Which television shows are you watching? β'

[Synobun]

I am the complete opposite in that I avoid movies and prefer shows. It's easier to watch shows in 20-minute chunks than it is to do that with movies.

Have you seen Unabomber or Mindhunter on Netflix? Their stories are relatively self-contained.

---

Oh yeah, I also tried out Safe. Terrible show. It relies on changing when scenes are taking place but offering absolutely no visual or significant cues that this is happening. Gave up after three or four episodes. Horrible structure.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I visited the Gulf of Tonkin site where the false flag action happened, about two years ago. Saw some of the tunnels the Vietnamese were hiding in. It made me pretty miserable, luckily the Vietnamese are a very cheerful bunch so I just got ****** up on cheap Viet Whiskey and did some Karaoke with the boat crew, that helped.

Americans, much like Germans and Brits, really are a perfidious bunch. The more invested I get about geopolitics and the minute details of the cold war the more disgusted I get.

According to the documentary, it wasn't a false flag incident and there was an actual attack by torpedo boats on an American destroyer. This was provoked by South Vietnamese-led coastal raiding that the destroyer was helping coordinate. There was a follow on 'probable' (i.e. not actually probable) attack that was really just a bunch of sonar operators getting jumpy and that provoked the full-scale escalation. They didn't even investigate to see if an attack had really happened before they started bombing and pushing for new war powers.

The images of GI's burning down Vietnamese villages and being gleeful about it in the 3rd episode was stomach turning. There's no if's and's or butt's about it, the US was the bad guys in that war. It was horrible and I feel shame.

 

[Ferocitus]

I cannot watch shows anymore. Whenever I start it feels like too much of a commitment, it feels like I get little out of it aside from turning my brain off for a few hours, it feels like almost all shows that are hugely popular nowadays completely and utterly lack substance.

In the end, I just go back to watching proper movies, because a movie feels whole. It feels like a singular experience, like you've actually done something. If a movie is too long I watch a documentary, or part of a documentary, or a short film.

Any recommendations for this feel? The last tv shows I really enjoyed were the Twin Peaks rerun, Stranger Things.. The Wire?

I'll prolly just end up re-watching Twilight Zone anyway.

Bad news - that feeling gets worse as you get older and see variations on the
painfully thin themes over and over again.

I hated the original Star Trek when it came out because it was laughable pap,
but more so for the endless inane variations it spawned where Earth, or the
Galaxy, is saved with a flying leg-kick, and all that the damsel in distress
needed was a dose of good luvvin' from the hero. Blegghhh.

I take your point about movies being self-contained, but often they are not
satisfying because they leave too much out. A series has to have good dialogue
to keep me interested because I do other things (maths, civ) while they are
running on another computer. The Wire was exceptional because it had great
characters, dialogue, and the 5 parts were complete interesting stories in
themselves.

Fargo (and to a lesser extent Breaking Bad) were terrific, but they are as rare
as rocking-horse poop these days.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

According to the documentary, it wasn't a false flag incident and there was an actual attack by torpedo boats on an American destroyer. This was provoked by South Vietnamese-led coastal raiding that the destroyer was helping coordinate. There was a follow on 'probable' (i.e. not actually probable) attack that was really just a bunch of sonar operators getting jumpy and that provoked the full-scale escalation. They didn't even investigate to see if an attack had really happened before they started bombing and pushing for new war powers.

The images of GI's burning down Vietnamese villages and being gleeful about it in the 3rd episode was stomach turning. There's no if's and's or butt's about it, the US was the bad guys in that war. It was horrible and I feel shame.

Really not an easy issue. I do not claim to know the truth, however if someone put a gun to my head.. Yeah, it seems like either exaggerated or made up. There was an official statement by Robert McNamara in some documentary (dk if it's the same one you saw!)

 

[rah]

Actually it's gotten better as I get older. Sometimes I just want to turn off my mind and watch a pretty girl.
Much more opportunity to do that these days.

And with threads like these, you get more unfiltered reviews to help navigate the immense amount of content available now.

 

[Synobun]

Actually it's gotten better as I get older. Sometimes I just want to turn off my mind and watch a pretty girl.
Much more opportunity to do that these days.

You have a wife. Of course it's gotten better.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Bad news - that feeling gets worse as you get older and see variations on the
painfully thin themes over and over again.

I hated the original Star Trek when it came out because it was laughable pap,
but more so for the endless inane variations it spawned where Earth, or the
Galaxy, is saved with a flying leg-kick, and all that the damsel in distress
needed was a dose of good luvvin' from the hero. Blegghhh.

