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Beyond Politics => General Discussion => Topic started by: kimmy on October 19, 2017, 04:30:10 am


Title: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 19, 2017, 04:30:10 am
I enjoy escapism and science fiction and all of that sort of thing.  So, even though it is one of the lowest rated things I have ever seen on Rotten Tomatoes (at a whopping 8% on the Tomato-meter!) I was kind of looking forward to Marvel's The Inhumans.  After all, it does star Anson Mount and Iwan Rheon! And its high-concept, silly, fun premise somehow spoke to me.  The idea of a fantastical sci-fi setting, as opposed to grim or bleak or dystopian sci-fi settings, appealed to me.  I thought "I don't always agree with critics. Maybe this will be just good old campy fun like Flash Gordon or Lost In Space."  Man, did I get it wrong.


Stan Lee voice: Behold...The Inhumans!


Imagine a coming of age ceremony, in a magical city on the moon. A young man and young woman are brought forward before the royal family for the moment that will define the rest of their lives. Each is sealed in a glass case and exposed to a gene-altering mist.  Then both are removed.  The girl, after a moment, miraculously sprouts butterfly wings and takes flight. She is adulated. There are cheers. She will join the elite of her society.  The boy, on the other hand, seems unchanged. People wait, expectantly, but there is nothing. The heartbreak is apparent on his father's face. The boy's chance to escape the lowest caste is gone. He will be sent to work in the mines, just like his father.

This is the setting of The Inhumans.  They are a race of human-like beings who live in the city of Attilan, on the moon! As adolescents they are exposed to a substance that activates their genetic potential. Some develop astounding abilities or startling mutations. These become the elite of their society.  Others don't change at all. They are the lower cast. They work in the mines.  This unjust caste system is enforced by the royal family and the "Genetic Council".

But a hero steps forward to topple this sick heirarchy! Maximus is the younger brother of the king, but he sees the injustice of the system. His own transformation was a dismal failure-- the mist rendered him genetically human, the worst possible outcome! Mocked by even his own family for his genetics, he knows that he too would have been sent to the mines were he not born into royalty.  Maximus, with the help of some courageous members of the Royal Guardsmen, stages a bloodless coup, overthrows the despotic King and the rest of the royals, and frees the serfs from the mines!  All hail Maximus, a futuristic Spartacus!

Wait--  Maximus isn't the hero?

Maximus is the bad-guy in this story?


Whaaaaaaa?



 Okaaaayyy, apparently the heroes of this story are the King "Black Bolt", his wife Medusa, his obnoxious sister-in-law Crystal, and their assistants Gorgon and Karnak.   And Crystal's 3000 pound pug "Lockjaw".  Lockjaw can can teleport instantly across vast distances, and when Crystal discovers that Maximus is staging a coup, she has Lockjaw take them, one at a time, to Hawaii.  Lockjaw isn't very smart so they end up scattered all over the island and have spent most of the first 3 episodes trying to reunite with each other.

So, uh, this is not specifically too good.

Anson Mount stars as "Black Bolt". He can't speak, because his voice is so powerful that even a whisper destroys everything in its path. If he talked, it would be a nuclear holocaust. So he can only communicate in sign language. Anson Mount starred as "Bohanon" in the railway-building western "Hell On Wheels".  He was great as the imposing Bohanon, a man of few words. With a single "yep" or "nope" or scowl or roll of his eyes, Mount could say more than most actors can say in a whole page full of dialogue. Bohanon had at least 8 different kinds of "yep", all distinct. So I can understand why they picked him to portray the mute guy.  But he just seems befuddled. He seems as confused as the audience.

Maximus is played by Iwan Rheon, best known as Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones. I think it's quite damning to the writers that they somehow made Ramsay Bolton the only sympathetic character in the whole show, especially when he's supposed to be the villain here.

The show is pretty bad on almost every level... the execution is terrible. The protagonists are currently stumbling around Hawaii like a bunch of mentally handicapped tourists who got separated from their care-aide.  Is this supposed to be comedy? I honestly have no idea what they were going for here. 

They've made me hate the characters I'm supposed to be cheering for, and cheer for the characters I'm supposed to hate.  It's like they just want us to cheer for the royals because they told us to. It's like watching a WWII movie and being told that you're supposed to cheer for the Germans.  Whaaa?  I'm supposed to be cheering for Black Bolt to get back to his city, send the slaves back to the mines, and restore their **** up caste system?  No way!  I want to see Maximus go Full Bolton on these motherfuckers. Especially Crystal, the racist ****.

The Inhumans is written and produced by Scott "The name's Scott Buck, and my movies suck" Buck.  Fans hate everything Scott Buck has ever been involved with. He's blamed for making Dexter jump the shark after he took that over. He was at the helm of Iron Fist, which has was (before Inhumans) regarded as the worst thing Marvel has produced. Scott Buck apparently keeps getting work as a producer because he delivers product ahead of schedule and under budget. Those are great qualities. Too bad the on-screen product looks like Crystal's 3000 pound pug dropped a load.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 19, 2017, 05:36:03 am
Yeah, this sounds terrible.

But if you want to make ME watch something from this bullshit genre, make a hero who is actually evil.  It would at least be funny.

How about a hero who's superpower is ability to kill babies with just a glance?  Or some really odious habit, like racist remarks or smoking.

Do that.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: guest18 on October 19, 2017, 07:47:20 am

K
Do that.
Didn't Deadpool already do it?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 19, 2017, 08:39:53 am
Didn't Deadpool already do it?

I saw Deadpool.  I don't remember much about it.  He was a wiseacre, and a lot of it took place in a bar.  And there was a girl.  And it ended in a junkyard.

