What TV SHOWS are you watching?

My wife and I just finished refreshing our Game of Thrones knowledge, and needed something else to watch. At first we watched a couple of episodes of Schitt's Creek. I liked it okay, but was wondering why I didn't just watch Arrested Development again. It did make me smile a few times, but my wife didn't like it at all.

Then we started watching The OA. That, my wife likes a lot, and I think it's alright. One thing worth mentioning, though...

(Serious spoiler, you are forewarned)

Watching them do that made me laugh, every time. And I wasn't laughing with them.

"The Movements" are a big part of the series overall. I thought it was absurd at first but it somehow won me over. I'll give a lot of leeway if you offer something creative and different than what I can get from other media.

charlest wrote: "The Movements" are a big part of the series overall. I thought it was absurd at first but it somehow won me over. I'll give a lot of leeway if you offer something creative and different than what I can get from other media.

I agree on original creativity. I think I want to like the idea more than I like the execution though, as I too laugh everytime I hear that hiss and the comical movements.

But I can suspend my disbelief despite the near comical absurdity, because who am I to judge wether such a thing could work or not?

The overall premise is pretty good, and I wish they'd pump them out a bit more frequently. Waiting two years for the second season doesn't instill confidence in me that this show has any direction. It makes me think of the haphazard writing of Lost in some ways. Fun to watch, but the destination was fucktarded.

Colorcrayons wrote:

charlest wrote: "The Movements" are a big part of the series overall. I thought it was absurd at first but it somehow won me over. I'll give a lot of leeway if you offer something creative and different than what I can get from other media.

I agree on original creativity. I think I want to like the idea more than I like the execution though, as I too laugh everytime I hear that hiss and the comical movements.

But I can suspend my disbelief despite the near comical absurdity, because who am I to judge wether such a thing could work or not?

The overall premise is pretty good, and I wish they'd pump them out a bit more frequently. Waiting two years for the second season doesn't instill confidence in me that this show has any direction. It makes me think of the haphazard writing of Lost in some ways. Fun to watch, but the destination was fucktarded.

Are you all still talking about OA here? I have it queued up on my TV, don't know what to make of it.

Yeah, still OA.

From what I understand, they have 5 seasons of content roughly sketched out. I hope this is true because it's the exact opposite of Lost. Jason Isaacs has talked about this briefly and said some of the stuff is completely batshit crazy.

Season 2 has many absurd things (but I think they absolutely work in the grand scheme of things). I wager the show's too ambitious and may lose some of its audience. I really love it though and it's maybe my favorite show that's currently running (alongside Mr. Robot).

By the way, I came across this recently and was unaware, but Damon Lindelof stated in an interview that they wanted Lost to have much shorter seasons and end much earlier, ABC however forced them to stretch things because the show was so popular.

That's made me a little more forgiving about criticizing Lost's writing.

Favorable remarks in this thread convinced me to give Hannibal a try. I've watched the first four episodes of season one so far. I'm deeply conflicted, but will continue to watch. I really enjoyed the Harris books, as well as the movies Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs.

Hannibal looks great. The cinematography is strong, especially for a tv show. The dreams and hallucinations are cryptic and disturbing, as are the crime scenes. The psychological analysis by various key characters sounds right to my layman ears, and the various killers have a nuanced and fascinating pathology that transcends the traditional tv stereotypes. Lawrence Fishburne is solid but overshadowed by his co-stars. Hugh Dancey is initially almost absurdly jittery, but his performance settles down and becomes interesting after the first couple of episodes. Mads Mikkelson is in top form and steals nearly every scene. Sometimes he doesn't even need to speak, he just delivers a look and it speaks volumes.

On the other hand, the acting is not quite enough to prevent my incredulity from getting in the way of enjoyment. The handling of the Shrike's daughter has been ridiculously unprofessional. The attractive tabloid reporter has run roughshod over multiple crime scenes, tampered with witnesses, and was even eyewitness to a murder, and yet has faced zero consequences aside from a couple of stern lectures. And while I enjoy Mads' performance, his off-camera murder feats practically rival the superhuman feats of Donnie Darko.

hotseatgames wrote: I don't know how many episodes of Love, Death + Robots I have watched on Netflix. It's several. You see, there are a lot of them, and they range from 6 minutes long to about 18 minutes long. Watching them is like eating snack mix. Some parts are good, some are bad, but after you are done you don't remember anything specific.

