Which television shows are you watching? Series 4

[hobbsyoyo]

...mmhh.... I also have it on my list, but now I'm not sure anymore .

I didn't mean to say it was a bad show, just not what I had hoped it would be. And to be fair, the material on the astronaut's lives is really interesting, I just personally don't care so much about that stuff. And they do cover the technical issues, just not to the extent I would have liked. I suggest trying the first episode and seeing how that goes, it's pretty indicative of the series as a whole.


I will say that the show gave me an appreciation for what a compelling orator Ronald Reagan is. The Challenger disaster speech have gave is famous and notable, but the show has snippets from other stirring speeches he gave related to the space program and while I loathe him as a president, it is really nice to hear someone saying moving, uplifting things rather than talk about American carnage.

I started watching Marco Polo, and I have my problems with it too. Story-wise is fine. The problem is that it's not accurate.

Yeah it's completely inaccurate but totally awesome if you can get past that! I really loved that show and was upset when it got cancelled. It didn't even really wrap things up either - while I don't remember it being a cliff hangar, a bunch of stuff was unresolved.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I watched the first episode of Chernobyl last night. Jesus, talk about tense. I spent the entire episode going, "You're dead. You're dead. You're dead. You, you, and you; dead. For gods' sake, why aren't you all getting into your cars and driving as fast as you possibly can? Forget it, everyone in this whole scene is dead now. You there, you might make it. Oh. Nevermind." I think maybe 1 or 2 of the series' main characters even appears onscreen in this first ep. Obviously, it's only one episode, but I think this already might be one of the best horror tv series I've seen.

I started watching Chernobyl tonight based on your review... excellent. And yes, yes, yes to everything you say about it... the absolute dread, and non stop head shaking... disgust and shocked disbelief at all the craziness going on. I had the same experience as you, just looking at everyone saying "OMG why are they doing that?!?... welp, you're dead... you're all dead." The scene where they are telling Gorbachev how bad it is... and therefore, in retrospect, how bad it could have actually been for the whole world... is just... chilling.

I just finished Episode 3 and I can't wait to see the rest but I need to go to sleep.

 

[Zardnaar]

I started watching Chernobyl tonight based on your review... excellent. And yes, yes, yes to everything you say about it... the absolute dread, and non stop head shaking... disgust and shocked disbelief at all the craziness going on. I had the same experience as you, just looking at everyone saying "OMG why are they doing that?!?... welp, you're dead... you're all dead. The scene where they are telling Gorbachev how bad it is... and therefore, in retrospect, how bad it could have actually been for the whole world... is just... chilling.

I just finished Episode 3 and I can't wait to see the rest but I need to go to sleep.

Nice it's a good show.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Yeah it's completely inaccurate but totally awesome if you can get past that! I really loved that show and was upset when it got cancelled. It didn't even really wrap things up either - while I don't remember it being a cliff hangar, a bunch of stuff was unresolved.

Same! I don't think it was ever billed as historically accurate, and as long as you went in expecting only a pseudo-historical drama it was eminently enjoyable. Benedict Wong was just excellent - loved his Kublai Khan!

Does anyone know anything about this new 6-episode show - Barbarians - coming up on Netflix in October? It looks very intriguing and it's also completely subtitled.

 

[Josu]

Started Perry Mason on HBO

 

[The_J]

Same! I don't think it was ever billed as historically accurate, and as long as you went in expecting only a pseudo-historical drama it was eminently enjoyable. Benedict Wong was just excellent - loved his Kublai Khan!

Yeah... seems I can't got with that. It just annoys me too much.

I also don't understand why you'd take a perfectly fine story, and just go and mangle it o_O.

 

[Kyriakos]

Watching s01 of L&O Criminal Intent (aka the D'Onofrio show).
While I like D'Onofrio, and his co-star is also nice, the format of all episodes is the same.
Moreover it isn't really convincing - so comes across as being reverse-engineered.
Basically the guilty party is ALWAYS pushed to make an error/outburst/sacrifice by D'Onofrio pushing their buttons.
It then becomes only an issue of order in which this happens, eg in some episodes there is some to-and-fro, but ultimately the progression goes only one way.

