What TV SHOWS are you watching?

For Showtime and especially Cinemax I think that is very true, they hooked me into a lot of shows for the "Adult material" and happily a lot of those shows turned out to have really good drama as well (Black Sails, Spartacus, Banshee, etc) but they are still more like stuff shown in the back alley behind the awards show.

HBO has always had a veneer of "quality" about their shows, even if it has a lot of violence and nudity. Most of that obviously stems from the early days when access to that stuff was the domain of cable or grimy video stores pre-high speed internet but I've always felt that HBO strives to bring the intellectual goods even if they had to sugar coat it. They also tend to have "real human nudity" more than "Hollywood Starlet nudity" with shows like Real Sex, Westworld, etc. Even "True Blood, as sleazy a soap as it was, never felt super gratuitious, or at least they tried to balance it out with Skarsgard abs (my wife can confirm this

Then there is Euphoria with a totally inverted ratio of penis to boobs of like 30:1, they know their target audience for sure.

Anyway, I suspect HotD will drop off the nudity quite a bit after the pilot. [Warrior did this as well. Those cries of "sexposition" from GoT were heard. But there is a LOT of potential for sex in the show, as virtually every male character has multiple bastards running around, every female character is pregnant several times, and the "who is hooking up with who" aspect can easily dominate the runtime. Chaste sex scenes, with artful clothing, angles, and the like are not what folks tune in for on HBO, or any TV-MA show, really, so they gotta walk that line pretty carefully between main character vested 'romance' such as it is in this show, and lots of extras with bits flopping around in the background.

The gore is gonna be there all the time, I think. This is a war show and I think they feel showing the visceral brutality might temper the glorification of violence. Plus many characters are gonna get maimed, we are likely to see some kids stab another in the eye, for example, and I bet it will be pretty graphic.

Watching 5 Days at Memorial on Apple. Heartbreaking revisiting of the Katrina disaster, but something that should not be forgotten.

the_jake_1973 wrote: Watching 5 Days at Memorial on Apple. Heartbreaking revisiting of the Katrina disaster, but something that should not be forgotten.

I've seen the first two eps, and I might be dropping it. The story is interesting and the effects are well done, but hyper-editing in real footage at such a pace as to feel subliminal just makes me ask why I'm not watching Trouble the Water instead.

I'm somewhat bewildered by Amazon's A League Of Their Own series. It basically hews close to the original, with the main character (and co-creator Abbi Jacobson) leaving her smalltown life for a potentially new & exciting life as pro baseball player (aka the Geena Davis type from the original), along with all of the predictable two-dimensional supporting cast (the Rosie O'Donnell type, the Madonna type, the hypochondriac type, the foreign type, the gruff masculine tough chick type, etc.) but tacks on a parallel story about a young black woman who desperately wants to join the team, but no blacks allowed. The parallel tale about black American life in the war years 1940's is well done & makes the "main" story seem cliched and tired, but here's my confusion:

Episode 1 ends with white supporting actress leading main white actress into the back room of a bar and planting a kiss on her lips that the main character doesn't particularly want (or does she?! dun-dun-dunnn!) then walks away... episode ends.

Episode 2 ends with black female main character meeting secondary black female character we just met earlier this episode for what turns out to be a torrid make-out session in her mom's hair salon... episode ends.

Now i get that we're ruminating on relationships from a different perspective(s), but hasn't society attempted for years to move away from the stereotype of female athletes all being low-key-horny and on-the-prowl lesbians? Did we need to drive that point home in the ending scene of both of the first two episodes?

Of course MAGA-land can't bear having to watch actors portraying not just lesbians, but also black lesbians, so that's fun to see them clutch pearls about "WOKE!" this and "WOKE!" that. But I'm not sure I get the wisdom of playing into sad old stereotypes.

p.s.
Nick Offerman is oddly miscast as the coach, who instead of being the crotchety-yet-ultimately-redeemed Tom Hanks character decides to adopt a false manic-pixie-dream-coach rah-rah demeanor (later revealed to be a con designed purely to get him back into organized baseball.)

I don't object to sex, nudity, or blood in what I watch. Far from it. I just want it to have a point that's more than just titillating the audience (an apt phrase for both skin AND violence.) Show me what happens a few minutes before the pillow talk because the fact that those two people are that deeply involved means something? Fine. They have sex because most humans have sex. I'm fine with watching it in the same way that the vast majority of adults are fine (or more than fine) with porn. Similarly, it's better to actually show what happens when people get attacked with weapons than having innumerable Stormtroopers collapse offscreen. I just want those moments of visual impact to have a connection to the story. Did we need the full orgy experience to know that Daemon was so troubled by what happened that he couldn't perform or could that have been resolved with something a little more low-key? Did we need to see multiple shots of warriors' heads staved in as the joust also became a melee for some unknowable reason or would one of them been sufficient for us to get the gist about how everyone there was playing for keeps? I want it to actually add something to the story, rather than distract from the fact that there largely wasn't one.