I think if they had made him a super-rapist, or someone who knocked turbans off immigrants, or had super-gay-seduction powers or something I would have remembered that...
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 19, 2017, 09:04:13 am
The villain in Jessica Jones is basically Harvey Weinstein with mind-control powers...

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 21, 2017, 12:19:58 pm
Even though Inhumans is really bad, I have to keep watching. Part of it is an academic exercise.  I'm fascinated at how bad it is, and I need to analyze it from the perspective of what makes it fail. I try to identify what aspects specifically make me hate it, and then I try to analyze my own writing to look for the same elements. Do I make the same mistakes? 

I'm intrigued at how Inhumans made it all the way to network TV.  Surely at some point somebody must have looked at it and realized that it's a terrible product.  It doesn't just fail by August1991/Michael Hardner type criteria, it fails by the standards of its own genre, its own aspirations. Surely somebody at either ABC or Disney or Marvel must have thought "this is really bad. We shouldn't put this on TV."

I watched the entire Twilight series of movies because I was fascinated at how bad it was. I was intrigued that people spent tens of millions of dollars making each of those bad films. I was amazed that people spent hundreds of millions of dollars watching each of those films.  Each step of the way I thought to myself "I can't believe adults made this. This seems like something junior high kids would have made."

And I watched the entire first season of the "Shadowhunters" TV series on Netflix. It's probably the single worst thing I have ever seen produced by allegedly professional creators. So astoundingly stupid that Twilight looks brilliant by comparison. For me it was a multi-car pileup I just couldn't look away from. So incredibly inept.  Watching it was like reading Donald Trump news articles. It was maddening and yet somehow addictive.  I hated every moment but I just couldn't stop. I had started to crave the pain, the anger, the hate.  I forced myself to not watch season 2 of Shadowhunters.  I felt like I just couldn't expose myself to that kind of punishment again without risking my sanity. I went cold-turkey on Shadowhunters.

Inhumans isn't quite as bad as Twilight or especially Shadowhunters, at least from an execution point of view. I think that from the point of view of learning how to create a bad program, I have learned what I needed from Inhumans.  But I still need to find out what the payoff is for the bizarre politics of the program. 

It's a program where the intended protagonists are enthusiastic supporters of a system based around eugenics, aristocracy, the establishment of a permanent underclass,  and the enslavement of those deemed genetically inferior.  The supposed heroes of this show are, almost literally, Moon Nazis.  They boast openly of their genetic superiority and openly express their contempt of those like their own brother who are deemed genetically inferior.   In 2017, we had white supremacists marching in the United States, and here is a program where "the good guys" are fighting to restore such a system after it has been toppled.

It's like the creators of the show said "you know, we've had a lot of one-sided coverage of eugenics and racial supremacist ideology this year, and we just wanted to present an alternative view, to show a more positive side of racial supremacy ideologies."


Right now, as of episode 4,  our "villain" Maximus has consolidated power in Attilan. He has imprisoned the ruling "Genetic Council", the ruling eugenics experts at the core of the caste system. I gather we're supposed to hate Maximus because he has beaten and imprisoned his political enemies, and even killed one. Compared to real-world revolutionaries, Maximus has been a model of restraint, but on this show even one murder is too high a cost for liberating thousands. No it isn't! Slaves are dying in the mines while the "Genetic Council" lives in comfort! Go Maximus!

Meanwhile our Nazi "protagonists" are floundering around Hawaii, pursued by agents of Maximus, and surviving only with the help of inferior humans. Who help them even though our heroes are horrendous people and treat them terribly.  I expect that the eventual payoff is through their misadventures on earth, our obnoxious royals will learn to have empathy with the inferiors. This is kind of like a story where David Duke and Richard Spencer get lost in north Detroit and survive only with the help of black people, and we're supposed to be cheering for Duke and Spencer to get home. No doubt that when Medusa Duke and Black Bolt Spencer get back to Attilan and take back power, they will be kinder to the slaves when they send them back to the mines.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 21, 2017, 12:33:05 pm
 
1. It doesn't just fail by August1991/Michael Hardner type criteria, it fails by the standards of its own genre, its own aspirations.
2. Surely somebody at either ABC or Disney or Marvel must have thought "this is really bad. We shouldn't put this on TV."
3. I watched the entire Twilight series of movies because I was fascinated at how bad it was. I was intrigued that people spent tens of millions of dollars making each of those bad films.
4. "I can't believe adults made this. This seems like something junior high kids would have made."
 
1. What is THAT ?  I don't remember suggesting any criteria for artistic failure per se.
2. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it will play or not.
3. I only saw a trailer for one of them in the cinema and started laughing very very loudly, which pissed off some young girls sitting near me.
4. Yes, but does it SELL ?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 22, 2017, 12:22:39 pm
1. What is THAT ?  I don't remember suggesting any criteria for artistic failure per se.

I'm referring to complaints based in the viewer's prejudices, of course. Things like "I can't take this seriously because there is CGI" or "it's hard to get emotionally involved in this because there could be dragons" or "I could relate to this more if it was set in an office building", that sort of thing.

2. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it will play or not.

This is true.  Even so, it's hard to imagine nobody had any idea that they missed the mark so badly. The Marvel/Disney productions have had, up to now, a good feel for what their audience likes.   They apparently had a good audience for their premiere, and viewership has fallen off drastically ever since. People were willing to check them out, watched, and decided it sucked.

