not Asgardian, so alien-but-you-can't-tell is out. Inhumans meanwhile could fit the known facts well; she's an 084 because Inhumans haven't made contact with modern humans yet and nobody knows what the fuck, but where she was found is relatively close to one of their comic outposts if memory serves. She scans as human because, having not been exposed to terrigen mist or whatever the MCU uses instead, she is completely human still. Inhumans can range all over the mutation spectrum, including overt physical ones, so her parents being 'monsters' could be a relatively literal description. Plan B is that she's instead from Titan, although that doesn't mesh as well with lacking overt superpowers so seems a lot less likely.
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I like that theory because it meshes very well with the prospect of Interesting Stuff happening to her as a result of her "medical treatment" that wouldn't happen to other people.
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Been watching through Season 5 and 6 of the Simpsons. Good times. Probably my favorite episode so far is Treehouse of Horror V. The Flanders-as-ruler-of-the-world bit was particularly excellent.
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Hi-diddly-ho, slaverinos!
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That's definitely my favorite Halloween episode.
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Once Upon a Time: all caught up and stoked for the new season to this weekend! Big fan of frozen so pretty stoked about elsa; both parts of last season were incredible but the acting from Peter Pan just blew me away.
Supernatural: pure guilty pleasure, all caught up and itching for next week's season premiere
The Flash: saw the pilot hoh that tornado wrangling!!! Very stoked, nice seeing cameo by the 80s/90s cast actors from the last few flash stuff
Gotham: great, GREAT premiere, so depressing and dark, ohh Ms Smith I like where this is going, I do not think the actor for Gordon fits at all but he does portray the character satisfactorily
Steven Universe: what is this I don't even; I love it. Such an.. ADHD show like meeee, garnet and amethyst are pretty amazing for entirely different reasons!
Adventure time: yep, just gets more awesome every single episode, we are already in the googleplex area of exponential increasement. The revelation about Jake was particularly facisnating. This show keeps me going, still not seen every episode.
Been rewatching a lot of Venture Bros, the laughs and feels and nostalgia shocking identical to first 3 watches of series! That's staying power!! Orpheus, Helper, Ghost Robot, Brock, Dr Ms My Wife, Sphinx Commander, The Monarch, I could go on and on.
Penny Dreadful: don't want to spoiler this one as it's just intense and a quick season to watch! Loved it.
The Strain: plays out like watching a graphic novel, slow and paced yet intense and dramatic moments in every chapter(episode). Really hate Eph, hope his character is killed joffery style! HOPE HIS SON GETS TURNED TOO cause that would be a great twist, or in general if the master wins! Some of the heroes are REALLY unlikable! Russian Rat Catcher guy is hella boss though.
Mahou Koukou no Rettosai: hmnn this is... overwhelming, I am not just whelmed. Lead character is crazy cool and his character is told from the right perspective speaking from that human turned unfeeling positive sociopath(redundant with previous terms I know), so rarely portrayed in fiction despite its truth in television. Most of the Mages are portrayed properly as extremely high powered SEIGE WEAPONS, something almost never portrayed accurately about Mages, the techno wizardry yet still users of ancient magic(relics and stuff) is incredibly cool and logical. Main character is absurdly OP from a precision/destructive view point(both of then) but pretty much the rest of the cast is either precision or AOE seige weapons so it's pretty cool, heavy political and good insight into that unique Japanese cultural perspective on things. Great to see how a sociopath/limited "psychopathy" works in a high context collectivist culture instead of individualist culture. And explains why America is just soooo bad a place to be if you have even a slightly different brain than the norm! From a different perspective if I looked at this show from a high-context culture native viewpoint this show would be pretty damn average if not for the heavy technical speech and high-thought comedy. From that viewpoint it's probably only a B grade show, but since I'm not innately that viewpoint it's a fat whopping A+ as it appeals well to my intellectual side, something I have only had happen twice before via an entertainment source!
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Been watching through Season 5 and 6 of the Simpsons. Good times. Probably my favorite episode so far is Treehouse of Horror V. The Flanders-as-ruler-of-the-world bit was particularly excellent.
Indeed. All three of the ones in that episode are amazing. This is indeed a disturbing universe...
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Firefly- So guys did you know there's this show? Made by some comic book writer and a dude who did a few episodes of star trek I think. It's like, if someone took the original pitch for TOS really really literally, and then populated it with mostly really hot guys and occasionally crazy ladies. The crazy lady makes the show in some ways. Like it's almost always good, but the show really needs that crazy lady to balance out how pragmatic everyone else is. Y'can't shoot every problem, juts 95% of them.
There's a lot of really specific choices here that're pretty neat. Like space is always just bgm. There's some little inconsistencies in the setting, like fluctuating scarcity. I guess that would just be variance from planet to planet.
Oh well. Serenity should come in the mail next week. Then I can fly me to the moon and pray among the stars.
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Been watching through Season 5 and 6 of the Simpsons. Good times. Probably my favorite episode so far is Treehouse of Horror V. The Flanders-as-ruler-of-the-world bit was particularly excellent.
Watched some of season 4 today at Ciddy's. Not as big on the monorail episode as everyone else (Still good!) but man has that show aged super well.
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I'm about a third through Season 8 (we skipped 7, because we decided to only buy three of them and decided on 5/6/8), and it's pretty good so far. I love the third part of the Treehouse of Horror, and the James Bond villain spoof You Only Move Twice is fucking fabulous. Nothing since has quite compared, but it's still been good fun.
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Been watching through Season 5 and 6 of the Simpsons. Good times. Probably my favorite episode so far is Treehouse of Horror V. The Flanders-as-ruler-of-the-world bit was particularly excellent.
Watched some of season 4 today at Ciddy's. Not as big on the monorail episode as everyone else (Still good!) but man has that show aged super well.
I love the early seasons of the Simpsons but after talking to kids in their late teens/early twenties, I don't know if it will have real staying power for younger generations. There are universal situations and lines that are still hilarious to anyone and the early seasons hit sincere, emotional beats very well without being cloying. The first batch of Simpsons writers were also enamored with 50s style Hollywood showbiz jokes (especially Conan) that were already antiquated back then. I grew up with it so I'll always hold it in high esteem, though.
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The part about the old Hollywood references is very true (they all went over my head as a teenager, they... mostly still do now). Beyond that, as someone who has also talked to kids/young adults about it... yeah obviously the show isn't super-relevant now, but it's still more relevant than any, say, 1970's TV show was in the 90's, which would be the equivalent (I guess MASH would be the closest).
Anyway obviously I am doing this Simpsons rewatch now, it is pretty fun to do. I watched the show religiously in high school and it's interesting to re-watch the episodes as an adult. Season 5 was good, 6 was just outstanding and is almost surely my favourite overall. Early in S8 so far, I don't think it's as strong but does have the aforementioned strong episodes Ciato noted. I think my favourite episode of the ones we've watched is Lisa On Ice, least favourite... possibly one of the S5 ones, or Bart vs. Australia.
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Elfboy, please, disparaging Bart vs. Australia is a bootable offense!
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See I may have thought things like that were kinda funny when I was younger. Now... no. The Simpsons is so good at taking no prisoners and making fun of everything, which is one of the things I love about it. It will sometimes say very nasty things about institutions, countries, you name it, but it's hard to argue about the truth (exaggerated or no) that it's getting at when it does so. So, it smacks of bad writing that at a certain point it just had to start making weird shit up about Australia. The first half or so of the episode is pretty good (nonsense about toilet flush direction being tied to your hemisphere aside) but the weird attempt to portray Australia as barbaric and the bizarre morality surrounding the booting was a bit painful to watch as an adult.
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It was the Simpsons trying to be relevant in as safe a way as possible, so small wonder it's the most dated episode these days.
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I guess I can see disliking it as a gimmicky episode of the sort that later came to dominate the show's storylines? Because the below is something I very much nodded in agreement with--
There are universal situations and lines that are still hilarious to anyone and the early seasons hit sincere, emotional beats very well without being cloying.
--as being the heart of the quality seasons which seemed a point increasingly forgotten as the show got on in years. But I can forgive the occasional ridiculous premise in a mostly grounded season much more readily than I can the later seasons' mostly ridiculous episodes with the occasional reasonable premise, and anyway way too many individual lines in that episode land for me. "I know those words, but that sign makes no sense." "I see you've played knifey-spooney before." "That's a strange name. I would've called it a chozwozzer!" "It's not like in cartoons. There's a lot more mucus." "Here in America we don't tolerate that kind of crap SIR!" Bart's "apology" is also characteristically American to about the same degree the episode cares about being an accurate depiction of Australia, which amuses me.
(The frog thing is actually pretty much real, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia)
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It isn't just Cane Toads that happened with either.
That said, not much of a fan of the episode either. As something that is mostly joking about how American media saw Australia at the time, it dates it something crazy because it is essentially just a big episode parodying Crocodile Dundee which was already pretty shitty to begin with. They also missed some crazy good opportunities such as the fact that we had literally voted to be lead by our best Drinker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hawke) for over a decade. Also not enough people called Bruce. Also a huge space called The Simpson Desert and no jokes at all.
Pretty much it went to of its way to cater for an American audience so they would get the jokes instead of being particularly insightful on a topic they probably weren't going to revisit. The joke could have been about any country other the fact that we had three shitty movies come out starring one (shitty) dude in the prior decade. Not exactly Simpsons on its A game.
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The cane toad thing is true but not very funny, even in a "it's funny 'cause it's true" way.
"I know those words, but that sign makes no sense." "I see you've played knifey-spooney before." "That's a strange name. I would've called it a chozwozzer!" "It's not like in cartoons. There's a lot more mucus." "Here in America we don't tolerate that kind of crap SIR!"
See, most of these are indeed good (I especially like the last, as Homer getting comeuppance for being annoying is something which never gets old. I also loved the Rand McNally line, and the bit where Bart phones a South American dictator, and the coffee/beer sequence) but... well. There isn't a single Simpsons episode from its strongest seasons which I can't come up with half a dozen good lines from, minimum. It's a good show with some sharp writing! But yeah, the overarching plot of the episode is weak, and though it has quite a number of good jokes (as usual), it also has a surprisingly high number which are weird/dated/feel like they were written by someone with no grasp of the subject material.
I hadn't even thought of it being more similar to some later season Simpsons episodes (which like many people I'm much less of a fan of) but yeah that's actually quite true.
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I kind of wonder thinking about it now whether the broadness of the episode could've been influenced (consciously or otherwise) by backlash against the much more direct laceration of of New Orleans* in A Streetcar Named Marge, which I watched this past weekend and which I think I recall reading that the citizens of New Orleans did not receive with good humor.
It wasn't until some years after watching that that I learned A Streetcar Named Desire was in fact not originally a musical, but a movie and before that a play, and not until many years later that I discovered how incredibly, hilariously inappropriate that last song is. And for all that the focus is naturally on Marge's play, I think Maggie's Great Escape sequence is probably still my favorite movie homage The Simpsons ever did (that it occurs in the Ayn Rand School for Tots is just a bonus).
(*"Home of pirates, drunks and whores / tacky, overpriced souvenir stores." And it's so catchy!)
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Agents of SHIELD: ugh this show makes me happy. I know I shouldn't like it because the internet tells me it's slow and plodding and that Whedon loves his Buffyspeak too much, but I just genuinely like all of these characters and their drama could carry the whole season without even a mention of Thor.
The fact that they mention Thor just makes it awesome.
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I did find Bart vs Australia funny but it and a few other episodes mark a departure where the Simpsons start going "big." One thing that Matt Groening says in commentaries (yes I listen to those) is that he thinks the show is best when it is grounded and centered around the characterization of the family. Originally, the show skewered American culture and the safe, toothless sitcoms of the time. It could get zany but ultimately, many of the plots were about the dynamics of a family unit that is dysfunctional but whose members ultimately love each other (speaking to my previous thing about the show being able to elicit emotion, like with Lisa's Substitute and Lisa's Wedding). Later episodes lose this kind of focus, going for bigger plots, like going to another country, going to space, etc. The show started to bring in celebrities to voice themselves, in some cases just to have a celebrity voice. These led to some funny episodes and moments but ultimately something was lost there.
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Legend of Korra, Book 4: This was more or less how the Book 1 -> 2 transition needed to go. Fantastic.
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Ned Flanders, I mock your value system. You also appear foolish in the eyes of others!
That episode isn't perfect but that part was fucking hilarious.
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Past instances in which I professed to like you were fraudulent!
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I engaged in intercourse with your spouse or significant other.... now THATS psychology!
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It's a really uneven episode but I at least like the awesome shoddiness of the new Flanders residence. "I wouldn't take that down. It's a load-bearing poster."
