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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.
Common Side Effects on Adult Swim continues to impress me more and more every week. Favorite show on TV right now.
Watched the trailer because I hadn't heard of it. The trailer def did it's job and got me curious. The first ep is on YouTube, going to check it out today. What do you like about it?
Tangent: It's so hard to separate Mike Judge's voice from Hank Hill lol
I like it because of the realistic voice acting and general not overly done weirdness if that makes sense. The interaction between characters and small human antics just seems real.
Marshall is a perfect every man but then when the time calls he is prepared to suddenly transform from mild mannered herbalist into Jean Claude Van Daaaamnnn
Sorry for the extremely delayed response here, had a busy couple weeks… I don’t generally watch a lot of animated stuff but I think Common Side Effects nails all the things that make the format palatable for general audiences. It has the surrealist art of a Miyazaki movie, the humor of Mike Judge that comes across in both his animated and live action work, it’s kind of violent in a generally anime inspired style but that’s not constant and it always serves the story and elevates scenes to pull you in and keeps things surprising, it’s borderline sci-fi but still feels fully grounded in reality… there’s an intriguing plot with fully developed storytelling and character development.
Seems like usually you only get a couple of those… anime can sometimes be so visually cool but the plots aren’t grounded in a believable world or doesn’t really translate that well in the west - and the humor is never quite as high quality. Western cartoons will have the humor but be visually boring. Animation overall sometimes lacks in relatable characters, etc etc.
I have my theories on where the plot will go but I watch every week and am consistently surprised and pulled in to an extent that only happens once every few years.
Cool I saw the thumbnail for that on HBO and it didn't grab me but now I checked out the trailer and it definitely looks like something I would enjoy. So then I will recommend Scavengers Reign if you haven't seen that, also created by Joseph Bennett.
Not familiar with that I’ll definitely check it out, thank you!
Deutschland 83-86-89 - 7/10
First season was by far the strongest. Some real intrigue, excitement, tense scenes. Most of everything you'd want in a cold war spy thriller. A fish out of water situation with the main character, pressured into spying for the DDR's HVA (Stasi) in the BRD at a military base.
While the show does jump 3 years ahead in between seasons, it still felt unearned or maybe just odd that he had already early in the season become some sort of Bond or Bourne level superspy. Not much else to say about season 2 though.
The third season was unfortunately more of the same quality, added some family drama that was actually pretty good, and it was pretty cool to see how things looked in the budding unified Germany, with everyone coming to terms with how their lives had more or less been a lie, and how people that were very close to them turned out to be informants or even worked for the Stasi itself. That was probably the best part of the season.
The ending was by some distance the weakest part of the series. It felt like they had to wrap up everything very fast, so it was quite rushed, felt like things didn't really make sense and was disjointed from each other. Moreover some scenes had a total shift in genre, becoming borderline horror which was just so strange. Seemed like they didn't really know what to do with some characters, and those that they did know what to do with ended up with some developments that were completely out of character, like Valdez and Lenora - or at least they were strange developments that hadn't really been even as much as hinted at.
Favourite character was Schweppenstette because of his great arc. The cold demeanor in the beginning of the show, then slowly becoming a warmer person yet remaining a ruthless Stasi agent until finally being fed up and allowing himself to fully soften up. Brigitte was also a favourite, great arc too and she was just so cool! Gave me Atomic Blonde or Red Sparrow vibes at times. Her relationship with Martin as well, super complicated which made it the most interesting one in the show.
Would recommend this to anyone that are fans of the genre.
My mom and I have been watching Kids' Baking Championship which ended last week, and this week started watching Spring Baking Championship. It's a good alternative to... Well, reality. The kids one in particular was nice because A) the kids would freely help each other out which was awesome, and B) some of the stuff they made felt like we might actually be capable of making ourselves! (Okay not really, but it feels more attainable than the adults' show.)
One thing that drives me crazy though: they use MySims and Sims 2/3 music. I was literally playing MySims during one episode when the music came up. It is so weird to hear on a TV show, and I call it out every time I recognize it.
My wife watched Homeland last year by herself and loved it, and I watched The Americans last year by myself and loved it, so we agreed to watch both together, since neither of us had seen the other show.
We're about midway through season 7 of Homeland and I really cannot wait to get to The Americans.
Spoiler warning in advance for Homeland.
Is it just me or is Carrie the worst spy in the world? She runs on hunches way too often and risks blowing entire missions by completely disobeying orders at basically every chance she gets. I think the writers realized this was untenable so they got her out of the CIA for good, except there's not really a show if Carrie isn't a spy, so it's not much different when she's out of the CIA. I really did not enjoy the New York arc (and felt like the really dragged out the Peter Quinn torture), and Carrie back in DC/in the president's sphere is a little better but still pretty uneven compared to the arc of the first two seasons.
Anyway -- I'm excited to rewatch The Americans because it really nails the spying aspect in a way that I feel Homeland struggles with at times (though at other times it works well, like when Carrie seduced Aayan in season 4).
Edit: I will say, though, that Claire Danes has the chin quiver on LOCK.
I'm ⅔ through Unknown Chaplin (1983) -- neat three parter for fans of Chaplin.
I just started Wheel of Time season 3, and I have the special pleasure of having an actress that I love playing a character that I loathe. I had no idea that Shohreh Aghdashloo was going to be playing Elaida.
This season has been interesting. I'm not someone who feels like books have to be strictly adhered to when adaptations are done, but there are some wild differences that I'm really not sure about. I think I have less of a problem in adaptations when there are events that are different, but the characters themselves are broadly the same in motivation and how they feel about the other in-universe people. With that in mind:
some discussion of some plot points from this season and spoilers from the books
I will preface this by saying that in general, I don't mind gender bending, race switches, changing a character's sexual orientation, making a straight character gay, or anything of the sort (for what it's worth my most favourite TV couple is David and Patrick in Schitt's Creek).
The relationship change between Elayne and Aviendha are absolutely wild. In the books, Elayne and Aviendha have a intensely deep love for each other. They are friend who form a quick bond and then progress over the course of the books to become sisters. And because the world of Wheel of Time is magic, they become actual sisters through a magical ceremony where they are magically intertwined in the weave. It's a pretty cool story.
In the show, they meet and almost immediately have sex. It is jarring, and has a twinge of grossness to it, in a sort of Jaime / Cersei Lannister sort of way. I think that's unfair to the show - they are likely just setting the stage for the Rand / Elayne /Aviendha / Min relationships to be more of a polycule where they are all intertwined. I think it's an understandable change, and I think the show will not have that whiff of incest for anyone who only watches the show and doesn't read the books. But, well, whiff of incest.
There is an immediate and understandable out for the showrunners, which is that this is a different turning of the Wheel from the books. I have seen some people criticize this and say that it's a cop out, but in a lot of ways I think it's good because things are playing out differently and it allows for watchers to be surprised.
I think the show is doing a lot of things fairly well. Casting is great, the acting is great, the story is pretty good, some of the actual dialogue is a little bit rough, set design is pretty good. Overall, I'm definitely staying in it for now.
There was a big of a goofy battle between Aes Sedai that was also pretty untrue to the books, and I don't mean just that it didn't happen, but that if it were to happen, it would not have happened in the way it did. There is a battle between good and bad Aes Sedai where Alanna just... jumps over some magic? I think it was supposed to be cool and badass, but it just made me groan a bit. She should also have been wildly overpowered as someone alone against several opponents.
Still pretty good, enjoyable show overall. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes this season.