TV you've just watched

[GaijinPunch]

Arrived at True Detective Season 2, Ep1. Aware that the peepholes dismissed this somehow after the "brilliant" Season1. As long as it isn't a re-hash of the former, including the flaws, I remain open. Produce own flaws, please. Messed-up and true human beings right there, the horror. The Drunk, The Frigid, and the Impotent. Aah, the Golden Ages are supposedly over, them say. Right over there!

I've been gone. Were you unmoved by Season 1? Actually, I think we did have this convo somewhere.

[NYN]

No, we had the talk. I cried "Disney!!" at the ending, and you reminded me of the sum of parts. I don't want to put holes in happinesses, though when I have to read superlatives like "masterpiece" and "best ever" on stuff I liked well enough, though find it hyperbole I'll ask how so? As I am very late to shows, some answers are perhaps not longer available. This memory-link is dead through binging other stuff. We are sorry...

Speaking of: Do you remember S2, and what is that?

[GaijinPunch]

No, we had the talk. I cried "Disney!!" at the ending, and you reminded me of the sum of parts. I don't want to put holes in happinesses, though when I have to read superlatives like "masterpiece" and "best ever" on stuff I liked well enough, though find it hyperbole I'll ask how so? As I am very late to shows, some answers are perhaps not longer available. This memory-link is dead through binging other stuff. We are sorry...

Haha -- fair enough! The ending is definitely not everyone's cup of tea. Even with it the journey, to me, is what would earn it the praise. It is a long, dark tunnel and I thoroughly enjoy it. I think I've watched it three times, and still sure I've not gotten everything.

Speaking of: Do you remember S2, and what is that?

Went through it once, and given some time (I have none now) maybe I'll give it its day in court. Max doesn't work on my fucking device right now. :-/ I didn't hate it or anything, and while I liked to three main characters, none of them grabbed me as hard as either in Season 1.

[Necronopticous]

Just finished the latest Gemstones season. Great shit.

[emphatic]

The Peripheral on Amazon was pretty damn good.

[BIL]

Breaking Baki "C'MON! YESSS! C'MON!" "You're not gonna stick me with that broken piece of plate, are ya?!"

[NYN]

Cleared True Detective Season 2. This time I found the end to be satisfying. While I can think of 2 or 3 times where others might roll their eyes, I was happy with all the misery. The stark theme of how women are treated in "civilisation" grabbed me, found it subtle enough to not be trite. The HBO seal of quality of production all around. To my mind strong episodes on their own, and who in a right mind would compare? Huh?

[neorichieb1971]

The Peripheral on Amazon was pretty damn good.

Agreed. Problem with 25 million TV shows is that by the time S2 comes out you forgot all about S1.

[GaijinPunch]

Agreed. Problem with 25 million TV shows is that by the time S2 comes out you forgot all about S1.

Well, you won't have that problem w/ The Peripheral.

[emphatic]

Well, you won't have that problem w/ The Peripheral.

This.

[NYN]

I just saw pic pieces of One Piece, the Netflix production...

That should be enough, but no: this looks brutal. The uncanny fanny dream. To attempt to make the unreal real, Netflix HQ should be under siege. Yes, I saw footage of Cowboy Bebop then, and I shrugged. This Piece is a new plateau. Shocking.

[XoPachi]

Just finished Castlevania. It was really good! The drama is incredibly thick this time around and maybe because I'm not terribly familiar with Richter's stories, but the alliances are unexpected and varied.

And Sehkmet is a menace.

[Lander]

Ever late to the game, I started watching The Wire last night. And kept watching for a solid 7 hours, deep into the early morning.

What is there to say, at this point? It's captivating. Brilliant character work on both sides of the thin blue line, carefully-paced events that interlink and drive the story forward on multiple fronts, and good laughs to go with the hard drama. Fuck.

One of those rare pieces where the first watch is really something special, to be savoured

[vol.2]

Ever late to the game, I started watching The Wire last night. And kept watching for a solid 7 hours, deep into the early morning.