Now, unlike some shows of the Colombo variety, where you always know who is guilty from the start anyway (for a myriad of reasons), here there is some ambiguity up to a point - or at specific episodes it remains ambiguous to the end, eg someone is found guilty at trial but it isn't entirely certain they did it, still they got pushed by D'Onofrio to act in a way which would make the jury find them guilty.

There are two problems with this format. The first problem is that D'Onofrio is stronger than any other card. The second problem is that all games reach a definitive end. So it doesn't matter what happens, if the enemy card comes into contact with D'Onofrio it is to spiral down to nothingness.
This is problematic, from an intellectual point of view, cause having watched enough episodes you no longer follow the full episode but just the points of difference from previous episodes, which are mostly decorative.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Not great, not terrible.

A level of 4 sounds pretty terrible in the show, that was one of the key sticking points for the officials involved.

Yeah it's completely inaccurate but totally awesome if you can get past that! I really loved that show and was upset when it got cancelled. It didn't even really wrap things up either - while I don't remember it being a cliff hangar, a bunch of stuff was unresolved.

Yeah I also loved Marco Polo but I recognized immediately that it was complete fiction. They should have just named it something else. At the time it was released it was being compared to Game of Thrones, which I think would have been a fair comparison, had they not used a pseudo-historical setting. If they'd just made it completely fictional, it would have been better.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I started watching Chernobyl tonight based on your review... excellent. And yes, yes, yes to everything you say about it... the absolute dread, and non stop head shaking... disgust and shocked disbelief at all the craziness going on. I had the same experience as you, just looking at everyone saying "OMG why are they doing that?!?... welp, you're dead... you're all dead." The scene where they are telling Gorbachev how bad it is... and therefore, in retrospect, how bad it could have actually been for the whole world... is just... chilling.

I just finished Episode 3 and I can't wait to see the rest but I need to go to sleep.

I'm through episode 2, myself. The closing scene of that episode made me think of Alien.

Watching s01 of L&O Criminal Intent (aka the D'Onofrio show).
While I like D'Onofrio, and his co-star is also nice, the format of all episodes is the same.
Moreover it isn't really convincing - so comes across as being reverse-engineered.
Basically the guilty party is ALWAYS pushed to make an error/outburst/sacrifice by D'Onofrio pushing their buttons.
It then becomes only an issue of order in which this happens, eg in some episodes there is some to-and-fro, but ultimately the progression goes only one way.

Now, unlike some shows of the Colombo variety, where you always know who is guilty from the start anyway (for a myriad of reasons), here there is some ambiguity up to a point - or at specific episodes it remains ambiguous to the end, eg someone is found guilty at trial but it isn't entirely certain they did it, still they got pushed by D'Onofrio to act in a way which would make the jury find them guilty.

There are two problems with this format. The first problem is that D'Onofrio is stronger than any other card. The second problem is that all games reach a definitive end. So it doesn't matter what happens, if the enemy card comes into contact with D'Onofrio it is to spiral down to nothingness.
This is problematic, from an intellectual point of view, cause having watched enough episodes you no longer follow the full episode but just the points of difference from previous episodes, which are mostly decorative.

Law & Order is deliberately formulaic, and a lot of people like it. It's a kind of "comfort food", in the same way some people like to listen to radio stations that play the same ~100 songs over and over. It makes it easier to follow, if you're braindead on the couch after a day at work and/or putting the kids to bed, or maybe you have it on while you're making dinner or cleaning the house and if you miss a scene you kind of know what it was anyway. I used to watch Criminal Minds a lot, 'cause Paget Brewster, but after a while the repetition of the horribly murdered woman got through my shields.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I'm through episode 2, myself. The closing scene of that episode made me think of Alien.

OMG with the Geiger-counters/dosimeters going absolutely bananas? What a great scene... absolutely terrifying.

 

[EgonSpengler]

OMG with the Geiger-counters/dosimeters going absolutely bananas? What a great scene... absolutely terrifying.

 

[Kyriakos]

A level of 4 sounds pretty terrible in the show, that was one of the key sticking points for the officials involved.

Sommer is delusional; take him to the infirmary.