Somebody I know related a story about the top executives at a Japanese auto maker.   They were doing a big meeting to discuss the upcoming projects in development. One of them-- I think it was at Honda and the car was the Element-- caused an uproar among the executives. They thought it was stupid and ugly and a complete disaster. They were furious, they wanted to know how they had wasted the money to get such a terrible product to that stage of development. They wanted to cancel the product immediately, or to "fix" it.  The CEO stood up and said "Gentlemen. No one at this table is the intended market for this product, and no one at this table is qualified to decide whether this product will appeal to that market."  His point being that a group of wealthy, elderly Japanese men weren't the best judge of whether American young adults of modest means would like it or hate it.  I assume they did a bunch of focus-group type stuff with the people they assumed would be interest in the vehicle, and decided yes, this is a good idea.

In TV land, I think they also do "audience testing" of their new programs. Maybe audience testing would have at least let them know whether their product was working with the intended audience, or whether they had completely missed the mark.
 
And that's a key point here... I don't think they actually know who their intended audience is.  Probably the most specific thing they could tell you would be "people... who own televisions."

Partly it seems like they set out to make something campy and light-hearted like Adam West Batman. Then it's like they decided to add some political drama, like Game of Thrones. Then to spice it up even more they decided to throw in this racial and social and class struggle and wealth inequality theme.  Then to make it appeal to kids they throw in an adorable 3000 pound pug.

3. I only saw a trailer for one of them in the cinema and started laughing very very loudly, which pissed off some young girls sitting near me.
4. Yes, but does it SELL ?

In the case of Twilight, it definitely did SELL, in all caps, and with several exclamation points as well. It did SELL !!!!

They were clearly very successful in targeting a market that had been perhaps under-served-- teenage girl wish-fulfillment fantasy stories. Twilight sparked a wave of imitators in both the book world and the movie world.  The "Hunger Games" movies were very successful, the "Divergent" movies and "Mortal Instruments" movie(s?) failed.  I thought the Hunger games movies were quite good, and can stand on their own even if you're not a teenage girl who dreams of living a life where you're important. Hunger Games and Twilight were both successful in appealing to a core demographic that was willing to pay for movies, but the Hunger Games films did it with a lot more artistic skill.



 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 22, 2017, 03:05:11 pm
I'm referring to complaints based in the viewer's prejudices, of course. Things like "I can't take this seriously because there is CGI" or "it's hard to get emotionally involved in this because there could be dragons" or "I could relate to this more if it was set in an office building", that sort of thing.

So, in other words, YOU didn't like it.  That's pretty much what you're saying.

Quote
Even so, it's hard to imagine nobody had any idea that they missed the mark so badly. ... His point being that a group of wealthy, elderly Japanese men weren't the best judge of whether American young adults of modest means would like it or hate it.  I assume they did a bunch of focus-group type stuff with the people they assumed would be interest in the vehicle, and decided yes, this is a good idea.

In TV land, I think they also do "audience testing" of their new programs. Maybe audience testing would have at least let them know whether their product was working with the intended audience, or whether they had completely missed the mark.
 

Well, yes, but you should also know that they can't focus group the initial offering.  The vision, the THING of it has to come from a vision.  Even with that, there are a million things that can go wrong.

Quote
In the case of Twilight, it definitely did SELL, in all caps, and with several exclamation points as well. It did SELL !!!!

Sure.  And it was good for those people who like that... uh.. product.

Quote
They were clearly very successful in targeting a market that had been perhaps under-served-- teenage girl wish-fulfillment fantasy stories. Twilight sparked a wave of imitators in both the book world and the movie world.  The "Hunger Games" movies were very successful, the "Divergent" movies and "Mortal Instruments" movie(s?) failed.  I thought the Hunger games movies were quite good, and can stand on their own even if you're not a teenage girl who dreams of living a life where you're important. Hunger Games and Twilight were both successful in appealing to a core demographic that was willing to pay for movies, but the Hunger Games films did it with a lot more artistic skill.

I doubt teens are under served.  Hunger Games (I saw the first one) was terrible.   Some teen stuff is good.  Some is garbage.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 23, 2017, 11:01:26 pm
So, in other words, YOU didn't like it.  That's pretty much what you're saying.

The distinction I'm trying to draw is between complaints based on the film's success or failure to meet its own terms, vs complaints based on the viewer's preferences.  We've discussed this in the past. 

"Pacific Rim" and "Transformers" are both entries in the "giant robots fighting stuff" genre. Pacific Rim succeeds because it delivers what they promise on the poster, Transformers fails because the action sequences are incoherent.

Criticisms like "I can't tell the good guys from the bad guys" and "this just looks like a bunch of metal stuff flying around on the screen" and "I have no idea what's going on" are completely reasonable because they center on whether the creators achieved what they intended to.  Criticism like "this is completely unrealistic" or "giant robots aren't real" or "I don't like CGI" or "this would be more compelling if the characters worked in an office" really just indicate that you watched the wrong show.

Well, yes, but you should also know that they can't focus group the initial offering.  The vision, the THING of it has to come from a vision.  Even with that, there are a million things that can go wrong.

There's two separate questions there.  The first is "is there actually a market for this?" and the second is "does the product we've created appeal to the market we want to reach."

There's a market for just about anything. I recall reading about two young women who have made a lot of money by writing dinosaur **** **** eBooks and selling them on Amazon.  Apparently dinosaur **** **** enthusiasts are an underserved market and were just crying out for content.  But dinosaur **** **** probably wouldn't be a big enough market to drive a network television show, or even a Netflix show. 

As for appealing to the market they want to reach... I'm still unclear what that market actually is. They certainly weren't looking for the same viewers that enjoyed the darker, more adult programs like Jessica Jones or Daredevil.  I think that if they had set out to create a focus-group to see if their target audience enjoyed The Inhumans... find 20 people for a test screening... they wouldn't have any idea who to put in the room.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 24, 2017, 05:40:16 am
   Criticism like "this is completely unrealistic" or "giant robots aren't real" or "I don't like CGI" or "this would be more compelling if the characters worked in an office" really just indicate that you watched the wrong show.

