Which television shows are you watching? β'

Status
Not open for further replies.
Started watching the latest season of The Flash with a couple friends after it came out on Netflix.

My god, this story is trash. Really happy I bailed on keeping up with the CW shows.
 
Synsensa said:
Started watching the latest season of The Flash with a couple friends after it came out on Netflix.

My god, this story is trash. Really happy I bailed on keeping up with the CW shows.
Click to expand...
I liked the first season of Black Lightning, but mostly, there's not a lot to recommend those shows. I guess they're fine if you're a madman for superheroes, but if you just want the occasional superhero, save yourself for the better stuff.
 
I am still slogging through Legion. The first 3 episodes were a chore, completely forgetable, nothing happening, confusing to boot. Episode 4 was slow but at least you could follow it, was mildly interesting at points, but ultimately felt like filler. Episode 5 I think was the first good one, where I really wanted to see what happened. I started 6, only a quarter of the way in and it has promise. So maybe, finally, half way through the season, the show is hitting it's stride. It's always a little dangerous to go from a well received 8 episode first season to a 50% longer second one. It just seems like many things they are doing are simply to be different and fill screen time under that guise.
 
The re-cut version of season 4 of Arrested Development started strong but it fell apart (like the original) by the end. Season 5 is thoroughly meh. It's really not that funny.
 
Browsing around for stuff premiering in June:

Penciled into my calendar...
June 5 - Humans season 3 on AMC
June 15 - Goliath season 2 on Amazon
June 22 - Luke Cage season 2 on Netflix
June 24 - Preacher season 3 on AMC
June 29 - GLOW season 2 on Netflix

Will give a look-see...
June 1 - All or Nothing: New Zealand All-Blacks on Amazon - Of course the trailer is an advertisement for the show, but it kind of makes the show look like a commercial for the team.
June 3 - Pose on FX - Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck; Glee; American Horror Story) takes on 1980s New York gay/trans "ball" subculture. "Paris is Burning: The Series"?
June 6 - Condor on Audience - An adaptation of the novel Six Days of the Condor (which was adapted as the film Three Days of the Condor in 1975) and starring Max Irons, son of Jeremy. I don't know if I have access to "Audience", though.
June 7 - Cloak & Dagger on Freeform - Based on the Marvel comic from back in the day, but unconnected to the MCU or any of the other Marvel tv shows. Freeform used to be ABC Family before they rebranded. I don't really know what to expect of this.
 
Snowfall is coming out soon on FX as well. The first season was excellent. Very reminiscent of the wire.
 
I'm 4 or 5 episodes into The Alienist. At first, I was ready to toss it onto the pile of unappealing adaptations of books I loved, alongside Altered Carbon. It was too... I dunno... stiff? Daniel Bruhl had these weird mannerisms and Dakota Fanning seemed to be phoning it in. Luke Evans and the guys playing the Isaacsons were at least a bit charming, but seemed to be playing archetypes more than characters. Robert Wisdom and Q'orianka Kilcher were barely-there supporting characters, so even though they pulled their weight I couldn't watch it just for them. And the plot - a serial killer stalking New York at the dawn of criminal psychology and forensic science - was already getting a little bit tired when the book was published, in 1994. The blend of the period setting with the serial killer plot was inventive, at least as far as I knew, and the writing was good. Ripper Street was a descendant of Caleb Carr's novel, and that show ended its run a couple of years ago. And that, in turn, was years after shows like Criminal Minds and CSI had gone from cutting edge dramas to meme-worthy punchlines.

But strangely enough, this show has caught my attention. I can't really defend watching it over Orphan Black or Legion or Mr. Robot or The Magicians, and yet I've done just that the last few days. Go figure. Fanning in particular is growing on me. Her performance is so minimalist, it's like watching one of those "Living Statue" performances in the park, waiting for them to wink at a child or reach out to accept a flower. I don't remember the character being so rigid in the book, but it's been a few years since I've read it (The Alienist is one of the few books I've read a second time).

Is this a recommendation? Um... Er... Uh...


As an aside, years after I first read the novel I was walking through a subway corridor in New York and randomly came across an illustration of the old Manhattan reservoir on the wall. I had never heard of it until I read The Alienist and got a little thrill from seeing it "in person", so to speak. The actual reservoir is long gone, of course. The site is the main branch of the New York Public Library now, which is itself over 100 years old (and worth a visit if you're ever looking for something to do in New York that doesn't cost you a week's pay).
 
Trying out The IT Crowd just to see what it's like.
 
This has been a dry year for television as it's a dying medium. The German paranormal series Dark is very well done with exceptional acting and writing. It is largely about the complexities of time travel.

There was a pretty good miniseries on the Unabomber...and what is deeply concerning is while he's a monster, his essay on what he expected to happen is chillingingly correct about society.

