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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.
Just finished the first season of Severance and fuck me what a cliffhanger. Hate it when shows do this. Now I have to wait til Jan/Feb/Mar of next year for season two to get any sort of resolution to season 1.
Individually, each episode is a 10/10, but as a whole the entire season can go fuck itself. It literally ends at the climax of the season. No falling action, no resolution. Imagine a roller coaster ride that stops at the top of the first drop. You have all this suspense built up, ready to go down the coaster and feel the rush, but nope. Wait til 2025 for the drop.
No spoilers, but the entire premise of the show is about people who 'sever' their work lives from their regular lives, which presents lots of interesting questions and plot points and a ton of suspense trying to figure everything out. And then literally the moment the show reveals these things to you and majorly important things are about to happen.... it fades to black.
I looked it up online afterwards thinking 'surely other people are upset about this, surely there is universal hatred for this cliffhanger of an ending similar to the collective vitriol shown at GoT with their rushed ending' and instead I found out 2 things:
for the most part, people enjoyed the ending and thought the timing of it was perfect. WTF? Some people commented that it wasn't actually a cliffhanger because you got answers to questions posed during the show. Again WTF? If Star Wars had ended abruptly after Vader revealed he was Luke's father, it'd be a pretty shit ending too.
Apparently the first season was supposed to be 10 episodes, and they had actually started writing or filming the tenth episode when Ben Stiller decided to just say 'wouldn't it be great it we just stopped it there' and so they did. Again WTF?
I feel like I'm crazy and in the minority here but I hate this trend of shows not wrapping shit up in the time they have. What if the show had gotten canceled (ala Netflix)? You want me to wait 1/2/3+ years to maybe possibly get answers to questions that should have been answered already? Finish your story first, then TEASE at another one, don't fade to black literally at the climax of the story.
/rant
I'm sorry but this made me really laugh hahaha
I absolutely agree with your points and I don't think you're all that much in the minority actually. I feel like if anything, it is at best a slim majority that doesn't mind it. It's the worst when they do this, especially with this new trend of 2 years between seasons I mean wtf is that? And it's even worse with this show because it's going to be three years between season 1 and 2.
See I didn't think I was in the minority either, and I don't think I am when it comes to shows and movies not ending on cliffhangers (surely no one out there actively wants that), but when I looked up 'Severance finale discussion' and went through threads on Reddit and other websites, 95% of what I saw was praise rather than the visceral WTF that I was feeling. Thought I was taking crazy pills hearing about how perfectly timed the ending was or that it wasn't actually a cliffhanger.
I disagree completely. Personally, I think the ending of the first season of Severance is one of its best aspects, and as you suggest, most people I know seem to agree with me. It's actually really interesting to me that we can disagree so strongly about this.
You're correct that the season ends right after the climax, without falling action, but to say there's no resolution is I think blatantly false. Using the roller coaster analogy, it would be more like if the ride ended immediately after the first drop. I can think of at least one wildly popular roller coaster with only one drop (Kingda Ka). I also don't think the ending is exactly a 'cliffhanger', though this depends more on how we define that word. I feel like a 'cliffhanger' has come to mean any ending that drives the viewer back to continue watching the next installment, regardless of the mechanism (in the case of Severance, it's sudden revelations that aren't elaborated on). But the word's original meaning is really more specific to unresolved actions - it evokes a serial movie's heroine hanging from a cliff, and the villain is sawing away at the rope she clings to. The big question (will the hero save the day?) is something that can be and often was answered in moments - a 10-second shot of the hero shooting the villain and pulling up the heroine that begins the next installment.
So this brings us to the central issue which is whether there is unresolved action in the final episode of the first season of Severance.
Obviously, lots of spoilers here.
The main events of the last episode are the results of the group's plan to flip the master switch which controls who inhabits their bodies when said bodies are outside of Lumon, putting the 'innies' in contact with the outer world. Dylan defends the switch while Milchik tries to break in and stop him.
The real questions on my mind at this point was 'will the group manage to make good use of their limited time in the outer world?' and 'what exactly are they will they find out?'. These questions are more or less completely answered. We get to see what Irving and Helly's outer lives are like, which the show has given us no information about until this part, including the very significant finding that Helly is the daughter of Lumon's CEO. In terms of what the group accomplishes, Irving gets a pretty clear picture of Burt's outie's life. Helly successfully disrupts a Lumon gala, revealing her innie's tortured existence to the public and destroying the company's official narrative about the severance procedure. Mark is able to find out about Mrs. Selvig/Mrs. Cobel's double life, successfully makes contact with his sister, apprising her of the entire situation, and then, at the last moment, sees a picture of his outie's wife, which he knows to in fact be still alive.
I struggle to see how these events are unresolved. In fact, they serve to fill in the characters on both sides of the innie/outie divide of the other half's true existence. The episode ends just as Milchik stops Dylan and the characters return to their 'outie' state, and from here there is no need or even ability for the innies to accomplish anything else. They did what they set out to do, more or less, and now they pretty much need to wait and see how things play out - the ball is now totally in Lumon's court.