The actual character development is the sort I tend to file under Discontinuity (much like Imposter Skinner, though to a much lesser degree).
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Korra Balance, Episode 2: Well. I'm depressed now. Pretty fucking great two episodes so far. Ash is right that they are doing end of episode stingers really hard this time, but this shit is pretty hype.
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I realized Amazon Instant was a thing and I have 30 days free Amazon Prime due to shenanigans with an order and going back and forth with customer service finally resulted in this.
The Walking Dead- Just started watching this. It's been okay, but not great so far? I don't really like Shane and Lori so far~ I've saw the first two episodes, and started the third. I felt the first ep was the strongest so far at least. Liked the scenes with the father and son who saved Rick, and the father's dilemma with the mother. Also poor horse. I had to cover my eyes during that bit and it takes a lot for a horror element to make a CT do that!~
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For what it is worth from someone that hasn't seen it (due to being zombied out), but having a finger on the pulse of the internet says that season 1 is a slow burn and it picks up in Season 2/3.
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Honestly, Season 1 is a lot more well-paced than Season 2. Though Season 2 has a lot more interpersonal drama than zombie plot. So it just depends what you enjoy more of in zombie apocalypse stories.
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Season 2 is absolute fucking garbage.
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That doesn't bode well!~
Thanks for the inputs everyone :)
Yeah I have to agree, season 2 isn't going well so far.
I think my favorite characters are Dale, Glenn and surprisingly Daryl, I like that whole hunting skills survivalist thing he has going on and stuff. I've been liking Lori better recently, T-Dog is ok, as is Rick. Andrea was probably my favorite female in S1 but I don't really like her anymore, still dislike Shane (I think that's the point though)~
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Orphan Black- completely awesome. Fantastically acted and shot TV show. The basic plot premise is super silly (Clones... clones everywhere) but it's so well acted and so much fun that you don't care. Tatiana Maslany knocks it out of the park in every role she's given on the show.
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Watching Borgia on Netflix (Not The Borgias, although I've seen that too). Very recommendable series. Most of the casting appearance wise is almost dead on at some points. It does an amazing job of mixing far-out plotlines with historical context. All the characters are bat-shit insane, but that seems true to life. There are obviously some liberties taken, but it really does at least follow along the narrative of their actual lives really well.
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Finished up season one of Orphan Black. Show is trying way -way- way too hard on the main plot, but it's still so much fun as a way to show off what the lead actress can do.
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Gomorrah is really great if you need another super gritty drama series with unlikeable characters.
Here it's about the Italian mafia. It's written by a journalist who's now under heavy police protection because he's received threats from the mafia. He also has been criticized by Berlusconi (former Italian president) because Berlusconi has no shame whatsoever about his corrupt ties.
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Is that related to the movie Gomorrah?
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Yeah. Same author, same subject, different events. No dudes firing guns on the beach in their underwear.
I haven't watched the movie so I can't compare.
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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was really, really good. Like, "we watched the whole thing in 30 hours" good. Excellent performances and a lot of really well-played absurdity. Ellie Kemper nails the lead role but Jane Krakowski and Carol Kane are the ones who make the show something special.
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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was really, really good. Like, "we watched the whole thing in 30 hours" good. Excellent performances and a lot of really well-played absurdity. Ellie Kemper nails the lead role but Jane Krakowski and Carol Kane are the ones who make the show something special.
I enjoyed it way more than expected, though I do feel the first couple episodes were kinda weak? The show really hit its stride in the 3rd episode or so.
White Collar: Finally finished. The show ended the most logical way it could. Generally fun, probably lasted about one season too long? They were just never able to move away from the baseline conflict between Peter and Neal, which caused the show to feel a bit samey.
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Are you watching the Flash? You should be watching the Flash. Jesus Christ this show is awesome.
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Are you watching the Flash? You should be watching the Flash. Jesus Christ this show is awesome.
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Gravity Falls: This show is fun. Full of dumb hero, but the internal consistency and build up is great, the background clues/gags are well hidden, the writing is clever, and it manages to pull out some epic finales without any whiplash. Surprisingly dark show overall, though. Like... a lot of sorta grim stuff and some unpleasant implications in a lot of places. Moving to Disney XD let them do MORE weird stuff that merits the occasional snark of "Kids show!"
Speaking of, pones starts this weekend. Woot.
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House of Cards: Finished season two. The plot was uh less good this season, namely because the Walkers were idiotic beyond belief. I still enjoyed the living hell out of the show. Wright and Spacey are both amazing, and the supporting cast is good too.
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Am I the only one who finds the epic large scale battles in Game of Thrones extremely boring?
Points to the main bad guy doing the "Well what is it??" gesture from Dark Souls at the end, I guess
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I haven't watched GoT past season three yet (having read the books, I don't feel any particular rush to keep up with the show). I'm faintly curious in an academic sense about adaptation choices since the show is now covering the point where the books fall right apart, but my sister assures me I shouldn't bother with it anymore. The writers hit the Rape as Character Development button again it sounds like?
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Apparently in a rather gratuitous way, and one that wasn't in the books at all, at that. (Disclaimer: I haven't watched it myself, so this is secondhand from friends who do.)
I have no fucking idea how someone took a look at the Song of Ice and Fire series and said "You know what this needs in its TV adaptation? More rape."
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Yeah.
I thought it was handed well though, unlike last season's.
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Assuming we're talking about the same scene, it at least makes since given the character who committed the rape, unlike last season's. Haven't seen it myself to judge how it was handled though. It was also basically in the books, too, just Jeyne Poole doesn't exist as a character in the show so it ended up happening to the character who took her place in that arc.
Still, they've been screwing that up since season 1 with Khal Drogo and Dany, and season 4's is pretty much lambasted as a wtf this doesn't even make sense by people on the ASoIaF forums I read, so there's not a whole lot of room to make me imagine it was handled all that well.
Again, haven't seen it though, so who even knows.
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What might mystify the most is that the producers evidently thought it worthwhile to shift screentime from one of the more compelling (if still hateable) puppetmasters in the books to Evil McTorturepants in the show.
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Who's the more compelling puppetmaster, his father?
The "motivation"for S4 rape was understandable, I really really didn't like how the show was making the rapist more sympathetic than the victim? Essentially right now he's "previously an asshole, now on a path to redemption well he just raped someone but he's still cool"
I think it flirted with the unconscious idea that marital rape doesn't count as much, which a lot of people take for granted. This also makes the S5 rape better in retrospect (.... Yeah) since it's clearly shown as wrong despite being marital
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House of Cards- Finished season 3. I didn't think there was much of a dropoff between 2 and 3, though yeah neither is on par with season 1.
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Who's the more compelling puppetmaster, his father?
Littlefinger, which is who Sansa spends this comparable period of book time with (although like most things in the latter books this is mostly underused and wasted potential).
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Oh yeah.
Littlefinger's scenes here have been the best of this season's though, and you can both understand his plans more easily, and why other characters don't. He is less "MUAH AH AH" than before and more Delita. He is so Delita.
The series is following the books less and less, they've just offed a character who's not dead yet in the books! He's also not really important in the series but apparently a pretty damn big deal in the books. It's as if the series just told the books to fuck off
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Cause ring fucking with e pectTions is kind of one of the pivotal things about ASoIaF I am just surprised they waited this long to do it.
At this rate I expect that the TV show will finish 10 years before the books with Stannis having been revealed to really be Azor Ahai reborn and his Lightbringer is legit and then the books last minute jumping feet first into the same ending after faking out for a decade to it "secretly" being Hodor.
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The white walkers are actually the viewers of the show, who perversely want the characters in the show to be miserable just for their viewing pleasure.
Stannis find a door to enter Real Life and kills R.R. Martin in the climatic penultimate episode
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Grefter, if you actually expect him to ever finish the books, you're more optimistic than I am.
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I'm not terribly optimistic about him finishing the next one.
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Stannis find a door to enter Real Life and kills R.R. Martin in the climatic penultimate episode
GRRM is not Stephen King.
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Stannis find a door to enter Real Life and kills R.R. Martin in the climatic penultimate episode
GRRM is not Stephen King.
Or Luther Lansfield.
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I'm not terribly optimistic about him finishing the next one.
Neither is he; he gave the outline of his narrative to the showrunners years ago. I assume it's because he is an older dude who is super fat so death lurks around every corner but maybe he just knows his heart's not in it anymore.
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Stannis has been more likeable this season...
but then you remember he is a horrible person and his demon poop baby murdered his brother.
But all is forgotten in this season because he loves his daughter! awwwwwwwww
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GoT: ..........................................
Fuck, how did it get me again. Somehow this was really really obvious but it was too horrible to really consider? Just like the red wedding.
Anyway it was weird seeing 20 more minutes after that moment. And this ended with a total anticlimax, Daenerys being all "KTHXBY losers" with cheap looking special effects everywhere
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Stannis gonna stannis.
And just when you started liking the guy.
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I don't know why but Shireen's demise hit me harder than anything else in the series.
At some point the good acting and plotting can't save a show when you realize that you just watched a little girl the show has spent 3 years making incredibly likable be burned to death by her parents while futilely screaming for mommy and daddy not to horrifically murder her. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to find a more healthy fiction to get entertainment from.
Also the plotting has been pretty miserable recently. The White Walkers are a big deal sure but it doesn't feel like people are actively talking about them and hyping up their danger. The ones who saw them should have been acting like 'true believers' proselytizing about their dangers to everyone else. This is incredibly downplayed or non-existent.
Arya's entire season has been a pointless waste of screentime from an otherwise eminently likable character. There has been no one of value for her to play off of. And the 'push oyster cart around entire city tracking dude who can totally recognize you, including following him into brothel' thing was mindlessly stupid. And the scene with her preparing the poison for her intended target in wide open while staring at him so intently was also very dumb. I guess they want to make her out to be incompetent to increase drama? Why follow her storyline at all then.
And the Dorne/Sand Snakes plot was a stupid and pointless waste of time. "And you didn't think to send me a raven?" summarizes it nicely. The Sand Snakes are also incredibly flat and boring as characters go.
Just Bugs Me: 20 of Ramsay's men completely cripple an army of thousands effortlessly because reasons or something. Ramsay Bolton is a character the show's writers enjoy taunting the audience with. "Look how evil he is! He has women eaten to death by dogs for getting pregnant! He beats and rapes a likable character while mocking viewers of the show!" and he keeps succeeding to such an extent that it seems he is favored by some kind of evil god (namely the show's writers). Ramsay is is played up to be both totally lacking in self-control and yet hyper-competent. This is retarded. I get that the show feels it can get a lot of emotional reaction out of baiting the viewers with him, but it makes for miserable plot.
TLDR: Fuck Game of Thrones. I signed up for a lot of crap, but not to watch fathers burning their little girls.
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These are the comments of someone who hasn't watched the show since season 3, so I may not be familiar with context, but: my sister assures me that the further the show deviates from source material this season (which was probably inevitable to some extent just due to how messy books four and five are), the more the quality of plot and dialogue degrade. Case in point: that burning is not a thing that happened in the books, and I struggle to think of a good reason to have included it either narratively or politically in-context (who's going to support a king that negates his own line of succession? Isn't that basically the point of kings in the first place?) It sounds like HBO's writers love shock tactics so much that they have to make them up where the source material isn't obliging (again see nothing happening in books four and five).
The TV show writers' fascination with Ramsay Bolton is also really fucking baffling (again this is just based on season 3, if he's all over the damn screen now then more reason not to bother catching up). A Song of Ice and Fire has a lot of compelling, devious schemers, and the TV show has occasionally made very good use of them, but Ramsay Bolton is not such an individual in original context. Book Ramsay is never really portrayed as any degree of competent without his dad around to keep him in line. Short of that, he's a bully with the capacity to terrorize a modest corner of the country and that's about it. If the show has decided to give him any talent for warfare, well, why? It sounds like someone on the writing staff must really think that mustache-twirling villainy is best villainy, and if there isn't constantly someone around that's obviously hateable in the most aggressive ways then people will stop watching or something.
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I haven't seen much of the show (just the first season) but I have heard all the surprises this season in grisly, endless detail from friends and everything I've gleaned makes me inclined to agree with Cid. Whenever the show makes a big departure from the books it seems like it's there to make these GAMES OF THRONES moments that get talked about and elicit reactions like the ones we've seen here (got me again, GoT!) and to get people writing longform pieces on pop culture sites.
There's something really calculated and cheap seeming about it, and I guess that's kind of a weird criticism to have about a series that is there to mostly fuck with expectations. It's cheap and manipulative to me in the same way that Larry Clark movies are, if anyone has seen those, with the concerted effort to keep topping itself.