I got pretty into the first 2-3 seasons and then I kind of got bored. Also, as someone who lives in Baltimore, it's kind of triggering (no pun intended) but also can be fun to see locations I know.

Tbh, watching all this shit go down in real time on the news and through Brandon Soderberg's "I Got a Monster," was way more intense than the show could ever be

[NYN]

Tbh, watching all this shit go down in real time on the news and through Brandon Soderberg's "I Got a Monster," was way more intense than the show could ever be

By putting a show next to real life events (and letting it fail), it receives all the credit it will need to further pass around.
Not ANY nominations or gilded dildos for shelfs (which it didn't for all the 5 years of it).

Watching original DuckTales after I don't-know-how-long. Slide risk to discover that it was always worse, though I have only about 2 recollections to actual episodes. It's all Boys-Club-Adventure, with nay a female character that is above worrying or nagging. Other than that it's still fun. Animation is all right, which was my concern that it's rather ugly to watch. Having only the eps released on DVD, we now hit the Bubba Duck-centered episodes beak-on. I find him boring and obstructive, yet the gal accepts him for being a kind child who just wants the love of McDuck. That such saps get injected in later years of toon shows to much annoyance of audiences makes it almost lyrical. Fenton aka Gizmo is much more funny, basically a Daffy Duck varient. The Robocop parody would have gone right pass me as a tyke. His Ma is a riot, so hard in charm. I find the villains vastly more entertaining with their antics: Flinty ("If ye can't beat them, cheat them!"), Magica, and the clown-like Beagle Boys. More to see, though I am sure now that I will never watch the reboot.

[neorichieb1971]

I've watched the following in recent times -

Hijack - Like it says on the tin. Its ok.

Silo - Pretty good, a bit dissapointed in the end because it unveils secrets to the main character that you knew all along, but doesn't unveil any of the secrets that you don't know. Well mostly.

Foundation - I liked it, 2 seasons so far. Big budget sci fi.. I think 160 years passes in the first 2 seasons or so. Manages this with clones and a bit of time travel malarkey. One thing that bugged me was that when a character dies they respawn another clone with the same actor/actress or play swapsy tricks as you can mimmick another person in this show. It kind of makes deaths seem a bit pointless. But if you like big sci fi budget type shows you'll probably like this.

Wheel of time - The subject matter is my cup of tea. If you like Harry Potter/Lord of the rings type stuff. Lots of story arcs that can get a bit confusing mostly on their geographic locations (how far apart they are, if they can help etc). Lots of magic, teleporting, witches and stuff like that. All to defeat a type of Thanos character. This one is still running on S2 ep8 or so at the moment.

First 3 are on Apple, last one on Amazon.

[BryanM]

Watched Eyepatch Wolf's essay on "the Simpsons are good again". It confirmed my conclusion that Al Jean was 10,000% the problem. (I've listened to the man speak on commentaries - his philosophy on writing is bad.) Some of the episodes are now apparently written by someone who gives a shit about something, as opposed to just being a pile of mindless zany slapstick put together by markov chains.

I kind of want to watch the Treehouse episode he mentioned, it certainly sounds good.

[RGC]

One of those rare pieces where the first watch is really something special, to be savoured

'kin hell. If a 7+ hour stint is savouring, what's a binge...multiple TVs?? Nah, that first time is special indeed. Think I'm due a rewatch. Paying a small fortune each month for NowTV's service (with its god awful UI), so I really should make more use of it (all seasons are on there).

[Lander]

Finished up the first two seasons of The Wire. Strong going so far - I do love it when a show respects its audience's ability to infer.
Respectable restraint as well - there's a particular long-shot of someone talking on a payphone that sticks in mind, with their voice rendered in telephone filter. Cracking bit of cinematography, and it lasts all of two seconds, because two seconds is enough.
And if an episode stings at the end, it's to make you think, not to bump next week's ratings! Great stuff.

