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Author Topic: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched  (Read 226392 times)

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2280 on: November 13, 2019, 11:13:15 PM »
Yea, the guy's toxic.

1SO

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2281 on: November 15, 2019, 10:37:15 PM »
The World According to Jeff Goldblum has a big problem at its center. It seems the very qualities that make you think Goldblum would make a great host for such a series, actually make him a terrible one. He's so eccentric (and too often filmed in extreme close-up) that the result is more off-putting. A learned a few fascinating details about ice cream, but I had to endure a lot of talk that sounded like the words of a comic on mushrooms. It turns out the character Jeff Goldblum plays the least effectively is this improv version of himself.

smirnoff

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2282 on: November 16, 2019, 09:22:11 PM »
Re: Maher

I don't catch every episode so I may have missed earlier instances when he expressed anti-vax ideas. There was a recent episode however where he had a guest on that shared his opinion on the subject. Keeping in mind that this is the only time I can recall hearing him speak on the subject, his views on vaccines seemed very mild to me. I don't think he ever said not to get vaccines, just that we don't have perfect knowledge about some exceedingly rare but possible side effects that may exist. After the discussion it would have felt like a reach for me to put him in the anti-vax camp. It just seemed like he was cautioning against viewing vaccines as zero risk, but not avoid them. At worst it felt like a point not worth making, but I suspect he's reacting to what he perceives as blind faith... something that gets his guard up regardless of the subject matter.

I imagine he is more aligned with Tim Ferris in regards to Islam. I vaguely recall that exchange. I don't recall his race or gender views. I guess it hasn't come up in recent weeks.

I think his concern over what could happen if Trump lost the election is scarily possible. i.e. "fake news", refusal to leave, spark an armed stand-off, and who knows what else. I'm glad he hasn't dropped this point and brings it up every episode. He's also loud on the environment. So he's positions I agree with too.

I come back to it because every now and then you get a particularly good guest, or thoughtful exchange, or whatever else. My least favourite part of the show is the crowd generally.

St. Martin the Bald

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2283 on: December 07, 2019, 10:36:56 PM »
The World According to Jeff Goldblum has a big problem at its center. It seems the very qualities that make you think Goldblum would make a great host for such a series, actually make him a terrible one. He's so eccentric (and too often filmed in extreme close-up) that the result is more off-putting. A learned a few fascinating details about ice cream, but I had to endure a lot of talk that sounded like the words of a comic on mushrooms. It turns out the character Jeff Goldblum plays the least effectively is this improv version of himself.

Agreed, it’s literally too much Goldblum.
I didn’t think that was possible...
Hey, nice marmot!

philip918

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2284 on: December 09, 2019, 12:08:08 PM »
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel - season 3

While the show still has plenty of pep and zippy dialogue it's sorely lacking in plotting. Also, the show has always had a particular heightened comedic sensibility, but the supporting characters are becoming too cartoonish. Brosnahan continues to be a force of nature, but we're not seeing any new layers of her character. Alex Borstein is consistently great and probably my favorite actor on the show. Jane Lynch is just tremendously funny. There's a moment where she eats something that is one of the most unexpected, ridiculous, and hilarious things I've seen on television. Luke Kirby is great as Lenny Bruce, adding a soulful, melancholy, intensity that's very welcome. Midge's tour story line brings in the welcome addition of Sterling K. Brown as manager to Leroy McClain's singing superstar, Shy Baldwin.

The show feints toward actually examining these characters' extreme self-centeredness, but instead plays it all for laughs and doesn't hold them to account in any meaningful way (maybe rightly so in terms of appealing to the general audience). Unfortunately, this has led to each season feeling more inconsequential than the last.

oldkid

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2285 on: December 14, 2019, 11:12:27 PM »
I find my viewing currently is 95 percent television.  I’m mostly watching at night, when my work is done for the day, and my daughter and I watch something for an hour or two and she is interested in comedies and anime.  This makes for a nice change of pace from art films and dramas that I’ve been watching for the last decade, so I find I’m enjoying the time more, although many of the TV shows are of a lower quality, but higher laugh ratio.  That works for my life right now.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Surprising how often this show makes me laugh, even with the same jokes.  The comedic actors are top-rate and the shifts in character are fun if never believable.  After six? Seven? Seasons, I could keep watching it.  But how much do I actually remember?  Not much...
3.5/5

Rick and Morty Seasons 1-3
I can’t believe how addictive this series is.  Rick is possibly the most obnoxious tv character I’ve ever seen and Morty is whiny and starts out without much of a backbone.  Uggh, awful characters.  But I am drawn in by the spin of science fiction tropes that take each idea and extends it as far as they can, and not only for the sake of comedy.  I’m hoping Morty’s sister and mom get to do more of the action, because as characters they are way more interesting, but you gotta appreciate any show where the main protagonist is so narcissistic that there is a universe just populated with him.

