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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 have been watching entirely too much TV recently!
We watched The Boys on prime last week, which was just great I thought. I like the main character, all the superheroes are fun, the storyline is neat, it ended on an intriguing cliffhanger!
I watched Living with Your Self over the weekend, I wasn't sure if I was going to love it, but I found it VERY binge-able, and it was interesting to see Paul Rudd do more acting than his usual very likeable Paul Rudd thing. He was great in it, and the show was fun!
rewatching The Office due to starting to listen to the podcast Office Ladies, which is always nice. My husband turned out to have not seen the first two seasons so that was fun.
rewatching Pushing Daisies because it's great, and reflecting on how that show never would have been cancelled in the streaming age because it is wonderful.
Have you watched The Office Extended?
I love Aisling Bea (who costars in Living with Yourself) in everything she's in.
Here is an article she wrote about the death of her father. It's beautiful and difficult to read. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/04/aisling-bea-my-fathers-death-has-given-me-a-love-of-men-of-their-vulnerability-and-tenderness
Wu-Tang: An American Saga wrapped up the first season. I really liked this season and I hope they get renewed. It's a compelling story for fans of the Wu and also people unfamiliar with their story. I can't speak to the accuracy of all events, but a good portion of it is on point.
With this latest and final season of Silicon Valley, I've finally given up on it. The series seems to be in the cycle of Dinesh and Gilfoyle one-upping each other (etc etc), Richard being a nervous wreck with sudden transformative revelations -- but ultimately screwed over, Jared being a total suck for validation... its been the same loop since TJ Miller left.
Now, I don't like TJ Miller -- but he really balanced out the show. The magic of this series fizzled out before he left, but for me, that was the final straw. It's a shame -- it was such a great series for the first few seasons, even though the last few seasons have still had their moments.
I feel like almost all comedy shows seem to get into this kind of "caricaturization death spiral" if they keep running for a long time (more than about 4 seasons). The characters become more and more exaggerated and extreme versions of themselves, and the show mostly just turns into manufactured drama between overstated personality traits.
Silicon Valley was definitely already doing it in the last season or two, and I was hoping they'd be able to turn it around a little with a defined ending coming up, so it's disappointing if it's still the same way.
Its basically extreme-Flanderization --- not unlike the sitcom Ricky Gervais' character made on Extras (When the Whistle Blows). Like you said, it doesn't seem like many comedies can survive past a few seasons. Arrested Development 4, 4b and 5 suffered the same fate, even though it had some decent moments.
I really hope it does turn around, but I won't hold my breath.
My wife and I finished season 2 of Halt and Catch Fire last night. If you're not familiar, it's an AMC drama that ran for four seasons (40 episodes) set in Dallas during the personal computer revolution of the 1980s. I'm a sucker for nearly any period piece but love the shots of old school hardware especially as someone with a budding interest in taking computers apart and CRT/retro gaming. Think Silicon Valley dramatized to a standard approaching Mad Men and set 20 years later.
I've been watching The Golden Horde (Zolotaya Orda) on Prime. It's really good. Only 3 episodes in but i'd take anything with the Mongols in. Multiple story lines that are easy to follow in subtitle. Lots of fairly realistic clothing and settings (lots of colour!). Not everyone is covered in shit like most Anglo medieval stuff. Cant wait to watch more but because its subtitled i have to have a clear hour to give it my full attention.
I finished Veep today. It was okay. Honestly a good show, I may rewatch it some time. Got lots of good laughs out of it and gave me even more of a taste for politics than I already have (I do love my political shows).
But it wasn't as good as the reviews made it sound. And Seasons 6 and 7 kind of … tanked. I gave the whole thing 7/10; would have been 8.5/10 without the last two seasons.
Reviews disagree with my assessment: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Veep/0/4728744aa7eb482fbf39612518903224c12d53ea.png
I recommend it as a neat cross between Silicon Valley and House of Cards. Silicon Valley in the White House, with the first couple of seasons having a bit of a "The Office (US)" feel.
