Which television shows are you watching? Series 4

[IglooDame]

so you're telling me you are legitimately concerned about taking care of a bottle of water? is the responsibility too much to bear? you know, you could just give it back to the stewardess when she happens to pass by and the entire problem would solve itself? or put it into your luggage. or drink it. idgi

Dial down the harshness? I'm not defending or denying the overall cluelessness of billionaires, I'm just saying that being on a plane, I do think about when I'm getting food, drinks, whatever, whether I need to keep my tray table down and for how long (and do we expect turbulence) because I probably am about to either read or sleep, whether when I'm done I'm going to need to pay attention to when the flight attendant is walking by and disturb the other people in my row (I prefer window seats) to offer up my trash, whehter I should pull up my bag and stick it in (and if I'm flying internationally, when is the next security screening), if I can fit it into the seat-pocket where I already have a small laptop, e-reader, and munchies... sure it's a very minor hassle, but it's in a place where I'm not particularly equipped to deal with minor hassles.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

but that sounds much more like flying itself is inconvenient to you, which confuses me

 

[Colon]

ST:TOS The Way To Eden. Kirk, Spock et al have to deal with a troupe even creepier than them.

 

[Synobun]

I almost immediately bailed on the fourth season of 13 Reasons Why. I didn't think this show needed another season, and it certainly went out of its way to prove that. Nothing interesting or good in the first episode.

So I've floated back towards Prime Video... and started watching a show called Continuum. The sound design of this show is terrible, and story coherency is a bit loose, but it's interesting enough. It has many of the actors who typically make it to these sci-fi shows that get cancelled. What I find most interesting is that the show simply embraces its filming location; other shows wink-wink nudge-nudge about filming in Vancouver, but Continuum outright says it's taking place there and doesn't bother changing street names and such. This was probably done for budget reasons, since they have CGI scenes of a futuristic Vancouver, but it's still neat. Although according to this show, Vancouver is a dangerous crime locale in the lawless year of 2012.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Continuum is a fantastic show with a very interesting time travel premise. However, you forgot to mention the evil Vancouver corporate overlords. Was really hoping at the time for a fifth season to better wrap up the series instead of the truncated mess of a fourth we got. But, all in all it was very enjoyable.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Continuum was great fun. I really like Canadian scif-fi, and this show really flew off the rails and then just said 'ah, [screw] it' and kept going. I think the writers even confused themselves after a while.

 

[IglooDame]

but that sounds much more like flying itself is inconvenient to you, which confuses me

It is. The only convenience of air travel is going a long distance substantially more quickly than via car or ship.

To get back on-topic... Stumptown, I thought/think it's a very good show. Could just be Cobie Smulders, dunno.

 

[civvver]

so you're telling me you are legitimately concerned about taking care of a bottle of water? is the responsibility too much to bear? you know, you could just give it back to the stewardess when she happens to pass by and the entire problem would solve itself? or put it into your luggage. or drink it. idgi

Or you could just throw it on the floor and see where it rolls. That's what I would do.

I watched 4 episodes of The Expanse over the past few days and I like it a lot. The scene where they need to escape the dorenger or whatever, that Martian warship, is straight up Mass Effect style action. I felt like I was watching commander Shepard fight off space pirates. It was cool as hell. The ship battle also reminded me a lot of battlestar galactica. Good show so far and the mystery behind it all is keeping me engaged.

 

[Synobun]

Or you could just throw it on the floor and see where it rolls. That's what I would do.

I watched 4 episodes of The Expanse over the past few days and I like it a lot. The scene where they need to escape the dorenger or whatever, that Martian warship, is straight up Mass Effect style action. I felt like I was watching commander Shepard fight off space pirates. It was cool as hell. The ship battle also reminded me a lot of battlestar galactica. Good show so far and the mystery behind it all is keeping me engaged.

Donnager.

