What TV SHOWS are you watching?

WadeMonnig wrote: Catching up on season 3 of The Magicians. Love.this.show. Wish Jamey Stegmaier would have persisted in trying to get this license. But I'm sure he would have based it in the books and not the show.

It really is fun to watch. I've read the books, and this is one of those rare occasions when the tv show sort of retroactively makes the books more interesting, in a way. I started rereading the books and they've been shaped, positively, by the series. I feel like the series is more compassionate and playful than the books, without lapsing into complete silliness or becoming maudlin.

I'm currently re-watching Chuck, because I bought a refurb Kindle Fire tablet for $40, and it is the perfect device for watching videos on-the-go. Chuck is both much better and worse than I remember it being. Also disturbing is how much I don't remember. In some ways they couldn't make this specific series today.

Closed out season two of The Handmaid's Tale: really disappointed. I can't recall a TV series that plummeted from brilliant to tiresome so far and fast as that. The later episodes felt close to torture porn and the final one simply didn't ring true to the character development that had been established over the course of the series. Unless s03 is some kind of weird hybrid action drama in which June becomes a resistance freedom fighter, I'm done with it.

Started season four of Gotham. I've always felt it was a show with a great premise that chose, sadly to roll with easy plots and stereotypes rather than go anywhere really interesting. But I kept watching because my wife liked it. I thought I was done with that, too, but I decided to try s04 because it was trailed as being directly inspired by some great Batman comic arcs. And while it still takes the easy options too often (and Jim Gordon still can't act), it's shaping up well from the early episodes. Or least better than it's been so far.

So, while in Europe, I thought I'd take the opportunity to binge Lucifer, which is on Netherlands Netflix (but not Italy for some reason, probably religious). I really liked the comic book but to gut it and turn it into a procedural cop show is a travesty. I watched all three seasons and was mostly unimpressed. It got cancelled before they could tie up the various plot lines so Netflix bought it to do two specials to finish it off. Honestly, complete waste of my time. Couldn't be less interested in Netflix's specials.

Got back to the Middle East and started rewatching Fringe which is a great show, especially John Noble as the mad scientist. Love it.

Tried a bit of Alias again which is great and ridiculous at the same time. Ms Garner is nice looking though.

Matt,

Gordon is easily the weakest bit of that show. The villains, particularly what was done with Penguin and Riddler, keep bringing me back to the show. The Joker setup was done well. Bruce went through an abbreviated teen phase familiar to us all that made me want to punch him. It is in the top tier of Superhero tv shows (low bar, I know) for my wife and I.

ThirstyMan wrote: Tried a bit of Alias again which is great and ridiculous at the same time. Ms Garner is nice looking though.

Same here. I am slowly working my way through season 4, and the show has flashes of greatness served up with a great deal of ridiculousness. I get that the basic formula is spy action + family soap opera, but it's utterly silly that a team of 8 elite spies includes 2 couples and the fathers of the women in the couples. And the women are half-sisters with a common mother who is also a Russian double agent. The production values of the show are very respectable, and there is enough action to make the soapiness tolerable.

Still watching Grey's Anatomy, up to Season 13 now. I don't think it stands up to binge watching all that well, but that might be because S13 is pretty bad compared to some of the earlier seasons. It's definitely an "Who gets the Idiot Ball today?" sort of show, but cute characters + Disease of the Week is a hard formula to screw up.

the_jake_1973 wrote: Matt,

Gordon is easily the weakest bit of that show. The villains, particularly what was done with Penguin and Riddler, keep bringing me back to the show. The Joker setup was done well. Bruce went through an abbreviated teen phase familiar to us all that made me want to punch him. It is in the top tier of Superhero tv shows (low bar, I know) for my wife and I.

I agree. Gordon is just okay, but the rest of the show has a fun vibe to it. Somewhat of the dark and gritty Nolan feel, but also pretty colorful and humorous at times. I need to catch up with that. I watched through season 2 and then got caught up in other shows and things.

Watching True Detective season 1 again. It is without a doubt one of my favorite shows ever. This is probably my third or fourth time watching it.

Grudunza wrote: I agree. Gordon is just okay, but the rest of the show has a fun vibe to it. Somewhat of the dark and gritty Nolan feel, but also pretty colorful and humorous at times. I need to catch up with that. I watched through season 2 and then got caught up in other shows and things.

I guess that's part of my issue with the show: having dark and funny element side by side is tricky, and I don't feel Gotham pulls it off well. They often seem incongruous to me rather than working well together. Same goes for the more realistic elements of Batman alongside the comic book schtick, something the character has always struggled with to some extent.

