Watched the first couple episodes of Dark Matter. It definitely wants to be Firefly but I enjoy it in a siffy channel sort of way. Maybe that's just because there haven't been a lot of ship-based Scifi tv series lately, at least that I can think of.
Finally getting around to watching season three of House of Cards. While not as good as the first two, I love the interaction with the Russian president. The subplot with Stamper (the behind the scenes aid guy) is getting a little old though.
I've been burned by a lot of shows that people say are "great" that end up being "literally the same as every other show, but with different proper nouns." Other shows fall into the "this would be good if I hadn't seen much better things already." Some are just entirely un-noteworthy.
There are certain... people... here who have recommended ALL of the following to me:
Big Bang Theory The IT Crowd Agents of Shield Green Arrow GIRLS Lost Teen Titans (the old bad one, not the new amazing one) Game of Thrones (it had one good season, and has been steadily downhill) Walking Dead Buffy the Vampire Slayer Angel
That said, I watched the first episode of Poldark on the flight back from London.
It's not good. But if you want to see a smoulderingly handsome gentleman smoulder on cliffslides, smoulder while riding horse across a long pan, smoulder while observing a dinner party, beat the shit out of someone, and then smoulder standing in front of his lands...
Yeah. I'm happy now that I didn't bother with Arrow/Flash. I understand why people enjoy it. Heck, I still watch Agents of SHIELD, but at least opinions on here help solidify my decision to now watch them.
As for TV shows, I mentioned previously that I've been watching The Wire. I'm in the middle of season 4 now, and this show is great. I like how they're aren't really good guys or bad guys. Sure it's cops vs. criminals, but you see the sides/stories of both sides. I can't help but root for Omar because his character is so interesting and entertaining.
This show is a political drama where someone/group is trying to get to the top and you get to see it with the various characters. I enjoy that.
I think my goal is to just watch HBO series for the next few months. Need to watch the first season of True Detective, John Adams, Boardwalk Empire, and whatever else.
Didn't realize that Star Wars: Rebels came back last night. Season 2 is going to be a Disney hype train riding straight through to Episode 7.
My TV consumption is now: - Last Week Tonight - Rebels - House of Cards as my workout show, to be replaced with Daredevil when I finish soon.
I'm not going to start True Detective S2 until it is very far along, or over. S1 succeeded because it was two amazing actors delivering a steady stream of top-notch acting. With a new cast and plot, it's a complete wildcard.
I'm glad I've not recommended anything on Rym's list to anybody, other than maybe questioned people who say they don't watch GoT, usually because "oh no boobs"
With a lot of shows I been watching on break or over I've been looking at going back and catching up on some latent series:
Forever, which I only started watching because I bought the show on Amazon for my mom to watch. In general this show I recommend to no one in particular, but would also say is not wasted time, and in fact probably quite good if you do want crime of the week procedurals with a super-power equipped medical examiner. And/or, Ioan Gruffudd is your idea of a badass hottie (aka you loved Horatio Hornblower, aka you are my mom.) If the latter things are your thing, then you probably are already way ahead of me, otherwise, I guess try one or two eps.
Orange ITN Black, being something I started then never got back to because a billion other things all got in the way, I owe myself to finish. It's been a while enough that I may start over or at least back-track some. But I wanna kinda get through it because as good as people say it is I think I havn't gotten back to it because I just never clicked with it the first time and re-watching stuff may kill momentum as well. Oh the struggle.
Watched Other Space last week after complaining to someone that what we really need as a society are slice of life space shows or movies where the main drama is people and their isolation and confinement in deep space, and not epic space disasters and/or AI gone rogue every single time. Preferably a hard Sci fi, realistic take on what a colonization mission might be like for its members and maybe those they leave behind.
Something like 2001 but without the last half and stretching on for like 5 seasons of 13 hour-long episodes? Something like Mad Men in space?
So anyway, while Other Space was a fun little comedy show that reveled in how cheap and corny it was, and was also prerty damn funny at times, and its play on genre tropes was generally spot on; I am not sure it qualifies for my criteria above in being a good take on a realistic 'life aboard colony ship' type affair.
Big Bang theory is okay but it doesn't have much staying power. And some of the tropes of that show get real old. The IT Crowd is just sort of goofy and has some good parts to it. I mostly like the weird boss who is in other shows as a similar character and those shows are better.