It has been like 3 months but I finally started watching more Peaky Blinders (I'm on season 3). It's incredible how much exceptional acting takes a pretty decent but unspectacular crime/mob show to a whole different level. Like, I was sitting drinking whisky thinking about how absolutely average this show would be without Murphy as the lead. Like it is next level stuff. And then the scenes with Hardy... it's like you're watching a different show.

This show has always benefitted from its historical context, as well. Making the WWI PTSD more explicit and concrete vs. the HBO version of Boardwalk Empire where it's context to imply really improves it.

I think the Better Call Saul series finale is the best series finale I've ever seen.

Episode 2 of House of the Dragon was better than the first, but it did turn my stomach when, and this really isn't a spoiler, everyone was like 'hey you should totally marry that 12 year old girl' :/

hotseatgames wrote: Episode 2 of House of the Dragon was better than the first, but it did turn my stomach when, and this really isn't a spoiler, everyone was like 'hey you should totally marry that 12 year old girl' :/

Isn't that part of the joy of GRRM's "Just like the Middle Ages" thing?

I assume that this show is heading towards, "What would King Tommen be like, all grown up and basically sucking at being king?" Everybody gets pissed off at the king, wants his job, hilarity ensues.

RobertB wrote: Isn't that part of the joy of GRRM's "Just like the Middle Ages" thing?

Yes, that is part of the point. People were railing against both books and TV show because of their inherent misogyny, but if you want a representation of the history that A Song of Ice and Fire is drawn from, that's pretty much it. Marriage among the upper classes was a contract for power and money, not love. That's why you'd marry the 12-year-old (often just a contracted arrangement with the actual ceremony not taking place until the woman became biologically able to bear children (emotionally and mentally able was not a concern in the corridors of power; do your duty, etc. Hey, sounds kinda like the modern GOP perspective, doesn't it?)) and why some people would be furious at the emotionally-driven decisions of their children, who might sabotage the possibility of the family gaining more money and/or prestige by wanting to marry someone they actually loved.

Who Rules the World - Finished up all 40 episodes of this. A wuxia novel turned into an epic tv series. It's a pretty even mix of 1/3 flying swords action, 1/3 court intrigues, and 1/3 romance between the two leads. A prince who pretends to be sick his whole life so he can adventure as a hero under a different name. And a heroine who lives in the woods and steals like Robin Hood. They start out the show as legendary heroes who team-up sometimes. Nothing here is going to be original if you're familar with the genre. It just draws it all out into a longer-form story with six kingdoms worth of characters. The sets/screens are beautiful throughout the show. They nailed the ending so no issues there. Unlike seasons 2-8 of GoT; I consider this time well spent.

I found it amusing that the King is all "war is a last resort, we are trying diplomacy" and that's cast in a weak light by the uber rich guy sour that he lost to an election

Having Viserys be so old is making the choice between Laena and Alicent waaaaay more creepy. In the book he wasn't even 30 yet at this point. Plus he married his cousin, Queen Aemma, when she was 11 and had to wait 2 years. So I kinda forgive him for choosing the adult (she was 18 by the time they officially got hitched) he had a meaningful relationship with instead of ANOTHER child bride.

I feel like Viserys is being deflated in order to prop up Rhaenrya and in particular Rhaenys for this "the line of biologically determined inheritance, ITSELF A TOTALLY BULLSHIT WAY TO CHOSE A RULER, should consider women as well" plot line. The subtlety in why she lost out to Viserys went well past her gender, Jaehaerys had another son he named as heir and THAT guy had a son in Viserys, hell Jaehaerys had another son with the best claim that just straight up abdicated!

So to try to claim the crown based on "who was my daddy" is kinda of a losing game, hence the election that Rhaenys and her sugar Daddy Corlys couldn't buy.

Oh, if it wasn't clear, it's House of the Dragon I'm talking about

jason10mm wrote: Oh, if it wasn't clear, it's House of the Dragon I'm talking about

Whew! I was worried that you were spoiling the third season of Ted Lasso.

I'm caught up on House of the Dragon for the moment. It's okay and might even get good, but still not even remotely as compelling as Game of Thrones. I do like the courtly intrigue, but the dialogue is missing the sort of memorable lines that elevated GoT, and the characters are simply not as memorable as even some of the supporting characters in GoT. I'm talking about folks like Varys, Ser Davos, Yara, Jorah Mormont... even little Lyanna Mormont would steal every scene if she was on this show.

charlest wrote: I think the Better Call Saul series finale is the best series finale I've ever seen.

Don't forget The Leftovers.

That was a good one as well. I think BCS was better.