What are you watching at the moment? (possible spoilers)

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JiggeryPokery
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08 Jul 2017

gak wrote:
08 Jul 2017
"Killjoys season 3" .........

Delete, stop future recordings.

It's rap for sci-fi. The same garbage over and over plagiarizing itself for chewing gum. I'll start in on "Dark Matter" later, wondering what they did to fuck that up.
Not seen Killjoys, and after a quick read-up, yeah, I probably won't start.

As for Dark Matter, it's a mildly entertaining low-end SF show. It's daft, very clichéd, full of circular plotting, characters handily not sharing pertinent info, and convenient twists (sigh"ActivateAgentZero!"sighunlessitwasamisdirectionbutidoubtitcough), and yet I'm still enjoying it despite all its obvious faults, because it's still moderately amusing and sometimes one needs something more lightweight and cheap. Not everything has to be, say, BSG, or more recently, Westworld, which was mostly brilliant, but jeez, it was bloody hard work and utterly joyless.

But as the original seven (including Android) have died/quit the ship for no apparent reason/become a pyschopathic dictator, only 4 remain on the Raza now, and it is in danger of becoming increasingly stupid; but in its defence, crucially the remaining quartet were always the strongest actors and the most interesting characters: Two, Three, Five and Android. So I'll maintain a bit of hope for the show yet.

However, the new Tabor replacement is annoying as fuck in the "he's actually fucking annoying" sense, not in the "he's charmingly annoying" one which David Hewlett is so good at, and last weeks episode was bleedin' dreadful. Yet the SF standard "Groundhog Day" episode the previous week was both a lot of fun while laying out some interesting and quite dark possible future directions (although as an episode it wasn't as good as SG-1's "Window of Opportunity").

Maybe I just have a natural affinity for all the SF shows that basically rip off Blake's 7 (criminals on the run in a [typically sentient or AI controlled] spaceship: Blake's 7 (Zen/ORAC), Farscape (Moya/Pilot), Dark Matter (Android), and Firefly (er, falls down there, but Wash, he's as good a pilot as any AI :D ) . Dark Matter is not a patch on its three antecedents, and Mallozzi and Mullie are not particularly original writers, but I don't mind dipping into their old SG-1/SG-Atlantis vibe again. (And frankly, I'm still bitter their more serious SGU got axed, cliffhanger and all, having really found its feet towards the end of season 1 and throughout season 2 to become quite brilliant).

In some ways Orphan Black fell into some similar issues as many of these mid-tier arc-based SF shows do (X-Files, when not monstering-the-week, Continuum, Fringe etc): as more seasons pass and they have more hours of airtime to fill, writers can default to layering more plotlines and twists, but they too often mistake complexity and depth for merely being convoluted and the result can be rather trite. While Orphan Black s4 recovered somewhat, and it even had some balls at times in some big deaths, I'm glad it's about to wrap up. Can't praise Maslany enough though for her performances, but at this point the show is now about admiring her performances, rather than trying to untangle who actually is, or has always been, the bad guy. I hope it does have a strong finale, it deserves it, but I fear it's going to underwhelm.

Reading some comments above re Preacher, I highly concur: it was perhaps the best new show of last year, one that manages to be constantly surprising, hugely funny, and genuinely turn-away-from-the-screen sickeningly violent. The motel fight (episode 6?) was perhaps the funniest sequence, anywhere, ever. And then Cassidy shows up. :lol:

American Gods is a contender for the best new show of this year.

My Anime education continues... having now done GitS:SAC (exceptional), Wolf's Rain and Cowboy Bebop (both also brilliant), I've now moved on to Neon Genesis Evangelion.

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gak
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09 Jul 2017

I hear ya about DM.

Killjoys was fun the first season. It wasn't great, it wasn't gripping, it was campy and fun with a bit of evil twist. Now it's trying to be something else. Boring.

