Author Topic: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)  (Read 172765 times)

MartinTeller

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1580 on: December 06, 2017, 02:53:17 PM »
I think the clear answer is to do away with all awards.

Corndog

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1581 on: December 06, 2017, 03:09:02 PM »
A thing is either good or bad. Everything else is semantics.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1582 on: December 06, 2017, 04:09:46 PM »
I think the clear answer is to do away with all awards.
Or the Europeans.  :P

goodguy

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1583 on: January 03, 2018, 02:03:33 PM »
I guess we don't use a dedicated thread for this. Last year, some people posted here, this year, philip918 posted his list in the Review thread. Anyway...

Ranked list of the new 2017 TV Shows I've seen:

Taboo (BBC UK, the Tom Hardy thing)
American Gods (Starz)
Legion (FX)
Fearless (ITV UK)
The End Of The F***ing World (Channel 4 UK)
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)
The Good Fight (CBS All Access)
Emerald City (NBC)
Babylon Berlin (Sky Deutschland)
The Punisher (Netflix)
The Defenders (Netflix)
Pilot or a few episodes only: The Deuce, Anne, The Handmaid's Tale, GLOW, Marvel's Runaways

Favorite returning shows:

Black Sails S4 (Starz)
Halt and Catch Fire S4 (AMC)
Top of the Lake S2 (Sundance)
Billions S2 (Showtime)
Travelers S2 (Showcase Canada)


saltine

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1584 on: January 03, 2018, 07:17:33 PM »
I've been waiting for someone to recommend Taboo strongly. My next watch, love Tom Hardy.
Texan Down Under

MartinTeller

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1585 on: January 05, 2018, 11:10:53 PM »
Avoiding the Black Mirror thread until I've seen the rest of season 4, but regarding the first episode, "USS Callister": Some funny/clever bits, but good lord the plot holes are too massive to ignore. Suspension of disbelief just wasn't possible for me, especially when the show is usually grounded in plausible science. Some of the character decisions here are just really friggin stupid too. I sure hope the rest of the season is better than this.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1586 on: January 10, 2018, 08:39:07 PM »
 I watched a grand total of 3 new to me seasons of TV last year:

Master of None (Season 2)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 3)
Better Call Saul (Season 1)

Master of None perfectly captures what I feel in life right now and Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang bring a sensibility to TV that captures experienced: these brief situations that give you insight into some facet of life as different people pop in and out of your life and things rarely go where you hope. You get what you think you want but it ends up not being satisfying. You feel like you've compromised on life and betrayed who you want to be just to gain some status. Relationships don't work the way you'd hope, the dating scene is absolutely miserable. This is such a raw, honest show that exposes the melancholy of the season of life I'm going through.

Kimmy Schmidt already feels like it's overstayed its welcome with a standout episode being the Lemonade spoof. As the show goes on, the little nuggets of morality in each episode feel more and more trite and forced. I feel so talked down to as if the writers aren't sure I understand how these situations are forcing the characters to grow. I don't remember the first two seasons being this on the nose. Maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Better Call Saul is the antidote to the moral simplicity of Breaking Bad. Saul is placed in lots of moral quandaries, but instead of being another shallow anti-hero, he tries to navigate this space between bending the rules to make ends meet and occasionally do the right thing even when it sucks. James McGill comes across as a human being who is a mix of conflicting tendencies and internal struggles that are complex and intriguing. The show uses that to drive the drama instead of simply throwing situations out that so we can see the anti-hero do bad things and become progressively more evil. It stinks that we know where this is going, the perpetual problem with prequel, which makes me a lot less motivated to watch future seasons as I could not care less how this ties into Breaking Bad.

I also watched the first 4 episodes of Twin Peaks revival but I already talked about those and--the next four I've watched so far this year, over in the Twin Peaks thread.

oldkid

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1587 on: January 20, 2018, 08:47:56 PM »
I never cared for the character of Saul in Breaking Bad, so I never bothered with the new show.  Sounds like you're saying I should bother?
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jdc

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1588 on: January 20, 2018, 08:55:14 PM »
I think the show is worthy of you to try out. My wife prefers it to Breaking Bad, I like it but still prefer BB
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george96

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Re: General/Random Discussion and Thoughts (TV & Sports)
« Reply #1589 on: January 22, 2018, 05:53:33 PM »
Kimmy Schmidt already feels like it's overstayed its welcome with a standout episode being the Lemonade spoof. As the show goes on, the little nuggets of morality in each episode feel more and more trite and forced. I feel so talked down to as if the writers aren't sure I understand how these situations are forcing the characters to grow. I don't remember the first two seasons being this on the nose. Maybe I wasn't paying attention.

I started feeling that in season 2, and I couldn't stay engaged enough to watch the entire show after that. That being said, the writers clearly know how to occasionally produce emotionally complex TV (with the Titus plot in the Lemonade episode definitely feeling like a series high-point). It also struck me watching a few episodes of season 3 recently that it feels forced when the show tries to remind the audience and the characters of the show's original "mole women" premise (like the divorce plot at the beginning of the season).