7
votes
TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Watched a good chunk of The Cuphead Show on Netflix. Outside of doing one or two really neat tricks with the animation, it's tries to split the difference between vintage cartoon sensibilities and contemporary kids show, and it suffers for it IMO. The show doesn't really have the wow factor of the original game, and the characters don't feel strong enough on their own to hold down 90 year old animated shenanigan tropes.
That's a great observation, I didn't notice it but that makes total sense. I kinda wish they went full nostalgia, but I'm kind of a nut for this kind of thing. I mean, if you're gonna add film grain and scratches to your cartoon, don't add just a little, make it look like actual film. Make people wonder "is that a new show, or a Walt Disney bootleg?". Hell, if you have the money, actually put it in film and then digitize it back! Oh boy, that would be so cool!
This show seems to lack the "wow factor" I expect from some children's cartoons, maybe that's not possible under a 1930s mindset.
I know nothing about Cuphead's lore, but it would probably be great as adult animation. Heavier storylines would make a nice contrast to the harmless appearances.
I'm in love with the theme song.
Unlike the videogame, the cartoon was not animated by hand. Don't know if that makes a difference, but it probably does.
I understand that this has the budget of a video game tie in show, so that animating it by hand or doing some film artifacting might have been way, way out of scope, but just writing wise it doesn't stack up. I understand that "it's not what I expected and I don't think it's funny" isn't a fantastic argument to why I didn't like a show that people put a lot of work and love into, but it would rather be a Nickelodeon show from the 90's instead of a Lonely Tunes pastiche, and that kinda feels like a waste.
There isn't a whole lot of lore or characterization to work with, just vibe, and I think the creative team did their best to transplant that vibe over, but now it's just a cartoon pretending to be a cartoon.
About the story: I understand that this is for young kids, and not even remotely for adults. I told my sister to put it in front of my 5-year-old nephew. I'm waiting the results.
I don’t know why I’m suddenly getting back into British television. But I’ve been watching a lot of Taskmaster. Which is a game show hosted by Greg Davies. It’s been around for a while, including around the time when I was an anglophile, so I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it.
It’s really funny and inventive. You basically just see British celebrities and comedians do these strange tasks and they compete with one another throughout the series. It’d be interesting to see what an American version would look like (I imagine they would tame it down and actually might be slightly more boring).
Pam & Tommy is releasing on Hulu. Hulu’s been killing it lately with Only Murders in the Building and now this. The first two episodes are directed by Craig Gillespie who directed I, Tonya and more recently Cruella. And for those of you familiar with those films it should be of no surprise to you that the show is filled with needle drops.
It’s really good. I’ve known Seth Rogen was a good actor since I saw Steve Jobs nearly seven years ago now. Sebastian Stan is fantastic playing the psychopath known as Tommy Lee. And Lilly James, who I’ve had a crush on since Cinderella, is great as well. She’s under heavy prosthetics, even when she’s topless her boobs are prosthetics. But she gives Anderson so much empathy with her performance.
I binged The Orville. Loved it. It really is the spiritual successor to Star Trek, way more than Picard or Star Trek Discovery. While the official shows took great efforts to distance themselves from the traditions of the past, Seth Macfarlane is more than happy to build on what came before. He is clearly a dedicated fan, and the show is a labor of love. To my surprise, The Orville is not really a comedy. I'd call it a sometimes amusing, lighthearted drama instead. And it has some genuinely brilliant episodes.
The Tinder Swindler is a documentary about a con artist who used Tinder to find his victims. It is not memorable. Every con artist is basically the same, if you know one you know them all. Regardless, I have a fascination for these characters, and the psychological twists they employ to manipulate their victims and convince themselves they're doing nothing wrong. Only recommended for fans of true crime.
I've been wanting to watch Murderville but I keep finding myself watching youtube and twitch instead.
Unrelated to the above I stayed in a hotel last Thursday evening and good lord was the cable TV horrendously bad. I wish I had brought my laptop so that I could access Jellyfin at home.
Have you watched any Murder In Successville? Its the original and is super fun.
Here's a sort of master list of all renewals / cancellations.
It's a shame to see that Wu-Tang: An American Saga will finish after S03.
Let me just share another bit of commentary.
On streaming, shows can pretty much have whatever runtime they want. Thank God some shows are also broadcast on network TV, because IMHO there's rarely a justification for hour-long episodes. Black Mirror suffered with that. Shonda Rhymes Inventing Anna is the latest offender. There's just not enough content to fill 65 minutes of entertaining screen time. A thrilling shorter episode is always preferable to an hour-long snooze fest. TV show episodes don't need to be feature films.