I still think you're saying that it failed because a fan of the genre wouldn't buy it, essentially.  Am I right ?

Quote
There's two separate questions there.  The first is "is there actually a market for this?" and the second is "does the product we've created appeal to the market we want to reach."
 

There ARE two questions.  I like you, kimmy, so I correct your grammar.  Yes, your questions are apt for a commercial artistic enterprise.  I'll leave it at that.

 
Quote
    I think that if they had set out to create a focus-group to see if their target audience enjoyed The Inhumans... find 20 people for a test screening... they wouldn't have any idea who to put in the room. 

The thing that sometimes happens is... stratifying and dicing and slicing the market neglects the produce offering.  Sometimes things that are just great will find an audience. 

Ever hear of The Smiths ?  They are an improbably 80s pop band that I discovered later in life.  A mishmash of upbeat instrumental guitar, with a solid rhythm section, and a wailing plantiff singer with absurd pseudo-gay lyrics laden with anachronisms and references to Oscar Wilde.  They hit it big with British youth (they were from Manchester I think) and then again 30 years later... in Mexico ?!?

Smiths songs:

William It Was Really Nothing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn0zfiJpx2s

Ask
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoo9Vu1a9bU

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgAzvKHxNI0

Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 25, 2017, 09:26:13 pm
I still think you're saying that it failed because a fan of the genre wouldn't buy it, essentially.  Am I right ?

Essentially, yeah.

Although, **** genre fans are often the harshest critics as well.  But basically, yes.

There ARE two questions.  I like you, kimmy, so I correct your grammar.  Yes, your questions are apt for a commercial artistic enterprise.  I'll leave it at that.

 
The thing that sometimes happens is... stratifying and dicing and slicing the market neglects the produce offering.  Sometimes things that are just great will find an audience. 

Ever hear of The Smiths ?  They are an improbably 80s pop band that I discovered later in life.  A mishmash of upbeat instrumental guitar, with a solid rhythm section, and a wailing plantiff singer with absurd pseudo-gay lyrics laden with anachronisms and references to Oscar Wilde.  They hit it big with British youth (they were from Manchester I think) and then again 30 years later... in Mexico ?!?

Smiths songs:

I do know The Smiths, primarily through that beer commercial that had the Smiths song that has that great guitar riff, back in the 1990s at some point. I think there was an imposing Danish dude with long blond hair discussing the merits of Labatt Ice.  But yes, I recall the Smiths.  "How Soon Is Now" was the song, I believe. I don't know how much beer that commercial sold, but I bet it sold a lot of Smiths records. I bought one of them, just to get that song.

I agree with your general point here: art isn't created by focus groups.

I'm not sure what Stan Lee might have been thinking when he came up with the idea, over 50 years ago.  Perhaps he and Jack Kirby were sitting around with a massive bong full of the best chiba-chiba and said "man, it would be totally far out if there was a city on the moon with people with crazy super-powers, and they came to Earth and said 'Heyyy, mannnn, quit shooting rockets at our house, bro!' and it would be like ... totally far out!"

And, somehow, for whatever reason, the Inhumans caught on enough that it's on TV 50 years later. Maybe people liked that it's whimsical or fantastical or maybe just campy.  Somehow, in some way, that idea appealed to people enough that it didn't get lost among all the other ideas that come and go.

Maybe, at the time, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby really were creating "art" in their own way.  But I don't think the people at ABC/Disney/Marvel were striving for "art" when they created the Inhumans TV show. I think they were kind of hoping for viewers.

Ultimately, whatever made people like the original idea all those years ago... whatever that was, it didn't translate into the TV show.   I think a good TV show could have been made from the premise.  Maybe it would have been campy and lighthearted, like the Adam West Batman program.  Maybe it would have been fantastical, like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  I am sure that somehow something good could have been done with it.  But whatever they were trying for... they missed the mark.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 26, 2017, 05:50:34 am
  "How Soon Is Now" was the song, I believe. I don't know how much beer that commercial sold, but I bet it sold a lot of Smiths records. I bought one of them, just to get that song.

Really?  I never heard of anyone doing THAT.  The song was actually a huge international hit in the 1980s but ok.

Quote
I agree with your general point here: art isn't created by focus groups.

I'm not sure what Stan Lee might have been thinking when he came up with the idea, over 50 years ago.  Perhaps he and Jack Kirby were sitting around with a massive bong full of the best chiba-chiba and said "man, it would be totally far out if there was a city on the moon with people with crazy super-powers, and they came to Earth and said 'Heyyy, mannnn, quit shooting rockets at our house, bro!' and it would be like ... totally far out!"

And, somehow, for whatever reason, the Inhumans caught on enough that it's on TV 50 years later. Maybe people liked that it's whimsical or fantastical or maybe just campy.  Somehow, in some way, that idea appealed to people enough that it didn't get lost among all the other ideas that come and go.

Maybe, at the time, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby really were creating "art" in their own way.  But I don't think the people at ABC/Disney/Marvel were striving for "art" when they created the Inhumans TV show. I think they were kind of hoping for viewers.

Ultimately, whatever made people like the original idea all those years ago... whatever that was, it didn't translate into the TV show.   I think a good TV show could have been made from the premise.  Maybe it would have been campy and lighthearted, like the Adam West Batman program.  Maybe it would have been fantastical, like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  I am sure that somehow something good could have been done with it.  But whatever they were trying for... they missed the mark.

 -k

Stan Lee is one of those revered celebrity artists that I don't get.  That is partially because I am not a fan of the genre, but also because to me once Superman was out there it was just a matter of imitating and running a kaleidoscope on the original. 