I take your point about movies being self-contained, but often they are not
satisfying because they leave too much out. A series has to have good dialogue
to keep me interested because I do other things (maths, civ) while they are
running on another computer. The Wire was exceptional because it had great
characters, dialogue, and the 5 parts were complete interesting stories in
themselves.

Fargo (and to a lesser extent Breaking Bad) were terrific, but they are as rare
as rocking-horse poop these days.

That's what I was thinking, yes. My dad is a real scholar when it comes to cinema, incredible knowledge not only as a viewer, but experience with the technical side of it as well. He told me recently that he simply cannot watch movies or shows anymore, all of the introspection is completely gone. Whenever he watches something all he sees is the director's POV, the camera angles, the thought process behind it, and so forth. He has become meta, destroyer of fun.

Maybe for you the sheer fact that you "watch" a series while doing something else already demonstrates part of the problem. Our, as in humanities, approach to art and entertainment is skewed. I feel like this is due to many reasons, infinite availability of material being one of those. I doubt 70 years ago when color television got really popular that people were thinking "I'd rather be watching something else right now", what was on, was on.

Which is why I'm trying to quit YouTube, or at the very least, change my viewing habits.. Watch more movies, not streams but actual physical copies of movies I have lying around.. Listen to proper records. Because the experience is important. The interaction with the medium, all the surroundings. The internet is so incredibly self contained, a little bubble that features almost every song ever written, almost every movie ever shot, it's utterly bizzare.

I will be watching Fargo I think, only heard great stuff about it and it seems to be right up my alley.

 

[Ferocitus]

That's what I was thinking, yes. My dad is a real scholar when it comes to cinema, incredible knowledge not only as a viewer, but experience with the technical side of it as well. He told me recently that he simply cannot watch movies or shows anymore, all of the introspection is completely gone. Whenever he watches something all he sees is the director's POV, the camera angles, the thought process behind it, and so forth. He has become meta, destroyer of fun.

Maybe for you the sheer fact that you "watch" a series while doing something else already demonstrates part of the problem. Our, as in humanities, approach to art and entertainment is skewed. I feel like this is due to many reasons, infinite availability of material being one of those. I doubt 70 years ago when color television got really popular that people were thinking "I'd rather be watching something else right now", what was on, was on.

Which is why I'm trying to quit YouTube, or at the very least, change my viewing habits.. Watch more movies, not streams but actual physical copies of movies I have lying around.. Listen to proper records. Because the experience is important. The interaction with the medium, all the surroundings. The internet is so incredibly self contained, a little bubble that features almost every song ever written, almost every movie ever shot, it's utterly bizzare.

I will be watching Fargo I think, only heard great stuff about it and it seems to be right up my alley.

I should add that I do watch some shows, like The Wire, Fargo etc, without any
distractions, but I feel most aren't worth my full attention.

There is also Clay Shirky's observation that many of us are no longer just
passive consumers of media. Forums, where people help others, wiki editing, and
many other areas on the net allow people to create and to be active creators of
media. Of course, that's a bit over-blown in many instances of social media, but
it is a huge difference to the days where you had to watch whatever was dished
up at a particular time. Answering questions on science/maths sites is an active
use of media, and a wonderful change that just wasn't possible even 30 years
ago. I find that far preferable to watching pap on TV.

Every Christmas, much to the horror of everyone in my family except my partner
and son, I propose a toast to the gremlins who cut out ads from the shows we
download. They have made TV series more bearable. I love those little guys!

The Fargo episode in the bowling alley (a homage to The Big Lebowski) was as good
a piece of imaginative writing as I've seen in a long time.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Christmas over at yours sounds lovely

 

[Ferocitus]

Christmas over at yours sounds lovely

Of course it is. All the kids on the Australian side declared themselves to be
honorary Lithuanians because they get their presents a day early.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm more of a television guy now, because I like the long-form story-telling and character development. Halt & Catch Fire, for example, had 40 episodes of ~48 minutes each, that's 1,920 minutes of screen time, for a script- and performance-driven character drama.

Any recommendations for this feel? The last tv shows I really enjoyed were the Twin Peaks rerun, Stranger Things.. The Wire?

Black Mirror is an anthology series that wears its heritage on its sleeve (The Twilight Zone; The Outer Limits). Personally, I liked "San Junipero", season 3, episode 4, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis.

