What TV series are you watching at moment?

going through sopranos after doing it 10 years ago. why does anyone else even try. good tv drama begins and ends with sopranos. that's it.

Tried watching Good Omens last night... meh. David Tennant is basically playing a demonic 10th Doctor and they ripped the opening bit straight from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the 1980's BBC TV drama, not the radio or god-awful movie they made a few years ago)

i was very interested in this mini series because i had watched a documentary about this case some years ago but this is surprisingly not very good. it's very slow and seems convoluted in it's attempt at telling these kids story with painting the political climate that had a heavy hand in putting them in prison. for example: the show opens with the kids going to central park before the incident. why not start it in a way where we know who they are first so we feel invested in their story?

I've heard they don't mention the victim or her story at all.

^^ if you mean mentioning the victim by her name no they do not. i believe she wanted and still wants to remain anonymous.

if you meant how she was attacked etc yes they mention that, including how she was a jogger that could run a certain distance under a certain time- which is why her partner thought it was strange when she didn't get back home after an hour or so (i think).

also, there is a scene where the main prosecutor uses the case to illustrate to the DA that the victim is one of a 300 victims that had been assaulted in new york city within the last year or so- she then refers to the kids as "animals". today the real prosecutor who handled the case resigned her post in various non profit organizations.

Just started watching Thirteen, a BBC crime thing about an abducted girl who escapes after 13 years living in a cellar.

Or so it seems! 

Decade coming to a close, and my fave 2010s series feel settled. S1 must have completed between January 2010-December 2019 (e.g. you can have Glee but no Parks & Rec). No mini-series (inc. belated returns like Top of the Lake & The Missing, nor Twin Peaks: The Return (more of a mini-series/S3)):

1. Game of Thrones (2011-19)
2. Treme (2010-13)
3. The Americans (2013-18)
4. Downton Abbey (2010-15)
5. Better Call Saul (2015-ongoing)
6. Boardwalk Empire (2010-14)
7. The Leftovers (2014-17)
8. Veep (2012-2019)
9. The Affair (2014-2019)
10. Louie (2010-15)

11. Rectify (2013-16)
12. Orange is the New Black (2013-19)
13. Girls (2012-17)
14. The Newsroom (2012-14)
15. House of Cards (2013-18)

HM: Rev. (2010-2013); Dance Academy (2010-14), Community (2009-15), Utopia (2014-17).

Fav S1 cancellations: Hit & Miss (2012); Quarry (2016).

Still got a fair bit to catch up on yet, as well as a few of these set to end later this year.

So the new season of Black Mirror is out on netflix. Just a heads up. Though it seems lukewarm with critics which I was worried about due to the honestly bad trailer. I haven't seen it though.

  On 6/5/2019 at 7:46 PM, dr lopez said:

going through sopranos after doing it 10 years ago. why does anyone else even try. good tv drama begins and ends with sopranos. that's it.

Did this over christmas/nye during cold rains & snow & it never ever relents.

Yeah the therapist/client relationship would've ended almost immediately irl, but for characters, jokes, grim outcomes & murders, more jokes, each season's nemesis (R Aprile, Big Pussy, Ralphie, Feech La Manna, the entire NY crews/cast *shout out to the Shah of Iran), family dynamics, Paulie Walnuts, Sil, Uncle Joon, Bobby Bacala, Vito's arc, that poor cunt in the Bing who keeps getting battered, the conveyor belt of goomahs, Carmela's moral turpitude/acquiescing, the dream sequences & an ending to shame everything else in television since.

There were so many nuggets of gold, it's futile trying to list em al, but god dayum, class, sheer class.

No soundtrack in the Sopranos. As far as I could tell. It might be the quietest show ever made too. Not the songs they play (like Aphex). but just a general moody soundtrack. Doesn't exist

Did it need it & have you ever had Sunday dinner with a large, loud, bickering family from New Jersey?

The conversational baiting & rowing are their own soundtrack. If yer lucky, it all flows with Sinatra, Limoncello, a game of Spades after grub & everyone still talking to each other Monday morning.

  On 6/3/2019 at 9:54 PM, Joyrex said:

The rebooted Twilight Zone was... mixed for the most part - too many SJW-themed episodes (they took the fact the original TZ was topical and timely to the extreme), and the finale was cringy af. Hopefully they find their feet in the next series.

i'm having a really . hard time getting through the first season. i finished the episode where the 'not very believable astronauts' have been sent into space because everyone on earth is dead. then at some point one of them tries to phone home only to freak the captain out. i thought everyone on earth was dead? who cares. i don't even remember how it ended. 

i can honestly say so far i haven't enjoyed a single episode except maybe the one about the comet that made all the men violent- although there was something "parody-ish" about that episode.

  On 6/6/2019 at 8:40 PM, Nebraska said:

i'm having a really . hard time getting through the first season. i finished the episode where the 'not very believable astronauts' have been sent into space because everyone on earth is dead. then at some point one of them tries to phone home only to freak the captain out. i thought everyone on earth was dead? who cares. i don't even remember how it ended. 

i can honestly say so far i haven't enjoyed a single episode except maybe the one about the comet that made all the men violent- although there was something "parody-ish" about that episode.

I'm thinking of waiting for the b+w version, that might possibly add some authenticity to the show.  I loved the mid 80s version of Twilight Zone.

  On 6/6/2019 at 11:53 PM, Rubin Farr said:

I'm thinking of waiting for the b+w version, that might possibly add some authenticity to the show.  I loved the mid 80s version of Twilight Zone.