But, man, you really didn't like it.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 27, 2017, 09:37:10 pm
Really?  I never heard of anyone doing THAT.  The song was actually a huge international hit in the 1980s but ok.

Michael.  At the time "How Soon Is Now" was originally released, my only concern in life was figuring out how to obtain juice.  However, I was entering my teens when the Labatt Ice commercials featured the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtEZy6z4P8c

Stan Lee is one of those revered celebrity artists that I don't get.  That is partially because I am not a fan of the genre, but also because to me once Superman was out there it was just a matter of imitating and running a kaleidoscope on the original. 

Well, one might argue that that is like saying that after William Shakespeare, there's really been nothing to add to the romantic tragedy genre.

But, man, you really didn't like it.

Yes, I would say that if there was just one thing to say about The Inhumans, "I really didn't like it" would probably be as good a take as any.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 27, 2017, 09:49:26 pm
On a completely different TV note, Netflix has just delivered Season 2 of "Stranger Things", just in time for Halloween.

The first season of "Stranger Things" was probably among Netflix' most successful creations ever. It was both a critics' favorite and a smash hit for Netflix. I am looking forward to season 2.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 28, 2017, 09:30:22 am
Quote from: kimmy


Well, one might argue that that is like saying that after William Shakespeare, there's really been nothing to add to the romantic tragedy genre.
 -k

Right.   Wait, are you saying that is false?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 28, 2017, 09:32:09 am
On a completely different TV note, Netflix has just delivered Season 2 of "Stranger Things", just in time for Halloween.

The first season of "Stranger Things" was probably among Netflix' most successful creations ever. It was both a critics' favorite and a smash hit for Netflix. I am looking forward to season 2.

 -k

Netflix thread!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: SirJohn on October 28, 2017, 12:06:12 pm
Has anyone caught the new Star Trek? It's... different. The main protagonist is a black woman named Michael Burnham who is not even IN Star Fleet since she was court-martialled and sent to a prison planet. The strange, distant, and possibly crazy captain of the Discovery somehow snatched her off a passing shuttle and is using her to further his development of a new scientific system that lets the ship zip through the galaxy instantly. The first officer is a very tall alien who lacks self confidence. The Science officer is a strange, anti-social guy who is in an openly gay relationship with the ship's doctor, who he lives with on the ship. Burnham's roommate is a naive ensign, who, in last week's episode uttered "This is so **** cool" when looking at an experiment. She then apologized to the science officer, who replied. "That's all right, Ensign. It IS **** cool."

So I noticed that this show had returned now that the holidays were over and was about to PVR it and found myself hesitating, then deciding not to bother.
I don't like this show. The original two part beginer was like the old Star Trek. The new one is like... nothing really. It's dark, moody, and humourless. The characters don't trust each other and often don't like each other. Some may be traitors. The captain is ruthless, and possibly soulless. The security officer might be working for the Klingons, who are on screen too much and boring. The main character is trying to emulate a Vulcan. Which is fine, but there was a reason Spock wasn't the main character and Kirk was. It's hard to identify with someone who shows no emotions. I don't really care about anyone on the show and don't care which or all of them die. I'm bored of the ship's secret mission. There's no exploration involved. It's just dark (both literally and figuratively), sombre preparation for war with a bit of actual shooting. There's no fun in watching this.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on October 29, 2017, 11:27:03 am
I have watched the 2-part series opener, which introduced the setting and Burnham and explaining why Burnham got courtmartialed, and thought it was pretty good. I gather that the show changes considerably after Burnham's courtmartial, so I wasn't going to comment until I have seen more.

One thing I found weird/distracting is that the main character is named Michael. Every time I heard that, I was trying to figure out if they were really saying "Michael".  I was wondering if maybe they were saying Micah or Nica or maybe a Vulcan name that sounds sort of like Michael.  Nope, it's Michael.  What kind of dip-**** would name their beautiful baby girl "Michael".

During a recent visit to the old farm, I noticed veranda hound referred to it as "Social Justice Warriors: The Next Generation".  I figured, ok, whatever, obviously the alt-right gets mad whenever sci-fi movies or TV shows are centered around somebody who isn't a white male.

But, after watching the intro of the series, I do agree that there's a definite political element there. The Klingon rallying cry is "Remain Klingon!" and they are mobilizing to resist what they see as the cultural imperialism of the Federation. They fear that their own culture will be erased.  It seems to be an obvious parallel to those who oppose immigration and to white nationalists who claim they're trying to preserve their European Christian culture.  The Federation, by contrast, seem like a happy coalition where everybody is equal and valued.  This seems like a rather ham-handed attempt at social commentary.


 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on October 29, 2017, 12:40:51 pm
(https://canadianpoliticalevents.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.historyforsale.com%2Fproductimages%2Fjpeg%2F185587.jpg&hash=f2b6c71a3c65226890af7c69bf319a71c6810332)

That's Michael Learned, from The Waltons.  Had a crush on her when that was on.  Older woman thing.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 09, 2017, 06:29:51 am
Ok, we still have separate threads for TV and Netflix.  So be it.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2017/03/tragedy-milk-bag-spout-cut-wide/

The Beaverton is Canada's news parody beacon with a web and TV presence.  I take the website over the TV one, in terms of funniness, however the TV one actually makes me laugh LOUDLY twice per show.  It's a little different than other fake news shows, in that its humour is more arch and so far more leftist.  I would like them to skewer Jagmeet but I haven't seen it yet.

Watch and comment.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on November 13, 2017, 12:15:20 am
Right.   Wait, are you saying that is false?

I recall reading somewhere that there are basically only 7 stories in all of fiction. Everything is just variations on these seven stories. So really, if you look at it that way, there probably hasn't been anything significant added to the world of literature since the ancient Greeks.