Presumably Lumon will start trying to do damage control about the reality of the severance procedure, though with a room full of distinguished guests and journalists witnessing Helly's revelations, it seems unlikely they will be able to stop word from getting out. Even if they did, Mark's sister now knows everything, and she's been shown to have a good head on her shoulders and has a good chance at being able to make use of this information.
But here's the critical part for me: there is no way to further resolve these events with any sort of brevity. They are bound to ramify in all sort of ways that are only going to lead to further questions. Ending where it did, the show gives us no information about Lumon's response to the situation - perhaps the only thing we're given no information about. But this is not a cliffhanger. How much more time would we need to feel resolved about whatever will happen next? Ten minutes wouldn't do the trick - it would feel rushed, incomplete. In fact, I'm willing to bet this is why there's no tenth episode - they probably realized that even with as much as they can cram into a whole hour, any further action would not feel resolved, in fact even less resolved than the current ending point, because the more that happens, the more we'd want to know. As it stands, the season ends at the perfect inflection point, where we are given everything we'd been asking for all season, and have a minimum of questions.
The minimum of questions in this case might be quite a lot - as you seem to be experiencing. But I fail to see a better point of departure within the first season that would not compromise the pace of the storytelling. I mean, theoretically, they could have taken the entire second season and boil it down to a CliffsNotes version of itself and inserted it as a final episode, but that would obviously be unsatisfying.
I can agree with what you're saying. Especially now that it's been a few days and I'm no longer in shock at the abrupt ending, but I think it boils down to definitions and personal preferences and expectations. I still feel like it is a cliffhanger, but I can see your points about why you don't see it as one. I didn't mean to sound dismissive of other viewpoints in my previous post, I was just in shock and venting a bit. Thank you for your level-headed and thorough response.
spoilers part
That's perfectly fair, those questions were indeed answered, but in my mind it was less about 'what will they find out' (though that's still very interesting) and more about 'hey, Lumon is obviously shitty and a big cult, so how are these lowly peons who aren't even technically people going to somehow topple this whole shebang?'. In my mind we were like 3/4ths of the way through the story. Part 1 was establishing the characters and setting, Part 2 was realizing that something is seriously off about Lumon and then showing that, Part 3 was further figuring out what exactly was wrong with Lumon and what the main characters were going to do about it, and then Part 4 would be taking down Lumon using what they learned in Part 3. Hence why I feel disappointed by the lack of resolution. I subconsciously was expecting it, so to have the entire season end abruptly somewhere in Part 3 feels like a huge cliffhanger to me, even if it may not meet the technical definition of the word. I recognize that this is on me and my expectations, but that is how I felt during the first season.
Again, totally fair interpretation, but to me it did not feel exactly like that. Yes they set out to do what they wanted for that first part of their plan, which was to wake themselves up after hours to learn a bit about themselves and hopefully share their plight with someone their outies can trust. But in my mind this was just the first step, reconnaissance, which would directly shape how they proceed next in the overarching plan of taking down Lumon. So like they won a battle, but are still in the war. You (and tons of other people) are happy that they resolved the battle, meanwhile I was annoyed that they didn't finish the war.
I agree with this. Having set up these huge reveals at the very end of the 9th episode, there's no space to fully resolve everything in just one more episode. I don't pretend to know anything about how tv shows are made or funded or anything on the business side of things, but if it's so dang easy to cut an episode that they've already started on, why couldn't they add one more if they really felt like they needed more time to flesh out the ending. Make it 11 episodes. Or make the 10th episode 1.5 hours or something. Still not enough time to properly resolve everything, but maybe they could have shown a bit of the fallout (i.e. resolution) and then set up a whole new set of problems for season 2. Or maybe they could have paced the season a little better if they knew they would be running out of time to wrap things up. So that maybe these big reveals happened in the beginning/middle of episode 9 and then you had the rest of episode 9 and all of 10 to resolve some things.
Again I don't pretend to know anything about making or directing tv shows, but my visceral reaction as a viewer who thoroughly enjoyed episodes 1-9 and then had the metaphorical rug pulled from under my feet right at the end was WTF.
Victim of my own expectations I guess.
I was disappointed because I thought that it was a one off show. I didn't know much about it. Then it just ends and I'm like WTF! I've seen the teasers for season 2 and I'm not too excited. I hold my opinions until the season drops. But I get you
Right! Heard about how good the show was. Heard that there was a season 2 coming out soon. So figured hey might as well try it out, then if I like it maybe I can catch season 2 as it airs. But didn't expect this.
Watched Presumed Innocent this week - 6/10
Vague spoilers:
It was worth the watch, and it had some great scenes, but some of it was really quite contrived. Especially the ending was just weird.. nothing pointed towards what happened, there were zero clues or lead up or anything of the sort. The actor for the DA was also really bad and I don't say this often about any actors, but he honestly ruined most scenes he was in - he had 1 facial expression. The pacing was decent throughout though, and aside from some cheap cliff hangers and padding, it was a decent thriller. Apparently it's a remake of a movie, which I didn't realize, and it's apparently better than this show so might give that a watch at some point.
