TV you've just watched

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GaijinPunch
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

SuperPang wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:I had to pause a few times.
That Alexandra Daddario scene amarite fellas?
Bless her heart. I actually watched it the first time around w/ my girlfriend at the time. Both of them verbally announced that her tits were huge. And they were right.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by Mischief Maker »

Narcos Mexico (Netflix)

The shark has been jumped.

I still think the first season of Narcos was some of the best TV put out by Netflix, owing to the insanity of Pablo Escobar's true story. Season 3 was pretty weak because in real life the Cali cartel for the most part kept their heads down, (compared to Escobar) and they put in a bunch of filler subplots that all went nowhere to no lasting effect, but the leads were still convincing actors. But Narcos Mexico is not only bad, it spoils the earlier seasons in retrospect by laying the weaknesses of the series in clear relief.

The number one thing that sinks Narcos Mexico is Michael Peña horribly miscast as the DEA agent lead. Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal could convincingly come across as driven badasses who could stare down murderous cartel psychos. Michael Peña is a doughy goofball best suited for romantic comedies and/or being the comic relief. I do not buy him as a driven ex-marine cop-on-the-edge, and every scene he's in took me completely out of the story.

What's worse, his acting made it clear just how many cobweb-choked cop movie cliches the series has been running with all this time. I remember reading in an article that the real-life wife of Agent Steve Murphy was upset they...
Spoiler
...made her give her husband the whole "you have to choose between your job and your family!" speech then return to the US without him. The real life Connie Murphy said she would have never abandoned her husband like that.
Well get ready for that cliche in Narcos Mexico, delivered multiple times by multiple naggy wives. Get ready for Michael Peña in his soft, high-pitched voice to curse out his DEA partners for letting the rules get in the way of busting those cartel scum. Get ready for the "I purposely allowed myself to be captured in order to carry out a convoluted scheme reliant on too many variables to give me any reasonable chance of surviving" scene. And many, many other cop movie cliches that slid by without notice by thanks to the earlier seasons' stronger casts.

Not everyone in this show does a bad job, Diego Luna is great as the cartel boss you start out rooting for, but by the end hate worse than any villain in the series so far.

But the other huge weakness of the show is something no about of good acting can overcome. This show goes beyond The Hobbit trilogy levels of stretching out too little story over too many episodes. In addition to all the cop show cliches you get "stir the sauce" cocaine freakout scene set to some iconic 80s song like "Karma Chameleon" one after another after another. And then to add insult to injury, they end the story at the halfway mark so they can stretch it out over at least one more season.

Bleh! Biggest Netflix disappointment since Stranger Things season 2.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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garrz32
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by garrz32 »

Mischief Maker wrote:Narcos Mexico (Netflix)

The shark has been jumped.

I still think the first season of Narcos was some of the best TV put out by Netflix, owing to the insanity of Pablo Escobar's true story. Season 3 was pretty weak because in real life the Cali cartel for the most part kept their heads down, (compared to Escobar) and they put in a bunch of filler subplots that all went nowhere to no lasting effect, but the leads were still convincing actors. But Narcos Mexico is not only bad, it spoils the earlier seasons in retrospect by laying the weaknesses of the series in clear relief.

The number one thing that sinks Narcos Mexico is Michael Peña horribly miscast as the DEA agent lead. Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal could convincingly come across as driven badasses who could stare down murderous cartel psychos. Michael Peña is a doughy goofball best suited for romantic comedies and/or being the comic relief. I do not buy him as a driven ex-marine cop-on-the-edge, and every scene he's in took me completely out of the story.

I loved Narcos Season 1 & 2 , I believe many South Americans were put off with Wagner Moura's Brazilian accent, made no difference to me as am no wiser what he should sound like.

Am looking forward to watching Narcos Mexico and I'll keep an open mind but I've a funny feeling after reading your comment it's going to suck :/
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rapoon
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by rapoon »

Mischief Maker wrote:Narcos Mexico (Netflix)
Finished this tonight. Couldn't agree more on Peña. I thought he'd grow on me the way Boyd Holbrook as the douchebag Steve Murphy did but nah, he's terrible. Peñas performance isn't too dissimilar to his role in 'End of Watch', you can't take him seriously. Something I thoroughly enjoyed about the first 3 seasons (the first two particularly) was the injection of historical footage; that's all but absent now (it's there but the clips are few and far between). Diego Luna and Joaquín Cosio portrayals of Felix Angel, Don Neto were fantastic.
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by garrz32 »

One conclusion I came to on Narcos Mexico is Mexicans can't shoot for shit :D

The shoot out when they raided the pot plantation in the desert was hysterical, the A-team killed more people. :lol: :lol:
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by lilmanjs »

garrz32 wrote:One conclusion I came to on Narcos Mexico is Mexicans can't shoot for shit :D

The shoot out when they raided the pot plantation in the desert was hysterical, the A-team killed more people. :lol: :lol:
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Star Trek TNG.