Stan Lee is one of those revered celebrity artists that I don't get.  That is partially because I am not a fan of the genre, but also because to me once Superman was out there it was just a matter of imitating and running a kaleidoscope on the original. 

I am not a comic books historian, but I think Stan Lee's main contribution to the genre was in making characters relatable and vulnerable. Spiderman might have amazing abilities, but Peter Parker still has to worry about pimples and zits and his job at the Daily Bugle and looking after Aunt May and a lot of other things that normal people have to worry about too.


 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 13, 2017, 05:53:48 am
I recall reading somewhere that there are basically only 7 stories in all of fiction. Everything is just variations on these seven stories. So really, if you look at it that way, there probably hasn't been anything significant added to the world of literature since the ancient Greeks.

I heard William Friedkin say there are two stories only: the crucifixion and the odyssey.  Maybe boil it down to one: Gilgamesh.  I had the officiant read Gilgamesh at our wedding.

Quote
I am not a comic books historian, but I think Stan Lee's main contribution to the genre was in making characters relatable and vulnerable. Spiderman might have amazing abilities, but Peter Parker still has to worry about pimples and zits and his job at the Daily Bugle and looking after Aunt May and a lot of other things that normal people have to worry about too.
 

Poor Peter.  Who is that again ?  Is that his real name ? 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: guest7 on November 13, 2017, 10:41:25 am
I heard William Friedkin say there are two stories only: the crucifixion and the odyssey. 

Don't forget all the Sven Hassel stuff I read as a teenager...
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on November 13, 2017, 11:36:08 am
Poor Peter.  Who is that again ?  Is that his real name ?

Peter Parker is Spiderman. He's the nervous kid who gets yelled at by J. Jonah Jameson at work every day.

Quote
In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to come up with a new superhero team. Lee's wife suggested him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.[31][32]

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems.[33] Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters[34] who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, and vanity; they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or even were sometimes physically ill.

The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created together was the Fantastic Four, based on previous Kirby superhero team Challengers of the Unknown published by DC Comics[35] The team's immediate popularity[36] led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. Again working with Kirby, Lee co-created the Hulk,[37] Thor,[38] Iron Man,[39] and the X-Men;[40] with Bill Everett, Daredevil;[41] and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange[42] and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man,[43] all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe.[44] Lee and Kirby gathered several of their newly created characters together into the team title The Avengers[45] and would revive characters from the 1940s such as the Sub-Mariner[46] and Captain America.[47]

All these characters had crosses to bear.  The man in the Iron Man suit, Tony Stark, is an alcoholic. The Incredible Hulk is, at its core, about a man trying to deal with mental illness. The X-Men is, at its core, about racism and xenophobia.  Daredevil is blind. Thor and Dr Strange are often egotistical, selfish, and thoroughly unlikable... their greatest enemy is often themselves. And Spiderman is about a young man trying to grow into adult responsibilities, be it the taking care of Aunt May type or the "with great power comes great responsibility" type.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 22, 2017, 05:18:58 am
I was old when 'rap' hit, but I liked the Sugarhill Gang and the early waves that came out of New York.  I recently saw the Netflix doc (Rubble Kings) that documented this period of NYC history.  So it's with a heavy heart that I hear "Reverend" Run will have a show on Netflix:

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/netflix-orders-comedy-series-starring-run-dmcs-rev-run-w512162

Quote
Produced by Amblin and ABC Studios, the series was initially picked up by ABC following a bidding war in 2016, but the network ultimately passed on the project before the pilot filmed. Netflix then swooped in with a 10-episode order to pickup the series.

The Netflix show will be the first scripted series for Rev. Run, who also has reality series like Rev Runs Around the World, Rev Run's Sunday Suppers and Rev Run's Renovations on his filmography.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 22, 2017, 05:38:27 am
Also: asking again if the mod will merge this thread with Netflix.  My brain gets confused sometimes.

Rappers on TV part 2:  Snoop Dogg is hosting The Joker's Wild game show.   I can't put it together in my brain.  It's so bizarre but yet it fits. 

I have a strange history with rap.  Nobody would guess that I know anything about it but since I love the arts I try to sample everything including Nu Metal, Ska... you name it.  By the time Snoop came up I was convinced that Rap was doomed to die as gangster's music and I was too old to listen.  I had randomly bought an album called "Da Game Is to be Sold, not to be Told" and happened to hit his worst album ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Game_Is_to_Be_Sold,_Not_to_Be_Told


Years later, I heard a few from his first few records and realized his greatness.  So now he's part of a game show that is as much as an outlaw as he is.  Remember "Quiz Show" ?  That was the movie about the disgraced show "21" from the 1950s.  Well the host and production company were banned from Hollywood after that scandal, and finally came back from their outlaw status in the 1970s with - you guessed it - The Joker's Wild.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/10/27/snoop-dogg-talks-pot-hints-more-jokers-wild-chat-straight-up-hollywood/809085001/
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on November 22, 2017, 02:41:31 pm
I didn't know what you meant the last time you asked me to merge.  I asked you what you wanted but you didn't say.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on November 22, 2017, 02:46:53 pm
BTW, I don't think I can merge, only split.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: guest4 on November 22, 2017, 02:53:37 pm
BTW, I don't think I can merge, only split.

Thats ok, I like that they are separate. 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 22, 2017, 04:20:06 pm
Ok.  Forgive me if I forget and ask again.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on November 22, 2017, 06:33:20 pm
Ok.  Forgive me if I forget and ask again.

Old age?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 22, 2017, 06:58:23 pm
YES.  Uh.  What ?  ???
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on November 23, 2017, 08:07:29 am
YES.  Uh.  What ?  ???