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jappe
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30 Jul 2017

I just discovered this series, excellent for a Monty Python fan like me:



Awesome:-)

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Dabbler
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31 Jul 2017

Ozark - pretty good, short Netflix series.

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gak
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01 Aug 2017

My folks like it, I'm skeptical.

Not much here other that random musical youtube things (my PS3 gets it)

W/O a blow by blow, lately, the "top 5 things you didn't know" about whatever. Fender, gibson, etc. Some of it is rubbish opinions. Some of it is cool as hell. Well, it's like anything else on the net really............

avasopht
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02 Aug 2017

I just started The OA on Netflix. It's only on its first season but worth checking out if that's your sort of thing.

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gak
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03 Aug 2017

Stopped all sports. Done. It's almost as bad as fox news. Just retarded.

Not much left to watch :?

Forums aren't any fun anymore, no shows, youtube is a self- (beep) , it's 146° everyday. Got a gun? (loaded preferably :lol: )

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stratatonic
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04 Aug 2017

Whoever in this thread mentioned "Spy" as a movie that was "laughing my ass off" funny - well, I really have to think twice about listening to any of this poster's recommendations again. :(

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CaliforniaBurrito
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11 Aug 2017

I just finished watching the recent season five of Orange Is The New Black after binge watching all of the previous episodes last year. I liked the previous seasons but was disappointed with the stagnancy of season five. I just let out a sigh of disappointment when I realized the whole season was gonna be about the prisoners maintaining control of the prison. Like...really?

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gak
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12 Aug 2017

An honest question from someone who'd never watch that: What's the difference? It's women in prison, right? Where is the motivation to continue that other than money?

...

Orphan Black concludes this week. Thank god, they ran out of original ideas after year one.

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CaliforniaBurrito
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12 Aug 2017

gak wrote:
12 Aug 2017
An honest question from someone who'd never watch that: What's the difference? It's women in prison, right? Where is the motivation to continue that other than money?
The show actually received all around pretty good reviews up until the most recent season. The characters are so dysfunctionally interesting and Piper has eyes like one of my ex-girlfriends. The show is actually pretty funny and even more so to me with my darker sense of humor. I wouldn't waste my time if it was a serious prison drama.

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JiggeryPokery
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12 Aug 2017

CaliforniaBurrito wrote:
12 Aug 2017
gak wrote:
12 Aug 2017
An honest question from someone who'd never watch that: What's the difference? It's women in prison, right? Where is the motivation to continue that other than money?
The show actually received all around pretty good reviews up until the most recent season. The characters are so dysfunctionally interesting and Piper has eyes like one of my ex-girlfriends. The show is actually pretty funny and even more so to me with my darker sense of humor. I wouldn't waste my time if it was a serious prison drama.
There isn't really any such thing as a "serious" prison drama, in the sense that to be a motivating story, it has be fairly over the top to maintain viewer interest. The season 1 of such shows tend to be the most "realistic" in the sense that the original motivations are full of noble intent, but subsequent seasons are required (by the producers ;) ) to keep escalating the stakes to justify the recommissions.

HBO's Oz—the father, mother, sister, brother, and first cousin of all modern, high-brow US TV drama—grew ever more utterly bonkers season on season, and from the outset was far more ridiculous than OITNB, living in a total fantasy land. Yet I never read people complaining about that having some of the issues Orange purportedly has. One might wonder if there is some latent misogyny being applied to Orange on that score.

But then, I'm not sure I buy some of the criticisms of Orange s5, though. The performances are still (Piper aside) top notch and very grounded (unlike Oz, which verged on pantomine, although admittedly Orange does have Pornstache, so it's not immune either :lol: ); it's still brutal at times, and still very, very funny. The entire season 5 takes place over 3 or 4 days, which isn't an excessively long time in terms of many prison riots, and I don't get why a women's prison is any less likely to riot given the circumstances portrayed, or that somehow the armed response teams are any more likely to go in on day one: I doubt the exact same dramatic setup in a men's prison would have been criticised. Besides, the availability of things like cell phones and drugs is hardly unusual in real world prisons, given most of that is brought in by correctional officers, nor is the the over-crowding and private sector prison-as-shareholder-investment, and officer-on-prisoner murder/manslaughter that could quite believably result in prisoner revolts.

