TV you've just watched

[Mischief Maker]

Just finished my binge of Stranger Things 2.

I liked it. Kinda suffered from post-Laura Palmer syndrome in the middle, but I was satisfied by the end.

However the only thing I really find myself wanting to talk about is the one part I HATED in this second season:

Spoiler

All the nerdy wish-fulfillment romance subplots. Credit to Winona Ryder, she was able on her end to sell that she was head over heels in love with Sean Astin, but doughy "Bob" didn't give any energy back. And his dialog was pretty much nothing but saying he was a nerd dating way above his league. I kind of wonder if someone late in production realized Astin wasn't equal to the task so they lampshaded it by having a few characters in the beginning asking each other, "Why him?"

But that is NOTHING compared to the forced romance between the sister and the creepy photographer. One of the things I liked about season 1 was that despite all the teasing, she went back with popular guy after showing zero chemistry with the photographer all season. If anything she has even LESS chemistry with him in season 2. And since the writers have already proven with Bob that they can't write steamy dialog how do they get these two together? By creating Sherlock Bathrobe, a completely out of left field character with the power of reading the script who basically says, "I command by Plot Fiat that you two fuck immediately!" And the worst part is, he tries to sell it by saying popular guy is boring and safe when in fact he's the only interesting teenage character in either season with an actual character arc.

But I enjoyed the rest. After the massive disappointment of Knights of Sidonia it was a relief to watch a story where every Chekhov's gun is fired by the end.

[Xyga]

Done with Stranger Things 2 as well and ... I didn't like it.

Weaker plot and less imaginative than 1, it almost entirely loses its fantastic and creepy qualities with the upside down being like anyone goes in and out and there's pumpkin apocalypse and doggos, lots of irritating and completely useless character stories, even the 80's vibe fails with a random display of clumsy clichés. It doesn't start too bad but grows weaker and weaker, the Chicago episode arrives at the wrong time completely breaking the pace and tension that should be in the process of building up.
Seriously they had that huge fucking scary monster and they decide to do practically nothing with it the entire season, exorcist rip off for the badly acting posessed kid and that's it? Eleven also does practically nothing exciting until the end and that anti-climatic close the door thing, another failure at making a great scene.

I gave season 1 a 7/10 although it probably deserved a 8/10 (the boys and Wynona overplaying every scene was kinda shit).
But season 2 barely deserves a 5/10. Seriously it was bad.

[Some-Mist]

new nathan for you has been killer. still one of the funniest shows on TV.
especially episode 4-0 which was a nice follow up with the past business owners/customers.
it's also kind of crazy how much publicity nathan is getting now on different talk shows. it's like the show is just catching on in it's 4th season

I've also been watching the new curb which has been okay, and the new stranger things which I've been making slow progress through in between gaming sessions after work.

[BIL]

Stranger Things season 2. Found it much the same as the first season, tbh - enjoyed, and binged with gusto, but nothing I'd rave over. Much the same well-played, smoothly executed but inescapably bloodless PG-13 Eighties horror throwback. Fun, emotive junior high spooky adventure - just don't expect it to leave any marks.

I had to roll my eyes at

Spoiler

Bob's comically hideous fate. I get that he's this season's Barb, ie the named peripheral goody who dies horribly to give motivation... but did they have to slather on the obligatory Horror Movie Retardation quite so thick? Pausing mere feet from safety for a leisurely foyer reunion with A FUCKING BUILDING-FULL OF MURDEROUS ALIENS RIGHT BEHIND THAT FLIMSY DOOR was seriously on par with Brad Pitt's sublime "run out door? or go upstairs?" moment in Burn After Reading. Except this was supposed to be tragic, not blackly hilarious. OH NOES THEY TEARING HIM TO PIECES yeah okay, don't worry, nobody else is gonna buy the farm.

AND THEY MADE HIM FORGET HIS GUN SO HE'D HAVE NO WAY OF DEFENDING HIMSELF ON THE GROUND That is a sadistic bout of HMR the writers hit poor Bob with.

Not to complain too much - in said Poltergeist context, it's totally par for the course. Just stuck out a bit in an otherwise competent show.

[GaijinPunch]

Stranger Thing 2. Will probably side with BIL on this one. Worth watching... some things done well... some not so well. Season 1 was better for sure.

Mindhunter: Reason enough to keep Netflix for a while. I was debating cancelling for a bit due to a lull in their programming, but this, Ozark, and a couple others have shown me they have hope just yet. Will finish the finale on my plane ride this evening.

[emphatic]

Anyone watching The Orville? I feel it's like a modern take on Star Trek TOS with Zucker, Zucker Abrahams gags with some live action Futurama characters.

[neorichieb1971]

Stranger things s2.

I liked it. I agree the romances don't work well and the Chicago episode seemed like a waste of time besides the anger management course. It irritated me the cop kept saying "stay back" to eleven, even though he should be hiding behind her. As with all these shows though, there needs to be a lot of filler and it does this by means of rinse and repeat episodes and people hanging about. Maxines step brothers character isn't well explained. I lived in America for 6 years and never EVER saw anyone drive like Maxines brother. I don't know why these shows need to show a car accelerating all the way to 55mph in record time.