You know I’m just giving you a hard time, I hope?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: cybercoma on November 23, 2017, 08:15:44 am
You know I’m just giving you a hard time, I hope?
I don't think he knows. You should feel guilty preying on an old, senile fuddy duddy like MH. You monster.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on November 23, 2017, 07:25:11 pm
 ???
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: cybercoma on November 23, 2017, 07:53:51 pm
See! Look how confused he is. Poor guy.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on November 23, 2017, 07:58:44 pm
Really glad Speechless got another year. Great cast centred around a real cerebral palsy victim and excellent writing. Minnie Driver is a hoot.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 04, 2019, 05:25:08 am
Stuff on my TV of late I can recommend:

The Kominsky Method

- Alan Arkin and Michael Douglas as two aging guys in Hollywood on the periphery of the showbiz industry.  Light humour and great acting and sensitivity.

Zen Dairies of Garry Shandling

- Fantastic exploration of how this comedian incorporated a Zen approach to his art and life

Escape at Dannemora

- Ben Stiller (?!?) directs Patricia Arquette and Paul Dario and Benicio Del Toro chronicling a 3-week prison escape from northern New York state.  Prison escapes are usually more gripping than this, but the details are still interesting and Stiller takes a real 'Auteur's' approach to this at times

Tales from the Tour Bus S2

- Mike Judge has made a fantastically entertaining cartoon documenting FUNK.  Yes, it sounds strange but it's great and the interviews are wonderful.

 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on January 05, 2019, 11:34:13 am
- Ben Stiller (?!?) directs

Ben Stiller has a pretty long list of directing credits. Including Tropic Thunder, an underappreciated work of true genius.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 05, 2019, 01:25:42 pm
I didn't know that either.  This was not badly directed.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 15, 2019, 05:43:05 am
Three shows on the go now and it's ALL ABOUT TV TV TV ALL WINTER LONG

That, and walks, and eating.  It's all we do.

Show #1

Marvellous Mrs. Maisel


Ok, it's watchable and the idea is good but why do people like this now ?  The lead actress isn't even Jewish ?  What ?  And the anachronisms make me jump off the sofa and swear.  Mrs. Maisel's lesbian manager in two lines of dialogue uses the term 'overkill' (which wasn't in use in the 1950s, and I think came out of the Vietnam war) and 'freaks me out' (1980s).  Mrs. Maisel would be sent to prison long-term for what she says on stage.  And men don't HUG in the 1950s.

Show #2
Counterpart

The best Spy TV Show ever, hell it's better than movies.  But the plot is a little too clever, and when it's done I will look up the plot holes.  I'm dazzled by it, by JK Simmons and all the cast, but I think they trick us by putting too much in for us to catch the mistakes.

Show #3
Letterkenny

Probably my favourite Canadian TV show.   So many catchphrases, so much wry clever, so much observation.  Love it. 

Tell me you're watching it and you love it.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on March 04, 2019, 01:45:36 am
Anybody ever watch the series "Bones"?  It was based on a series of books by Kathy Reich about a forensic anthropologist who helps an FBI agent solve murders.  It ran for 13 seasons from 2005 to 2017 and starred Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz.    A legal battle over the show just cost Fox Television a $179 million settlement awarded by an arbitrator.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/fox-rocked-by-179-million-bones-ruling-lying-cheating-reprehensible-studio-fraud-1190346

The gist of the story is that Reich, Boreanaz, and Deschanel, along with producer Barry Josephson, were called "profit participants", meaning that their contracts with the show gave them a cut of profits from the show, including resale of broadcast rights, digital streaming rights, and so on.  But Fox sold the broadcast rights to, essentially, itself-- Fox Broadcasting, its foreign affiliates, and its digital streaming platform, Hulu-- at a price of pennies on the dollar. Essentially, Fox was building equity in Hulu and creating profits for other Fox-owned enterprises by giving away assets from Fox Television and ripping off Reich, Deschanel, Boreanaz, and Josephson in the process.

An ethically challenged person might suppose that Fox was being clever here, but the profit participants had language in their contracts to protect against exactly this possibility. If Fox Television sold the show to other Fox enterprises, the price had to be at a fair market value.  The arbitrator found that not only did Fox Television not get fair market value for the show, they didn't even attempt to find out what fair market value was:

Quote
In arbitration, Fox attempted to justify the low license fees that Fox Broadcasting, Hulu and Fox’s foreign affiliates were paying its studio division for rights to air the series.

“Bones was a middling show with middling ratings,” wrote Fox’s lawyers in an opening brief, adding that a higher fee from the $2 million per episode paid would have led to the show’s cancellation.

As Lichtman discovered in the course of the arbitration, though, Fox’s studio executives were never really interested in finding out the series’ fair market value.

“We were not allowed to get that information from the network,” testified Walden, who at the time ran the Fox studio but not Fox Broadcasting, when asked about the possibility of finding out what the network paid for similar shows in their middle seasons.

Given that the profit participants had self-dealing protection in their contracts that “deals must be as good as marketplace deals,” the arbitrator found Walden's lack of knowledge to be “either shocking if true, or disingenuous if false,” adding, “Interestingly, both Ms. Walden and Mr. Newman testified that they engaged in tough negotiations and fought for the [Profit] Participants. However, the evidence belies these assertions. How could they fight if they were not properly armed with the requisite information? What negotiations were there if the information mandated by the contract was not examined, called for or even investigated?”

There's more to the story, but that was the interesting part to me. And there's potentially more of this out there:

Quote
It's highly unlikely that Bones was the only series licensed to Hulu under possibly fishy economic auspices. The ruling amounts to the opening of a Pandora’s box for attorneys in the entertainment industry. It also raises the prospect that licensing content may suddenly become a whole lot more expensive for Hulu should other profit participants in Hollywood make their own challenges.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on March 04, 2019, 05:59:58 am
Oh, the point is always to reduce the wages for the little guy.  Having been at the target end of that, it's not fun.  But such is life.