The first season of game of thrones I thought was really boring when I first saw it. I think part of it is I read the book right before. I came back to it later and it was better but still kinda boring. Second and third seasons were really good. Fourth was still pretty strong and the fifth was the one where I felt it wasn't still going strong. There were a couple amazing highlights, drogon in the second to last episode of the last season was fucking awesome.
For the record the first game of thrones book was by far the most interesting one. It's actually a pretty good self contained story. I got to the third one and I just sort of gave up on them.
And to add to it I started watching Silicon Valley. It's not as classic as beavis and butthead or king of the hill but its still pretty good.
I used to like Big Bang Theory but my problem with it is that the "nerdy" references are just the proper nouns. They say dungeons and dragons, then there's a laugh track, rather than actually making a reference to something about dungeons and dragons.
I really enjoyed the IT Crowd, because a lot of the jokes aren't just about how they are nerds and when they are they don't just feel like they're pointing from the outside in as much. Its not a "nerd minstrel show" as I've heard people refer to the Big Bang Theory as.
I also have entirely skipped out watching GoT because I was already burned out from the books and have beenwaiting for everyone on the show to eventually starve to death in the inevitable winter famine.
I was thinking about Big Bang Theory the other day as a "nerd minstrel show", and realized that they rarely, if ever, actually try to show the perspective of the nerdy characters. There's always jokes on how Sheldon can't read social cues and can't interact "normally" with everyone else, but the show never takes the time to consider how fucking miserable that can get.
Teen Titans (the old bad one, not the new amazing one)
How is that new one amazing? I've watched so many episodes that are painfully unfunny and stupid. This is ADD-comedy aimed at toddlers and nonstop fanservice cranked on the highest setting.
I feel like I'd rather watch Gumball than TTG and Gumball is not all that appealing to me, It has some good moments but it's not on par with the AT/BW/SU/B&PC continuum.
Also Halt and Catch Fire was good in its first season (though some disagree) but this season is all but on literal fire. Bosworth is the man.
Finished Sense8 last night, I really liked it. It felt like it was trying a bit too hard with cramming every diverse voices they possibly could in there but all the characters felt full and interesting. I loved the trippy melting of perspective from one person into another.
The Wachowskis are definitely taking that idea that they're not on regular TV to heart
What really felt a bit off were the big shadow corporation bad guy, we literally know nothing about them and what we know of their motivation is kind of weak.
The only other annoyance were all the subplots, I feel like I'm reading/watching the Wheel of Time with all the different characters doing different stuff, it's only tolerable because they get to share those scenes.
I might consider doing Sense8 if it turns out that True Detective S2 is crap.
Looking back on Rym's list of crap TV, the only one's I've watched are Game of Thrones (which I admit has gone downhill), Walking Dead (which I stopped watching several seasons ago), and Lost (which I will admit was crap, but tapped right into my lizard brain nerdy desires, so I finished it).
What are the Rym thoughts on shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men? These are the critical darlings of modern "golden age of television" claims, and I'd say they are deservedly so. This flies in the face of my usual stance, which is that content made for mainstream audiences will continue to devolve into crap, as means of discovery for niche content become more easily accessible. That has happened with most stuff, but it seems every now and then, a gem still gets through and becomes a breakout hit.
One of my old roommates was really into Lost and I tried watching a couple episodes and just didn't see why anyone was interested in it.
I think the reason is twofold.
First it had enough interesting characters to run a show. Not all characters were good or interesting, but it was good enough to entertain the side of me that really likes character focused stories.
Secondly there was all the mysteries of the island. And the show kept piling new stuff on top of old, or sometimes next to. Watching the show was endless barrage of questions, "what's that", "who are those", "what is going on", and when you realized that there are way too many questions with barely no answers and there can't be any satisfying way to tie it all together, you were already in too deep.
Dexter I enjoyed for one season. Then I started getting bored.
Generally, shows have a good core conceit and solid main cast. Then, rather than exploring that to the end and stopping, they pad it out focusing on things that dilute the story.
Most of the "great" American/British shows everyone loves would be a lot better if they were a lot shorter.
I feel like I should finish Breaking Bad since I made it to the last season.
But I just don't really care.
One of my old roommates was really into Lost and I tried watching a couple episodes and just didn't see why anyone was interested in it.
I have a season of Breaking Bad still to watch, but I only stopped because it felt like a good place to end the story when everything is wrapped up for Walt and Jesse and everyone... and then Hank finds the poetry book. It feels like a happy ending (despite all the death that allowed it) and it's very neat. Like a single cliffhanger at the end of a complete story.