There's an excellent proto profiler series too called Mindhunter in which serial kilers are interviewed to build guidelines in order to catch other serial killers.
 
EgonSpengler said:
The Expanse would certainly have been #4, if it hadn't been rescued.
Click to expand...
Oh, has it been rescued — for a 4th season, you mean? Good news — but who rescued it?

(We're still waiting for S3 to arrive on Netflix.de...)
hobbsyoyo said:
The re-cut version of season 4 of Arrested Development started strong but it fell apart (like the original) by the end. Season 5 is thoroughly meh. It's really not that funny.
Click to expand...
We just started watching AD a couple of weeks back (behind the times as always) and so far* it's been pretty funny.

*(I think we just finished S1 yesterday: the episode which ends with Bluth Sr. disguised as Oscar, grabbing the box from Gob at the hospital)

So... should we stop at (or sometime before?) the end of S3?
 
Started a show called X Company. Seems to center around a savant with synesthesia? Interesting hook. About midway through the first season.
 
Cassius Critzer said:
This has been a dry year for television as it's a dying medium. The German paranormal series Dark is very well done with exceptional acting and writing. It is largely about the complexities of time travel.

There was a pretty good miniseries on the Unabomber...and what is deeply concerning is while he's a monster, his essay on what he expected to happen is chillingingly correct about society.

There's an excellent proto profiler series too called Mindhunter in which serial kilers are interviewed to build guidelines in order to catch other serial killers.
Click to expand...

So you're back and your first post is about how tv is a dying medium? I'm pretty sure all the ratings would disagree. Maybe network tv, but streaming and cable originals are getting huge ratings, both critically and in terms of views.
 
I finished the Americans last night. The season started slow, but the middle episodes were fantastic. The second to last episode was also really good but the final one left me hanging I felt. Spoilers below:

Spoiler :

I thought the ending wrapped up a little too conveniently/quickly. I liked the emotional pull of the parents having to leave their children behind but I think it would've been even more dramatic and satisfying to me if either they got arrested and turned into informants or one of them died or something. The way they went back to russia and that super dry dialogue, we raised them, we'll get used to it- It felt emotionally shallow for a show that had been riding high on anguish for a few seasons. Also the encounter with Stan was so stupid. He would never just let them go like that, it's like again, dry dialogue. With a couple lines from Philip he convinced Stan he wasn't a threat and they needed to go home to save the russian peace. I don't think they stressed the peace enough. He appealed to his friendship with Stan but I didn't feel like the appeal was strong enough for Stan to let them go.

What would have been way gutsier is if Stan shot and wounded one of them and they were forced to kill Stan or something and live with that guilt.

I thought the only really great thing they did about the ending was dangling Renee out there. I mean I really want to know if she was a spy or not, maybe she was just a red herring all along, but that isn't the point. The point was the doubt it placed in Stan at the end, how he just learned he can't trust anyone, how he is essentially broken and it doesn't end. I thought the psychological aspect of it was good.

Anyway it's very hard to end series like this and no one will like everything. They didn't mess it up, it just could've been better.
 
I'm rewatching Eastbound & Down, and I'm on the best season, Season 3. This show is so freakin' good.
 
I watched through X Company, a Canadian-Hungarian show about Allied spies during WW2. Pretty good.

I'm now onto Lie To Me. This is an "intellectual's" wet dream. Good show thus far, but my god they are laying it on thick with the idea that microexpressions are an infallible science.
 
Synsensa said:
I watched through X Company, a Canadian-Hungarian show about Allied spies during WW2. Pretty good.

I'm now onto Lie To Me. This is an "intellectual's" wet dream. Good show thus far, but my god they are laying it on thick with the idea that microexpressions are an infallible science.
Click to expand...

Hm. How do they account for conflicting emotions like when someone is innocent re something, but due to chronic sense of guilt acts -including expressions, and i suppose also micro-expressions- as if they are guilty?
Or is this like bbc's Holmes with his "art of deduction" treatise in 2016 ^_^
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

EvaDK
What TV Shows Are You Watching? The 9th Is - Excuse Me - A Damn Fine Cup Of Coffee
32 33 34
Replies
678
Views
20K
lymond
lymond
Synobun
  • Locked
What TV Shows Are You Watching? 8: Streaming Is the New Cable
49 50 51
Replies
1K
Views
33K
EvaDK
EvaDK
Takhisis
  • Locked
What TV Shows are you watching? ζ: The seventh-season itch
49 50 51
Replies
1K
Views
41K
Synobun
Synobun
Arakhor
  • Locked
What TV Shows Are You Watching? Series VI - Programmes of Power
49 50 51
Replies
1K
Views
48K
Takhisis
Takhisis
Plains-Cow
  • Locked
Off-Topic
Replies
4
Views
942
lymond
lymond
Top Bottom