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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.
Does The Daily Show count? Jon Stewart was back last night and I was blown away at how much it felt like he never left. It's only Mondays and it's only until the US election ends but man did it take me right back to a comfortable place.
It does invoke a sense of continuity huh. Hard to believe it's been nearly ten years. That's because you (and I) are old ha ha. Maybe a bit more facial hair, and skin does wrinkle, but the shouting incredulity and he pundit energy is the same.
Some politics thoughts:
Biden is so, so old. He shouldn't even be leading Bingo in a home.And how did the country come down to the choice between that and something far worse.
(cue Bo Burnham's Joe Biden song)
This is true. Biden was the complete opposite of Trump, so it made sense. Rarely does a president not get to run for a second term, so just that simple. Doesn't make it any less terrifying.
Really enjoying:
The Traitors
Really fun concept of working together for a prize pot, three mystery “traitors” that if remaining at the end steal the money from the “faithful.” Every evening they can vote for who they think a traitor is; traitors murder someone every evening. Fun to watch for me from a sociological perspective and how people navigate the unknown and tribal like loyalty and sniffing out disloyalty. We’re not great at it!
True Detective: Night Country
Fun mix of mystery, detective drama, and experiencing Alaska during the extended dark period. Really look forward to this each week.
I've heard the Australian version of The Traitors is also very good, but I haven't watched any version of it.
Is this a spin-off or something? And how scary is it?
I watched only season one of the original and it was too horrific for me towards the end. So I haven't been back to try the other seasons, which apparently I wasn't missing out on season 2 as it was a dud. Should I try this though?
I don’t believe it’s a spin off. It has some scary scenes and some gory scenes. So, it can be a bit intense. I like that, though.
are you watching the UK or US Traitors? this last season of the UK one is a benchmark for the genre :)
US version, but I plan on watching the UK version also.
nice! both of the UK ones are excellent. There’s also Uncloaked, which is fun if you’re going week to week.
i never get into show like this, but in hooked :)
So, not about a tv show but I normally pirate everything I watch. Today my sister came to visit and we're in an AirBnB with this enormous tv and OH BOY YOU'RE NOT KIDDING WHEN YOU SAY HOW BAD THE EXPERIENCE IS.
How bad is it? Lots of interrupting ads? Can't even start the tv without ads? Is the problem with the smart tv (hardware crippled with stupid software) or with the steaming service provider? Or *gasp-- were you watching cable television?
Yes, it's everything. Everything about it was terrible.
In the 1990s setting up a VCR's clock (or a microwaves clock) was tricky because you had to do everything through three buttons and a single display. Changing the settings on the TV felt a bit like that, except I'm using a remote control that has a million buttons and an enormous screen. (I get that they need options for people who've lost the remote, but still.) And you need to use the menu because the default options are odd - there's an option you have on if you watch sport and off if you're watching a movie, and the default is sport mode. There's an option that makes everything sound worse if it's on, and it's on by default, and turning it off makes everything sound better.
The whole "install an app to watch the content" thing is weird to me. It'd be like if Kindles required you to install a reader-app from Penguin House and Hachette and Random House and HarperCollins etc, and then when you wanted to read a book you've bought you have to just remember who published it so you can launch the correct app. And if you can't remember you have to search the web because there's no global search on the device. And the device gives you a webbrowser but that's painful, so you have to use a different device.
I'm in the UK. There's a channel called "ITV", and they have a lot of different police procedural shows. ITV is a big channel in the UK, it's not a tiny obscure thing. To watch ITV on-demand I can use their website or I can use their app on a smart tv. This AirBnB has a huge, new, smart tv connected to the Internet. I use the menus to try to find the ITV app so I can launch it. It's not installed, but finding out it's not installed isn't easy because none of the menu options appear to be "here are all the apps you have installed". I go to the app store for this device, and that has a list of apps for "video", "lifestyle", "factual" and the contents are different. I think this is obviously video so I pick that option, and it has a lot of video streaming apps but they're not in alphabetical order. I scroll through pages trying to find this app. It's not there. The store has a search so I use that, and there's a bunch of international ITV apps, but nothing from this store. The TV has a web browser and that's somehow worse than the browser that I used on a Dreamcast (but maybe this is just nostalgia kicking in). I use the browser to try to use the ITV help pages to understand what's going on - I give up and use my phone instead. ITVX Help - How to watch - really simple. Download and install the app to the tv, start watching, no notes. Except, they're talking about live tv and I want to watch VOD, but these are the same right? And the help doesn't mention VOD. There's a list of devices - this is a Samsung, but it's made in 2022 and it should be fine.
Friends, no, this model of tv simply cannot install the stupid app so nothing from this channel can be watched, but the only people saying "this device can't install the app" are the people on web fora saying "I can't find the app what's happening" and the people replying saying "yes, ITVX doesn't work with old Samsung tvs" and the other people saying "yes, ITVX doesn't work with new Samsung tvs", but with a smattering of people saying "just install the app, it's easy, it's in the app store".
Yikes.........
I wonder if there's some Samsung palms ITV didn't grease or if the landscape became so fragmented it is now impossible for media channel to keep up with so many different dumb software app stores.
How utterly terrible. And you're a tech savvy guy: what are regular people supposed to do?
I continue to watch Columbo, after reading a comment recommending (?) it here back in October. The end of season 5 was the worst episode ever though! "Last Salute to the Commodore". It morphed into a whodunnit rather than the usual gimmick of how will Columbo get the killer. And the reveal was terrible. None of it made any sense, it didn't matter. It also used the repeated story trope of the "broken watch" revealing the time of the murder or some garbage. Scenes went on forever in a strange way. Everyone seemed drunk. Overall, dreadful. If anyone decides to rewatch several seasons of this crusty old show, skip this one.
Fortunately season 6 starts with an episode starring William Shatner, who is perfect hamming it up as a fake TV detective (all a bit meta). It was back to the usual formula, and overall was a great episode. The second of season 6 has another watch clue, albeit not a broken one this time, but how the calendar works when changing months in a mechanical watch. What is this watch obsession?! I'm wondering if the show will nosedive after the 1970s seasons are over, as there was a gap of 11 years from season 7 (1977) to season 8 (1989).
My girlfriend and I have been watching Couple to Throuple as our bullshit wind down show. I'm genuinely curious what tildes would think because there seems to be a fairly sizeable and vocal poly/ENM contingent here. As a strictly monogamous person (forget jealousy, I don't know where you find the time), I find the show to very entertaining. You get all the mess and armchair quarterbacking of a classic relationship reality show but with the added drama of a third person coming in with their needs/feelings/baggage/bullshit.
8/10 on the reality scale.
I'm currently watching through The Americans, fantastic show, currently on season 4 and it's just so tense and restricting. The parents Phil and Elizabeth trying to put on airs and graces while they're literally Russian spies is just such good TV.
I'm hoping to have it finished in the next few weeks and then I think I'll move on to Mr Inbetween, an Australian TV show. It's a dark comedy drama about a hitman trying to balance his family life and the obligations to his work, it's meant to be very good so I'm looking forward to that.
Other than that, me and my partner finished Black Bird last night, it was incredible, the acting was phenomenal, absolutely stacked cast, definitely one to watch if you're in to true crime, serial killers, prison dramas etc.