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GoT/ASoIaF spoilers, though by this point you should have figured this out.
Having not watched the show, I'm a bit surprised that Stannis sacrificing his daughter has created such a strong reaction, actually. You all remember this is the same guy who used dark magic to murder his brother, yes? He's a horrible human being in a "the ends justify the means" way. (Although it is pretty stupid to kill off your heir as a king.)
That said overall I do agree more broadly with Cid and Gourry. It sounds clear to me that the show is very much going for shock value and flagrant toying with viewer emotions at this point. To some extent that's just Game of Thrones being Game of Thrones, and was part of why I lost interest in the books despite digging the political intrigue and the setting of Westeros. It certainly sounds like the show has only played that the shock value more in recent seasons, now trying to calculate for maximum viewer emotional reactions. Doesn't sound like something I'd care for.
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I agree with this
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/06/09/game_of_thrones_is_a_classical_tragedy_don_t_be_so_shocked_my_the_deaths.html
Try to ignore the extremely cheap line "As the Dothraki might say, it is known that the heroes emerge triumphant." everything else is sound
tl;dr: Shakespeare did it too
Also the wardens have been complaining about the walkers since ages ago, people know they're coming but they have too much other shit to do to send more than a few men there to fight them
I'm pretty sure the walkers are climate change
Also the season has been portraying Stannis as a generally nice guy, and his brother was his enemy
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From what I've heard, they resort to the sacrifice in way similar to if plane crash survivors resorted to cannibalism after a half hour, so it seems badly plotted and very cheap, especially since they've built the sacrificed character in question up in order to make her sympathetic (she is basically a background character in the books as I recall) in order to increase the impact of the scene.
One thing about classical tragedies is that those with tragic flaws must suffer a reversal of fortune or fall because of that flaw, so I guess we'll see what happens. I would say just as equally that ASoIaF falls into a kind of world that is harsh and based on medieval sensibilities where our narrative assumptions don't apply, so characters don't necessarily have to suffer if they pull some of this shit.
I have this weird fatigue with the series and I haven't read the books in years or watched much of the show. It's partly due to online overexposure and my friends won't stop talking about it but also partly due to the strong likelihood that the books will never be finished. I am still sort of curious about how it will resolve but I am not nearly as invested as I was five years ago. If it's going the way of the show I don't think I'll care.
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Fenrir: Book!Stannis is very much not a nice guy; he's cold and sinister and you don't want him to win the war even though he's technically "right", which probably explains some of the difference. When I heard about what he'd done my reaction was to not be remotely surprised, it seems a logical way to complete his downfall.
One thing about classical tragedies is that those with tragic flaws must suffer a reversal of fortune or fall because of that flaw, so I guess we'll see what happens. I would say just as equally that ASoIaF falls into a kind of world that is harsh and based on medieval sensibilities where our narrative assumptions don't apply, so characters don't necessarily have to suffer if they pull some of this shit.
Yeah, this. Also, the "tragic flaw" of characters like Ned/Robb/Oberyn being some variation on "they were too nice/trusting" (kinda the wrong word for Oberyn but the similarity is obvious anyway) gets rather tiresome. Shakespearean tragedies are great because we get to see how a tragic flaw leads to a character's downfall, and we chronicle that every step of the way, from the start of the story to end, and the character changes throughout (thinking particularly Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Hamlet here). GoT "tragedies" (at least the ones cited in that article) tend to be more along the lines of "well you made a mistake, now you're dead". They're more Mercutio than they are Othello.
If the series had been about Ned Stark's fall from nobility as he stooped to steadily greater depths to achieve honourable ends, I'd freaking love it and that would be much closer to Shakespearean tragedy. (To come full circle with this post, that's actually not too from from what Stannis is, but Stannis isn't sympathetic / he's already pretty bad when we first meet him, I guess? I dunno, I don't find him that compelling.)
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Ned died from being too nice and trusting, Robb died from putting his own interests above those of his army, Oberyn died from being too arrogant. (Politically, he was in a nice situation, but he completely underestimated his enemy) I feel those three situations are extremely different and could have been predicted from the characters. So, no complaint from me.
Stannis is still working for the greater good, unlike the Boltons or Lannisters, he's willing to do anything to achieve it though. It's what's led to last episode's death and I think it's going to kill him (it's already making him miserable anyway)
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Lala not reading anything about what's happening in the TV show or what the deal is with Stannis recently, but brief aside:
Book Robb very much dies from authorial fiat, it feels like. I think Martin decided that Robb was being too perfect (a role reserved for Jon Snow?), so he needed to have him make some mistake, but he didn't have the heart to, you know, actually write it. So that's where the whirlwind romance with Jeyne Westerling comes from, to give Robb some new problem to deal with and solid excuse for his downfall. I suspect it was also an excuse for a bit of deconstruction, that abandoning arranged marriages for some newly met true love has a price and doesn't always work out (though Martin of course goes far in the opposite direction to have it lead to disaster rather than something milder). But yeah, Martin spends literally no time describing this; it all happens off-screen, "oh by the way Robb is married now."
I suppose since the TV show (rightly) gives more time to the romance (it's something that adapts well to HBO!), you can read more into it, but as is, I'm not going to fault book Robb too much for having authorial intervention crush him. (And I don't even mean this in a particularly mean way toward Martin, all authors need to do this - you have 2 reasonable things that can happen, but 1 leads to the plot you want to write. Martin himself said as much about Ned: in an alternate universe where Janos Slynt doesn't sell the City Watch to the highest bidder, the City Watch obeys the Hand and arrests Cersei, and the series is very short. So... that can't happen, Slynt needs to be a worse person, and this isn't necessarily Ned's "fault.")
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The GoT season finale was really great, the whole season was a setup for this all this, really. I still genuinely totally love the series.
Three things I really really liked:
- Stannis' sacrifice didn't help, half his army deserted because of it and he died like a chump, blinded by his lord of light mythos.
Ramsay gets to be Luca Blight though, damn it
- Jon dies for focusing on the big conflict and ignoring the micro level. Brilliant scene too.
- SHAME SHAME SHAME
The kiss of death was obvious, Jaime's such a loser.
Nice callback to the (cheap) earlier scene with Bronn in the prison though. Emotions = Poison gets more effective.
We need an RPG in which you can cast POIZN on the enemy, then tell it a really sad story about a dying puppy to double POIZN's effectiveness (or strip to quadruple POIZN's rate, at the cost of defense. (Do note that the effects of telling a sad story and getting naked don't stack))
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TLDR: Fuck Game of Thrones. I signed up for a lot of crap, but not (...) burning
Change your username Pyro, you are unworthy
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Seriously too much. And more little girl death in finale because BOLD AND DARING TV.
I hope you guys like Ramsay Bolton. He is the hero the show deserves.
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I think it's worth mentioning that a large part of why Ned's death and the Red Wedding worked fine for me is that it was showing that the story wasn't going to cheat for the good guys to win. That is a large part of why those scenes don't just read as shocking to be shocking, and the purple wedding shortly after shows just as well that the story isn't going to cheat to have the "bad guys" win either.
It really sounds like with this last season and all the shit Ramsay has been pulling out that the show misunderstood that element that made those scenes fine, and started having the story cheat so the bad guys would win. I've heard from virtually everyone up to date with the show that Ramsay has been pulling out some incredulous victories out of his ass and meeeeeeeh that's just bad writing. Kinda glad I waited to binge watch the series until after the season finale, because now it sounds like I'm fine waiting for TWOW to come out and for Martin to not be able to finish the last book in time.
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GoT spoilers assumed by this point I think.
I think it's worth mentioning that a large part of why Ned's death and the Red Wedding worked fine for me is that it was showing that the story wasn't going to cheat for the good guys to win. That is a large part of why those scenes don't just read as shocking to be shocking, and the purple wedding shortly after shows just as well that the story isn't going to cheat to have the "bad guys" win either.
It really sounds like with this last season and all the shit Ramsay has been pulling out that the show misunderstood that element that made those scenes fine, and started having the story cheat so the bad guys would win. I've heard from virtually everyone up to date with the show that Ramsay has been pulling out some incredulous victories out of his ass and meeeeeeeh that's just bad writing. Kinda glad I waited to binge watch the series until after the season finale, because now it sounds like I'm fine waiting for TWOW to come out and for Martin to not be able to finish the last book in time.
So I have seen this exact view represented a couple times now:
http://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/39xbe6/spoilers_all_the_reason_bad_things_happen_on_got/
http://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/39ym6b/s5e10_this_show_has_changed_from_good_guys_will/
And I don't really get it? First of all, you'd have to convince me that Stannis is somehow a good guy for him to be a victim of this. As I and probably a lot of show viewers see it, he's a bad guy who doesn't get any special dispensation from the show and loses like you'd expect him to. If the show were cheating to protect villains, he should have been unstoppable after s5ep9.
Second, "important leaders of the army, royalty no less, infiltrate the enemy camp for some light sabotage/murder and get away with it" goes back to at least Odysseus and Diomedes. It doesn't say to me that Ramsay has invincible plot armor and can do anything -- what exactly was the tangible result of his attack? He started a fire in Stannis's camp and burned that one horse we saw at the start of the episode. Maybe this nuked troop morale some, but it couldn't have been as bad for morale as the Shireen thing. Ramsay's able to sally forth and whip Stannis because he lost half his army and all his cavalry, and that happened because of Stannis's leadership, not because of anything Ramsay did.
People just don't get passionate about following Stannis or fighting to get him on the throne in the best of times (there's a reason he had to use blood magic to kill his younger brother who had the weaker claim -- the populace actually liked that dude and thought the world would be better off with him in charge) and by following Mel's advice he lit his own public image on fire. He deliberately sent away the guy he keeps around just to keep him from making awful decisions and then made an awful decision and then his troops abandoned him. How are we being cheated when this dude loses? If anyone fucked him over it was Mel, not Ramsay or GRRM or the showrunners, and listening to Mel was still his decision to make so I'm not overflowing with sympathy.
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Ramsay's attack crippled Stannis' army... Destroyed all the siege engines and most of the supplies and so on. This 'forced' Stannis' hand. Stannis was a competent military leader, and the ridiculous level of success Ramsay had was handwaved away. The story contorted itself to give maximum horror.
Also they all left but not a One tried to save her. Kind of silly in its own right.
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These are the comments of someone who hasn't watched the show since season 3, so I may not be familiar with context, but: my sister assures me that the further the show deviates from source material this season (which was probably inevitable to some extent just due to how messy books four and five are), the more the quality of plot and dialogue degrade. Case in point: that burning is not a thing that happened in the books, and I struggle to think of a good reason to have included it either narratively or politically in-context (who's going to support a king that negates his own line of succession? Isn't that basically the point of kings in the first place?) It sounds like HBO's writers love shock tactics so much that they have to make them up where the source material isn't obliging (again see nothing happening in books four and five).
The TV show writers' fascination with Ramsay Bolton is also really fucking baffling (again this is just based on season 3, if he's all over the damn screen now then more reason not to bother catching up). A Song of Ice and Fire has a lot of compelling, devious schemers, and the TV show has occasionally made very good use of them, but Ramsay Bolton is not such an individual in original context. Book Ramsay is never really portrayed as any degree of competent without his dad around to keep him in line. Short of that, he's a bully with the capacity to terrorize a modest corner of the country and that's about it. If the show has decided to give him any talent for warfare, well, why? It sounds like someone on the writing staff must really think that mustache-twirling villainy is best villainy, and if there isn't constantly someone around that's obviously hateable in the most aggressive ways then people will stop watching or something.
Spoilers
Regarding the underlined part, the showrunners flat out said that this was included because GRRM said it was going to happen in the next book.
Anyways, I would say the deviations have not hurt the show for the most part, but that's because the prior season was atrocious. I would say that over half the time spent the prior season was either spent on completely irrelevant filler or was super boring. The super boring parts were often very plot relevant, but were so badly done. The two big culprits there were the royal wedding and the trial (both of which suffered horribly because they looked so cheap and threadbare that they looked like vaguely upgraded Ren Faires; truth to be told, I don't think the writing or acting in either of those episodes was particularly great, so I guess my complaints there are that lack of quality was the culprit. I wouldn't say that this season had that many issues of that nature at least, and certainly most of their rewrites were at least more interesting to watch than say "Random Attack on Craster's Keep").
Not to say that this season didn't flounder at points as well, but I think that's more a symptom of the mess the series turned into.
