What TV Shows Are You Watching? The 9th Is - Excuse Me - A Damn Fine Cup Of Coffee

[Farm Boy]

Not a star crossed lovers sort, eh?

I guess I could see that. It's the tragedy of Aragon hastened so it plays out in the story, and if you liked the original telling with the human elf triangle better it could come off as less cerebral in the Hobbit.

 

[Lexicus]

Not a star crossed lovers sort, eh?

I guess I could see that. It's the tragedy of Aragon hastened so it plays out in the story, and if you liked the original telling with the human elf triangle better it could come off as less cerebral in the Hobbit.

It's not really the same tragedy at all. The Jackson films kind of make an incoherent mess of Aragorn/Arwen by including the scene where Elrond tells Arwen she'll be forced to linger on after Aragorn's death, when the whole reason it's sad isn't Elrond and Arwen's physical separation, but the fact that Arwen's immortal soul, as a result of her choice to commit to being with Aragorn, will leave the circles of the world and go where the souls of Men go after they die. The text supports this, Arwen does outlive Aragorn (as is the case with mortals, women live longer IRL) but she dies too.
It is also made clear in the text of the Silmarillion that Beren and Luthien both die.

 

[Farm Boy]

Elves linger a long time. She'll have opportunity to ponder mortality before transcend or go on, as men are thought to do. Isn't it the same sort of thing that drove the regent of Gondor mad?

 

[Lexicus]

Elves linger a long time. She'll have opportunity to ponder mortality before transcend or go on, as men are thought to do. Isn't it the same sort of thing that drove the regent of Gondor mad?

Kind of. I would say Denethor doesn't go mad in the book until Sauron shows him visions in the Palantir that make him think Sauron has the Ring, so his sons' deaths (he thinks Faramir is done, even though he doesn't actually die) are necessary but not sufficient conditions for his madness. Also, it wasn't only the fact of their deaths but guilt for his role in causing them in the mix. He had sent Boromir on his last journey and he all but orders Faramir to die in the defense of the crossings of Anduin and the Rammas Echor.

If you're talking about film Denethor then yeah he's quite mad already by the time Gandalf and Pippin show up. But I'm not very interested in discussing film Denethor.

Anyway, uh, shows....I've been watching Yugioh season 5 again, it's actually pretty dope.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, if humans "go play the music of creation in another place" or whatever it's still the separation that's the cause of his insanity. Like crazypants elf the pie maker from pushing daisies.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The first episode of The Veil (2024) was very good. David Bianculli has seen the whole series and called it Elisabeth Moss' best performance. (Not her best show, mind you, but still high praise.) As espionage thrillers go, on the scale from the 'deliberately-paced' Tinker, Tailor at one end, to the nonstop Mission: Impossible and Bourne movies at the other end, it appears to be somewhere in the middle. Talky, but punctuated by occasional violence. The Old Man (2022) with Jeff Bridges - also produced by FX/Hulu - is perhaps a close comparable. This one is written by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things; Eastern Promises; Peaky Blinders). It's just one episode, and I mention The Old Man as a comparable, in part because that show looked like it was going to be something special for 2-3 episodes, but then became a bit more pedestrian and was merely a solid spy thriller in the end. Still, if The Veil is 'merely' a solid spy thriller with an excellent central performance*, I'll take it.


* I can't vouch for Moss' British accent. Bianculli probably can't, either. It's unclear to me why they didn't cast a 30-something British actress, of whom there are several of quality. But I know it's not as easy as just picking someone off the shelf, and if Moss is interested in your script, you don't say "meh..." (I do see why the character couldn't just as easily have been American. But maybe she could've been Canadian?) I'll be interested to know if the UK audience are covering their ears and shouting "Oh God, stop."

 

[lymond]

The Old Man

Agree on Old Man. I think we touched on it some back then. The first couple of episodes were fantastic with one of the best action scenes (fight to the death) I've ever seen, but though overall it was solid enough it just became a bit too convoluted and ultimately unsatisfying, at least for me.

Def plan to see Veil.