Where I agree s5 did have issues was the secret bunker in the old swimming pool. Literally no-one in the prison staff thought to look there?! Really?! Yeeaaahhh.... no.

But seeing the core crew down there, the 6 group leaders, it was pretty funny, and they also wrought some decent, if OTT, drama out of it in the last episode, but it was Oz-levels of daft. And while there were a couple of interesting flashbacks (Red's was probably the standout this year; while Frieda's existed solely to turn her in to a young Bear Grylls long enough to justify the whole swimming pool thing was obvious and somewhat embarrassing), like Lost, there comes a point when they mostly just get in the way and bring an otherwise good episode to a grinding halt. They need to end.

Piper remains perhaps the worst character/actor in the show (it's why I found the Piper-focused s1 was the weakest, before they really amped up the ensemble aspects for s2). It's a way better show than whatever the fuck has become of the ever-more turgid and dull House of Cards (US). Orange remains at least fun and dramatic, and has a great theme tune, and probably is, just about, still the jewel in Netflix's crown.

So Orange is way better than Oz. The best—and still probably most realistic, even given its mid-70's era—prison show of all time, though, remains the superlative Porridge. :lol:

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CaliforniaBurrito
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12 Aug 2017

JiggeryPokery wrote:
12 Aug 2017
But then, I'm not sure I buy some of the criticisms of Orange s5, though. The performances are still (Piper aside) top notch and very grounded (unlike Oz, which verged on pantomine, although admittedly Orange does have Pornstache, so it's not immune either :lol: ); it's still brutal at times, and still very, very funny. The entire season 5 takes place over 3 or 4 days, which isn't an excessively long time in terms of many prison riots...
My biggest issue was how they stretched out a prison riot over a whole season and there were some points when I thought they were just dragging it on too long. I suppose there could be some logic to the plot if we really think about it but it's pretty gutsy of them to write it out like that. They squeezed every last drop out of that plot for sure and maybe they were banking on viewers sticking it out with attachment to the characters as I did. I'm fine with the hot cheetos chips, swimming pool and even the Piscatella horror episode. The negotiation stuff was a bit far-fetched for me and Taystee really annoyed me with her stubbornness. Taystee and Dayanara are the most annoying characters for me but I think Daya redeemed herself with the conflict in the season. Anyways, I don't watch very many shows so I don't have much to compare it to. It wasn't a total let-down though and it was pretty entertaining for sure.

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EnochLight
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12 Aug 2017

I forgot about the latest season of OITNB, will have to give it a watch. Right now I'm too buried in other shows though:
  • Game of Thrones - season 7 is absolutely fantastic. The last two episodes, brilliant!
  • Preacher - an absolute blast. Just silly fun.
  • Twin Peaks - I'm really trying to like this. I think I'm sticking around just to get it over with. It does have moments of awesome, though.
Looking very much forward to the new season of Ash vs. Evil Dead, Fear the Walking Dead returning, and Walking Dead's new season coming up. Also Halt & Catch Fire's final season, as well as a new season of Into the Badlands (though Daniel Wu is a horrible actor, IMHO). Finished the last season of Silicon Valley last month - it was hilarious.
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JiggeryPokery
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13 Aug 2017

CaliforniaBurrito wrote:
12 Aug 2017

My biggest issue was how they stretched out a prison riot over a whole season and there were some points when I thought they were just dragging it on too long.
Absolutely, it could definitely have been tightened up, but then that's true of pretty much all shows that have more than 8–10 episodes per season. The cable channels seemed to settle at 13 episode seasons for their dramas; in streaming there also seems to be a (positive imo) move to reduce to 8 or 10.