Agree about Ramsay though; there's really no established reason to think he would be hyper-competent and plenty of reasons to imagine why he wouldn't be. That 20 men thing was completely absurd. It was pretty important too, because I don't think it was just one horse that was burend, but the majority of their food and supplies (a lot of other horses were scattered as well). Basically it had to be written that Ramsay's attack was horribly debilitating, because it was really just a reason to have the show burn Shireen since the attack established that the army likely would have died before even reaching Winterfell (No supplies+horrible Weather+lost a lot of horses+sounds like they didn't even have the resources to get back to the Wall without heavy losses).
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EDIT: I wrote a bunch of gibberish before I actually read Dhyer's post. Welp, it's a good thing I didn't care about the books anymore by this point anyway. I'd probably find it hard to justify even in that context?
It might be worth noting that this marks the point where the TV show has actually caught up to the books (it sounds like they compressed books four and five into one season, which is hilarious in an awful kind of way) and from here on out everything must be HBO invention based on whatever Martin's told them.
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Unless next season is all about the greyjoys!
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Unless next season is all about the greyjoys!
Well they're casting them all, so it's possible. Then again we all thought Dorne was going to be relevant.
snip
That these are all defensible statements if the only thing you know is the show is why it feels like bad fan fiction a lot of the time. The author doesn't like Stannis so he's not the guy who Sam refers to as "the King who still cared." He's not a just man and he isn't simply using Melisandre's power for his own gain, he's a puppet and a tyrant at the same time. He does things that make no sense whatsoever, like killing his only heir when his entire campaign is predicated on the idea that the Baratheon line is the rightful ruler of Westeros, just because he is A Bad Guy. He's definitely not one of the best military leaders in Westeros because he can get punked out by 20 guys and doesn't even have his troops in formation to fight when he begins a siege, which is like "what the fuck" levels of incompetence.
e: Also I don't trust anything Gurm says anymore about what's going to be in the next book. Remember when ADWD was going to be ten years later or whatever?
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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was really, really good. Like, "we watched the whole thing in 30 hours" good. Excellent performances and a lot of really well-played absurdity. Ellie Kemper nails the lead role but Jane Krakowski and Carol Kane are the ones who make the show something special.
I enjoyed it way more than expected, though I do feel the first couple episodes were kinda weak? The show really hit its stride in the 3rd episode or so.
White Collar: Finally finished. The show ended the most logical way it could. Generally fun, probably lasted about one season too long? They were just never able to move away from the baseline conflict between Peter and Neal, which caused the show to feel a bit samey.
Just finished it myself.
Generally fun sums up the show well. I did not like the plot twist in the episode at all and thought it was easy to see coming, but oh well. The show was fun from beginning to end and never cratered the way Burn Notice did. I liked season 6 more than 5, but... eh. I think you're right it likely went on a season or two too many.
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Game of Thrones just cast Ian McShane for season 6. All is forgiven.
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Does anyone have feelings on Bojack Horseman? I just finished the first season. It's spoken very highly of but I just can't get into it. I know it's not supposed to be a laugh riot (and it isn't) and that it is a portrait of depression, but what's portrayed isn't like any depression or disillusionment I've felt. It touches a lot on loneliness but from a position of self destructiveness and loathing that I don't find particularly relatable (I'm not saying it's wrong but it's not the kind of thing I can relate to personally). The show also overexplains its jokes and some of its references are instantly dated. I dunno. People I trust really like it but it's not landing. I don't think it's a bad show, but maybe it's just not for me, and that's okay.
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I like it a lot, but alcoholism and self-loathing speak to me. Look to your left.
Season 2 is better over all, I think. With the book done they have more freedom to go in whatever direction they want rather than hanging everything on that framework. It gives the secondary cast more to do since not every episode links back to "doing a thing for the book" this time.
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Over the Garden Wall may be the best animated thing I've seen in the last several years. Very disappointed in myself for taking so long to get around to it.
If you are at all interested in animation and haven't seen it, check it out.
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Speaking of animation. Star vs the Forces of Evil remains fun. It's kind of like if you took all the current awesome animation, stripped out all meaning, and inserted LASER PUPPIES.
https://youtu.be/UTS5t4HN7lY?t=11s
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Man, skimming over all that GoT talk, I kept on seeing Ramsay and thinking Gordon Ramsey is taking over Westeros? Maybe I should watch the show. Sadly, in depth reading revealed there were no armies of foul mouthed battle chefs.
So, today I got introduced to this oldish show called Farscape. It's pretty good, and I got talked into borrowing season 1. This will clearly end well. I am amused that the enemies are cold-blooded Australians, and the hero is an American astronaut whose main purpose seems to be to get beaten up, a lot.
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Man, skimming over all that GoT talk, I kept on seeing Ramsay and thinking Gordon Ramsey is taking over Westeros? Maybe I should watch the show. Sadly, in depth reading revealed there were no armies of foul mouthed battle chefs.
My crossover fanfiction involves Ramsay Snow going around to failing restaurants and, upon finding expired chicken in their walk-in, taking out a flensing knife and peeling the head chef's ding dong like a banana.
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Make that into a show plz.
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I watched Rick and Morty's season 1 and it was amazing. I don't even know where they can go from there.
I find Futurama and Family Guy constantly unfunny so I don't even know why I bothered with something that looks so similar. Glad I did.
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Those are three very different shows. Family Guy is terrible but Futurama is better for playing with sci-fi ideas and characterization/pathos than actually making you consistently laugh.
I need to catch up on the new Rick and Morty though, season 1 was great.
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Oh I meant that they had similar art style? With the giant round eyes and all? Family Guy is so bad I normally wouldn't have watched anything that reminded me of it
R&M Season 2 is definitely also really cool so far.
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Once again, Fenrir and Gourry are doing it right.
S2 Rick and Morty is on the whole better than S1 I think, and S1 is fantastic. A couple episodes miss but bad Rick and Morty is like bad pizza: I'm gonna fuck it anyway.
I can kinda see the thing about the art style, but tbh in that genre of cartoon art style is really the only thing that unifies them.
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I liked the first season better but
it was amazing. I don't even know where they can go from there.
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I binge watched season 2 and while the first season 2 episodes are amazing, the season trails off a bit later. Making a sequel to the tv episode was not a really good idea.
Nothing big though, overall still A++ all time classic, i really loved the first season 2 episode / car battery episode \ replicant episode. My fav overall is still Rick Potion number 9 from season 1 though. With the Cronenbergs.
Yeah so I think one of the best things the show does is having things escalating insanely fast and always very creatively (while still having mundane b-plots, which works) The show feels generous, as it crams what could be 90 minutes of content into 20 minutes episodes, alwayd introduces new characters/backgrounds for all of 5 seconds, etc.
Rick is also the kind of character who steals al the scenes he's in, and he's the main character?
Gref you should watch this
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I binge watched season 2 and while the first season 2 episodes are amazing, the season trails off a bit later. Making a sequel to the tv episode was not a really good idea.
Agreed. I liked the ending of the last episode, at least.
Re: TV episode, I feel like that was executive pressure or something. Rick even says, "I don't know why we're doing this either, we knocked it out of the park the first time."
The Cronenberg episode was the one that basically sold me on the show. The follow up in the TV episode just sealed the deal even further.
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Weird. It doesn't feel like a show that suffers from any kind of executive pressure.
Oh I have to mention the one thing that made me laugh for 5 minutes: the part where Rick wins a 1 free Morty ticket , and acts repulsed in front of Morty, but then takes it anyway when Morty's back is turned. This show is so great.
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Weird. It doesn't feel like a show that suffers from any kind of executive pressure.
Oh I have to mention the one thing that made me laugh for 5 minutes: the part where Rick wins a 1 free Morty ticket , and acts repulsed in front of Morty, but then takes it anyway when Morty's back is turned. This show is so great.
Yeah, I agree for the most part but really can't find any other explanation for why that episode exists.
At least the subplot about Jerry and Alien Nelson Mandela was there to pick up the slack a bit.
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TINY RIIIIIIIIIIIICK!
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I rewatched all R&M already. And I'm looking at random clips from the show like every two days.
It's all fucking gold except Interdimensional Cable 2 (bad) and Look Who's Purging Now (bland)
The best is Total Rickall.
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In fact here is a stupid LIST from best to worst, because DL. I don't bother explaining it's just canon.
204 Total Rickall
106 Rick Potion #9
206 The Ricks must be crazy
111 Ricksy Business
110 Close-Rick Counters of the Rick Kind
109 Something Ricked
201 A Rickle in Time
203 Auto Erotic Assimilation
104 M Night Shaym-Aliens!
102 Lawnmower Dog
105 Meeseeks and Destroy
210 The Wedding Squanchers
207 Big Trouble in Little Sanchez
202 Mortynight Run
205 Get Schwifty
103 Anatomy Park
101 Pilot
108 Rixty Minutes
107 Raising Gazorpazorp
209 Look who's purging now
208 Interdimensional Cable 2
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Apparently if Rixty Minutes had a "c" it would be one of the best episodes.
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Somehow I didn't even notice the pattern!
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I've watched two episodes of Community and it has been awful. Like some of the worst TV I've seen.
The entire focus was on : Will the douchebag get he playing-hard-to-get girl even though she pretends to be annoyed by how much of a douchebag he is?? (Spoilers Yes) Also aren't those weird side characters weird? LOL
Does this really pick up or was everybody wrong?
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Community isn't super hilarious most of the time, but it's pretty consistently funny. Watch the Dungeons and Dragons episode if nothing else.
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Watch for the Betty white rap.
Also, childish Gambino is awesome.
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Good news: Netflix announced the guy in charge of Iron Fist! (http://comicbook.com/2015/12/02/marvel-netflixs-iron-fist-lands-scott-buck-as-showrunner/)
Bad news: He wrote the last season of Dexter.
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THAT MOTHERFUCKER GOT WORK DOING ANYTHING, EVER?!
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He also did Six Feet Under (and Tremors 4!) so ehhhh. If his biggest sin was getting Dexter after it had already kind of burned through the best of its cache I will be tentatively optimistic.
Edit - I mean it isn't like they are letting Jeph Loeb do the writing.
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You're aware Jeph Loeb is in fact in charge of this, right?
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He is okay as a producer. He is terrible on creative.
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I binge-watched Jessica Jones over the last week (with a brief break for Christmas). It's real good. The cast universally nails their roles and while the story is a very on-the-nose domestic violence metaphor, it works. A big part of it is that Tennant makes a great villain.
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So, there's this show called Born Again Virgin. It is pretty bad. It's three creative Black women who are all looking for love, each with drastically different personalities and are roommates. The premise isn't so bad if you're into that (raises hand), but the acting and setting design are pretty bad. The moments of intense animality that women think about sex, however, are lolzballz and has kept me watching.
I'm done with Different World and have entered a weird space. I don't know what to do. That show was so damn good. Man, 80s-90s was so damn good. So damn. good. I rewatched Felicity, X-Files, Sex and the City. So damn good. I want to watch the Wire but I have been account-delete protesting Amazon for over three months now. Gotta find a good file.
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Twin Peaks?
If you want to go to the 90sest 90s. Northern Exposure or if you want to see formative nerd cartoons you could watch Daria and I would be so happy.
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The leftovers : I really liked that series at first. Great acting, cinematography, premise!
2% of the world population disappears. Nobody knows why. The series isn't interested in how people disappeares, but how the people left handle it.
The series has some very interesting ideas about faith and religion... Or so I thought. I thought that what made it great the ambiguity, you could either read it as pro-faith or pro-atheism. For example I found that there was one episode where I could either see the beauty of faith or conclude that Jesus was probably a total fraud.
well that's until the last two or three episodes : Miracles happen, the faith side was right, show is over, bye
Mr robot: this is fight club the tv series with hackers.
I am too old for this shit but it's still enjoyable. I like the creepy evil french corporate dude who says "Bonsoir" unironically.
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Twin Peaks?
If you want to go to the 90sest 90s. Northern Exposure or if you want to see formative nerd cartoons you could watch Daria and I would be so happy.
Seconding Twin Peaks. Rewatched it myself recently and damn does it hold up, even after realizing how soap-y it is now.
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I would definitely rewatch Daria. I'm not sure what site provides all the episodes though. Isn't there supposed to be a real life Daria film? How long is Twin Peaks? I know the Wire is 21st century, and that's me trying here.
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Not very long. The first season is really only a half season, and is utterly fantastic. Second is standard season length for a TV show. First half of that is WAAAAAY better than the second half. Good ending though. Plus there's a direct sequel/continuation coming out soon on Showtime, with everyone from the director/writer (David Lynch) to almost all the principle actors coming back for it.
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Hulu apparently has Daria.
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Ya'll are boss. I'm set, return to life in abt two months.