I'll finish it one day, I'm sure.
Dexter season 1 and 4 were both really great, 2 was good and 3 was okay. 5 was bad and 6 was so garbage it took a real effort to finish. I'm so glad those seasons were only 12 episodes long, not 24 or 28.
Lost season 1 was good. I stopped at the end and have no regrets either watching it, nor stopping before season 2.
Dexter I enjoyed for one season. Then I started getting bored.
Generally, shows have a good core conceit and solid main cast. Then, rather than exploring that to the end and stopping, they pad it out focusing on things that dilute the story.
Most of the "great" American/British shows everyone loves would be a lot better if they were a lot shorter.
This is generally why I will be really into the first season of a show then just not bother with any more of it.
Dexter I was really into the first season, then I thought "more of this would be good". So I suffered through the second season (I thought it was just so goddamn boring). Got to the third season and after two episodes just cut the whole thing off.
Heroes is another one where I thought the first season was great then I just had no desired to watch any more of it.
I'd suggest that people who never watched the show literally just watch those two seasons. The events between them don't even really matter, and together they present a solid arc for Dexter.
Most of the "great" American/British shows everyone loves would be a lot better if they were a lot shorter.
With this I agree.
My assumption has always been that shows long way too long because of money. If show is seen to be popular, more and more seasons are squeezed off it, until it runs dry and can be discarded with hastily made and shitty ending.
I think my favorite example to rant about is Prison Break. Initially it pretty clearly aimed to be one, or maybe max two season show, but it became super popular and the character on the outside who basically had figured out the whole conspiracy behind everything got arbitrarily killed and the show dragged on for four seasons too long.
I enjoyed the BrBa ride the whole way through and while it had peaks and valleys of quality of execution the whole thing works. Interesting idea ending the show in the second to last-season; you could treat the final season as an epilogue in that context.
It's been a while but I recall Mad Men started to really loose me partway though Se 6 and the first half of 7. I blame Megan's story line I guess, it just was not a plot that served the heart of the show, and it became a tumor. I am glad that the final half of the final season, while not going back to the well of the early show, managed to find something of an identity from itself and properly close out without leaving a lot hanging.
Teen Titans (the old bad one, not the new amazing one)
How is that new one amazing? I've watched so many episodes that are painfully unfunny and stupid. This is ADD-comedy aimed at toddlers and nonstop fanservice cranked on the highest setting.
Teen Titans (the old bad one, not the new amazing one)
How is that new one amazing? I've watched so many episodes that are painfully unfunny and stupid. This is ADD-comedy aimed at toddlers and nonstop fanservice cranked on the highest setting.
Finished Sense8 last night, I really liked it. It felt like it was trying a bit too hard with cramming every diverse voices they possibly could in there but all the characters felt full and interesting. I loved the trippy melting of perspective from one person into another.
I didn't feel as if diversity was a problem. Plus I didn't get the feeling as if it was crammed at all. What bits were you referencing?
What really felt a bit off were the big shadow corporation bad guy, we literally know nothing about them and what we know of their motivation is kind of weak.
Considering you only get to know they exist in the last few episodes that's fine with me, the rest of the season felt like essentially the setup, as I said in a prior post its a slow burn show. I agree though, hopefully there is more to it than just one big bad company, although that in itself would be a commentary on current society.
The only other annoyance were all the subplots, I feel like I'm reading/watching the Wheel of Time with all the different characters doing different stuff, it's only tolerable because they get to share those scenes.
The subplots are integral. They highlight that everyone has their own drama and bullshit to go through on a day to day basis. The show would be as stupid as Heroes or worse without each individual's struggles. Further, the presence of strong sub-plots gives the universe depth beyond everyone dropping their shit and rushing to New York to save a cheer leader.
I might consider doing Sense8 if it turns out that True Detective S2 is crap.
Too bad True Detective was pretty amazing I didn't think they could do it again, the first season seemed to be a mesh of the amazing but the writers showed up again and with the Directors have crafted such an interesting pilot. I loved it, even though I was really sceptical to begin with.
Considering you only get to know they exist in the last few episodes that's fine with me, the rest of the season felt like essentially the setup, as I said in a prior post its a slow burn show. I agree though, hopefully there is more to it than just one big bad company, although that in itself would be a commentary on current society.
I felt like they were there from the first episode when all the guys with guns show up to the first scene. We don't get a name until like ep 7 or 8, sure, but there's this sense of some secret organization that's hunting everyone through out the show.