Never watched it growing up. Surprised at how much I'm enjoying it.

Season the of F is for Family. Continues to bring me back to when you didn't need to wear your seat belt, and chances are your parents didn't know where the fuck you were. Also no smartphones, cause fuck those things.

Somehow we all survived to adulthood.

Started Happy. What if Detective Stabler from SVU went off the deep end? First two episodes were good, third one had a stupid ending, not going to throw the towel in just yet though.
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GaijinPunch
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Interesting to hear that it's not aged too much. Never watched any Star Trek other than a few of the movies. I've always toyed w/ giving this one it's day in court.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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GaijinPunch wrote:Interesting to hear that it's not aged too much. Never watched any Star Trek other than a few of the movies. I've always toyed w/ giving this one it's day in court.
Star Trek: TNG is really rough the first season save for the horror episode, but the rest of the series has mostly aged well. Been watching more Detective Montalbano lately. He got himself shot in the last episode I watched. Still a well done series based off a series of books.
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by Necronopticous »

SuperPang wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:I had to pause a few times.
That Alexandra Daddario scene amarite fellas?
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BrianC
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Re: TV you've just watched

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lilmanjs wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:Interesting to hear that it's not aged too much. Never watched any Star Trek other than a few of the movies. I've always toyed w/ giving this one it's day in court.
Star Trek: TNG is really rough the first season save for the horror episode, but the rest of the series has mostly aged well.
Not so sure about a good chunk of season 2 when Beverly Crusher was temporarily replaced with a lady that tries too hard to be a female Dr. McCoy.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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"Q Who" in season 2 is the episode that's the turning point for TNG. Specifically the one that slaps the smug off all their faces.

But I'd suggest starting with the first two seasons of the original series. The original series is kind of like The Twilight Zone with fixed protagonists, with episodes written by many of "the greats" of 20th century sci fi like Harlan Ellison or Richard Matheson. Redlettermedia recently described Trek as a horror series, and while that was meant tongue-in-cheek, that kind of is the tone of the original series. I love TNG, but the Enterprise D felt comfy like a luxury hotel and the galaxy felt much smaller. TOS in its better episodes really had that feeling of a tiny bird-shaped ship on its own in the darkness of deep space.

And you'll find most of the cliches about TOS are just plain false. Except for dudes in redshirts dropping like flies, that one's true.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: TV you've just watched

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TOS is good stuff. Not only does it have some awesome serious episodes, it even pulls up straight up comedy well. It even has a spy themed episode with Teri Garr and a mysterious "cat".

I find it interesting that Harlan Ellison was a recurring character in Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Re: TV you've just watched

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Mischief Maker wrote: But I'd suggest starting with the first two seasons of the original series. The original series is kind of like The Twilight Zone with fixed protagonists,
Which I do watch from time to time. Question -- is Season 3 of TOS considered inferior?
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Season 3 is generally considered inferior, but it still has a few episodes worth watching. Actually, even Spock's Brain is worth watching just to see how insanely messed up it is.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Gotham Season 1: Solid & dark, anyone who loves Batman will have watched Gotham or should it be on their list.Strong cast with some great actors.
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Post by Stevens »

Still making our way through TNG, but did watch the season two opener of The Orville, and the entire 1st season of Happy!.

Glad I watched the whole season. Never again reaches the stupid levels of the 3rd episodes end. It stays logical despite being completely off the wall.

It gets pretty depraved too.
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GaijinPunch
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Sharp Objects on HBO

Pretty good. Definitely not the woman feel good show like Big Little Lies. Patricia Clarkson is great. EDIT: I should add that the eclectic soundtrack is excellently assembled.
Last edited by GaijinPunch on Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Finally finished the Netflix Voltron reboot.

The big multi-episode finale to Season 7 is Voltron at its very best. And the entirety of Season 8 is Voltron at its very worst.

Netflix Voltron was definitely better than Netflix Castlevania, but it's still a very mixed bag.