I'm enjoying the whole cast, but Lester is top cop as far as I'm concerned. Daniels takes it for pure acting, particularly when given the space to lay down a good speech or two, but Freamon's old hat wisdom is all smiles.
On the other side of the line, Omar is tight

Spoiler

Him taking the stand to testify against Bird was hilarious love how he started off as a bad motherfucker, and has been gradually characterized into a relatively cultured, funny dude despite the amoral rip-and-run lifestyle.
Can't help but feel like he's going to catch a bullet at some point though; live fast, die hard.

Bubbles too, to a lesser extent. Perhaps kill-happy modern shows have ruined me, but being the lovable can't help he self junkie is going to put him in the firing line one of these days

'kin hell. If a 7+ hour stint is savouring, what's a binge...multiple TVs?? Nah, that first time is special indeed. Think I'm due a rewatch. Paying a small fortune each month for NowTV's service (with its god awful UI), so I really should make more use of it (all seasons are on there).

Guilty as charged, your honour principle and impulse control are clashing, and the latter is losing.

I guess it's partly down to that not-so-recent-anymore rewatch of Battlestar '04; seeing that slowly crash itself into the ground over too many seasons put me on a real downer for the flaws of modern telly, so genuinely good stuff gets devoured immediately.
Funny to think that it premiered only a year after The Wire - the latter is so well-textured it feels as if it's from a different era.

[BryanM]

Treehouse of Horror 32: It's Zombie Simpsons. Literally seconds after watching the thing, I couldn't remember anything that happened. Except that there was skit in the middle about trees coming to life and running a muck that I did not like.

And I remembered that much only because it got me excited, thinking they were going to do another Nightmare on Elm Street parody. Which is something I remember without having to go back and skim it: "It all started on the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month... the PSA was meeting about the school's misprinted calenders!" "Brr..... lousy Smarch weather... 'Do Not Touch - Willie', good advice!" Willie cleaning up his ashes after Homer murdered him by turning up the thermostat. "You've mastered a dead tongue lad, but can you master a live one?" Principal Skinner not wanting the kids to see Martin's body, but the sheet comes off the cart and they start screaming at his twisted, agonized form.

Not It: Actually caused the neurons in my brain to form memories. It had a moment or two. Not funny moments, but creepy/visual moments.

Treehouse of Horror 33: The Babadook skit was weak, but the creepy book stuff at the start was nice. The Death Note skit had some really nice visuals on the book's kills, and had my favorite joke out of these episodes. (By Marge!) And I legitimately enjoyed the West World skit, almost all of it. (I could watch an entire season's worth of it.) It kind of reminds of fanworks like Bartkira, a little bit, where they try to expand beyond the confines of the source material. If I hadn't started watching with this one I might have given up and assumed I'd been lied to.


It's nothing like it used to be, but it couldn't be. I'm looking forward to being totally whelmed by how technically watchable the upcoming Treehouse of Horror will probably be, which is a massive step up from the regular white noise it had become thanks to Al Jean. These last two episodes actually felt like they were something made within the last 13 years, which is a time and place that actually exists within our universe.

I started wondering if maybe humor is dead and I was asking too much. Like how The Onion used up all its source material when all the things it joked about became real? But then I clicked on a random Solid jj video and realized no, comedy isn't dead.

The people making The Simpsons are just really really unfunny now. They're not Conan O'Brien.

[emphatic]

Gen V (2023)

A spin-off show of The Boys. Basically, The Boys meets American Pie. Frivolous sexual encounters with mutant abilities. Lot's of gore, action and sex. Also stars Arnold Schwarzenegger's son in one of the lead roles.

[vol.2]

By putting a show next to real life events (and letting it fail), it receives all the credit it will need to further pass around.
Not ANY nominations or gilded dildos for shelfs (which it didn't for all the 5 years of it).

I actually don't understand your meaning here. I don't get what "further pass around" means in this context, or the use of the word "shelf" here.