Agree that the Penguin and the Joker are the reasons to keep watching. I particularly like their characterisation of the former as essentially a straight-up mob boss which works surprisingly well alongside the deranged character of the usual rogue's gallery for Batman. And Robin Lord-Taylor does an excellent performance. But I'm not sure about most of the other villains. Ivy is a stereotypical dumb broad (with a dumb backstory to boot), Hugo Strange was just a pantomime, and The Mad Hatter wasn't far off either despite a few moments of genuine menace.

The worst thing about the whole show wasn't Jim Gordon, though. He plays second fiddle to Fish Mooney who was just awful as both a character and an actor. Really hope she doesn't reappear.

I've been watching more Kung Fu. All of the first season is entertaining. Of course it gets a bit repetitive with the racist white men throwing shade on Cain and then he kicking their collective ass. But his character is very interesting and likeable and I really like the fash backs to Master Po, he's great.

Then some first season Mission Impossible. Hugely entertaining. Utterly ridiculous. You've really got to embrace the suspension of disbelief. If you can do that, it's great.

Lastly some more original Hawaii Five-O. McGarrett is Da Boss!

MattDP wrote:

Grudunza wrote: I agree. Gordon is just okay, but the rest of the show has a fun vibe to it. Somewhat of the dark and gritty Nolan feel, but also pretty colorful and humorous at times. I need to catch up with that. I watched through season 2 and then got caught up in other shows and things.

I guess that's part of my issue with the show: having dark and funny element side by side is tricky, and I don't feel Gotham pulls it off well. They often seem incongruous to me rather than working well together. Same goes for the more realistic elements of Batman alongside the comic book schtick, something the character has always struggled with to some extent.

Agree that the Penguin and the Joker are the reasons to keep watching. I particularly like their characterisation of the former as essentially a straight-up mob boss which works surprisingly well alongside the deranged character of the usual rogue's gallery for Batman. And Robin Lord-Taylor does an excellent performance. But I'm not sure about most of the other villains. Ivy is a stereotypical dumb broad (with a dumb backstory to boot), Hugo Strange was just a pantomime, and The Mad Hatter wasn't far off either despite a few moments of genuine menace.

The worst thing about the whole show wasn't Jim Gordon, though. He plays second fiddle to Fish Mooney who was just awful as both a character and an actor. Really hope she doesn't reappear.

Ivy by the end of S4 is on her third actress portraying her, the writers can’t make up their minds. I hated the Mad Hatter. Donal Logue gets some great lines. Overall a mixed bag but the good outweighs the bad. This coming season is the last one, shortened so it may be more focused.

Started season 2 of Ozark. It's more Ozark, which is a decent-enough thing.

repoman wrote: I've been watching more Kung Fu. All of the first season is entertaining. Of course it gets a bit repetitive with the racist white men throwing shade on Cain and then he kicking their collective ass. But his character is very interesting and likeable and I really like the fash backs to Master Po, he's great.

Then some first season Mission Impossible. Hugely entertaining. Utterly ridiculous. You've really got to embrace the suspension of disbelief. If you can do that, it's great.

Lastly some more original Hawaii Five-O. McGarrett is Da Boss!

Kung Fu is still a dynamite watch. I'm always amazed that I still remember the episodes once they start, even though I haven't seen them in a few decades. Must have left an impression on me.

I always liked that Mission:Impossible was really trying to be just that -- some crazy ginned up way to crack open a problem that no one else can. At times it stretches credibility, but that's what it's supposed to do. They're supposed to be way out there. The only relatively modern show I can think of that tries to do the same formula is Leverage which is good as well. But I think they could go even farther out on a limb and make it work. I recommend Leverage.

The Mission:Impossible films are just more trite drivel, that share nothing but the name. They're another venue for car chases and "stunts". I recall asking a buddy who had just come back from seeing the original back in 96 what he thought of it. His answer was that it would have been better called "Mission:Unlikely" because there was nothing particularly tricky in it. I went to see it shortly after, saw a real M:I moment in the first ten minutes of the film, and then they killed the entire cast save for Tom Cruise. It became a chase scene after that and has continued for 20 years from what I can tell.

Good writing is hard. Both Kung Fu and M:I were low budget shows that found ways to make it work. But, there were only three networks back then, so securing three or four top-notch writers for any particular show was a lot easier.

Sag, try to find the BBC show, Hustle. Leverage was sort of the American knock-off of that, and Hustle was better in almost every respect (though I generally liked Leverage; especially the three side characters).

Yeah, so I stayed up until 3am and watched every TD s1 episode. Personal dark times call for dark TV.