The actual world they created for the show is nifty and the art behind these fantastic planets is inspired. The villains are much more complex and interesting than their counterparts on the original show, especially Prince Lotor. And the creators were careful with the Robeasts to make them an actual threat.

Unfortunately the heroes of the story range from completely bland and uninteresting (Shiro) to such a douchebag I was begging for his death (Lance). Keith was the only one on the show who acted like an actual hero I could root for at the start, but partway through the show he does something shockingly stupid that really should have been unforgivable, and the only reason I can think of why the writers made him do that was to squeeze an extra season or two out of the show by disrupting the narrative trajectory.

Hats off to Dreamworks for the exciting battle scenes.

If you do watch it, I'd recommend stopping at the end of season 7. The resolution to the last-minute cliffhanger is a massive disappointment, along with everything else in Season 8. The worst of which is:
Spoiler
The Princess hooks up with Lance the douchebag. *barf*
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: TV you've just watched

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First two episodes of True Detective season 3. Some critics are saying it's slow, but having just plowed through Season 1, my second viewing, with a millenial who lives on Instagram (like most of them), I can assure you season 1 started out pretty slow as well. I dig it.
Last edited by GaijinPunch on Tue Jan 15, 2019 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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GaijinPunch wrote:First two episodes of True Detective season 3. I dig it. Some critics are saying it's slow, but having just plowed through Season 1, my second viewing, with a millenial who lives on Instagram (like most of them), I can assure you season 1 started out pretty slow as well. I dig it.
Re-watching episode 2 now as I was too tired last night.
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Yeah the wife & I watched the first two episodes of True Detective S3 last night. We went in pretty skeptical after S2, but we are fully on board so far. We had heard some criticism that this was basically just a carbon copy of S1, but we didn't really feel that way with the exception of a few specific scenes--different vibe for sure. Looking forward to the rest of the season and praying it doesn't take a nosedive after Jeremy Saulnier's departure.
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by GaijinPunch »

Necronopticous wrote:We had heard some criticism that this was basically just a carbon copy of S1
I can see this, but to me it seems like a similar scoring mechanic but different implementation. The protagonists thus far aren't quite as "damaged" as all the others have been so far. In fact for 1980 Arkansas they seem to have their shit together.
praying it doesn't take a nosedive after Jeremy Saulnier's departure.
Yeah, this is a worry. The writing thus far is way better than Season 2. If that holds, even a dip in the direction quality may not be unbearable.

Side question on Saulnier: I have not heard anything great about Hold the Dark. Anyone got any intel on that?
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Hold the Dark was a huge disappointment for us. The potential was there, but it ultimately ended up feeling like a big waste of time in the end.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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Have been watching Royal Pains on netflix. Almost through season 3. I wonder why I never watched this when it was on. Same network as Psych even!
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by null1024 »

Buddy of mine decided to put on the original 1971 Kamen Rider, so I sat down and got to watch the first two episodes with him.
Really fun. There's some really stylish cinematography here, especially when someone dies. Seemed really brutal at times too, with Kamen Rider throwing goons off a building in the dark and you just see the blood splatter away from their body, or someone getting dissolved by venom and you see the lighting turn weird and blue and you see this melting fade with bubbles being slurped out.
The episode plots were pretty neat too.

Was going to keep going, but I had to head home for the night.
kinda goofy how the first two opponents are "Bat Man" and "Spider Man" lol
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by WelshMegalodon »

^I'm inclined to say the writers knew exactly what they were doing with that, haha.

Just wanted to add that the original Himitsu Sentai Gorenger is also a lot of fun. Personally I enjoyed it more than OG Kamen Rider, but you can't go wrong with either. Blue Cherry !!

For Rider, episodes six and seven would have to be my favorite of the original Ichigo episodes.
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Re: TV you've just watched

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How's Deadwood ?

I like shows loosely based on historical periods with high production value, but if at some point the story becomes too far-fetched or falls into lenghty soapy drama it tends to disappoint.
Some critics mention unsufferable characters, not sure what they mean because I didn't want to read too much and spoil it of course.
(is it maybe like; I enjoyed Rome but really a good half runs mostly on cliché characters tragedies you'd copy paste from any soap, and Atia takes up too much room, she's annoying)

Never watched Deadwood then because they say it's been cancelled too soon, frustrating the audiences. Though apparently the '10 years later' epilogue-conclusion movie just started filming so I thought it might be worth the binge now...
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Stevens
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Re: TV you've just watched

Post by Stevens »

Can't say from first hand experience just yet, but a friend was selling me on it yesterday.
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