Author Topic: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched  (Read 226287 times)

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2410 on: August 22, 2020, 05:29:59 PM »
Gave a bit of New Girl a shot as it was airing, and also didn't much like it. Even as a mediocre sitcom of its era, it was outclassed by things like The League, and I guess It's Always Sunny though I never got too in to that one.

FLY'd say to give On My Block a shot, very likely the best original sitcom that Netflix has put out, and I even seem to like Dear White People more than you and Bondo by the send of S3.

Junior

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2411 on: August 24, 2020, 08:52:11 PM »
I watched all of Halt and Catch fire.over the past month or so. It starts off as a very obvious attempt at remaking Mad Men in a different industry/time (computer development in the 1980s) but soon becomes its own thing. What I admire most is how quickly the show realizes what is working and what isn't, and how willing it is to reconfigure in the face of adversity. If I told you where things end up you'd be shocked it only takes place over forty episodes.

But what really makes the show groove (in addition to its killer soundtrack) is the actors and the characters they play. Top of the pile for me is Mackenzie Davis's Cameron, the brilliant coder who plays by her own rules. Then it's Scoot McNairy's Gordon, the engineer who just can't get out of his own way. His wife, genius hardware and business person Donna (Kerry Bishé) and Lee Pace's ideas guy who can never settle for second best. These all seem a little cliched writing them out like this, but in the span of four seasons they grow, fail and succeed, and become fully developed characters. Oh, and Toby Huss' brilliant turn as the genial elder statesman and friend to all is just a delight of the highest order.

Halt and Catch Fire isn't innovative or even super culturally important. But it is a great show with stunningly good writing and acting, one that will stick with me for a while. It's on Netflix in the US. Dunno about elsewhere.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2412 on: August 24, 2020, 08:54:03 PM »
I watched some of it and didn't get a Mad Men vibe at all because of the difference of location and world. I guess maybe if you think of it as a show about a male-dominated world and looking at female perspectives. I need to go back to it because I liked it but some of the adult content feels a bit much.

1SO

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2413 on: August 28, 2020, 10:36:49 PM »
Holey Moley
Watched a couple of episodes tonight, a combo of mini golf and The Floor is Lava. The show's best aspect isn't even the Jackass slapstick of people wiping out, it's the humor of Joe Tessitore, Stephen Curry and Rob Riggle. I can only imagine the hundreds of jokes that don't make broadcast to get these handful of gems, but they're up there with Jim Piddock and Fred Willard in Best in Show.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2414 on: August 28, 2020, 10:42:07 PM »
Season one of Rectify is fantastic. Got that Southern Gothic vibe as well as what might be one of the most understated did or didn't he do it bit of storytelling. It seems less concerned with whether or not he committed the act and more interested in how everyone around him is certain their own view is the right view. Looking forward to watching the next season soon but I want to let this one set for a day or two.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2415 on: August 30, 2020, 08:21:29 PM »
Season one of New Girl consistently got laughs from me but the more it went on, the more formulaic and problematic it felt. For one, there are a lot of Asian jokes that come off as super racist. Worst one is probably Lizzy Caplan (who I love) yelling "Confucius say" at a Chinese person over the phone. And Schmitt's continual comments about Indian women comes across as fetishizing at best and just straight up racism at worst. And boy does this show rely way too much on sex jokes to get laughs. They're generally the least funny bits. The boring part is the Jess/Nick relationship feels like it hits every lame note of the "will they/won't they" relationship checklist. They're both also legitimately people I wouldn't want to hang around which made me realize I'm basically laughing at these characters and their plight. The joke is always at their expense.

