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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.
I watched History Of the World Part II.
I have some extremely mixed feelings about it.
It started off pretty good. The exaggerated characters took some getting used to but there was some seriously good jokes. But the main problem I had with it was that the shorts had some extremely big gaps in the quality of their jokes. By the first two or three episodes, it stops being funny, and the final ones are painfully unfunny. And it's made worse by having multi-part skits that continued a scenario and these are all generally the weakest ones. There were times when they would come up and we would be groaning because it meant getting the same jokes beaten further into the dirt.
Humor, of course, is subjective; I really don't like Nick Kroll's sense of humor much of the time, but honestly I found the skits he didn't appear in were generally much better than the ones where he did. I really like Wanda Sykes and with the exception of her Harriet Tubman role, she's just kind of lackluster in this production (which is especially weird given she's an executive producer). While I really appreciate her addition of Shirley Chisholm to the series, the "Shirley!" Sitcom concept isn't terribly funny, overstays it's welcome by a country mile, and has a color grading applied to it that actually made my eyes hurt.
I found the portrayal of Judaeism in this series to be very strange. Mel Brooks always had Jew jokes in many of his films, but the style and substance for these jokes is very different. In any case, this series has them bursting from the seams. I'm not Jewish so I won't say that it's offensive, but more than anything I found it alienating.
There's also one thing that I find it strange to be criticizing, but this show has way too much meta-humor. It makes so many jokes about the third wall that the third wall ceases to exist and everything feels like a bunch of people just acting and it makes anything that could be remotely chuckle-worthy seem too staged and fake to actually laugh at.
I know it probably sounds like I hate this show, but that's really not the case. Like I said, the early episodes are pretty strong. More than anything, I'm just disappointed.
A Spy Among Friends isn't great, but it also isn't bad. Its based off of the Ben Macintyre novel of the same title.
Not sure what the release schedule is like, but I think its out for everybody by now.
Perry Mason is back and I really like it. They've captured the noir spirit without being camp about it. Its very delicate.
Poker Face also wrapped for the season. The style is a perfect blend of the case of the week but also with an overall arc for the season. Really well done. I miss shows like Colombo, Remington Steele, proper Magnum PI, and such that were just fun without being too corny.
So I just started watching Atlanta after seeing random recommendations through out the last couple of years and I just gotta say it's one of the best shows I've seen in a long, long time. I just love how the absurdities keeps building on the further you get into the show. Danny Glover is just so damn likable and everything from the dialog, characters to the often slow pace is just perfection.