What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Sagrilarus wrote:

DarthJoJo wrote: The fourth season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel dropped. One and a half episodes in and I think I’m done.

Really a slow start this season, but it got some footing around episode four or five. I was very close to dropping it and my wife did, but one scene with Shy Baldwin caught her attention as I watched and we're back to thinking it's worth the time.

S4E1 had me wondering if the show had lost it (devolving into a scattershot parody of itself) but by S4E3 it was back to being an all-time great. That Susie eulogy is the sort of TV I'm not sure we'll ever really see again, managing to be madcap, hopeful, and utterly full of despair, all within a five minute scene.

Glad to see they are ending Maisel after Season 5, as i want to remember it as great TV, instead of dragging a lipsticked corpse through the mud just because they could.

fightcitymayor wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote:

DarthJoJo wrote: The fourth season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel dropped. One and a half episodes in and I think I’m done.

Really a slow start this season, but it got some footing around episode four or five. I was very close to dropping it and my wife did, but one scene with Shy Baldwin caught her attention as I watched and we're back to thinking it's worth the time.

S4E1 had me wondering if the show had lost it (devolving into a scattershot parody of itself) but by S4E3 it was back to being an all-time great. That Susie eulogy is the sort of TV I'm not sure we'll ever really see again, managing to be madcap, hopeful, and utterly full of despair, all within a five minute scene.

Glad to see they are ending Maisel after Season 5, as i want to remember it as great TV, instead of dragging a lipsticked corpse through the mud just because they could.

Agreed. In one of the previous posts about this season someone pointed out how she sort of coasts from problem to problem without ever being called on her bullshit. The entire second half of the season is people being called on their bullshit.

The episode where Jason Alexander returns was a great one.

The talk about Batman: The Animated Series on the other thread has reminded me that I've ended up watching Gargoyles, Disney's answer to it, and I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying it.

Here's the thing: It's just very well-written. The quality of the dialogue and characterization is much higher than I expected, particuarly since it seems the setup is ready for the most tired of stereotypes like "big guy who likes to eat" and "bumbling detective partner". A good example of it is the main villain, Xanatos. He's kind of an evil development of Iron Man with a few touches from Batman. Yet, it compares favourably with both. He's depicted as an actual adult, as opposed to a manchild or teenager, and his ego is shown through his actions instead of fluffy one-liners.

He also avoids the usual fate of smug, selfish characters in media which is to be knocked down a peg for no apparent reason. The animation is surprisingly good at parts, too. It doesn't fall to the same problem Batman TAS does of some episodes looking ok and others looking awful.

The thing is, it suffers heavily from being a 20-minute show. It's clearly thought out to have narrative arcs and a real continuity but you cannot fit that in such a small time frame. Hence, resolutions are often lacking. It's also constrained by being a children's show, though it features some hilarious censor-dodging. Some scenes are brutal, like turning random people to stone and then destroying their statues with a mace. They even pick up the remaining bits with their hands, which "does not count" as gore but pretty much is. They even recreate what I believe is a scene in The Terminator with the robotic head rolling off.

My grandmother was a big fan of the show so I keep thinking about her while watching it.

IIRC Gargoyles had a lot of Star Trek TNG actors in it, which gave it a lot of cred in the 90's.

THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA

It’s not great TV. For every category it falls into — fantasy, comedy, adventure, animation, nerd fan service — it is, at best, okay. There’s plenty of other shows that do it better. But what it does do well is feel like I am watching a D&D campaign, that I well could have been in, come to life. So it’s corny and stupid and melodramatic and cliched, and that’s all right with me.

dysjunct wrote: THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA

Ok, but I think it is a vastly lesser experience than just watching critical role, which is the basis for the plot. To me it seems better to watch it for what it is, and not a veneer of what it isn't. That said I'm personally not interested in watching either.

Loved Gargoyles (except for The Goliath Chronicles, the third season, which is terrible.)

It looks like B:TAS because they shared animators - Frank Paur and Butch Lukic - and writers.

Second season of Upload has been excellent.

Can't believe there was a Young Guns reference in Righteous Gemstones. Hilarious.

Raised by Wolves season two has been solid. Not quite as good as season one, but still bizarre and otherworldly.

Finished Rita (Netflix) last night. It's a Danish show about a teacher who is way better at helping others than solving her own issues. Really good, quite heavy and still fun in that Scandinavian way. If you think it's not realistic: this is northern Europe dialled to 11. It's been years since I wanted to watch all of something.

Watched the first episode of DMZ on HBO. I am only dimly aware that there was a DMZ comic, so I went into this with zero expectations. It is a fairly derivative science-fiction show. A mixture of Dark Angel, Escape from New York, and The Warriors, but somehow adding up to much less than the sum of those parts. Rosario Dawson is fine in the lead role, but nothing else really grabbed me. There is some kind of civil war going on, and Manhattan is a demilitarized zone between the two sides. Gangs control the DMZ, and a couple of ambitious types are consolidating the gangs and trying to set up a government. There was even a scene that was a very weak imitation of the glorious Can You Dig It speech from The Warriors. I don't think that I will bother with episode two.

Also watched the first episode of Minx on HBO, and enjoyed it. The studio pitch seems to be a light-hearted and comedic version of The Deuce. It's 1972, and our plucky protagonist wants to start up a feminist magazine called The Matriarchy Awakens. But no publisher is interested, except for a smart but sleazy guy who publishes 20 porn magazines. He wants to start a porn magazine aimed at female readers, and thinks that maybe this feminist writer might have valuable insights about the potential readers. Hilarity ensues. The show really commits to the look of the setting, and also includes a couple of suitable pop hits from the time. There is a bit of female nudity, and then there was a penis montage sequence while they were casting their first centerfold.

Halo on Paramount. No need for background here, I imagine everyone as played the games at some point.

I'm not super familiar with all of the Halo stuff, but this must be set before the first game as there are other spartans in it. No idea if it is faithful to the lore but they have the weapons, armor, and vehicles PICTURE PERFECT.

Decent action, quite graphic for a video game based show. There is something....cheap about it though. Maybe its the framing as it is just a tv show, or they didn't use enough smoke on set. But it feels like a high frame rate 48 fps video so everything feels like a set, or it is somehow triggering the smooth motion setting on my tv. It's a shame because otherwise it seems like a lot of love went into the production. When that shield sound plays, it IS Halo

Watched the first four episodes of Our Flag Means Death so far. I've only laughed out loud a few times, but felt consistently amused. It's the story of a rich man trying to live out his fantasy of being a pirate, but discovering that he is really terrible at it. And then continuing to try anyway, because it's his dream.

I've watched the first two episodes. I expected to like it much more than I do. It's not bad... just not grabbing me yet.

I didn't make it through the first episode of Our Flag Means Death. I disliked every idiot crew member and none of the humor landed for me. Might rewatch Black Sails to get the taste out of my eyeballs.