I'm four episodes into Lioness. Very strong so far. Again with kinda Homeland vibes. It mixes some personal stuff, mainly Saldana's character, with the ongoing spy stuff. Actually, I find the personal family stuff quite interesting. The overall story is good too. Where it bogged down a bit is the whole "setting the plant" aspect. I like the actress playing the new recruit that they set on a mark to fish out a terrorist, but it is the whole process of doing so that I found a bit uncomfortable. However, by epi 4 things are settling in. The show is well-written imo.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm four episodes into Lioness. Very strong so far. Again with kinda Homeland vibes. It mixes some personal stuff, mainly Saldana's character, with the ongoing spy stuff. Actually, I find the personal family stuff quite interesting. The overall story is good too. Where it bogged down a bit is the whole "setting the plant" aspect. I like the actress playing the new recruit that they set on a mark to fish out a terrorist, but it is the whole process of doing so that I found a bit uncomfortable. However, by epi 4 things are settling in. The show is well-written imo.

I had never seen Laysla De Oliveira (Cruz) or Stephanie Nur (Aaliyah) before. I thought they both did a nice job. I didn't even recognize Jill Wagner (Bobbie), who I remember from Blade: The Series almost 20 years ago. I agree the family sidestory was good. I wouldn't mind seeing another season, but afaik, they haven't said whether it will continue.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Was the Rings of Power any good? Is it worth watching? If it's not at least twice as good as the Hobbit movies, I'm not interested.

I liked it. I vaguely remember a lot of the criticism back when it came out being focused on the "realism" of dwarven genetics/ethnicity, which, I didn't see much merit in, or find particularly compelling. The episodes themselves were entertaining, worthy of the franchise, and overall, better than The Hobbit trilogy... which I found pretty disappointing compared to the LoTR trilogy.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Was the Rings of Power any good? Is it worth watching? If it's not at least twice as good as the Hobbit movies, I'm not interested.

I've been rewatching Ozark. It's even better on the rewatch I think

Tuberculosis is twice better than The Hobbit movies. Rings of Power was slightly better than Tuberculosis, so you can watch it safely.

 

[Arakhor]

So, if you're considered which film to watch, you can just ask yourself, "TB or not TB, that is the question".

 

[Kyriakos]

Comrade Ceasefire told me that the Father Brown tv series was quite disappointing. I only saw a still, but it's strange they had a tall actor play the rather gnomish Brown. He was supposed to be inconspicuous in that way too.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Tuberculosis is twice better than The Hobbit movies. Rings of Power was slightly better than Tuberculosis, so you can watch it safely.

The Hobbit was pretty bad... not that bad... but yeah... pretty bad. When I think back and boil-down/simplify what I think that a few of (the many) major things that made it bad:
1. My (our) expectations were soooo high. LoTR was a masterpiece and it set the bar so high... that the disappointment of The Hobbit fellt that much worse... I'd compare it to the crash in feelings I (we) had comparing when the opening screen/music came on for Star Wars Ep1 to how folks felt when the end credits were running (confusion, disappointment, bewilderment, dissatisfaction, etc.). My experience with the first instalment of The Hobbit was very similar, in retrospect.

2. It was so painfully, excessively and unnecessarily long. It came off as bloated, pretentious, and arrogant. It just felt like a big scam, by the end... like they were just bilking us because they knew they could. There was no way that story justified 3 movies. Everything could have been done in one, less-than-2-hour movie. The only parts I really care about are: a) the team getting together at Bilbo's house; b) them reaching Smaug's mountain; c) Bilbo meeting Smaug; and d) Smaug attacking the town and being defeated. Everything else about the story was disposable.

3) Related to point #2... it was boring... as long as LoTR was... it was always engaging throughout... you always cared about what was going on and the characters... every scene felt consequential... with The Hobbit, most of the scenes just felt like fluff that didn't matter, and where the outcome was so cliche and/or predictable as to be hardly worth watching.

I liked basically nothing about it, but I especially disliked the cartoonish action sequences and the bizarre elf-dwarf love triangle.

