What TV SHOWS are you watching?

I really enjoyed the first three books of the Black Company series, plus the semi-standalone book The Silver Spike. After the Company headed south, the books got weighted down with a lot of new characters. Then the series staggered into the quagmire known as Dejagore, and never fully recovered. At the lowest point in the series, Cook decided that it would be a good idea to narrate a full book from the viewpoint of an unreliable, semi-omniscient narrator who has become mentally unmoored in time and space. This led to a meandering, spoilerish series of scenes that are somewhat difficult to place within the larger narrative of the siege of Dejagore. A competent editor should have taken a meat cleaver to Cook's first draft and held the siege down to a single book instead of three. Overall, I think that any fantasy fan should read those first four books and then proceed with caution. If the first Book of the South isn't enjoyable, consider bailing on the rest of the series. Or maybe just skip Bleak Seasons, knowing that She is the Darkness will rehash the important plot points that you missed in Bleak Seasons. That said, She is the Darkness is pretty good, and some very interesting revelations come in the two books after that. Staying on topic, The Black Company could work great as a tv show, like a dark fantasy version of Band of Brothers.

Black company would work very well as a TV series. The first three books are a very straightforward narrative.

Shellhead wrote: I really enjoyed the first three books of the Black Company series, plus the semi-standalone book The Silver Spike. After the Company headed south, the books got weighted down with a lot of new characters. Then the series staggered into the quagmire known as Dejagore, and never fully recovered. At the lowest point in the series, Cook decided that it would be a good idea to narrate a full book from the viewpoint of an unreliable, semi-omniscient narrator who has become mentally unmoored in time and space. This led to a meandering, spoilerish series of scenes that are somewhat difficult to place within the larger narrative of the siege of Dejagore. A competent editor should have taken a meat cleaver to Cook's first draft and held the siege down to a single book instead of three. Overall, I think that any fantasy fan should read those first four books and then proceed with caution. If the first Book of the South isn't enjoyable, consider bailing on the rest of the series. Or maybe just skip Bleak Seasons, knowing that She is the Darkness will rehash the important plot points that you missed in Bleak Seasons. That said, She is the Darkness is pretty good, and some very interesting revelations come in the two books after that. Staying on topic, The Black Company could work great as a tv show, like a dark fantasy version of Band of Brothers.

I almost never make it more than a couple of books into any book series, as I always get bored, even by stuff I'm enjoying. That said, I had a greater stamina when I was young, and read the first three of these. Picked up and read the first one fairly recently, and it mostly holds up.

Yes, the time is ripe for revisiting these ideas in a new medium.

We've just started watching Detour on Hulu (three seasons old) and at times it has been hilarious. Some of the best comedy we've seen.

Has someone discussed this aleady?

I highly recommend Black Summer on Netflix if you love the zombie genre.

It's excellent and I hope they do a second season.

I liked the Danny the Street episode of Doom Patrol.

So refreshing to have an episode of ANYTHING nowadays with moments of joy.

(it was by no means perfect, or even great, but it made me happy.)

It's awesome that they are basing the Doom Patrol series on the legendary Morrison run of the early '90s. Hope it doesn't get quite as weird as Morrison's final issues, because the weirdness finally reached a point where the storytelling broke down and the individual panels were only loosely connected by gibberish posing as exposition.

I finished season two of Hannibal, and I am frustrated with the show. When it's good, it's very good. But it felt like this second season was padded out by repetitive scenes, sluggish pacing, and even slow delivery of dialogue. It's like the season was too ambitious in terms of plot twists, and then sometimes failed to properly build towards those plot points. The quality of the acting just barely manages to carry the rubbish writing. I'm halfway convinced that Gillian Anderson's restrained performance may have simply been a side effect of heavy botox, but generally the actors are good here. Cynthia Nixon is okay, and Michael Pitt is tedious. Mads, Dancey, and Fishburne reliably deliver good performances from episode to episode.