If you liked David Fincher's Zodiac (2007 - Gyllenhaal, Ruffalo, Downey Jr.) then I recommend Mindhunter on Netflix. 10 episodes of about an hour each, starring Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany & Anna Torv. Fincher was the 'show-runner' and directed 4 of the episodes himself.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I'll try mindhunter. I've seen all of black mirror and while it was really hit and miss its highs were peak entertainment. some episodes I felt were very well written, I especially enjoyed the last season even though it was a little too gorey for me.

 

[Ferocitus]

I'll try mindhunter. I've seen all of black mirror and while it was really hit and miss its highs were peak entertainment. some episodes I felt were very well written, I especially enjoyed the last season even though it was a little too gorey for me.

Just another series about women being slaughtered. Completely lacking
imagination or talent, the plodding writers revert to type and go for the old
favourite - sensational, gruesome murders to make the show seem edgy and
"psychological".

 

[Cutlass]

That's what I was thinking, yes. My dad is a real scholar when it comes to cinema, incredible knowledge not only as a viewer, but experience with the technical side of it as well. He told me recently that he simply cannot watch movies or shows anymore, all of the introspection is completely gone. Whenever he watches something all he sees is the director's POV, the camera angles, the thought process behind it, and so forth. He has become meta, destroyer of fun.

I sometimes have the problem that I just can't get into the proper "suspension of disbelief" mindset to enjoy a lot of things. I can't stop analyzing it, and why parts of it don't fit together properly.

Back to television, I finished Luke Cage. The end of season 2 left me with mixed feelings. On the whole, I liked it, and in some respects season 2 was stronger than season 1. 13 episodes was probably still too many, although there wasn't any single episode that I thought needed to be flushed. I liked Mariah, Bushmaster, and Tilda, I really liked Misty, and I'm even more bummed out now about Reg Cathey (he passed away shortly after filming wrapped). Cheo Hodari Coker said they needed to cast someone with the gravitas to look up at Mike Colter and say "Sit down, boy", and Cathey delivered. I wanted to see more Ron Cephas Jones, but I always want to see more Ron Cephas Jones. Somebody needs to get that dude a full-time gig (on a show that I'll watch, I guess I don't need to say).

I just finished Luke Cage. And while I thought it was an overall strong performance, I'm unsatisfied with the ending. It was just too much like too many things I've seen before. It pretty well just spells out the whole story arc of the next season.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Really not an easy issue. I do not claim to know the truth, however if someone put a gun to my head.. Yeah, it seems like either exaggerated or made up. There was an official statement by Robert McNamara in some documentary (dk if it's the same one you saw!)

The cabinet was skeptical the second attack was real as it happened and only grew more firm in that conviction with time. Which really makes it all the more tragic - there are so many recordings of these top officials talking about how wrong and screwed up the situation was and that they wanted a way out but none of them had the courage to be honest about the war. It was just lies on lies on lies, a bit likewhat's going on now. And all the lying for nothing!

It was the Ken Burns documentary I was watching. Made it to episode 3. The episodes are too long and go into too much detail to really shine in my opinion.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I just finished Luke Cage. And while I thought it was an overall strong performance, I'm unsatisfied with the ending. It was just too much like too many things I've seen before. It pretty well just spells out the whole story arc of the next season.

I agree, the ending left me with a little "meh." I didn't think about it being predictable, but that could have been part of it. You're thinking some kind of Black Caesar/Superfly homage? I could be okay with that, provided it's well-written of course, but it would seem to lead away from a path towards teaming up with Danny as superheroes.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'll try mindhunter. I've seen all of black mirror and while it was really hit and miss its highs were peak entertainment. some episodes I felt were very well written, I especially enjoyed the last season even though it was a little too gorey for me.

Imo Mindhunter was a bad series (season1 anyway).
Only good thing about it was the actor playing Kemper, BUT they managed to even partly ruin that by feeding the actor with made-up lines when they already literally copy-pasted all of the actual Kemper interview statements. So in the end even Kemper comes across as a gleeful snarky sex-maniac, instead of a deranged silent remorseful sex-maniac.

Diagnosis: hipster series- avoid.

 

[rah]

Just watched the first episode of Lost in Space. I feel I should watch the second one since they haven't really fleshed it out yet, but it better be a lot better than what I watched or I won't make it past the second one.

 

[Synobun]

Just watched the first episode of Lost in Space. I feel I should watch the second one since they haven't really fleshed it out yet, but it better be a lot better than what I watched or I won't make it past the second one.

It's not.

 

[rah]

That's what I was afraid of. I could deal with the remake not being quite as CAMPY as the original but if you're going to do that, you really need to hire better writers. It's too early to judge the casting selections (which is good since I'm really not impressed there). But the Doc Smith choice may be a winner.