[GaijinPunch]

I lived in America for 6 years and never EVER saw anyone drive like Maxines brother. I don't know why these shows need to show a car accelerating all the way to 55mph in record time.

Every high school in America in the 80's had at least one guy like him.

[Mischief Maker]

Netflix Voltron Season 3 and 4

Frustrating! I thought in Season 3 the show was finally hitting its stride. Allura stopped being an impossibly perfect mary sue pulling brand new superpowers out of her ass every other scene, and started showing character flaws and depth. Boring Shiro was replaced as leader by Keith, the only Voltron pilot who shows any initiative. Lance was still a comic relief waste of space but at least he stopped being a liability to the team. Lotor was a really interesting new adversary following his own hidden plans to build an evil Voltron of his own, complete with a motley crew of half-galra pilots to join him. Things were really looking up...

...then season 4 happened. Is there some sort of backstabbing rivalry going on among that show's writing staff? Season 4 seemed devoted to nothing but nullifying season 3. Allura's back to saving the day with mary sue deus ex machina. Keith straight up abandons the team and boring Shiro is back as leader. Zarkon's back in command like nothing happened. And Lotor's mysterious plan we've been building up to all season 3? It fucking goes fizzle, then he murders/is betrayed by his own team, and it all ends on a deeply unsatisfying note. At least they kept Lance's mouth shut most of the season.

Is it too much to ask that you actually fire all the Chekhov's guns your story sets up? That's one thing Stranger Things season 2 got right.

[BIL]

It irritated me the cop kept saying "stay back" to eleven, even though he should be hiding behind her.

Totally fit his character of the noble hardcase, though. Fatherly and selfless, to a fault. It was also transparently counterproductive if not outright dangerous to provoke a screaming match with Telekinesis Kid, but from his perspective it'd surely be a dereliction of duty not to put his foot down like he would with any other kid.

Hopper/David Harbour was consistently my favourite player in both seasons. I was surprised to learn he was the slimy, bushy-stached CIA dude in Quantum of Solace. Though unfortunately Hopper got hit with a touch of Bob's aforementioned H.M.R. in that tunnel sequence. Call for backup chief, or holy fuck, at least send a postcard telling someone where you're headed! Oh well, the writers needed to set up "Xmas Lights Riddle II: The Sequel" so okay I guess.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Star Trek Discovery:

Tilly's F-Bomb in episode 5 or something confirmed Discovery as the trashy, HBO incarnation of Star Trek. I had a bet on how long before we saw some tits:

Spoiler

Episode 9: it was the klingon's.

[GaijinPunch]

Not a trekky, but realizing we're never getting something the caliber of Battle Star Galactica again, I was hoping Discovery would be worth watching. From what I'm reading, it's not.

[kitten]

Netflix Voltron Season 3 and 4

Frustrating! I thought in Season 3 the show was finally hitting its stride.

...then season 4 happened.

this is how i felt about legend of korra, which i believe shared a lot of the same staff. season 3 felt like the only good one.

the last airbender is like my favorite thing on earth and i was so stung by how lousy korra was that i've been unable to find the energy to try voltron out

[Skykid]

Stranger Things 2

General consensus in the room was that it wasn't as engaging as Season One, yet incredibly well made. It turned the 80sness right up (not quite to 11, if you'll excuse the pun, but pretty high nonetheless) and had tons of feels based around the era. I adored the arcade of course, just a shame a couple of the cabs (including Dig Dug) appeared to have LCD screens.

It seems that Stranger Things used up a lot of its novelty points in season one, meaning swearing kids, teen angst, love triangles and monsters from another dimension all felt like retreads here. It wasn't super obvious as this is a direct continuation of the plot and therefore acceptable, but a lot of it did smack of themes and material already covered.

Despite that it's still highly recommended if you liked S1, and it's brilliantly photographed and edited for the most. There's one redundant episode that I actually quite liked (where other people didn't) which acted as a break/diversion/filler that pushes the run to 9 episodes, and it all has a bit of a Return of the Kings ending; but generally speaking the quality is high throughout.

[GaijinPunch]

Tin Star

Not bad. Definitely some poorly thought out / cheesy bits, but it was a good watch on the treadmill. Quite intense at times. Tim Roth was relentless. Definitely built more on Pumpkin than his character from Twin Peaks The Return.

[BrianC]

Tim Roth was relentless. Definitely built more on Pumpkin than his character from Twin Peaks The Return.

You're lying!

[GaijinPunch]

Trapped
Icelandic mystery series on Amazon Prime. Not bad.

Man in the High Castle (about half of the first episode)
Garbage

[Xyga]

Dark (netflix 2017)

German clone of Stranger Things ? Let's say quite inspired by it, at least during the first half, then the plot and tone get significantly more complex and dramatic than ST.

It's good but with issues, at times it is frankly clumsy (the sci-fi elements in particular are presented in a naive manner contrasting with the general seriousness), and it's got more characters with subplots intertwined into the main to follow, the script will really lose you if you don't focus (binge it or take notes lol)

Spoiler

warning: if you dislike convoluted time travel stories; avoid

Don't expect much action nor entertaining visuals, they're not missing though.