The subplots are integral. They highlight that everyone has their own drama and bullshit to go through on a day to day basis. The show would be as stupid as Heroes or worse without each individual's struggles. Further, the presence of strong sub-plots gives the universe depth beyond everyone dropping their shit and rushing to New York to save a cheer leader.
I can't disagree, only commenting really on how schizophrenic the show felt at times. Sometimes just unfocused. You're right, it does lay out that everyone has their own lives and this thing that's happening is intruding into that. I really hoped that they'd have started to collide way way earlier than they have so far. We're 12 hours in and only two characters have physically met up with each other. And while they don't really need to be physically present, it would help to condense the story a little if we had like four groups rather than 8.
I did have a thought that this feels a bit like JMS is finally going to get to tell his Telepath Wars story on TV. I am definitely stoked to see more.
Comments
Chef's Table of Netflix is really, really good.
There are certain... people... here who have recommended ALL of the following to me:
Big Bang Theory
The IT Crowd
Agents of Shield
Green Arrow
GIRLS
Lost
Teen Titans (the old bad one, not the new amazing one)
Game of Thrones (it had one good season, and has been steadily downhill)
Walking Dead
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel
That said, I watched the first episode of Poldark on the flight back from London.
It's not good. But if you want to see a smoulderingly handsome gentleman smoulder on cliffslides, smoulder while riding horse across a long pan, smoulder while observing a dinner party, beat the shit out of someone, and then smoulder standing in front of his lands...
#smouldering
As for TV shows, I mentioned previously that I've been watching The Wire. I'm in the middle of season 4 now, and this show is great. I like how they're aren't really good guys or bad guys. Sure it's cops vs. criminals, but you see the sides/stories of both sides. I can't help but root for Omar because his character is so interesting and entertaining.
This show is a political drama where someone/group is trying to get to the top and you get to see it with the various characters. I enjoy that.
I think my goal is to just watch HBO series for the next few months. Need to watch the first season of True Detective, John Adams, Boardwalk Empire, and whatever else.
My TV consumption is now:
- Last Week Tonight
- Rebels
- House of Cards as my workout show, to be replaced with Daredevil when I finish soon.
I'm not going to start True Detective S2 until it is very far along, or over. S1 succeeded because it was two amazing actors delivering a steady stream of top-notch acting. With a new cast and plot, it's a complete wildcard.
With a lot of shows I been watching on break or over I've been looking at going back and catching up on some latent series:
Forever, which I only started watching because I bought the show on Amazon for my mom to watch. In general this show I recommend to no one in particular, but would also say is not wasted time, and in fact probably quite good if you do want crime of the week procedurals with a super-power equipped medical examiner. And/or, Ioan Gruffudd is your idea of a badass hottie (aka you loved Horatio Hornblower, aka you are my mom.) If the latter things are your thing, then you probably are already way ahead of me, otherwise, I guess try one or two eps.
Orange ITN Black, being something I started then never got back to because a billion other things all got in the way, I owe myself to finish. It's been a while enough that I may start over or at least back-track some. But I wanna kinda get through it because as good as people say it is I think I havn't gotten back to it because I just never clicked with it the first time and re-watching stuff may kill momentum as well. Oh the struggle.
Watched Other Space last week after complaining to someone that what we really need as a society are slice of life space shows or movies where the main drama is people and their isolation and confinement in deep space, and not epic space disasters and/or AI gone rogue every single time. Preferably a hard Sci fi, realistic take on what a colonization mission might be like for its members and maybe those they leave behind.
Something like 2001 but without the last half and stretching on for like 5 seasons of 13 hour-long episodes? Something like Mad Men in space?
So anyway, while Other Space was a fun little comedy show that reveled in how cheap and corny it was, and was also prerty damn funny at times, and its play on genre tropes was generally spot on; I am not sure it qualifies for my criteria above in being a good take on a realistic 'life aboard colony ship' type affair.
Closest I can do is probably Battlestar?
The first season of game of thrones I thought was really boring when I first saw it. I think part of it is I read the book right before. I came back to it later and it was better but still kinda boring. Second and third seasons were really good. Fourth was still pretty strong and the fifth was the one where I felt it wasn't still going strong. There were a couple amazing highlights, drogon in the second to last episode of the last season was fucking awesome.
For the record the first game of thrones book was by far the most interesting one. It's actually a pretty good self contained story. I got to the third one and I just sort of gave up on them.
