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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 The Bear Last week. I didn't really know what to expect going in and damn it tore me apart. The actors are excellent and the show creators really do a great job bringing the emotion to the forefront.
I don't want to say to much more for fear of spoilers, but it's definitely one of the best shows I've watched in a long time and I'm excited for season 2.
I noticed some things about how The Bear writes characters & relationships, which really impressed me. No spoilers.
Normally, I would expect the characters to change and grow as a result of something obvious. An event, a conversation. It's not the case here. Everyone is influenced by everyone, and the changes are subtle and not explained to the viewer.
The second big thing: conflict. They could have gone the easy route and just made the obvious choice: have characters argue with each other, or complain to someone else.
But they generally shy away from that, which makes the conflicts seem more realistic and nuanced.
Great writing overall.
This show really hits emotionally. I'll just say that season 2 is also really good. I might like it more than the first one.
I'm currently watching TNG for the very first time and I couldn't agree more. I'm only on the second season, but I'm already hooked! I'll have to check out Lower Decks once I've gone through all of TNG.
My only complaint is that I find the bleep-swearing is becoming irritating. Maybe it used to be rarer, but this last episode used it too much, to the point where it stops being an amusing "shock" effect, to where I'd like to shake them and say stop doing it please. Swearing, if overdone, comes off as a lack of imagination. Instead of writing good lines, just put in some swears. And bleeping swears seems doubly stupid. The best use of it was that episode where they were in an alien interrogation (or is it...) and Tendi went on a secret mission with Ransom, and he was censoring "Rom-bleep-ulans".
Anyway, rant over... I like the way the show takes some minor, underused plot point of the TNG-era Trek universe and expands it into a whole show. I sometimes wonder who their target audience is. Hardcore Star Trek fans would probably dislike the show because of its irreverence, and casual fans won't get half the references. And anyone who has never seen a Trek show before would be utterly lost. I only know the references because I listened to the fairly awful "The Greatest Gen" podcast, which has a kind of similar humor to Lower Decks in some ways.
But I rewatched seasons 1-3 before this season, and it's got the best characters in Trek. The way they do "office dynamics in space" are just perfect. In TNG it was like the best of the best, and here it's more like a friendly competent small business office or something. People have their quirks, but everyone's still invested in making the Cerritos a nice place to be while exploring the galaxy.
I watched season 3 of Only Murders in the Building this week and was kind of underwhelmed. It felt like a season of a show that wanted to commit to ending its run until the last half of the last episode of the season.
Mabel spent most of the season trying to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life and whether Charles and Oliver fit into her future. She experiences some growth, but in the end decides to maintain the status quo, living at the Arconia and podcasting with her guys.
The show stuck to its formula a little too closely: investigate a suspect, clear them at the end of the episode, and introduce a new piece of evidence that implicates someone else. The show often makes meta-jokes about the story structure, but this time around it felt like they only served to highlight the lazy writing.
Avoiding any spoilers, I appreciated that the ending was ambiguous and could make a good setup for another season that continues the investigation. I worry that the show is getting caught in the trap that a lot of popular shows get into: keeping the characters from developing too much so that you don't have to worry about changing the premise and character dynamics if the show gets picked up for another season.
I’m pretty sure there’s one more episode left.
Man, now I feel like a dope.
Lol, I did check the episode list at the end of the last one to make sure there was one more to go, since it could easily have been the season finale.
Personally I hope S3 doesn’t end on any sort of cliffhanger. I think it’s pretty obvious that the series has run its course.
I liked the first season. Martin Short was a bit much at first, but they dialed him back nicely and it all came together. I wish they stopped.
The second season was alright, but dragged... I didn't even bother with the third. Its a shame because the first season captured something that The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley was lacking.
They should retire the series or completely flip it on its head somehow.
Yea the show has gone a little too long. This season definitely feels like an ending to the series. This isn't the type of show that should go longer than a few seasons. I still like the season, but not as much as the others
Guys I need help.
I started binging Community and now I keep saying “cool cool cool” like Abed.
And the problem is....?
I just started watching Fionna and Cake. I did not have huge expectations as I loved Adventure Time with a passion and I was not sure how this spin-off could work. So far I am only a few episodes in and I must say how pleasantly surprised I am. The animation is still great and they always have such a crazy cast of voice actors.
You can certainly tell this spin-off is more geared towards towards the now older and "OG" Adventure Time fans. I was certainly caught off-guard with some of the violence and language being used, but its not out of place. The plot relies pretty heavily on knowing what happened in Adventure Time, so this is not something I think casual fans might be able to drop in and understand. The characters are well written and their motivations make sense. Its funny without being comedic and it can have those classic heartfelt AT moments I am used too.
For anyone who loves a good animated show and watched Adventure Time, I say give this a shot.
I started watching Criminal Minds from the beginning with my wife and it holds up surprisingly well. It's rather progressive for its time it seems. I wonder if you can say the same about the CSIs and similar shows from around that time.
I finally finished Vikings after all of these years. The show kinda goes downhill after Ragnar's death, it seems like it kinda should have ended there.