It's interesting that after a lot of—totally justified—criticism of their drawn-out 13-episode Marvel shows, Netflix do seem to be following Amazon's lead here and allowing episode counts to be reduced: Stranger Things s1 was 8 eps (although s2 recall seeing somewhere is 10 eps), although I admit I still struggled to get through the first six episodes of that, but the end was strong. Defenders is also 8 eps,although I'll give that a pass cos I've been totally burnt out by the Marvel TVU at this point.

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JiggeryPokery
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13 Aug 2017

EnochLight wrote:
12 Aug 2017
  • Game of Thrones - season 7 is absolutely fantastic. The last two episodes, brilliant!
  • Preacher - an absolute blast. Just silly fun.
  • Twin Peaks - I'm really trying to like this. I think I'm sticking around just to get it over with. It does have moments of awesome, though.

Preacher I think is my #1 show currently running at the moment, after Better Call Saul (cos Better Call Saul is so far ahead of everything else on atm it's in it's own premier league of one :puf_wink: ). Closely followed by a resurgent Game of Thrones at #2.

Remember when, in Game of Thrones, it took a character three weeks to just cross a courtyard?

These days they can traverse Westeros coast-to-shining-coast in a jump cut.

:lol:

Twin Peaks.... Ah.

I was a religious TP viewer back in 1990: I did a full rewatch, both seasons and Fire Walk With Me, a couple of months back to prepare for the new series. It has not aged well. Season 2 in fact was awful. Urgh, the James Hurley stuff especially. And I know this is going to sound like heresy to some, but the music is rubbish. Now, I loved it in 1990; I bought the CD, and the previous Julee Cruise album too, which is pretty good. But what worked one episode a week, from a robust, old-school speaker or two on a CRT telly, is tiresome and intrusive on even a one-episode-a-day binge watch. There's really only two or three themes, and they're on a fucking loop. The pilot, in particular, the music mix is abysmal, and never seems to end.

Not sure my dilithium crystals can take another 18 hours of that.
Last edited by JiggeryPokery on 13 Aug 2017, edited 1 time in total.

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EnochLight
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13 Aug 2017

JiggeryPokery wrote:
13 Aug 2017
Remember when, in Game of Thrones, it took a character three weeks to just cross a courtyard?

These days they can traverse Westeros coast-to-shining-coast in a jump cut.

:lol:
Hah! Yeah, I've read a lot of nerd-rage on the Interwebz about geographical impossibilities this season (and this coming from a show about dragons and magic ice zombies - LOL)! At this point, I don't really care - the story is being propelled forward at a rate which keeps me engaged much more than any of the 6 seasons prior. Still the best show on TV, IMHO (and yeah, much better than Better Call S LOL)! :mrgreen: :puf_bigsmile: :lol: jk
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EnochLight
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13 Aug 2017

JiggeryPokery wrote:
13 Aug 2017
Twin Peaks.... Ah.

I was a religious TP viewer back in 1990: I did a full rewatch, both seasons and Fire Walk With Me, a couple of months back to prepare for the new series. It has not aged well. Season 2 in fact was awful. Urgh, the James Hurley stuff especially. And I know this is going to sound like heresy to some, but the music is rubbish. Now, I loved it in 1990; I bought the CD, and the previous Julee Cruise album too, which is pretty good. But what worked one episode a week, from a robust, old-school speaker or two on a CRT telly, is tiresome and intrusive on even a one-episode-a-day binge watch. There's really only two or three themes, and they're on a fucking loop. The pilot, in particular, the music mix is abysmal, and never seems to end.

Not sure my dilithium crystals can take another 18 hours of that.
It's funny - I never watched any of the original series. While it was all the rage back in '90-'91, I was too busy playing gigs and clubbing to watch. In fact, I pretty much stayed away from broadcast TV for the first few years of the 90's, with the exception of Star Trek: TNG. That's not to say I didn't enjoy David Lynch's work (I'm probably one of the few who absolutely adored his take on Dune).