I finished Veep a few weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it initially but thought the last couple of seasons were quite bad, and especially thought the final episode was awful. I was really surprised when I looked around online later and saw that reviews were high and that the series finale is the highest-rated episode on IMDB.
I'd still say I enjoyed it overall, but I also think I would have had a much higher opinion of it if it had ended at season 4 or 5.
Yeah, I was already not feeling them as I wrote in my post, but after sitting on it for a day I just realize how much I didn't enjoy the last two seasons. I could have stopped at the end of S5 and be happy.
It's not like Dexter; it didn't make me unhappy to watch them, but the series is definitely worse for them.
Spoilers: Veep - all seasons
Veep just isn't the same without Selina actually in office (whether that's as VP or president).
The first couple seasons are nice with her struggle to have any power despite the high office, and the next couple seasons really nicely showcase the presidency itself. Having her be completely neutered, while Jonah is a congressman, is nuts.
I heavily disliked the massive flanderization of a bunch of characters:
jonah is made into an absurdly atrocious joke, all for the punchline that he's failing upwards
ElaineSelina goes full on psychoCatherine is turned into a full-on "the baby must never be told no to avoid negativity in his or her or their life [gender for them to decide at the age of 13]" I don't even know what to call that.
Margerie, Richard, Ben and Kent remain okay. Amy… just becomes weird, but she's been weird all series. Dan I don't even know.
I also liked the replaceability of the non-central characters early on. People get fired left and right. In the later seasons this stops happening as we stick to a central cast, except that… Sue… we lose Sue in the later seasons which really sucks. This is one of the reasons why not having Selina in the WH is worse.
Final episode was pretty bad. It's not even the first time Veep does this: pulling a HIMYM finale of "She's finally president which you've been waiting for all season, yaddi-yaddi-yadda, 24 years later she's dead".
The thing I love about Veep is that the jokes (the insults in particular) were so fast, you could watch an episode multiple times and hear jokes you might've missed or forgot. Not many comedy shows can pull that off. The only show I've seen to deliver that kind of comedy consistently is Peep Show.
The insults in Veep are insane and they stay constant throughout all seasons yeah.
Some of my favorites:
The insults on Thick of It were also particularly brutal.
"Who was it that did your media training, Myra Hindley? It's terrible! All these hands all over the place. You were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra. It was like watching John Leslie at work."
"I've never seen anybody look so fucking ugly with just one head."
"If you do think about running with this pill story, I'll personally fucking eviscerate you, right? I mean, I don't have your education, I don't know what that means. But I'll start by ripping your cock off and I'll busk it from there. OK?"
"Does he understand the policy? Forgive my concern, but it's a bit like asking if a dog can grasp the concept of Norway."
Have been keeping up with South Park, but it feels like it doesn't really have anything to say outside of the Fuck China episode. I couldn't really tell you what happened in any particular episode without looking them up, and with as effed up as the world is, taking pot shots at anti-vaxxers and plant based meat substitutes isn't really doing it for me, and Marsh family drama isn't keeping me invested. Maybe I should start watching Sunny? EDIT: I have prime until the end of the month, gonna watch Fleabag, maybe.
Speaking of Raunchy half hour comedy's, I put a thread out for the Hazbin Hotel pilot, and was hoping that I didn't spook too many people off with the NSFW tag. It has a pretty heavy amount of adult humor, but I didn't feel it was gratuitous, and feels more Adult Swim or Late Night cable mature than Newgrounds mature. It was also produced independently, put on YouTube for free, and has a lot of heart and skill put into it, and it feels like that doesn't happen that often with animation on the internet anymore, and it's a shame. See it if you have a moment.
I like it. You don't need to be familiar with the comic, but it doesn't hurt. Even watching the movie would suffice.
If you can, hold off and binge it -- or at least have the option to double up episodes.
yeah, that's a good plan. I think it'll be better as a single unit.
I really liked the movie -- the Ultimate cut with the freighter sequence. A few years ago they released 'the motion comic', which is interesting. It definitely improves in quality as the episodes go on.
I think they made the right call by skipping ahead a few decades instead of trying to replay anything from the comic.