I read the book one and a half times. I want to like the book series, but I find it to be incredibly boring.
With the show, I watched a few episodes... nothing happened... then I skipped ahead to the end of the season and... well, it was alright. Same sort of feel as the book, to be honest.
I just started and finished Kaos on Netflix. This is probably the first show in over two years that I've actually been in love with. The performances are excellent across the board and to top it off, this has to be one of my favorite roles for Jeff Goldblum. I'm not too familiar with Greek mythology (I love the idea but hated studying it in high school English), so I'd love to know how someone more familiar feels about the show.
I didn't know until recently, but it's created by Charlie Covell who also adapted The End of the F***ing World which is another top 10 for me.
Just watched it myself over the last few nights and it is so much fun! Perhaps a bit bloated in parts but still so clever in its respinning of ancient tales. And hats off to Goldblum who absolutely kills it in a series stacked with quality actors bringing their A-game. I understand Clovell has a plan for three seasons in total so fingers crossed Netflix are happy with the numbers.
The final The Grand Tour with Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson released today on Amazon Prime. Just watched it and it really is quite a fitting end for them. It is really a quite mellow road trip across Zimbabwe, where they mostly do stuff they have done before and even act quite civil along the way. No need to go out with a bang or jump the shark. While it is clearly scripted in some parts, it comes off as pretty natural and by all means an end of era for the trio.
I watched the 'new' Top Gear from the beginning; I can't believe they're done. 22 years is just such a long time to do anything. There's been so many highs and lows over the years but the specials were always such a treat. I haven't loved all of the Grand Tour specials but this one was really good. I know most people probably liked the boat and train bits, but I would've been happy with just a road trip with well prepped cars the guys had always wanted through gorgeous scenery. Loved the tie ins to the first Top Gear Botswana special. I read many people commenting that they wish they'd used 'Jessica' for the outro- that would've been cool.
Watched Chimp Crazy, the successor to 2020's Tiger King. Ooh boy. I have to go back and watch Tiger King again but my instant reaction was Chimp Crazy is better. The first episode was fun but the second episode really took it to another level. Too bad this doesn't have the Netflix/Covid bump because it deserves the same attention.
Been looking for something to fill that Tiger King void in my mind for the last few years. Will check it out, thanks!
anybody watch Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos? I'm watching it tonight. It seems like it slipped under the radar a bit.
Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is the latest Star Wars series on Disney Plus, and it’s been a running joke between me and my brother that Lego Star Wars is the closest to canonical Star Wars as compared to the movies and series. It plays in the same vein of the Lego Movie where canonical things like reboots and fan expectations are textualized as the universe completely upending itself with a single brick out of place, and it’s surprisingly comparable to Deadpool and Wolverine, in that it has its checklist of little cameos outside of their normal environments, and a beating heart about a relationship between two brothers who become completely different people and can’t go back to the way it was. Good stuff.
Slow Horses is perfect as always.
I might start watching Buffy. I
hatereally don't like that redhead, though. Anyway, this is the list I'm following. I want to watch as little of this series as possible while still having seen enough to get it.The Old Man is back for S02. Thomas Perry's source material is good. His books are pulpy and great for the genre, but don't stand out. Some are a little goofy --- but overall, I hope this season picks up the pace a bit from the first.
Futurama has been pretty good this season. Nobody is talking about it, but I wish they would. Its not like the episodes are like the old days, but there are stil a lot of great jokes and storylines.
Is the other half of the new season of Futurama out? I had no idea!
It isn't perfect, but https://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/ is handy. For me, I use Sonarr, so its all automated.
What is it that bothers you about Willow? Is it Allyson Hannigan or the character herself?
If it helps you decide, I hate Xander with some serious energy, and I still watch through the full series once every 3 or so years. He gets about as much screen time as Willow.
Xander is so much worse the older I get, and now that we "know" about Whedon, it makes so much sense. ಠಿ_ಠ
Xander fucking sucks. I hope they kill him off soon.
late update: Xander is still terrible.
Ohhhhh boy. I have bad news.
Shhh shhh let them experience it
haha i am ready to suffer. the show is pretty fun.
i didn’t realize there was such a controversy about the new ‘remaster’ i need to tuck into it to make sure i’m getting the best version.
it’s her as a person. i have only seen her on one episode of HIMYM, but saw her a lot on Penn. and Teller’s show.
She is a deeply annoying person with a terrible voice. She’s probably nice in real life, though.
I’ve got another few weeks of Lost and then it’s Buffy time. I am sincerely hoping that i love the series.
I’ll keep an eye out for that shitbag, Xander.
I really hope you like it!
a friend of mine is all about it. brownie points are never wasted :)
Slow Horses scratched an itch I didn't know I had. I watched it out of boredom knowing nothing about it and didn't stop until I had finished what was available at the time (the first two seasons thankfully).
it’s so nice to have a spy show where the spies aren’t perfect or suave but still care and don’t goof around. the overall tone is excellent, too.
i’m so impressed and thankful that they stick to the books, for the most part.