So me jumping into this "season 3" take on Twin Peaks was sort of a rough start. My wife clarified a few points, and I read some Wikis... but it still feels like a jumbled mess. There have been a few moments of brilliance, though. The episode where the couple who is watching the glass box gets eaten by "a creature" was downright disturbing. A couple of episodes ago, there was a lady sitting in a car waiting for traffic to move in front of the diner, just laying on her car horn, and when the scene switched to inside her car, her passenger started to go into some sort of seizure, and the driver just sat there making this awful noise - it was brilliantly disturbing. Dougie/Cooper - I just find incredibly irritating. I also have a hard time buying into Naomi Watt's ignorance about her husband's space-cadet status. I mean, who doesn't have issue with the fact that Dougie is a walking lobotomy?? Not his wife? His employer???! I mean, come on David - throw me a line here.

Like I said, I'm really only watching now to get it over with. The ratings are horrible, though.
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JiggeryPokery
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13 Aug 2017

EnochLight wrote:
13 Aug 2017
JiggeryPokery wrote:
13 Aug 2017
Remember when, in Game of Thrones, it took a character three weeks to just cross a courtyard?

These days they can traverse Westeros coast-to-shining-coast in a jump cut.

:lol:
Hah! Yeah, I've read a lot of nerd-rage on the Interwebz about geographical impossibilities this season (and this coming from a show about dragons and magic ice zombies - LOL)! At this point, I don't really care - the story is being propelled forward at a rate which keeps me engaged much more than any of the 6 seasons prior. Still the best show on TV, IMHO (and yeah, much better than Better Call S LOL)! :mrgreen: :puf_bigsmile: :lol: jk
It reminds me of the pace of Season 1 of Agent Carter. There was no fat in that show - all the exposition between characters happened off screen. It was rather a revelation actually, that an American show could be edited that tightly (perhaps even a bit too tightly at times).

GoT still isn't that lean, but it's the shock of the rate it's now decided to move at that has caused people to be somewhat confused, given how used we all are to its methodical pace of character travel. I think the idea is there are still days and weeks between a lot of these scenes where the characters are appearing in consecutive locales, but without any diagetic references to time at all, it does look like they're all using teleporters. (Probably the ones from Blake's 7).

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JiggeryPokery
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13 Aug 2017

Having finally rebuilt my home cinema last November (my previous projector was amongst gear nicked a decade ago), this year is the first year I've been able to do Game of Thrones on the big screen. What a time to get that sorted. This was pretty bloody marvellous! :D

20689761_10154594245125583_9028816026792849204_o.jpg
20689761_10154594245125583_9028816026792849204_o.jpg (211.99 KiB) Viewed 3011 times
The guy on the far right... ginger hair. Is that the thankfully impending demise of Ed Sheeran?

avasopht
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13 Aug 2017

Westworld.
The OA.

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EnochLight
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13 Aug 2017

avasopht wrote:
13 Aug 2017
Westworld.
The OA.
I enjoyed both of these immensely (about as much as I did American Gods).
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EnochLight
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17 Aug 2017

HOLY CRAP! The new Game of Thrones (well, the episode that is set to air on Sunday the 20th) was AMAZING. I simply have no words. I won't post spoilers, but suffice to say - HOLY F@&KING SH@T!!!!
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selig
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20 Aug 2017

Binged on Marvel's Defenders this weekend. Best part: watching in Hells Kitchen, and seeing the building across the street featured in the final episode. And also finally knowing why they had that building all lit up and police cars everywhere all night (keeping me up) last winter!!! Knew it was a film location (got a notice from our building), but no one knew what the shoot was for! Always fun watching these series (Luke Cage/Jessica Jones/Daredevil/Iron Fist) and recognizing the locations used, but in this case it was crazy because we were looking out the window at the same building that was on screen!!!
;)
Great series if you're a fan, btw.


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