And to add to it I started watching Silicon Valley. It's not as classic as beavis and butthead or king of the hill but its still pretty good.
I just checked wikipedia and apparently there's a fourth season that's not on Netflix. Loading up the bit torrent.
I really enjoyed the IT Crowd, because a lot of the jokes aren't just about how they are nerds and when they are they don't just feel like they're pointing from the outside in as much. Its not a "nerd minstrel show" as I've heard people refer to the Big Bang Theory as.
To be fair, I was thirteen at the time...
I also have entirely skipped out watching GoT because I was already burned out from the books and have beenwaiting for everyone on the show to eventually starve to death in the inevitable winter famine.
I was thinking about Big Bang Theory the other day as a "nerd minstrel show", and realized that they rarely, if ever, actually try to show the perspective of the nerdy characters. There's always jokes on how Sheldon can't read social cues and can't interact "normally" with everyone else, but the show never takes the time to consider how fucking miserable that can get.
Also Halt and Catch Fire was good in its first season (though some disagree) but this season is all but on literal fire. Bosworth is the man.
The Wachowskis are definitely taking that idea that they're not on regular TV to heart
What really felt a bit off were the big shadow corporation bad guy, we literally know nothing about them and what we know of their motivation is kind of weak.
The only other annoyance were all the subplots, I feel like I'm reading/watching the Wheel of Time with all the different characters doing different stuff, it's only tolerable because they get to share those scenes.
Looking back on Rym's list of crap TV, the only one's I've watched are Game of Thrones (which I admit has gone downhill), Walking Dead (which I stopped watching several seasons ago), and Lost (which I will admit was crap, but tapped right into my lizard brain nerdy desires, so I finished it).
What are the Rym thoughts on shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men? These are the critical darlings of modern "golden age of television" claims, and I'd say they are deservedly so. This flies in the face of my usual stance, which is that content made for mainstream audiences will continue to devolve into crap, as means of discovery for niche content become more easily accessible. That has happened with most stuff, but it seems every now and then, a gem still gets through and becomes a breakout hit.
But I just don't really care.
One of my old roommates was really into Lost and I tried watching a couple episodes and just didn't see why anyone was interested in it.
First it had enough interesting characters to run a show. Not all characters were good or interesting, but it was good enough to entertain the side of me that really likes character focused stories.
Secondly there was all the mysteries of the island. And the show kept piling new stuff on top of old, or sometimes next to. Watching the show was endless barrage of questions, "what's that", "who are those", "what is going on", and when you realized that there are way too many questions with barely no answers and there can't be any satisfying way to tie it all together, you were already in too deep.
Generally, shows have a good core conceit and solid main cast. Then, rather than exploring that to the end and stopping, they pad it out focusing on things that dilute the story.
Most of the "great" American/British shows everyone loves would be a lot better if they were a lot shorter.
I'll finish it one day, I'm sure.
Dexter season 1 and 4 were both really great, 2 was good and 3 was okay. 5 was bad and 6 was so garbage it took a real effort to finish. I'm so glad those seasons were only 12 episodes long, not 24 or 28.
Lost season 1 was good. I stopped at the end and have no regrets either watching it, nor stopping before season 2.
Dexter I was really into the first season, then I thought "more of this would be good". So I suffered through the second season (I thought it was just so goddamn boring). Got to the third season and after two episodes just cut the whole thing off.
Heroes is another one where I thought the first season was great then I just had no desired to watch any more of it.
I'd suggest that people who never watched the show literally just watch those two seasons. The events between them don't even really matter, and together they present a solid arc for Dexter.
My assumption has always been that shows long way too long because of money. If show is seen to be popular, more and more seasons are squeezed off it, until it runs dry and can be discarded with hastily made and shitty ending.
I think my favorite example to rant about is Prison Break. Initially it pretty clearly aimed to be one, or maybe max two season show, but it became super popular and the character on the outside who basically had figured out the whole conspiracy behind everything got arbitrarily killed and the show dragged on for four seasons too long.
It's been a while but I recall Mad Men started to really loose me partway though Se 6 and the first half of 7. I blame Megan's story line I guess, it just was not a plot that served the heart of the show, and it became a tumor. I am glad that the final half of the final season, while not going back to the well of the early show, managed to find something of an identity from itself and properly close out without leaving a lot hanging.
I did have a thought that this feels a bit like JMS is finally going to get to tell his Telepath Wars story on TV. I am definitely stoked to see more.