[dan76]

I was watching some crap and a trailer for a new series of The League of Gentlemen came on. Had no idea they were doing more episodes, must be 10 years since the last series. Can't wait.

I'm 3 episodes in to Stranger Things and I think I'm going to stop. It's just nostalgia wank. It's doing that thing of having a character that knows a load of stuff but won't say anything. It's incredibly frustrating to watch. Cheap writing. Plus, episode 3 ended on a montage with an awful cover of Bowie's "Heroes". Why do so many tv shows waste the last 5 minutes of an episode with an "emotional" song and a camera checking in on everyone. It's garbage. Can you imagine if they did this shit in Dallas?

[Mischief Maker]

Maybe this is me writing my own ideas into the show, but what I hated about the Chicago scenes was the fact that Eleven's sister seemed to be just fine physically, despite the fact that using their powers causes nosebleeds. It seemed a fair conceit to me that overuse of powers would lead to some sort of brain hemorrhage, and that's probably how Eleven was going to die in the original plan for a stand-alone first season. Now her sister's telling her to pull a train car like it's nothing and she's bleeding all over the place and no problem.

[GaijinPunch]

Ditto

[emphatic]

I had a cold and while at home, I watched Liar. I do not recommend it at all.

[neorichieb1971]

Man in the High Castle (about half of the first episode)
Garbage

Acquired taste. Personally I found the universe engaging. But it is a slow burner.



I need to catch up on Walking dead. The last I saw there were some shoot outs that lasted 20 minutes and all glass remained intact.

[BryanM]

Gave that Future Man series a try. It's more than a little cynical and condescending.

It's highly amusing seeing violent amoral video game characters run amok "in the real world", but the novelty wears off fast.

[GaijinPunch]

Man in the High Castle (about half of the first episode)
Garbage

Acquired taste. Personally I found the universe engaging. But it is a slow burner.

My initial fears were true: Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have invaded the US, and were nice enough to learn English to communicate with them. :?Ridiculous... A few characters seemed okay but a too many were god fucking awful... like I have no idea how they got cast. There's no coming back from that, so I cut my losses.

[lilmanjs]

Airwolf
In the middle of season 3 which has had a couple of bad episodes, but I've never seen the show, so I can only hope that the final season isn't as horrible of a drop in quality as people have told me. Still that theme song is too catchy.

[neorichieb1971]

My friend recommended Shannara Chronicles S2 even though I thought S1 was a bit predictable. If you haven't seen or heard of it, there is a magical tree and it has been cursed by evil. The magical trees leaves are a sign of peace and tranquility. As the cursed tree starts to lose its leaves it is said that each leaf turns into a demon which becomes an army from another dimension or something.

Then you have this group of good guys consisting of a Magician, gnomes, humans, elves and god knows what else trying to stop this army of demons from resurrecting. The shows only saving grace is that the women are really pretty. The story lines usually go along the lines of "we need this one item, we don't know where it is, lets rush to get it before anyone else does". Along with that you get a lot back stabbing. Strangely the acting is quite family orientated, but the action is quite heavy and gruesome. Its not uncommon to see heads roll or blood and guts. I'd say its a mix of Buffy the vampire slayer and Spartacus.


After Shannara I'm going to watch the Punisher.

I'm also watching the Walking dead. God that show has dived. The mid season break episode has 3 minutes of sad face close ups with background music. Earlier eps had timeline swaps that did more to get in the way of the story than add anything to it. There were shoot outs that went on for 20 minutes where all glass is presumably bullet proof. Everyone in the war is destroying all the good homes that are left, Neagans ability to control so many people with an evil bat seems very unlikely. I'm so glad I never invested into the blu rays for the walking dead as I would have not bought this season. If they continue next season they really need to work on great story lines.

[S_Fang]

I'm watching Mindhunter alongside my family.
A TV show based on the book of the same name made by Olshaker and Douglas, about a couple of FBI agents resolving cases by learning how a killer's mind works through interviewing some of those in prisons. As a person who studied psychology in high school and did a couple of classes about personality disorders at university, it got my interest pretty well despite the fact that is setted in the 70s and 80s (two decades that I don't care if not for the music and a couple of movies) and the often simple comparisons between a culprit and the serial killers' minds (I know is for not bore the viewers, but its already done by many shows, please add some uncertainty).
At last, the main couple's dialogue are getting lamer, like if there's a slow replacement from a crime drama writer to a romcom one behind the scenes, but I hope the second half doesn't confirm this fear of mine, but unfortunately this isn't new to my experience so I'll prepare myself.

[GaijinPunch]

I'm watching Mindhunter alongside my family..

Best thing Netflix has put out by a fairly huge margin.

[lilmanjs]

I'm watching Mindhunter alongside my family..

Best thing Netflix has put out by a fairly huge margin.

I need to see that, but the problem being is, my mother watched episode 1 and hated the hell out of it, despite liking stuff like that.