If it helps any, I didn't dislike The Wire, I just got kinda bored somewhere in season 3 and stopped watching. The first two seasons were pretty exciting. People in Baltimore like the show, more or less, but it can be triggering in a city where violent crime is a daily reality. Also, the locations are real and it's fun to see places I know on the show.

The events dramatized in the show loom large in the public consciousness in Baltimore, and the author of the book (and subsequent movie) I Got a Monster, is a frequent public figure and man-about-town; the narrative was and is part of the fabric of daily life in the city, and the public policy sphere is still actively dealing with the fallout over it.

However, that doesn't mean the show can't exist on it's own, or be entertaining to people who desire to commodify and to consume the story. We are all rubbernecking, ghoulish beings (after all).


Ducktales was one of my favorites as kid, but I'd be loathe to rewatch the old episodes. Don't dismiss the reboot so quickly though, I thought it was pretty fun.

[NYN]

I actually don't understand your meaning here. I don't get what "further pass around" means in this context, or the use of the word "shelf" here.

After the years, it's obvious that the show doesn't need awards or people of certain status or authority to pass the word, and it never did. It gets "passed around" by its very own reputation, not because some schmo beats a drum. With shelf I mean exactly that: a place where to put things with similar things. In case of an award it would be a trophy shelf.

Ducktales was one of my favorites as kid, but I'd be loathe to rewatch the old episodes. Don't dismiss the reboot so quickly though, I thought it was pretty fun.

Then we are opposites in that point. While I welcome change of crusty old habits, the thought it gets to a "now-Disney" full of rigid p.c. so that it's full of "useful" toon characters that were "improved" (from former mere sidekicks) to todays "standards" sucks the fun out of it. Mrs. Beakly being a super agent, or Ma Crackshell being a cop (!), to the constant appearance of the mom of the triplets. It seems to me that only a new gen can accept this, or, with your own example, then-kids-now-adults who wouldn't watch the tales of old anymore. All good, then.

[emphatic]

New season of friggin' FARGO incoming, November 21st!

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/sP5qwS3EquM?si=N9M33zNBGssBQtrO

[BIL]

Nice Totally out of the loop on TV stuff, had no idea!

[vol.2]

Ok. Can someone here explain to me something about the show Loki?

Spoiler

I don't understand why the TVA has to exist. They are trying to save it, but are we supposed to believe that it always existed or something? Why would it exist? Or is there some explanation that I totally missed,like there was an accident that necessitated it's existence?

[GaijinPunch]

Yeah I saw the Fargo trailer drop. Thinking of getting Hulu just for it, but it runs like shit on my tablet.

[BryanM]

Watched the latest Treehouse of horror. Going back to the Simpsons well has made me come up with a new way to evaluate fiction: "Do I remember anything of what I just watched/read/played?" This episode was at least able to form memories in my brain. Which is a massive step up in its show's quality from the Zombies Simpsons era. Nothing was funny or actual horror though. (I guess I liked they had another sequel to a classic episode, with the original wavy lines and all. But it's nowhere close to last year's Westworld skit.) A solid 2 out of 5.

Some of the voices being unrecognizable now is a certain kind of pathos.

South Park's episode Into The Panderverse, where they rib on Disney laziness and how no one can do shit anymore because of AI, had things like humor and relevant commentary. The front half is great, the chase scenes and climax is pretty blah. One thing that made it even better was I misheard Kathleen Kennedy's catchphrase as "Put a chicken in it, make it gay". My heart was utterly crushed later when I realized that wasn't really what she was saying.

I can legitimately recommend the South Park episode. Simpsons is only for archaeologists and clingy weirdos like me who can't totally let it go.

[RGC]

Simpsons is only for archaeologists and clingy weirdos like me who can't totally let it go.

I have a similar relationship with Star Trek: Voyager. At least The Simpsons can claim to being legit good at one point.

[neorichieb1971]

Bodies - Netflix

I like it, has a kind of time travel element about 4 dead bodies all the same person appearing in the same street in 4 different time zones, 1890, 1941, 2023, 2053. Jumps around a bit but enjoying it so far.