4/5

Food Wars Seasons 1-3
How did I get caught in this?  I don’t know, but I am firmly addicted.  It’s a cheap anime about kids in a cooking school.  It ends up being somewhere between Hell’s Kitchen and Harry Potter.  And then there’s “food-gasms”, where the taster of a particularly exquisite dish spontaneously loses all his/her clothes and speaks in rapturous tones about the glories of the food.  Part of what is amazing is the detail of such a wide variety of world dishes and cooking styles.  It amazes me how each of the 20? Students focused on have their own cooking style which relates to their background and personality.  And then some sort of Voldemort pops up....  I don’t know how this mess works, but it does.
‘4/5

Veronica Mars, Season 1
In other news, I just discovered a few months ago that Kristen Bell and Kristen Stewart are different people.  I know, they look and act nothing alike, but I just thought this one actress had a wide array of abilities.   Anyway, the first season of VM is an attempt to do private detective Buffy, but not as funny.  It mostly works, although it needs a tighter soap opera story and more complex backgrounds.  I have to say, the solution at the end of the first season surprised me, it was a good whodunnit, if too long.

3.5/5
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Solid Blake

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2286 on: December 19, 2019, 06:12:39 AM »
Top 2019 TV Programs:

1. Watchmen
2. The Mandalorian
3. Barry
4. Fleabag
5. Mindhunter
6. The Grand Tour
7. Russian Doll
8. Stranger Things
9. The Boys
10. Black Mirror
11. High Maintenance
12. Game of Thrones
13. Catastrophe
14. Easy
15. City On A Hill
16. Billions
17. Crashing
18. Santa Clarita Diet
19. A.P. Bio
20. True Detective


Top 2019 Guilty Pleasures:

1. The Masked Singer
2. MasterChef: Junior
3. Survivor

pixote

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2287 on: December 22, 2019, 04:11:56 AM »
Through four episodes (of eight), The Witcher (Netflix) presents a textbook example of narrative incompetence. All the ingredients are there for a decent fantasy story, but the show relies on confusion and the withholding of key information to create a false sense of suspense and mystery. The effect instead is bewilderment and indifference. I’m paying attention, but I generally just have the mere gist of what’s happening or why. The artlessness of the exposition and narrative orientation is sort of impressive. If it were a video game, I’d be mashing on whichever button jumped through the banal dialogue. Nice to see Jodhi May Last of the Mohicans chew some scenery, though. She’s one of the few people in the cast to bring any energy to the proceedings.

On the other hand, the new A Christmas Carol (FX via Hulu) is one of the best surprises of the year, at least through the first of its three parts. The screenplay by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things) brings a wonderful freshness to the all-too-familiar story without going so far as to completely reinvent it. Hulu lists the show as “a dark retelling”, but the original story is pretty dark in its own right, and there’s little yet that go beyond that. It’s damned refreshing to hear Scrooge drop an F bomb here and there, though, amidst the bahs. Guy Pearce, as Scrooge, is some inspired casting, and I love him in the role. Really excited for the next two chapters.

pixote
« Last Edit: December 22, 2019, 04:14:56 AM by pixote »
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philip918

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2288 on: December 22, 2019, 12:05:52 PM »
Through four episodes (of eight), The Witcher (Netflix) presents a textbook example of narrative incompetence... The artlessness of the exposition and narrative orientation is sort of impressive.
pixote

After three episodes, I completely agree. It's terrible. Cavil is a charisma vacuum and his character is brooding-macho-stoicism at it's comical worst. The action is rote. The CGI monsters look awful - I can't believe the scene the filmmakers decided to open the entire series with.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2289 on: December 22, 2019, 02:51:58 PM »
Wow, guess I'll for sure skip Witcher.