I won't go as far as saying that I liked nothing about it... it was a LoTR universe movie afterall... kinda like a Star Wars, Marvel, or Star Trek show/movie... I'm going to have a minimal, baseline level of tolerance for it... even if it sucks overall.

I really liked the scene where Bilbo meets Smaug. That is probably my fav scene. Smaug is so cool and polite as he toys with Bilbo. So terrifying and powerful, while still being cordial and restrained while he is engaging in conversation with Bilbo.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

The Hobbit was pretty bad... not that bad... but yeah... pretty bad. When I think back and boil-down/simplify what I think that a few of (the many) major things that made it bad:
1. My (our) expectations were soooo high. LoTR was a masterpiece and it set the bar so high... that the disappointment of The Hobbit fellt that much worse... I'd compare it to the crash in feelings I (we) had comparing when the opening screen/music came on for Star Wars Ep1 to how folks felt when the end credits were running (confusion, disappointment, bewilderment, dissatisfaction, etc.). My experience with the first instalment of The Hobbit was very similar, in retrospect.

2. It was so painfully, excessively and unnecessarily long. It came off as bloated, pretentious, and arrogant. It just felt like a big scam, by the end... like they were just bilking us because they knew they could. There was no way that story justified 3 movies. Everything could have been done in 2 one, less than 2 hour movie. The only parts I really care about are: a) the team getting together a Bilbo's house; b) them reaching Smaug's mountain; c) Bilbo meeting Smaug; and d) Smaug attacking the town and being defeated. Everything else about the story was disposable.

3) Related to point #2... it was boring... as long as LoTR was... it was always engaging throughout... you always cared about what was going on and the characters... every scene felt consequential... with The Hobbit, most of the scenes just felt like fluff that didn't matter, and where the outcome was so cliche and/or predictable as to be hardly worth watching.

I won't go as far as saying that I liked nothing about it... it was a LoTR universe movie afterall... kinda like a Star Wars, Marvel, or Star Trek show/movie... I'm going to have a minimal, baseline level of tolerance for it... even if it sucks overall.

I really liked the scene where Bilbo meets Smaug. That is probably my fav scene. Smaug is so cool and polite as he toys with Bilbo. So terrifying and powerful, while still be cordial and restrained while he is engaging in conversation with Bilbo.

I think point 2 alone makes it twice worse than tuberculosis. There were some scenes that were alright (the ones you mentioned) because were more faithful to the book, but the movie as a whole was shallower than a donkey-kong game, barrels included, even worse because I couldn't play it, only watch with disbelief that they had done with such a fine book as The Hobbit.

 

[Arakhor]

Doesn't the first film end with them being chased up the trees by wolves and Gandalf sees them off with fire spells? That's 70 or 90 pages into the book.

Even if you poured a couple of hours of back story for Gandalf, Legolas etc in the ongoing story, a slim 300-page novel does not need over six hours to tell!

 

[lymond]

Jaskson originally intended Hobbit to be 2 movies, and decided to stretch to 3 during production. IMO one 3 hour movie woulda sufficed, but 2 might’ve worked by scrapping the fluff. There were definitely some good bits here and there and Smaug scenes with Benedict Cabbagepatch were cool. But Hobbit is essentially a children’s story rather simply told.

 

[Narz]

Started watching Manifest. I've heard it's maddening.

My girlfriend was obsessed w that one, I enjoyed making fun of it in the background

 

[Narz]

Started The Gentlemen, it's alright so far. My girl informed me she used to have a poster of the main actor in it as a kid and make out with it on the wall, thanks for letting me know babe

Definitely recognizable as Guy Ritchie's work (snatch etc)

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Twin Peaks. Kind of tried watching it 30 years ago but was too young and didn't understand that much / didn't care. Now I am enjoying it. The ambience, the music, the mistery, the weirdness... and the beautiful women. MacLachlan's character is pretty funny too.

 

[EgonSpengler]

NSFW. Wee bit o' blood. Butcher only says [birdsong] once in 2½ minutes, though. He must be going soft.

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The song that plays at the end of the 2nd episode of The Veil is "Speak Loud" (2018) by Trills.