One ongoing source of my discontent with the show is the score. There is a heavy reliance on abstract, atonal and weird music, cranked up really loud whenever there is something disturbing on the screen. Which is often. It's distracting and utterly lacking in subtlety. The quality of the music is also unimpressive. I am not a huge fan of classical music, but I think that is really the right music for Hannibal. The classical music would fit in with Hannibal's pretentious suits and elaborate cooking style, and wouldn't beat the viewer over the head with a blunt expression of THIS IS WEIRD or THIS IS SCARY.

The season finale ended with the exact fight scene that was heavily spoiled in the first episode of the season, but there were still surprises. By the end, it seems possible that most of the main cast will not be returning for the season, but it also seems possible that some of them may return. I anxiously started season three, but the show skipped ahead in time from the end of season two and so far hasn't addressed the fate of various characters from the previous season.

I've been watching Black Summer on Netflix. I've watched several of them, and they are mindless popcorn television. Bad writing and equally bad acting.

I think I keep watching because there is a single character whose fate interests me, and she doesn't speak a word of English. She's great.

What We Do in the Shadows is four episodes into its first season - I'm one behind - and it's pretty good. It's done in the same mockumentary style as the movie, which was firmly in the Christopher Guest vein (pun not intended). The first two episodes were uneven - the LARPers = virgins joke was particularly uninspired - but the third episode, where the vampires get into a dispute with a group of local werewolves, was great. I would have liked to see Rhys Darby reprise his role from the movie as the werewolf alpha but Arj Barker (from Flight of the Conchords) is a more than suitable replacement.

I just hope they find out something more to do with Mark Proksch's energy vampire character (he doesn't bite anyone but saps their emotional energy) because he's a one-joke character right now and I feel like I've already seen everything interesting about him.

Also, WTF the Deadwood movie is actually coming out?!

God. Something must be wrong with me.

I bought the first 6 seasons on BluRay with every intention of watching but just could not get past maybe episode 6 of first season.

I tried immersing myself in the lore (on the BluRay discs), reading a bit of Martin's prose, nothing seems to click with me.

Tits and violence is not enough to get me enthralled and neither is tedious backstabbing and betrayal. Maybe should give it up as a lost cause.

On the plus side, I enjoyed Titans which I wasn't expecting. There's a few Turkish fantasy shows on Netflix which I'm looking into and one Spanish vampire thing. Will let you know when I've finished.

Not running from the knowledge, just never was interested in D&D&T&A.

Have I missed any HBO hits that don't have that "We are harder than R!" as their stylistic imprint?

boothwah wrote: Not running from the knowledge, just never was interested in D&D&T&A.

Have I missed any HBO hits that don't have that "We are harder than R!" as their stylistic imprint?

It's been a decade, so I could be mistaken, but I believe that Carnivale was a show that didn't bank on boobies and language.

It's 1920's dustbowl America stuff, with some Hocus pocus. But this was during a time when seasons got cancelled abruptly without a decent ending. Carnivale was one such victim of that abuse.

Good show.

Carnivale had its share of adult entertainment.

boothwah wrote: Have I missed any HBO hits that don't have that "We are harder than R!" as their stylistic imprint?

Sesame Street, though I think the introduction of Abby Cadabby (the fairy girl Elmo) and an emphasis on weird “parody” shorts like Game of Chairs and When Cookie Met Sally meant for YouTube clicks haven’t been bright spots.

SebastianBludd wrote: What We Do in the Shadows is four episodes into its first season - I'm one behind - and it's pretty good. It's done in the same mockumentary style as the movie, which was firmly in the Christopher Guest vein (pun not intended). The first two episodes were uneven - the LARPers = virgins joke was particularly uninspired - but the third episode, where the vampires get into a dispute with a group of local werewolves, was great. I would have liked to see Rhys Darby reprise his role from the movie as the werewolf alpha but Arj Barker (from Flight of the Conchords) is a more than suitable replacement.

I just hope they find out something more to do with Mark Proksch's energy vampire character (he doesn't bite anyone but saps their emotional energy) because he's a one-joke character right now and I feel like I've already seen everything interesting about him.

Also, WTF the Deadwood movie is actually coming out?!

Late May is the air date cocksucker !!