 

[civvver]

ha thanks. I've always wondered what Mass Effect would look like as a movie. Most video game adaptions being terrible and all. But so far expanse is pretty much like I would have envisioned it, minus alien races of course. You have a mysterious faction with advanced tech, ala collectors or reapers, you have a small band of renegade ice collectors ala sheppard's team though minus the guns, you have an asteroid base with a really nice bio-dome area like the citadel but also a stuffy underworld like omega station, and you've got a UN council on earth also like the citadel council. I guess the expanse universe was originally conceived as a setting for a game? Not really sure. But it's fun to watch either way.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Altered Carbon, season 2. It's getting sacked in the reviews, but I'm enjoying it well enough. It's been a while since I watched the first season, admittedly.

 

[Kyriakos]

Tried to watch Bates Motel, gave up half-way through ep1. Interesting how a show can be a pulp version of what was a pulp movie version of a pulp book version of a trashy US real story (Ed Gein). I suppose there's always room for further downgrade.

That said, I also tried to watch the legend of the Overfiend. Ok, that has more than just plot holes. I suppose it existed for other reasons.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Psycho was a perfect movie and only making it 5 minutes longer is already a violation. Turning it into a show is a complete travesty. honestly, the majority of TV shows are simply intended as timesinks and parasocial relationship. More than half of the actual screen time is used for absolutely mundane bull****, exposition, introduction, unnecessary character progression..

Which is why I'll be watching less and less TV shows in the future. Often times a movie says hundred times more than two episodes of a series, but they're often times the same length. I think there is some inherent value in having a piece of art/entertainment be closed, finished, holistic. I really hope this trend discontinues, it's just a ridiculous cashgrab in order to benefit off of movie/book rights. nothing of value is being added, while at the same time truly creative directors with unique visions are dismissed in favor of safe ideas that will sell guaranteed. imho the wire & sopranos were the first and the last of American golden TV. we might actually never see something as unique as Twin Peaks anymore. Already most of TV (even internet based shows) are highly specialized in their audience (gender, age, political interests etc.). Shows are made for small subgroups with a heavy focus on marketing and target groups.

The conservative can have his "everything was better in the good ole days" show, the millenial can have his super-woke incarnation of the Twilight Zone, the classical liberal can engage in his waspy kumbaya fantasies, the conspiratard can watch the next iteration of ancient aliens and see everything he believes in validated. People already today are heavily emotionally invested in shows and character to the point where it has become a spectacle similiar to organized sports. Just thing of GOT or Breaking Bad. I've seen people get insulted because they said they didn't like it. Many people develop truly worrying parasocial relationships to characters in TV shows, and I think that's clearly intended, just like how brands have been focussing on precisely this in the last 10 years of advertisement. Pepsico would really like to be your friend for a lifetime! Don't you remember all those happy softdrink moments? Look at this truly weird pepsi commercial (made by a German director, I actually saw an interview with her). That fake solidarity makes me wanna puke

my favorite comment: Kendal is incredibly talented. She worked so hard to inherit all her money and look pretty. She could single-handedly end racism and make world peace with her makeup line and handing out cans of Pepsi. Kendal for president!

 

[The_J]

So there's been research regarding this brand identification. Via MRIs they've shown that attacking a brand which someone identifies with triggers the same emotional response like a personal attack. So this doesn't surprise me.



Back to the actual series:
I started La Casa de Papel / Money heist.
Can't say anything which nobody already knows: It's pretty good.

I also finished season 1 of Colony.
Currently 2 seasons of 10 episodes of 45 min.
The story is set in LA, after an alien invasion. You don't really see much of the aliens themself, besides flying drones, and the fact that there's a giant wall dividing LA into zones, some of them which are controlled by the aliens and some are not. The back story is mainly there to give a setting for a police state and post-apocalypse in modern America, as it seems, staring a couple, where the husband just got recruited by the occupiers, and the wife working for the resistance. The setting is not a problem, I actually think this works quite fine. The wiki article says this was partially inspired by Vichy France, since the series just shows how society is functioning more or less normal under the occupation of a foreign force. This might be exaggerated, but as said, it works.
The last episode of S1 has sped things, gave multiple cliffhangers, and I'm looking forward to starting S2.