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Mr Robot: I finished the first season, nothing mind blowing really but decent.
The overall story is predictable even if what actually happens isn't, if that makes any sense. The big reveals are obvious, what happens between isn't.
They really like to spend screentime on the evil corporate guy (Tyrell Wallick) and he's awesome and hilarious. He's only tangentially related to the other characters, so his scenes just feel like a spinoff show inside the regular show. Anyway he's Christian Bale from American Psycho. He's completely amoral, young, very ambitious and prone to nervous breakdowns. Very caricatural but fun to watch. I like when he pays homeless people to beat them up, or when he fires people. I am always rooting for him.
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Star wars rebels.
Uh, this is canon right?
Finished season 1, starting season 2.
It's a fun enough show. It's fun counting how many imperial soldiers die each episode.
I'm guessing they can use the "they are clones", excuse, but they be dying a lot.
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Rebels is one of the few things in the new canon.
Storm Troopers don't actually die as often as it seems. They're usually writhing on the ground even after getting hit by explosions that destroy TIE Fighters.
They're also not clones, otherwise they'd all be voice by Dee Bradley Baker. Though I guess they can be Steve Blum clones.
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The Genius - S1E1 watched finally. One episode in I am reminded why I needed to watch this. This is literally the best Television ever made. Dubstep Mafia, best Mafia.
The first episode is a microcosm of all the good things about the show. Slowly peeled back layers upon layers as the players work out the depth of the simple games presented, then work out the mafia game that sits on top of it and then pollutes the games presented to them. How people crack under pressure. How you can chop and change 5 hours of shooting into super tense condensed pressure. Dubstep. Licensed (QUESTIONMARK?) music being put to good effect.
Just all round a great start to a show I know is fantastic later on.
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Music licensing works differently in Korean TV. Instead of individual shows licensing individual tracks, everything is done by blanket licenses for media group megalibraries. So a TVN show like The Genius can freely use anything from any library their network has licensed, which in practice is every major label and ... well, just about everything everywhere.
It is a slightly disturbing reminder of how South Korea is totally controlled by megacorp conglomerations that make their own laws. But it's also really fun to see TV shows using whatever music they like, whenever they like.
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Oh right. The newest episode of Steven Universe was fucking great and one of the best episodes in general. Just a really nice character piece.
Also, "It's subtext, Steven" is possibly one of the funniest lines I've heard in a while.
Seriously, if you like cartoons and aren't watching Steven Universe, you are doing yourself a disservice.
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Thanks, Andy. I hadn't realized they were making episodes again.
Also seconding everything Andy just said. The show has amazing character work and is strongest when it's focused on that (sidenote, for that same reason, episodes 63-67 are also fantastic though require a lot of context and aren't a good jumping off point to the series). It also has a pretty interesting mythos that's become pretty well developed in its second season, great musical numbers ala Adventure Time, and most importantly has episodes only 10 minutes long so my retarded attention-spanless brain can make me sit still long enough to watch an episode without wondering why I'm not putting that effort toward reading a book playing a video game fiddling around with a controller watching FFRK sprites autobattle garbage.
Jokes aside though it is a good show and you should watch it even if it isn't distressingly nihilistic like that other cartoon I binge watch.
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Steven Universe is the pixar of modern cartoons. Just... -really- strong emotional moments that actually ring true in a way I didn't even know I wanted, much less expected out of a children's cartoon.
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No one told me about the new X-Files.
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Scandal is so bad, and I hate Olivia Pope so much, and Kerry Washington's lisp so much. I am only watching it for Cyrus and Huck. Fuck. And I want my lesbian OITNB back on. Need new season ASAP.
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Gravity Falls: Finale aired this week. Just a great show through and through. Lotta hilarious and clever stuff.
Sad to see it go, but sometimes it is nice to have a show creator go "This is what I want to do" and do it.
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I was kinda hoping for a slightly-more-downer of an ending, at least with regards to Grunkle Stan. Like, his heroic sacrifice-esque stuff doesn't mean anything if there's no actual consequences just because, uh... lucky I guess? No explanation whatsoever of why everything turned out happy.
Literally everything else was amazing and it's still a 9/10 or 10/10 cartoon that I could easily recommend to just about anyone.
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Fans of Young Justice should watch the show on netflix. There's a chance if the numbers are positive that Netflix gets a 3rd season.
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I was kinda hoping for a slightly-more-downer of an ending, at least with regards to Grunkle Stan. Like, his heroic sacrifice-esque stuff doesn't mean anything if there's no actual consequences just because, uh... lucky I guess? No explanation whatsoever of why everything turned out happy.
Literally everything else was amazing and it's still a 9/10 or 10/10 cartoon that I could easily recommend to just about anyone.
Eh. I kinda disagree? Like someone I was reading said, what matters is that they made the choice believing in the consequences. I could have done with a slower turnaround, as it were, but I have no issue with how it ended overall.
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Black Mirror is a modern British Twilight Zone, it has only 7 episodes and it is fantastic so far.
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I had only watched the first two episodes when I made that earlier post.
Now I have watched the third and it was really fucking brilliant. <3
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Endeavor. British mystery series. A prequel to Inspector Morse, lives up to the quality of the original and then some. Nicely grounded. Not twee like Sherlock or bleak like Wallander. Watched the first two seasons and they're brilliant. Eagerly awaiting season three coming to the states this summer.
(p.s. Wallander is also brilliant, the music and direction is outstanding. But boy oh boy. Not a show to give you much hope in humanity.)
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Jon Berenthal is really good at playing The Punisher, you guys
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I'm only two episodes in but the way they introduce him is damn near perfect.
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The Claire and Frank of Season 4's House of Cards reminds me of a couple pairs in real life. I'm finding myself relishing in the thin line between assertive and bitch that a heterosexual white woman may traverse. But additionally, this show is convincing me that I may just benefit from rehearsing before I speak to people.
Blackish is and was always good. Fresh of the Boat is really good some times, but mostly bad.
I cannot watch my Born Again Virgin until I get back to Atlanta, and I have not kept up with Empire. The second season's drama was pretty boring. I see myself only watching season 3 to be compelled to "complete" it. I mean, I haven't completed many shows in years and this is the only one I've been up on since you don't need a tv subscription.
I am distraught by the blkfolk who refute the show because it's "coonery," only because those refuting it come from the middle class and I can't disentangle stodgy black respectability politics from their preferences for the best way black characters should appear today.
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I am a few years late on this.
Luther, still on season 1. Episode 4 just finished. Super watch this. This isn't ironic joke haha this sucks you suck watch this garbage.
This is the kind of thing where our tastes overlap very specifically.
Holy shit this is some hard television.
++Idris Elba as well, but that's not what I am sticking around for.
Edit - Season 1 finished. Super this this this this this.
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Luther sort of goes down in terms of intensity, and to a degree quality, but it's still worth watching the next seasons.
I just started Broad City. I recently read an article criticizing "White Feminist TV shows," which included Broad City. You know, I don't tend to watch anything with all white casts anymore, because, well, 28 years of not seeing other people is truly boring. Shows have and still exist, whether or not it is big TV..... But Broad City has some gems, and I am particularly pleased with its level of comedy.
I will also double like the show for its support of women who smoke.
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Oh I forgot to mention that I immediately watched then next two seasons.
You are right in that the intensity drops, but I don't see how you could escalate them more than Season 1. It is kind of refreshing to have a story that isn't continually escalating the stakes, just is dealing with the outcomes of previous ones.
I think you are right in that the quality drops overall (from amaaaazing to great), but it's cool to have them come back and tie a little bow on everything in Season 3.
Still massive unqualified recommendation to Super. Just find time for it somewhere dude.
Blacklist, I started watching afterwards to see what the fuck it was about. This shit is hot garbage. You should watch it as well super you would love it because it sucks and you suck.
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Blacklist I've seen a little of at my parents place and it looks awful, no thanks.
And I will watch Luther at some point, eventually.
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Yeah, Blacklist should have been flushed down the toilet. I got through about half a season in the expectation that surely it had to improve at least a little given it's wild popularity...but nope.
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Blacklist is just the Spader monologue delivery show. The spin-off is gonna crash and burn so goddamn hard without him.
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So Game of Thrones had a big episode yesterday. I suspect that the biggest storyline last night will be pretty similar in the book and...
Spoilers
Oh god damn it, Bran's storyline probably uses one of the worst fantasy tropes I can think of: the hero does something completely idiotic despite being advised not to do it by someone with more than 2 working brain cells and almost causes complete catastrophe (Congratulations Eirika and Kvothe. You now look like you are basically geniuses in comparison). The episode on the whole was good, but the mistake Bran makes is so absurdly colossal, completely unforced and absolutely pointless that it's hard to focus on anything else.
Despite being warned to not venture into the "Dream" alone (hmm...that doesn't sound familiar at all), he completely messes up the first time he tries it. He "dreams" himself to the White Walker army...except the army can see him. The head one touches Bran's arm and gains the ability to track his location. The army basically shows up in complete force at Bran's location, leading to the deaths of the world dryad equivalents (perhaps the last of their ancient race), the three eyed raven, Bran's direwolf and Hodor (whose ability to speak only one word is actually a result of a time paradox...). Now Bran and Meera are on the lam from the army, and the writers will likely have to pull something out of their asses since given Bran's current location, his method of travel (a sled...pulled by Meera) and the fact that the army can track him and seems to move very quickly, it seems wildly implausible that he would be able to reach anywhere safe.
Just ugh...please don't use this storyline GRRM. I almost felt like they needed to make Bran act really stupidly just for the sake of moving the story along. The stupid just burned so badly yesterday.
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Guarantee you that one was a GRRM approved bit.
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I am suddenly kinda glad I burned myself out on giving a damn anymore after Dance came out.
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So that's the payoff for all those interminably boring Bran chapters? I'm not sure whether I should laugh or facepalm.
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So Game of Thrones had a big episode yesterday. I suspect that the biggest storyline last night will be pretty similar in the book and...
Spoilers
Oh god damn it, Bran's storyline probably uses one of the worst fantasy tropes I can think of: the hero does something completely idiotic despite being advised not to do it by someone with more than 2 working brain cells and almost causes complete catastrophe (Congratulations Eirika and Kvothe. You now look like you are basically geniuses in comparison). The episode on the whole was good, but the mistake Bran makes is so absurdly colossal, completely unforced and absolutely pointless that it's hard to focus on anything else.
Despite being warned to not venture into the "Dream" alone (hmm...that doesn't sound familiar at all), he completely messes up the first time he tries it. He "dreams" himself to the White Walker army...except the army can see him. The head one touches Bran's arm and gains the ability to track his location. The army basically shows up in complete force at Bran's location, leading to the deaths of the world dryad equivalents (perhaps the last of their ancient race), the three eyed raven, Bran's direwolf and Hodor (whose ability to speak only one word is actually a result of a time paradox...). Now Bran and Meera are on the lam from the army, and the writers will likely have to pull something out of their asses since given Bran's current location, his method of travel (a sled...pulled by Meera) and the fact that the army can track him and seems to move very quickly, it seems wildly implausible that he would be able to reach anywhere safe.
Just ugh...please don't use this storyline GRRM. I almost felt like they needed to make Bran act really stupidly just for the sake of moving the story along. The stupid just burned so badly yesterday.
Hodor's apparent backstory is fucking dark even for Game of Thrones. You mean to tell me that man spent 50 years knowing he was going to fucking die like that? I can hope all he had was the echoing voice. Goddamn.
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Hmmmm? That plot point isn't that arcane as a fantasy trope though? I am pretty certain that it comes up in The Longest Journey at least (though to be fair that IS about a dystopia as well, but it takes place in the fantasy side of the setting, not the technocorporate futurehellscape).
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Guarantee you that one was a GRRM approved bit.
The part about Hodor's backstory definitely was; people have already dredged up online posts where he obliquely hinted at it like two years ago.
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So I've lost count, have any of the dire wolves contributed anything to the story? Or do they just kill them off to save on the special effect budget?
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So I've lost count, have any of the dire wolves contributed anything to the story? Or do they just kill them off to save on the special effect budget?
Or general irony. Shaggydog was a TOTAL shaggy dog story.
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OINTB! OINTB!!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas *clap clap clap* I needed my lezzie show, show needs to replenish its smexy dyke characters tho. I mean, it's not that good of a show but it is damned entertaining. also these older women need to be sexual beings too.
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So I've lost count, have any of the dire wolves contributed anything to the story? Or do they just kill them off to save on the special effect budget?
Not since Robb died. Summer saving Bran is key for the entire story though, and Grey Wind was a large part of Robb's mythic stature.