I'm so picky about my comedies and this one did not pass the test. I like me some Zoey, the moment she leans into her quirky oddness tend to be my favorite moments, it's just everything around it ranges from lazy to icky and I have better things to do in life than watch mediocre comedies.
Update: My sisters told me to watch season 2 and it certainly gets better but I'm still on the fence. Fleshing out the characters a bit more means some of the jokes are more specific and less broad but the show is also just leaning into quirky = funny which doesn't always land. Some of the racial jokes have subsided but I still feel like the show is trying to get away with Schmidt being charmingly naive in his racism instead of owning up to the fact it's problematic. It does do this the one time he tries to go buy crack for Winston mostly because it makes sense that Winston would screw with Schmidt while it doesn't make sense for other characters to put up with Schmidt's casual racism.

It does make me think about how often comedies in general rely on sensitive topics and what should and shouldn't be given a pass. I'd have to go back and watch a lot of my old favorites but I feel like my two favorites MASH and Community hold up. MASH does have some character names that are definetly on the offensive side but I think that's also pretty accurate to how people get names in the military and the show always shows those characters as genuine human beings and not charactures or stereotypes like some shows.

Dan Harmon gets flack from some circles of the internet for some of his race material but I feel like he's the most spot on in finding that sweet combination of how characters would actually behave as well as occasionally using race as a social critique. Pierce is human, but not particularly likable in large part because of his regressive race jokes that are often put out there as unfunny as a kind of counter-play to smarter race jokes like Chang's status as a Chinese man teaching Spanish that gets a lot of jokes out of it.

I dunno, just a random tangent I went on there. I like to think I'm more open-minded when it comes to comedy but a lot of times the controversial jokes feel like they are going for cheap shock laughs than actually being a well-written joke. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I mean, I watched some South Park which a lot of people consider one of the most offensive shows ever aired and I generally find their stuff hilarious.



Trying to find something my parents might enjoy to watch as my mom hates New Girl. Watched the first episode of Hart of Dixie and it was pretty good.

St. Martin the Bald

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2416 on: September 04, 2020, 11:53:06 PM »
The Boys - Season 2 - Episodes 1-3

This season is darker than the last, if that’s possible.
Homelander chews as much scenery as Butcher. I hope the series gets on track with the comics and gives The Boys equal footing with the supes by giving them Compound V
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2417 on: September 05, 2020, 08:47:17 AM »
Looking forward to watching this one. Think I'm gonna space it out some since they are releasing sets of episodes weekly. I've read the first five or six volumes of the comics.

1SO

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2418 on: September 06, 2020, 07:13:51 PM »
Muppets Now (2020)
★ ★
I'm going to put aside there's a new voice for Kermit, because this show (which just completed its 6 episode season) has much bigger problems. Top of the list is that the Muppets are a deep, deep bench with numerous possibilities for sketches, yet they kept repeating the same sketch. It's 4 sketches to a show and out of the 24 total sketch slots they only had six ideas. Worst of these is “Ookey Dookey Cooking”, where the Swedish Chef faces off against a celebrity chef. This one and Lifesty with Miss Piggy was on every episode and both were are repetitive as my post has now become.



Earth to Ned (2020)
★ ★ ★ - Good
What a surprise. The wife and I ran through these quickly. (Why is Muppets Now one ep a week and this releases all 10 eps at once?) It's a talk show where the alien host and his enslaved sidekick study something they find fascinating about Earth. The humor took a couple of episodes to get into, but it's full of left field joke interjections and the guests are a good deal of fun. (It seems like they recorded 30 minutes and then squeezed it down to the best 5 minutes.) I really hope they make more of these and quickly.

Sandy

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Re: Review the Last TV Episode/Season/Series You Watched
« Reply #2419 on: September 08, 2020, 10:13:34 AM »
Bodyguard



Just zipped through Bodyguard's 6 episodes and have to say, there is something about this kind of format that really appeals to me. I love the streamlined storytelling, where there are no fillers to help it along into more seasons. It's bigger than a movie, with room to delve into a character's psyche and enough space to spend time with secondary characters, and yet still feels concise. As satisfying as a good novel, Bodyguard earns the investment in time and interest and rewards with a strong beginning, middle and end. Emphasis on End.