 

[EgonSpengler]

In other news, I'm through episode 3 of Lovecraft Country, the one where Leti buys a house. I love the incidental music that plays in the background of the dialogue scenes. It's a throwback to the thrillers of that era. The "low-speed chase" scene in the first episode was great, even more tense than the scene at the border crossing in Sicario and the opening scene of Drive. Speaking of the show's music, I note that Wunmi Mosaku and Jurnee Smollett do their own singing. I had to look up Mosaku 'cause she looked familiar: I'd seen her in Luther. Her American accent is pretty solid. It was also nice to see Aunjanue Ellis (The Mentalist) and Courtney B. Vance (L&O: Criminal Intent; The Hunt for Red October) again.

Spoiler :

It took me a second, but the alien princess in the very first scene and the hallucinatory North Korean soldier in the manor-house were both played by Jamie Chung. They wouldn't have such a recognizable actress playing such throwaway characters, so there must be something going on there. I'm guessing I'll see her again later..?

Speaking of the manor-house, who's in control of the Shoggoths now? Has to be Ms. Braithwaite, I guess, since everyone else is dead.

So far, this show is the best Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign I've ever seen.

Oh, I almost forgot:

Spoiler :

I still remembered all the words.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Boys, season 2: Y'know I only just realized that Jack Quaid is the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. Is it weird that his love interest in the show looks so much like his mom did at that age?

 

[Drakle]

I'm watching Star Treks. I watched a few from TOS, but got bored and skipped to TNG. Which had quite a few painful episodes, but eventually got really good, and so I watched it all. Now watching DS9 and Voyager. DS9 is very good, while Voyager is mostly just okay.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Finished Chernobyl this week and I will just say... fantastic show. I was sad to see it end. There are people depicted in that show that should quite literally have statues of them constructed in every country on the globe, because they quite literally saved the world... like real life superheroes. That whole situation... what an epic horsehockyshow... and I love how the ending lays it all out... an obviously extremely complex subject, specifically, nuclear physics, in simple, understandable detail.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The Boys, season 2: Y'know I only just realized that Jack Quaid is the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. Is it weird that his love interest in the show looks so much like his mom did at that age?

Is the show done yet? I was so disgusted to find out they were releasing it piecemeal.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Is the show done yet? I was so disgusted to find out they were releasing it piecemeal.

Episode 7 releases tomorrow, but I don't know how many eps there are this season.

I like the once-a-week schedule, but I suppose I'm in the minority these days. Even when I "binge" a series, I rarely watch more than 1 ep of a given show a night. otoh, I also don't feel compelled to keep up with the social media reactions to series, for which a weekly release schedule would be better, I would think. The problem I have with the shows that drop all at once is that it makes it functionally impossible for me to discuss the show with people. It even makes it difficult to read articles and listen to podcasts posted by reviewers on websites (part of that is because websites and podcast apps are so badly organized - nobody likes doing that kind of grunt-work, so it mostly just doesn't get done). That kind of disconnection of the audiences may happen anyway, though, for a variety of other reasons (the splintering of delivery media; the proliferation of content - I don't think I know anyone irl who watches The Boys, for instance). I noticed Amazon produced an "after-show" for season 2 of The Boys, which makes more sense if there's some time between episodes. I haven't watched it, though, and it's hosted by Aisha Tyler, who I like - I'm not sure why I haven't tried it. I wonder what kind of viewer numbers it's been getting.

 

[Kyriakos]

Finished Chernobyl this week and I will just say... fantastic show. I was sad to see it end. There are people depicted in that show that should quite literally have statues of them constructed in every country on the globe, because they quite literally saved the world... like real life superheroes. That whole situation... what an epic ****show... and I love how the ending lays it all out... an obviously extremely complex subject, specifically, nuclear physics, in simple, understandable detail.

Most of the show is fake (including most of the science) - on youtube you can find a number of documentaries, with real people from the period, explaining the break from reality.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Most of the show is fake (including most of the science) - on youtube you can find a number of documentaries, with real people from the period, explaining the break from reality.

I haven't finished the show yet, but I've bookmarked a couple of these articles for later. I'm curious to see what was genuine and what was dramatized.