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OINTB: completed in one day. *Warning, vulgar small font.
Solid season, some slow parts, great character studies, less Piper and a better equalization of support characters as central characters. The love story was a breath of fresh air and momentary relief, some of the topics repeated throughout hit home in a convincing way: what the privatization on prisons do to inmate QOL, bureaucracy and its minions, self determination and guidance, mental health issues and criminality, why queer may be a better term for some to identify with rather than lesbian... I am looking forward to seeing season 5, again in one day, but I do hope that is where they stop. They need to pull a K&P and retire the show with a great track record.
1. I like how they resolved Piper's unique issue with asserting herself in prison and trying to make a life, assuming that she can perform illegal activities as expected of a criminal, as a way for criminals to acknowledge her. The Nazi branding was a bit poignant, I thought it related more closely to the growing pro-white presence that's cropping up alongside super-conservative fears of people of color in the world. But also, even though the Nazi sympathizers/pro-white power characters tended to be the butt of many jokes, there was a platform upon which people could hear/see/& imagine rather than assume some faceless white person. That it came in the package of women, pretty butch heterowomen, is also a place for pause that I hope they develop further.
2. Poussey & Soso. I liked their story, I liked it a lot. There's a pressure to out oneself or to determine one's sexuality literally based off of whether they prefer penis over vagina. I like to approach sexuality as a lifestyle choice, and I think that Soso's navigation and fear of accepting lesbianism is a complicated situation that I found myself in. The hardcore queer folk, the ones who argue that you need to live, breath and perform some outcast queer identity, are some of the quickest to check your queerness with a yardstick--- well, rather, that's my experience that I find more in Austin. I've literally heard things like "junior homo," or someone who hasn't nurtured an intimate relationship with a person of the same sex. What happened between Soso and Poussey, especially their time machine scene, really gave space for people who decided to describe themselves as fluid and fearful. EDIT* Or that an interracial relationship is typically assumed to be black male/white female, white man/asian woman; so it was cool seeing what I sometimes see in the queer community in Atl. I hear LA's got it better.
3. I am pretty upset with how they played Bayley's character, especially his backstory as irresponsible, young, set up for failure and the one to commit the most heinous crime by a prison guard in scenes. I think the death of Poussey, hopefully, is going to be the place where they resolve the prisoner protest and mob. That's season 5. But the add up wasn't enough for me to understand him as a particular character, and his backstory was the slowest and longest to go through.
4. Sex scenes: ok. they never brought the butch back but they brought back the gross bro. I'm not sure why people assume that the only way women have sex with each other is oral; there were some fingering scenes, but rarely any tribbing, toy play, pegging, etc. So I hope they take a different route in the next season --- one that shows a range of pleasurable things if sex is still a feature of the show. I mean, it was cool they made a claim to recognize Judy, an old woman, whose sexuality seemed pretty gluttonous but it's also disappointing that the older women who could exercise that freedom with praise was affluent.
5. Not enough backstory about the SHU & nun's plight, more needed, they left some pretty clear threads.
6. I can stomach Doggett, and I like the way they're showing her figuring things out.
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I've been keeping up with UnReal; the writing is solid and I've now adopted a new woman crush: Constance Zimmer. It's a metareality "The Bachelor"-styled tv show and presses some good boundaries. Episode 7 upset me in a good way. We're all cultural critics and I've been baffled by how seamlessly current politics are included. Never sided with those subjects being off bounds, but there was one line that showed the producers weren't exactly sidestepping their inclusion of a certain dynamic. Props.
But lord, Constance Zimmer---- clearly goes to pilates classes [my fave], cute raspy voice [my fave, my alternate identity when I'm hoarse is Zoë], deballing assholes [my fave], smexy.... *siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* congrats to her emmy nomination.
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Steven Universe: It's back and might -actually stay for a little while-. Pretty strong return. Steven Floats is hilarious, Mr. Greg is absolutely phenomenal (more musical episodes pls Rebecca), and Too Short to Ride is just more Peridot fun. Drop Beat Dad was kinda a waste of space, but eh. I'll forgive SU the occasional flop. Animation took another big step up, too.
Star vs the Forces of Evil: Also back. Also... somehow got weirder. Some... really dark humor in an episode or two there.
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Been watching Arrow and Flash recently. Finished up to Arrow Season 3, in the middle of Flash Season 2.
Arrow: The show does start off pretty blech, but I kept through it because a constant thing I heard was "it gets better after about 7 episodes" and well, it does. That's when Oliver Queen stops being all "JUSTICE!!!!" *kills a bunch of criminals* but actually starts to do things, the cast starts expanding with people who know his secret which is always nice because it adds a dynamic when the character doesn't have to lie to everyone, and the flashbacks start seeming meaningful other than "oh look, he's on the island, it is bad."
Season 2 followed suit and generally improved upon things, for all that an annoyance is that the flashbacks, while more interesting than Season 1, did feel intrusive since you're getting invested in the main plot then BAM, diversion to flashback. There were definite times where the flashbacks felt like they were there to help make the episode longer so they have can have the full 44 minutes, etc. Still, probably the best season overall, due to the extended cast, characters actually developing, etc.
Season 3...it started off on the right foot, but then felt like it was running in place...a lot. After a point, the reverse of Season 2 kicked in; the Flashbacks were the most interesting parts, because it felt like they were always developing forward, even if it's kind of "errr" on the side of suspension of disbelief with "HEY HE DID RETURN BRIEFLY BUT NO ONE FOUND OUT!" As I said in chat, it felt like they wrote an 11 episode storyline arc but then were forced to stretch it to twice as many. This meant a lot of the following:
"You can't trust Malcolm Merlyn!"
"I have to give him a chance, he's my only way to beat him!"
"There's gotta be another way!"
"I hate you dad!"
"I know, but I still love you!"
"Ra's al Ghul 3 stronk 5 us, Malcolm is my only chance!"
"HE'S A KILLER YOU CAN'T TRUST HIM!"
Ad nauseum. Oh yeah, don't forget to toss in Oliver's complicated relationship with women into the mix, because reasons.
This is repeated CONSTANTLY. What would have really benefited is if they focused more time on Ray Palmer becoming The Atom, because then it would have served the same purpose of padding, but it would have added variety and more character development to someone who felt a tad underused. The Flash Crossover episode was good just for that reason; it added something different and fun to see the two interacting, and even some meta on how the shows are very different styled with Oliver going on about the difference between Central and Starling City. I kind of wish it happened later if only because Season 3 hadn't hit that monotony yet and this would have been the exact kind of episode the series needed to break things up.
The Season finale was kind of neat, but the season ended in a way that made me go "Eh...I don't really care what happens next." Season 2 ended on a "story finished, but open" note too, but it did a better job of "I want to see where they go from here."
I'll probably start Season 4 anyway, even though Season 3 makes me not care, mostly because extended universe = tie-ins with Flash = probably some fun references the two are making.
Speaking of which...
Flash: This series got off running faster than Arrow...pun partially intended. A major advantage it has of course is the pseudo-pilot that Arrow had for Flash introducing us to Barry and later the quick introduction to Cisco/Caitlin allowed for us to already know the characters better. Knowing what kind of person Barry was, they didn't have to focus too heavily on the "get to know him", so it was more introducing side characters. I really appreciate how they made Detective West learn his secret immediately, since it basically avoided the annoying "Cop against the Hero!" thing, instead having someone who knows his secret, is close to him, and thus can speak up for him, and lets them address the required "This is dangerous, you can get hurt!" thing in Episode 2, so it doesn't come up again. I also appreciate how they are pretty blatant about who the bad guy is from the outset, making actual use of Dramatic Irony from the outset. It's nice when a series recognizes not EVERYTHING needs to be a mystery to the viewer, sometimes things are more interesting when the viewer knows.
It's also nice to see Flash's Rogue's Gallery get full use and them treating them like they're comic characters, not realistic interpretations ala Nolan-verse. I keep hearing about how good Flash's Rogue's Galelry is, like "it's on par with Batman and Spider-man" level, and this show does good to demonstrate why, because a variety of villains with unique powers, personalities, etc. Best handled so far I'd say were Captain Cold because the actor just nails everything, and Gorilla Grodd, where they managed to take the idea of "giant intelligent gorilla", an idea very easy to make too goofy to take seriously, and made him extremely intimidating, and they did a good job building up to him with teasers throughout, such that when he finally does appear, it lives up to "This thing is extremely threatening."
Also appreciated how the series knows how to have fun and is light-hearted, instead of just making it Arrow with Different Powers...something the DCU still doesn't get. Arrow is fine as a dark show because it's a vigilante beating up criminals in a corrupt town, so the Batman style approach is completely appropriate and works. Flash, however, recognizes you can't do that, so instead goes for "How does Flash and Co. beat the bad guy this time?" and keeps the characters more light-hearted even in the darkest moments. The two shows recognize you need a mood and tone that fits the character you're adapting, and that there is no singular "one-size-fits all."
Speaking of which, that's another thing Flash had going for it that Arrow doesn't: It wasn't restricted to it's singular storyline. Because of it's "There are Meta Humans" thing, it could just take time to go "ok, you know what? Rather than jog in place, let's just distract the team with another super villain" so there wasn't circular nonsense. It has the same effect as padding, but keeps you far more entertained, because it's different...or it's just Captain Cold showing up again doing something different but you don't care, because Captain Cold is awesome.
Wasn't a fan of the cliffhanger style ending, but at least it made me want to see Season 2 more than Arrow Season 4, so mission accomplished? Feels like the stronger of the two shows, and I feel the "embraces the comic book ludicrousness of itself" is a big part of that.
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I don't even watch Arrow outside the crossover episodes, but Felcity's cry-talking is just the worst.
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It's also nice to see Flash's Rogue's Gallery get full use and them treating them like they're comic characters, not realistic interpretations ala Nolan-verse. I keep hearing about how good Flash's Rogue's Galelry is, like "it's on par with Batman and Spider-man" level, and this show does good to demonstrate why, because a variety of villains with unique powers, personalities, etc.
The funny thing about the Flash rogue's gallery is just the massive gap in power between them. Silver Age Flash could run at the speed of light. His enemies were almost all normal dudes with funky gadgets*. You kind of had to ignore point A as a writer in order for point B to appear threatening at all. (*Grodd and Reverse Flash were the notable exceptions.)
Anyway, I just watched the first few episodes of this. "It's not like I want people to found a museum in my name" is on par with "Would you prefer yellow spandex?" for blatant fanservice, but I'll take it. It's fun so far.
Oh shit, Clancy Brown, oh shit, he's playing General Dirtbag. Barry does the blurry face thing so friends don't recognize him (this was the excuse for no one ever recognizing Golden Age Flash, who did not wear a mask). It's also nice knowing Iris isn't necessarily doomed. Looking forward to seeing what else they do with this personal nostalgia factory.
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Steven Universe: Well that is all happening now.
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late to the game but How to Get Away With Murder 10/10 oh mah gerd
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the get down's pilot episode was -so- good that I'm -so sad- to hear it drops in quality the rest of the season. I'm on edge until I can resume watching it with the bae.
and fuck hulu for not getting all the episodes for HTGAWM season 2.
I'm finding a lot of happiness in choosing to read books or watch films comprised mostly of pocs, even if the writers were white. how else am i going to know if those cross suspenders are gunna be lit on me
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German TV is so, so, so, so, so, so, awful. It makes sense no one watches it.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl6z03A5zRs
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Yes, yes... yes...):
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The pilot for the new Tick series is up on Amazon. It's....not the tone I was expecting. I'm willing to see where Edlund et al are going with it, but worried it'll turn enough people off that they won't get the chance.
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http://www.out.com/television/2016/8/23/must-watch-two-queens-kitchen-not-your-moms-easy-bake-oven-cooking-show
http://www.weareopen.tv/welcome#community
http://www.blackandsexy.tv/
I am just now stepping into the world of streaming beyond Netflix/Hulu. B&S TV is p. amazing, gonna check out Two Queens in the Kitchen
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Season 2 od HTGAWM is finally on Netflix! Yes, yes!
And I totally appreciate how they're writing queer characters, de-stigmatizing some important stereotypes and misinformation on the subject of sexuality here.
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Leverage: Watched several episodes of this at my parents place this weekend. Highly entertaining with a strong cast (People con for good ala burn notice or The Pretender). Definitely good times.
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Watched Season 4 of Arrow, Season 2 of Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow
I've said it in chat many times, and I'll say it here:
Arrow Season 4 is 70% of a great season held back badly by it's 30% of absolute garbage. I know it seems skewed but then insufferable stuff stands out way more than the great stuff, despite there being a lot more great stuff, and it drags the season down.