 

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With opening sequence music done by none other than The Grateful Dead

Plus I don't think black and white will make the current TZ any better than it is...

  On 6/6/2019 at 11:59 PM, Joyrex said:

Plus I don't think black and white will make the current TZ any better than it is...

Yeah...lipstick on a pig. 

I gave it a shot. Was only able to get through 3 episodes before giving up. Watched 1, 2, then skipped to 5 (the kid president) and that was enough. I realized they weren't out to remake the classic '60's TZ, but instead chose to remake the shitty 2000's Forest Whitaker TZ. So this new reboot is like a 4th degree watered down version of the original. 

On the positive side, I got the CBS all access 3 month trial only to watch this new TZ and it also has all episodes from the original series, so I've been enjoying getting to re-watch those.

Finished the new Dark Mirror season. Gah. This is the first season that I'd describe as 'okay' or average and is the worst season of the show so far. Not counting the Bandersnatch which was good. I definitely recommend Bandersnatch before any season 5 episodes.

The season as a whole ranges from average at best to fairly bad, and boring at worse.

The Miley Cyrus one felt like I was watching a disney channel movie toward the end. It is watchable, but kinda boring. The characters are boring. And the whole AI thing which was the only interesting thing about the episode comes in late and isn't really fleshed out in ways I was hoping. It probably is the worst black mirror episode. Very Skippable. 

 Smithereens does a decent enough job at building tension, but never really resolves the tension, and the ending has a lackluster and rushed feeling. It felt like the writers had half an idea and wrote a whole script using it which left me wondering what the point of it was. It felt like there was a better way to tackle the concepts they raised in this one, which mostly revolves around how social media is changing people. The main character in this one's motivations are interesting at first, and it leads you to think it's building up to something, but there's not much "there, there" in the end.

Striking Vipers was enjoyable to watch and raises some good points, and the plot actually fits the concept here. But as I said it's still just middle of the road Black mirror wise. Basically two guys fall in lust in a vr world where one of them plays as a female, and the other male. It raises some interesting things we may see in our lifetimes, and doesn't feel as contrived as the other two.

regarding the smithereens episode, an average episode of silicon valley contains much more insight into the modern tech-corp dominated state of the world. this embarrassingly overwrought, grim and preying on technophobia bullshit that is black mirror offers nothing of value really.

  On 6/8/2019 at 11:20 AM, eugene said:

regarding the smithereens episode, an average episode of silicon valley contains much more insight into the modern tech-corp dominated state of the world. this embarrassingly overwrought, grim and preying on technophobia bullshit that is black mirror offers nothing of value really.

I don't think black mirror is technophobic by default, it just depends on the episode. However season 4 and 5 kind has suffered with more pessimistic writing. And I do think the worst episodes tend to be more technophobic.

The best episodes tend to be ones that explore the effects of technology as a whole, both the good and bad/ pros and cons. San Junipero for instance. The technology is just there and it explores that concept in a broad sense.

The Striking Vipers episode wasn't technophobic and was probably the best of the three in terms of showing how technology may/will change humans and you do kinda get why it ends the way it does.

Smithereens did feel needlessly pessimistic. It literally boiled down to: social media is lowering our attention spans, and if you look at your phone while driving it's because there's a committee of people trying to figure out ways to make you release dopamine in your brain. Which is a true thing, however it just doesn't work that well. I think the writers were trying to show that he automatically checked his phone without thinking, but they didn't do a good show of showing it. Instead it comes off as the guy making the irresponsible decision to look at your phone while driving.

It's like the writers read a few articles about how social media is lowering attention spans and hammered out a lackluster script. And just gave up when he/she couldn't think of a good reason the guy would want to talk to the CEO guy. I feel like this concept should have been taken further in some other way.

Actually now that I think about it Black mirror has already done the social media thing like 2/3 times and did it better.

Watching Game of Thrones. Bran looks like he ages about 10 years in the span of 1 season, its out of control. 

Has anyone ever seen that documentary type show "I Shouldn't be Alive". Good show. It's basically about a bunch of people getting into survival type situations. It seems to be a theme thru the show that probably 2/3rds of the people end up in their situation due to their own crappy decision making and not so much people who prepared correctly but were just supremely unlucky. Though there are episodes like that too.

The show goes thru their survival situation with a pretty good re-enactment with some often talented actors. The show initially looks like one of those low budget discovery channel documentary type shows, but honestly most of the episodes are pretty good and some are great.

This channel has many of the episodes and this is one of the best:

watched the first episode of Black Mirror, surprisingly enjoyable. Probably won't watch the rest as I really disliked the last season, it feels like the TV equivalent of r/im14andthisisdeep. 

Also I remember watching the Shut Up and Dance episode with my then girlfriend back in 2017 and it was super uncomfortable lmao.

been watching some of Outer Limits' first season (pretty sure someone in here was and got the idea in my head)

also started on Abesntia (Amazon Prime) and it's looking good so far

Quite liked new Black Mirror. Don't understand all the negative comments I see... I mean, surely this season is not so dystopian and maybe it's not a welcome change of tone for some, but all 3 episodes were interesting to watch and enjoyable. Good bits of humour as well. 

Goliath - Quite enjoying it, over halfway through series 1. I do like Billy Bob Thornton anyway, but he is the best character in this which I guess isn't unexpected. Surprised to see there's a second season, can't quite see where it'll go but I'll wait and find out.

Black mirror is nice and all but its always the brain implant / alternative reality upload consciousness thing.