I can definitely say that none of them have yet to be as good as the very first one. I can also say that from a purely visual standpoint, they are all very nice looking, with a variety of animation styles on display. Most of them are CG rendered and gorgeous. I had to keep studying one of them just to make sure it wasn't live action footage.

I read somewhere that the order of the episodes wasn't the same for everyone. I dunno, so good as the first one might be a hollow statement. My first one was about an arena for monster fights. I couldn't finish it. I didn't finish over half the episodes once I pegged one as pointless violence in animation form.

That said I liked ALL the ones that were not about violence. Three robots sightseeing, yogurt, cryo sleep, fridge civilization, The only one with violence I liked was the dog soldiers one in Afghanistan. The rest seemed like they were written by a 13 year old boy. And I didn't understand why sex and nudity played such a large portion of episodes that had such a short runtime. The window one had them running into a, I dunno, sex parlor where anyone who strolls in has two latex clad women start rubbing them? The cryo one the (unnecessary) sex scene seemed to run half the episode. To me it was a case where the "adult content" actually prevented it from being "mature".

charlest wrote: By the way, I came across this recently and was unaware, but Damon Lindelof stated in an interview that they wanted Lost to have much shorter seasons and end much earlier, ABC however forced them to stretch things because the show was so popular.

That's made me a little more forgiving about criticizing Lost's writing.

That sounds plausible, but Lindelof is also responsible for the hack writing on Prometheus.

charlest wrote: From what I understand, they have 5 seasons of content roughly sketched out. I hope this is true because it's the exact opposite of Lost. Jason Isaacs has talked about this briefly and said some of the stuff is completely batshit crazy.

I'm skeptical about having five seasons laid out. Maybe they took the two years to get the second season produced and wrote 3-5 at the same time.

I'm very okay with batshit crazy. This show has a strong Randolph Carter/Silver Key & Titus Crow/Clock of Dreams vibe, and that type of concept is something I enjoy immensely.

My spouse and I started Battlestar Galactica again. We've gotten through the miniseries and besides some overlong Baltar scenes it still really holds up. I presume it'll start to flag once we round into season 3 or so.

Shellhead wrote: Favorable remarks in this thread convinced me to give Hannibal a try. I've watched the first four episodes of season one so far. I'm deeply conflicted, but will continue to watch. I really enjoyed the Harris books, as well as the movies Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs.

I'm one of the people who sang Hannibal's praises a while back, and I think it's definitely worth your time. Your last sentence perfectly describes my level of interest as well.

The first season suffers a lot from "monster of the week" storytelling. I still think it's worth watching to get to know the characters and the world in which they're living, but it's really just an intro and pales compared to the real stories in the next few seasons.

Also, a word of warning- be prepared to have many of your expectations completely undermined. I think it works really well to keep even the book readers off-balance. It's a fantastic show.

You all should be giving Into the Badlands a shot. It may have been canceled by AMC, but all three seasons are on Netflix for the moment. Set in a post-apocalyptic States (not a Mad Max-style wasteland, but one centuries later that has reverted to feudalism and adjusted to reduced technology), barons vie for power and elite warriors murder everyone.

As far as acting and writing go, it’s fine. No one really stands out except for the Baron Quinn and Nick Frost later, and the intrigues feel lacking compared to even latter-day Thrones. The production though? You’re guaranteed at least two great fight scenes every episode (the real reason most of the actors got their jobs) and there’s a distinct style in the costuming and sets.

I appreciate, too, that the creators didn’t feel like they needed to explain every bit of history and mythology or lean too hard on mysteries. This world just is, though I hear that might change later in the show’s run.

Anyway, it’s a pretty great show for what it is, and I don’t think there’s anything quite like it on television. It would be great to see more of these mid-budget genre shows in this age of peak TV.

Aww hell, they canceled into the badlands? Was waiting in my son to catch up so we could watch season 3 together