So because there's less bad, I'll cover that first: OliCity. Good lord it was awful here. Ok, the season started off fine since the two had chemistry, felt like they were legitimately together, and hey, maybe the relationship actually CAN go somewhere and not be just another tease, pushing the character forward...but no, just turns into a lot of drama that just makes you hate Felicity since she doesn't really do anything else in the season besides whine. The one good thing they did with her was having her learn to deal with her handicapped self, showing strength of character! Oh wait, they removed that, so the interesting she had this season is gone and now she's just insufferable. It really hurt the season that everytime the two were together alone, it'd be relationship drama, rather than doing something like making Felicity this extra pillar that Oliver can rely on, and that is part of what makes him so much stronger this season.
The other bad part was the flashback stuff. It lacked Season 2's parallel aspect, and lacked Season 3's backstory meaningfulness, just felt there because "oh, flashbacks are required now!" The one exception was the Constantine one because hey, cameo!
So the good?
Mostly addressing a lot of the issues Season 3. The plot feels like it's moving forward, the "WE MUST KILL MALCOLM MERLYN!" "NO WE CAN'T!" thing is condensed to one episode, with a surprising end in the situation, logical progression of multiple characters, etc. Also Thea looks way better as Speedy than Roy Harper as Arsenal; pretty sure it's the same outfit, but the way Thea wears it, it looks like an actual super hero guise, as opposed to a silly cheap Halloween outfit.
Oliver actually having a sense of being cheerful, and being proactive outside of being the Green Arrow? Good stuff! The theme about "keeping secrets is bad, we need to stop this" was something you expect the series to tackle earlier. They also make up for how they messed up Capt. Lance in the previous season by getting him back on Arrow's side (if in a "he's a necessary evil" kind of way first)...there's a lot of good stuff going on here. It reminds me a lot of Season 2's stuff...it's just the bad stuff keeps getting in the way, and the bad stuff is way worse than the good stuff is good, unfortunately.
Oh, and Damien Dahrk deserves a nod for being a good villain. You think he's going to be this MYSTERIOUS UNKNOWN FORCE...then he shows up early Episode 1 and is all "ok, look, I'm just going to destroy the city and there's nothing you can do about it" and has a lot of personality. It really contrasts Ras'alghul of the previous season who was just "Everything I say is mysterious. I am threatening because my voice says I'm threatening!" These two emphasize well that your villains need to be characters too, not just Overpowered Threatening Guys. Ras is nothing but the latter; he has no personality, and is utterly boring. Dahrk you at least get a sense of the actor having fun with the role, and so the viewers are likely to enjoy him all the more as is, as worst case scenario, you can just enjoy the large amounts of ham he puts into things.
Meanwhile, in Central City!
Flash Season 2 is...basically more of Season 1, just expanding upon the Multiverse building. This is not a bad thing by any means, as Flash is structured in a way that this is all you need, so why not follow suit? If it's not broke, don't fix it. There's a bit more of the linear storyline going on I suppose, but it was integrated well rather than getting in the way.
I kind of did guess the twist though because I looked up Zoom on Wikipedia, and remembered a certain name drop, and went "ok, that's a thing, how does this all fit though?" Zoom's plan is a bit complicated granted, but I guess it gets resolved in the same way it started, and I do appreciate the Bond Villain aspect of Zoom revealing "How he did it" is what led to Barry basically doing the same thing and winning.
MEANWHILE, IN TIME!!!
So...Arrow and Flash introduce a bunch of DC characters who don't get enough screen time but deserve it...why not shove them all in one series and go from there, with the excuse of "These are exceptional individuals who accomplish nothing significant in time, there by expendable!" That's kind of a backhanded compliment if I've seen one!
It's a fun little romp, because there's so many conflicting personalities. On one hand, we have Palmer, being basically a fanboy turned into a Super Hero and is trying to treat the entire situation like he's in a real life comic book, complete with bad one liners or random referential humor, always taking the IDEALISTIC HEROIC!!! view point. On the otherhand, we have Mick Rori, whose a complete and total scumbag that doesn't care about anyone other than his partner, Snart, and basically is only on the team because it was a package deal, and he does have talents that can be useful.
I actually do like how they justified bringing two clear villains on their side, namely that they have talents and perspective that can be useful for the operation, and there is incentive for them to actually behave. Also it's an excuse to allow more Leonard Snart to appear, and he's always a joy because just about everything he says is fantastic. One thing I did miss was his villain monologues to Barry, because he's on the good guy team so his right to monologues is revoked unfortunately.
I wouldn't say the show as a whole was great, but it was a fun romp, and honestly this is basically the best way you can find a use for all these underused characters anyway.
I hope Season 2 takes more advantage of the time travel aspects and starts setting things in more creative settings. The wild west episode was fun because it was "Something before the 20th century!" Also had Jonah Hex and basically the best way to get him established into the universe, so the added cameo was nice (also said episode involved Martin Stein and Leonard Snart provoking an old-styled western Saloon Bar fight provoked by a card game...these things are overused cliches for a reason people!) I mean, make no mistake; the 50s, 70s and 80s are all very different time periods and they did exploit those well enough, but going back even further allows for even more creative aspects. Maybe season 2 will do that since they're not focused on "KILL SAVAGE!" so they don't need to focus on time periods where record-keeping was a thing.
Watching all 3 of these shows, and going through Supergirl, it occurs to me the Arrowverse is basically DC's real answer to the MCU, not their own Cinematic Universe.
Start off with a B-lister and get the people engaged. Slowly add to your world with other characters over time, and oh crap, we now have a full universe with multiple outlets (a multiverse once we factor in Flash and Supergirl.) The big thing Arrowverse has caught onto that it shares with the MCU, contrast to the DCU, is and I probably already said this, recognizing you adapt tone to fit the character, not character to fit the tone.
Arrow is a vigilante show about someone trying to save his corrupt city, so naturally it's going to be Batman-like in tone (well, not THAT forcefully dark and gritty, it's just not going to be super cheerful either.) Flash is about an awkward nerd who gets super powers and wants to do good with it, this is a set up for "Let's just have fun beating up bad guys!" and that's what Flash does. Legends of Tomorrow is about 2 aspects: The interaction between a bunch of characters who have no reason to be working together, and ADVENTURES IN SPACE AND TIME!!!
And while I'm not done with it, Supergirl is basically just a gender-flip of what you expect from a Superman show just with the added twist of "she has a bit of a legacy to live up to!" which would be a problem except that we don't HAVE a Superman series or movie or whatever that actually does this, so it's actually a breath of fresh-air.
I think the biggest advantage the Arrowverse ultimately had was not using Batman; when DC uses Batman, he tends to be a vacuum of everything in it and such that while the Batman elements are fine, the NON-Batman elements suffer a lot. Warner Bros. does not know how to restrain themselves when it comes to the character, so all the elements not related to Batman-lore get altered to either fit Batman-lore, or just pushed aside in favor of it. Similarly, keeping Superman in a different universe (but same Multiverse) as the rest of those series? Good idea! Allows you to play around with Superman but not worry about the whole "Why can't Superman just help!?" in the other series.
I actually went "wait, Oliver, you know people in Central City who could be VERY USEFUL at this point" at Season 4's finale. While yes, the idea is obviously Barry has his own problems he's dealing with, I simply wanted an acknowledgment of this relationship. Even as much as "I tried to call Star Labs but couldn't reach them" would have been all they needed, since then it shows the characters at least tried that as an option and it just didn't work because narrative (in)convenience; a single acknowledgment is all I ask for! That's the tricky part of a shared universe of course, you need excuses for "Why not call on this guy for help?"
From where I'm sitting, Arrow maybe has one more season left because it's getting harder to up the stakes in his case. Flash seems to have plenty of ideas, and Legends of Tomorrow's structure allows them to basically Doctor Who it up and get away with just about ANYTHING.
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Started Luke Cage. The first episode was slow, and even though I like Luke's character traits I thought that his lines were pretty flat. Episode 2 is a bit better; I'm currently at a 3/5 for this incredibly superblack show.
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He should call himself Superblack. Way better name than Power Man imo. (does he call himself Power Man in the show?)
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Not in eps 1 to 2, but someone further along can answer that! So far, just Luke Cage. You should check it out!
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I've seen 3 episodes of Luke Cage. One of his friends, as a tease, calls him "Power Man" from time to time as a little friendly tease, which is probably the best way to handle that nod. The reference is obvious but it's not drawing attention to it at the same time. Just kind of there and feels natural. I'll reserve judgment of the series until it's done.
Speaking of Super Hero shows, finished Supergirl.
I have to say, it's quite good. I was convinced the show was going to suck based off it's goofy trailer, but the first episode hooked me almost immediately when it basically showed "no, it's nothing like that" and really demonstrated "we get Superman!" In fact, the show feels like it was SUPPOSE to be for Superman, but Warner Bros. didn't want one of their big titans relegated to TV to draw attention away from the BIG BUDGET MOVIES to compete with Marvel, so they compromised with the gender swap, and adapted it well. Yeah, obvious "This is female Superman" things are in there, like having a Male!Lois Lane equivalent in Winn, and a female!Perry White in Kat Grant...I don't know anything about the Supergirl lore I should note.
There's a lot I could say, but honestly I'll just leave it at "it's a show that GETS Superman, and demonstrates it through his cousin." They also sidestepped some issues like early on you worry "oh no, she's going to constantly compare herself to Superman" but by the Reactron Episode, they pretty much end that ark, and they make it clear that Superman is really just an inspiration and frame of reference , rather than beat us over the head with "THIS IS FEMALE SUPERMAN!" They really sell you on "She's her own hero, treat her like one."
But yeah, the big thing is it gets how to do a Superman show. Focus on all the positive aspects of being a hero, and bring in the negatives when absolutely necessary. Don't focus on the tragedy, focus on the hope and heroics, overcoming the odds. Make the hero a POSITIVE, optimistic figure, not a brooding, angsty individual. Really, her speech at the end of Season 1 really comes off as "THIS is what Superman is all about, Zach Snyder, NOT your own fucked up vision of him."
Oh yeah, and the Flash crossover was a lot of fun. Worked well because both heroes are fun and positive figures, and so the chemistry between the two was fun. Even when Barry's like "I'm stuck in another world that I reached completely by accident" his reaction is "well, this is awkward, but might as well make the most of it and help you out."
That said, ranking the "Arrowverse" shows, I'd probably do it like this:
1. Flash: Consistently good and most developed, just hammers "it's fun being a super hero, even with all the baggage!" aspect.
2. Supergirl: A lot like Flash, only FLash has 2 seasons to develop vs. Supergirl's 1, so call that a tie break for Flash.
3. Arrow when it's Good: When Arrow is good, it's really good! It's not as "Fun" as Flash, but it's good
4. Legends of Tomorrow: When all is said and done, it's fluff. Fun fluff, but fluff. Can only give the series so much credit.
5. Arrow when it's bad: I have to separate this from Arrow when it's good because the two feel like completely different shows. Arrow is PAINFUL when it's bad. This is emphasized best in Season 4, where when it focuses on Damien Darcc? It's really good and fun...oh wait, OliCity kicked in, STOP PLEASE GO AWAY NO I WANT TO WATCH SOMETHING ELSE :(
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Anyway, Luke Cage's picked up at episode 6; better lines, better pacing. I'd say the lines go for everyone, actually, which does the actor Mike Colter some good. Mahershali Ali's surpassed his Remy Danton phase, which is good because it's stuck with him for some time. I'm not finding the generational critique of black manhood strong at all; let's see where it goes!
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Finished Luke Cage in like two sittings over the weekend. Overall impression is pretty great. I do agree the first two episodes are kind of slow because they are introducing a ton of characters to you all at once. But once they start killing them off, the series really picks up!
Sarcasm aside, I really like Luke himself. This is really strange for me since Luke is basically perfect and always right and calm and flawless. Well at least when it comes to super heroing. He is awful at relationships, but not because of the super hero thing, which is usually how you see this pairing of traits. Interesting to see someone so utterly selfless and unrelatable in terms of always doing the right thing for justice but just being awful at holding together a relationship, which I can uh definitely relate to easier...
The plot itself is pretty solid. But the focus definitely feels like it's got something to say about being black. And I like that too. As someone who is interested in this topic but who has no personal stake in it, I thought it was handled very well. Definitely a lot of care went into making it feel believable and I appreciate they didn't shy away from it. Though it's so intrinsic to the story of Luke Cage I suppose they had to. It'll be interesting to see how he functions outside of his own story when he comes into the other series. The flip side of all of this is that the series definitely comes off as preaching more often than it should but perhaps that's a result of binge watching it.