I had to remove Patriot Act from my list, without actually watching it.
Netflix has this on top when I add it, and always plays the trailer or whatever when I'm in the main menu, and the startup makes me just go nuts. The comedian starts with something along the line of "With facebook, whatsapp, and all the social media, we truly life in an era of nonsense." Which I think should be continued with "wake up sheeple!", and me throwing the laptop out of the window. Just too annoying lol.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Netflix has Hannibal now, a show I heartily recommend... to some people.

It's an adaptation of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels. The first and second seasons are essentially a prequel to Red Dragon, telling the story of how Will Graham and Dr. Lecter met and their cat-and-mouse game. Season 3 is Red Dragon. I think Hannibal Rising is in there too, but I never read that book. Season 4 was going to be The Silence of the Lambs, but they were unable to get the rights to that book and its signature character. And then the series was canceled anyway.

Mads Mikkelsen plays a different Lecter from Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins and, dare I say, I think I liked his version the best. The show has what I thought was an unusual visual style, with a crazy color palette. It's definitely "rated R" for violence and not for the squeamish. It can be very gory, but I didn't ever find it off-putting. It has a very dark sense of humor. There was a scene, for example, that echoes the dinner-table scene in the film Hannibal. The scene in the movie was, I thought, just kind of disgusting, but the similar scene in the show was darkly funny, and I can't put my finger on what the difference was. (If you've seen the show, I'm thinking of the scene with Eddie Izzard's character. In the movie, it's the scene with Ray Liotta's character.)

Anyway, it's one of my favorite shows of the last 20 years, but it really won't be for everybody. Three 13-episode seasons.

 

[Synobun]

I bailed on Hannibal pretty quick. The first couple episodes were immensely boring, and the main character had the personality of a spoon stuffed into the back of the drawer.

 

[Kyriakos]

I didn't like it either. It had way too many killers (not just Hannibal), and iirc there was 1 murder/episode in s1.
Though apparently the book is the same, so can't blame the show for that. At least they did a better job than most of the Hannibal movies (Red Dragon-Hannibal at any rate).
Mads was good, but the premise makes next to no sense, and neither does his main rival/friend (or any of the secondary characters).

 

[yung.carl.jung]

So there's been research regarding this brand identification. Via MRIs they've shown that attacking a brand which someone identifies with triggers the same emotional response like a personal attack. So this doesn't surprise me.

thanks for this tidbit, it's great to see that empirical science is trying to contribute to our knowledge of this phenomenon. also, I am really interested in whether you like Haus des Geldes since I wanted to watch it as well.

 

[The_J]

As mentioned: It's pretty good. If you like any type of heist/action+crime type of movies, then I think you'll like this series. The setting and story is well thought through, while not being totally crazy. The main characters are reasonably likable (1 exception), and it seems that they'll explain everyone's story during the series.
The first episode is representative of the general style, IMHO, so watching it should give you a general feeling how it goes.

 

[Synobun]

I also finished season 1 of Colony.
Currently 2 seasons of 10 episodes of 45 min.
The story is set in LA, after an alien invasion. You don't really see much of the aliens themself, besides flying drones, and the fact that there's a giant wall dividing LA into zones, some of them which are controlled by the aliens and some are not. The back story is mainly there to give a setting for a police state and post-apocalypse in modern America, as it seems, staring a couple, where the husband just got recruited by the occupiers, and the wife working for the resistance. The setting is not a problem, I actually think this works quite fine. The wiki article says this was partially inspired by Vichy France, since the series just shows how society is functioning more or less normal under the occupation of a foreign force. This might be exaggerated, but as said, it works.
The last episode of S1 has sped things, gave multiple cliffhangers, and I'm looking forward to starting S2.

Colony is a fantastic show. There's actually three seasons.

Be warned, though, that like every single other good sci-fi show in existence... it got cancelled.