Also, Miranda and Shades are my favorites. I don't know if they exist in the comics but holy crap they are fun to watch on screen!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gpED0Z57RU
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So I finished Luke Cage.
The writing became way too corny after EP 7. The backstory between two central characters was incredibly rushed and felt too mechanized for the sake of story progression. Way too predictable.
I'm tired of the need to introduce a love story (especially when poorly executed and there's little magnetism on screen).
The final episode was disappointing.
The best thing this show did for me was have four incredibly strong Black female characters with different dispositions.
Meh. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good for me. What it could have done was fill potholes and edit a few scenes better (her arm healed that quickly, tho? Come the fuck on).
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Westworld was quite good. I'd recommend it especially to gamers, as the fundamental idea is something close to a real-life Skyrim of sorts. You can go to the main town hub and have nice pre-packaged quests thrown at your feet, or go to the edges and make your own crazy plot. Honestly, if anything, the only "problem" with it is that idiot assholes who think it's funny to just barge into the middle of your plotline and shoot everyone weren't more common. Ah Logan, you're too true-to-life, so I think I'm happy to not get a steady diet of him.
Very high production values, some thinky thoughts on AI, it doesn't devolve into treacly love-conquers-all nonsense OR uber grimdark nonsense. It's neat.
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Mindy Project - I marathoned this show and am current with today. The first three seasons were great, awesome writing, fun gaze reversals. Now the show is just shit. I admit I only watch because I feel what's irredeemable is my ability to actually keep up with a show. 1/5
Empire - eh. The way bipolar is equated to evil is.... 1/5.
Game of Thrones - just started this up during my annual Christmas marathoning of a new show. I ranted about it a bit in chat last night. Team Arya. 3/5
Fresh off the Boat - in it just for the husband and wife. Granny's borderline annoying now. 2/5
I discontinued Blackish and its anecdotal messages to some presumed ignorant white audience. The Cosby Show wasn't even this patronizing.
Power - okay. I wanted to rant about this show. I realize that love stories and cheaters and the other man and other woman are the bedrock of many narratives. I fucking get it. But this show reminds me of why I truly found no pleasure in watching Scandal. The most intelligent people are mentally incapacitated by pussy or dick. Most of the times writers build a story that is as good as celebrity gossip, so it's going. But I am so sick and tired of 70% of a show being given over to a man/woman cheating on their man/woman or fucking on the sidelines for multiple seasons! I don't remember this being a big thing to watch in my childhood/watch shows parents forbid.
The background of Greg is SO forced only to keep Angie's alliance to Ghost a possibility... Team Tommy Team Angela.
Shitty writing. I'm in it for the side characters. I've been in all these shows I've listed for the support characters. At least Games of Thrones gives you good writing and acting in all this debauchery, and have slowed down with all the tits.
God, and most of these salacious cheating adventures is only a girl getting dicked. Like... this idea of sexual pleasure is so fucking boring.
unedited, unorganized plop of crap here.
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Leverage: Watched several episodes of this at my parents place this weekend. Highly entertaining with a strong cast (People con for good ala burn notice or The Pretender). Definitely good times.
Yeah, finished this a few weeks back. Quite fun, didn't overstay it's welcome and did a good job developing the main cast. Jim Sterling was a lot of fun, worked well as a sometimes foil, sometimes friend for Nate's crew.
Rewatching DS9, in season 7. (I started in season 4). This remains so much better than the rest of star trek.
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If you haven't been watching The Good Place, go watch it. The whole season (13 episodes) is on Hulu, the cast is fantastic (Ted Danson! Kristen Bell! Other people who aren't famous yet but should be!), it's from the Parks & Rec/Brooklyn Nine-Nine guys, and holy BALLS the finale that aired last night is incredible.
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Stranger Things - 8/10.
I watched for Ryder; but there are some gems. Ending was anti-climatic; seeing little kids channel adults is cute enough. Show tossed out some staying binaries. The one I found most impressive was nerdle love, but the daughter's arc is okay too. Not a fan of the overall monster though. Like, there's monsters and then there's monsters and it definitely wasn't designed in a way to maintain fright levels.
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Horror isn't really a thing you can sustain I think? Without a turnover rate in monsters I don't know if you can engage the brain properly for it (not having seen Stranger Stuffs, querying just on the concept of serial horror stories)? You need surprise as part of it and fight/flight responses are biologically not something you can engage for long periods (well without it likely being a disorder). Horror just kind of regresses to Mystery as a mean in my experience. That's kind of why horror serial stuff tends to be either short or an anthology series if t wants to stay as horror, otherwise it just shifts gears.
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I hear that. I wonder, though, why Pinhead is still creepy to me? I love horror, even the b-rated and silly stuff, and there are just some designs that have a lasting impact. Perhaps the villain in ST looked too much like a videogame monster.
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I hear that. I wonder, though, why Pinhead is still creepy to me?
Possibly the sadomasochism.
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The new Samurai Jack episodes on Cartoon Network are really good. The old series never quite clicked with me and seemed to be lacking something. But man this new stuff is fucking STYLISH.
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New Samurai Jack!? Gotta share that with folk!
I'mma keep posting about all my shows black folks're following in the event that I can eventually kiki w/ someone here. If you have not watched Chewing Gum but love hilarious insanity, dooooo it. I had held off from beginning season 2 because it's impossible for me to watch it all in one sitting, but... bahahahahahaahahahahaha...
I don't even know the exact quote here but in episode 1 s2 "I mean, come on! We were THE interracial group! And we did it more interesting - you know it's s normally black guy white girl but we're the opposite, we're black girl white guy!"
The show is about a super-awkward Nigerian British virgin growing up in the estates with a crazy Christian mother, meek but incredibly aggressive sister, crazy friends from all walks, and her attempts to get a boyfriend.
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Watching stories about the black middle class is one of my favorite things to do. In many ways, the chilling politics of respectability trickle downwards and I vividly remember a lot of defense and attack mechanisms that my own family's approrpriated from them. Greenleaf has been filling that space for me at the moment. I thank the bejeebus I never attended any mega church, but really do remember smaller black churches having similar scandals without all the glitter and jewels.
I am screaming at my computer screen though and very often. There's a running line about a family molester. Mississippi Damned, which is a movie about similar sexual politics, took my breath away. This Netflix series has me wondering very curiously and uneasily how long they'll let a particular character linger. I am not quite sure about any other ethnic enclaves in the United States, but I do know that family molestation and child molestation is an incredibly huge yet swept under the rug lump of a problem for several decades now. It's interesting to see this taken up, but I would not be able to handle it a la Scandal's tendency to move slowly from core issues.
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GLOW is fun. Netflix series, women's wrestling, comedy based off of eponymous 80s women's wrestling org. I didn't experience much of the decade myself, but apparently set and costume are on-point. I absolutely love Ruth. And therefore I love Russia.
You know, I forget that I loved wrestling a lot. I stopped watching around the time Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were doing stupid things, and after learning the McMahon family was one of the most recent and largest donors to the Republican party. Memory is vague but it was around the 08 Black Prez and nativist/nationalist stage set for what is today. Plus I was younger and my Republican friends made no sense to me, maybe I made no sense to them. But to return, man, I even remember going to wrestling matches in Philly when I lived in NJ. I sort of kind of miss masculinist ring dancing. The Rock left just in time. They say that wrestling is still on the air. Huh.
House of Cards is a bit disappointing. I cannot wait for Broad City to return. Watching Power unhappily.
BUT.
WINTER IS COMING.
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This Is Us is really, really, really good. I have two episodes left in season 1. I've officially been through one entire tissue box.
I don't know why, but I am still watching the Mindy Project. It is awful.
Game of Thrones happened and no one here is talking about it!
I'm a bit nervous about seeing more Stranger Things, partly because I'm not sure how they can keep it interesting. Season 1 finale was a bit boring, even if an homage to The Stand.
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Big Little Lies-
I totally get it.
And it made me bawl at the end and I didn't expect to, but yeah, domestic violence stirred too much
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Game of Thrones happened and no one here is talking about it!
I haven't watched Game of Thrones since season 3. For a lot of reasons--writing being < the books, the initial thrill of "Wow they did a really good job visually bringing this world to life" wearing off, torture scenes--but mostly it's the despair. I found it too much a reflection of the mood of the times even before 2016 happened. The theme of the books fundamentally was abuse of power and how those who misuse it tend to bring about their own downfall. I've never been convinced that the showrunners really get that, or at least know how to make it felt by the audience, which mostly leaves a spectacle of unusually bloody soap opera violence.
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I also stopped watching at season 3.
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So I finally got Netflix. Welcome to 2009 Cap.
Daredevil: This was good. Not the standard depiction of the Kingpin, but it works.
Jessica Jones: This dragged on too long. Oh we caught Kilgrave, oh he escaped, oh we caught him again! And the sideplot with the super soldier pills was terrible.
Voltron: This can't decide if it wants to be cheesy or serious. It's not very good at either.
Castlevania: Not bad. Actually covers the story of Castlevania III pretty respectfully.
Stranger Things: This is darker than I was expecting. It's like E.T. if they took the walkie talkies away from the FBI agents and gave them guns instead.
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Stranger Things: It's like E.T. if they took the walkie talkies away from the FBI agents and gave them guns instead.
This is the best thing I'll read all week.
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Falling Skies- Just finished season 1. Lots of love for this show. Does a good job conveying characters with shades of grey and the acting's great. I'll definitely watch more.
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Luke Cage: This is the blackest show ever. Alfre Woodard did a good job - I hated her every time she was on screen. My wife is in love with Mike Colter, Milk Dud head and all. Also fuck the writers for teasing Misty Knight losing her arm.
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My wife is in love with Mike Colter, Milk Dud head and all.
NOOOOOOO ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I've sniffled the entire show but tonight I bawled, I bawled I bawled.
This Is Us.
My god.
Like. :'(
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Disenchantment: It's watchable, but not particularly good. There's a lot of reused Simpsons jokes. Like any Simpsons fan would recognize the "cursed sprinkles" joke immediately. So when they use a variant of it, it just ends up being eye-rolly instead of funny.
First problem with the show is lack of variety in the episodes. Most of the episodes are just "Bean wants to rebel, oh no her father won't let her." There's very little variety in scenery or plot. They finally throw in a big cliffhanger in the last episode to keep you interested but it's too late.
Characters are the other major problem. Bean is okay, but Lisa Simpson independent woman combined with Homer drunkard just doesn't mesh well. Elfo has a bit of personality but he's not an exciting character. Luci is like anti-interesting. Supposed to be the Bender type character that is inherently evil but does good things occasionally. But he's just boring. He barely shows up in later episodes and you don't miss him.
Having said that, the Giant episode is legitimately good. And Oona is a great character design.
The show reminds me a lot of Star vs the Forces of Evil, except Star has better characters, more variety in settings, and does the overarching plot+major plots coming together at end of seasons far better. So yeah, Netflix, you got schooled by a Disney XD show.
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The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. It is what happens when a busybody girl thinks she can solve everyone's problems herself.
(https://i.imgur.com/mg0dzxe.jpg)
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GoT.
Well, okay... then.
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Good Omens is pretty great (I've just finished episode 3 of 6 last night). David Tennant's Bill Nighy impression was distracting for the entirety of the first episode, but it smooths out going onward. I barely remember the book, having read it about 20 years ago, so I won't comment on adaptations. I will, however, commend Gaiman for his TV writing because this thing is ineffably British and also does a great job blocking out big characters and refining them down again along the way. Michael Sheen is my favorite, I just want to wrap Aziraphael up and give him some cocoa and a good book and leave him to it. (Tennant is my favorite in general and he does a great job with what he's got, but Crowley is a very different kind of character.)
The third episode is my favorite so far, by far. The ways the characters change -- character's we've so far known for just barely 2 hours going into this one! -- and get set for what's to come is beautifully done. I can't wait to see what's next (while also fully recognizing the irony in the fact that I don't have to wait, because all the episodes are there, I just am doing so).
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Also watched the first couple episodes of Good Omens yesterday. It's good! Adaptations of books - especially books of Pratchett's style that lean heavy on prose for humor - are tough. My biggest complaint is that a moment in the book that is outrageously funny in the book is only moderately funny in the show. It's the bit where Agnes Nutter, having predicted that she would be burned as a witch, has lined her petticoat with a large quantity of gunpowder and nails. The contrast between dry prose and massive carnage makes it work, and in the show the carnage simply wasn't massive enough. If I had to point to a general weak link, it's actually the main actors, both of whose delivery seems a little wooden and who don't have as much chemistry as I'd like. These are minor points, though. Overall, very impressed.