Artists, farmers, workers unite.  It works. 

I just watched the Letterkenny Valentimes Special and I felt it was starting to get a little tired.  The word play aspect of the dialogue is fun - maybe even for a few seasons - but I am starting to tire of it.

Also watching Crashing with Pete Holmes.  Not sure why, I think I am just invested now.

Also watching High Maintenance, which is starting to get a little familiar also.

Aaaand... I just finished Fargo Season 3.  That was great but I needed a shower after every episode.  Also one of the all time best villains in V.M. Varga.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on March 04, 2019, 09:55:47 am
I watched the premier of Whiskey Cavalier last week. It was ok, in a generic network TV sort of way.  It's about an FBI agent (Scott Foley) who clashes with a CIA operative (Lauren Cohen) over custody of a captured suspect... needless to say they end up having to work together to find the MacGuffin and uncovering a bigger mystery that will take a whole season to solve. It's lightweight, but the charisma of the two leads makes it watchable.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on March 09, 2019, 06:38:13 pm
Exciting news for geeks and nerds, as Amazon Prime this week announced that their long awaited Tolkien TV series will be set in the Second Age of Middle Earth.

That probably doesn't mean much to anybody who hasn't read "The Silmarillion", Tolkien's lesser-known companion to The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings.  Tolkien's Middle Earth history is divided into three ages. The First Age describes the creation of Middle Earth and its inhabitants by the Valar, a group of deities. The bulk of The Silmarillion is spent describing stories set in the First Age, which largely consists of an epic war between the elves and Melkor, a renegade Valar. The First Age ends with a cataclysmic assault by the remaining Valar against Melkor.

The Second Age is not described in much detail by comparison. Tolkien provides a rough sketch of significant events-- Melkor's apprentice, Sauron rises to take his place as a corrupting influence in Middle Earth. The kingdom of Numenor-- the great race of ancient men whom Aragorn is descended from-- rises in power.  The Rings of Power are forged.  More warring between the elves and Sauron.  The kingdom of Numenor rises, becomes the most powerful force on Middle Earth, and crushes Sauron.  Sauron, at the time the most handsome and charming being in Middle Earth, and charms his way into becoming a royal advisor in Numenor. He fuels the pride and hubris of the Numenorean kings, causing them to end their relationship with the elves, and eventually convincing them to sail to the land of the Valar themselves, in search of immortality.  This causes the wrath of the gods to be unleashed again. Numenor is utterly destroyed-- literally wiped off the map.  The rise and fall of Numenor is detailed in a short portion of The Silmarillion called "The Akallabeth", which is probably the closest thing in Tolkien's work to a religious allegory.   The only Numenoreans who survived were those who had left to found the kingdom of Gondor.  Sauron's physical form is destroyed along with everything else in Numenor, but his spirit returns to Mount Doom to regain physical form, take up his ring, and plot to destroy Gondor and the elves yet again.  The end of the Second Age is shown in the opening scene of The Fellowship Of the Ring movie-- the alliance of Gondor and the elves once again teaming up to beat Sauron.

There is lots of material that could be turned into a series, but Amazon's big reveal was that they posted a Middle Earth map... and then a larger map, and finally a map that showed an unsunken Numenor in the lower left corner. So it seems likely that the rise and fall of Numenor will be a key element of the series they're going to create.

(https://i.imgur.com/08Q9jmd.jpg)


I'm pretty geeked. I'm so glad that they didn't decide to do something shitty like a "Young Aragorn Adventures" or something trying to play off the success of the Peter Jackson movies. Legolas and Gimli driving around Eriador in a van solving mysteries or some dumb **** like that.  Setting their series in the Second Age is a bolder decision showing that they're planning on creating something new rather than trying to ride the coat-tails of the movies.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ?Impact on March 10, 2019, 03:28:29 pm
I only read The Silmarillion once, about 35 years ago. I found it fairly hard to get engaged, not like the other Tolkien books. Hopefully this series will help make things come alive.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on March 10, 2019, 04:02:43 pm
I only read The Silmarillion once, about 35 years ago. I found it fairly hard to get engaged, not like the other Tolkien books. Hopefully this series will help make things come alive.

The first time I tried to read it, in my early teens, I couldn't get engaged either. When I read it again at about 20, I was really absorbed in it.

It's written in a completely different style... The Hobbit and LOTR are up-close and detailed stories of tiny pieces of the vast realm he created, while The Silmarillion is the exact opposite, a Cole's Notes summary of a long history with only brief snippets focusing on the individuals and their specific deeds. There are a few parts where it does delve into specific events in greater detail, like the story of Beren and Luthien, but most of it is very terse.

One of the early battles, just after Feanor and the elves have returned to Middle Earth, Morgoth unleashes his armies to try to eradicate them, but the elves completely massacre them. Tolkien sums up the whole battle in a paragraph, concluding with something like... "of the hosts that Morgoth sent forth, all that returned to the gates of Angband was a handful of leaves."   Just a very broad strokes approach to writing, yet with a sort of poetic touch that adds some subtext.

Tolkien was first and foremost a professor of languages. He created these imaginary languages for his own amusement.  Then he created some fictional peoples for his fictional languages.  Then he imagined a fictional world for his fictional peoples.  And then a fictional history for his fictional world, which he sketched out over a span of many years and never really completed.  And of his vast imaginary history, he took one tiny piece-- the story of Bilbo Baggins finding the ring-- and fleshed it out into a complete story for his son when his son to read as a boy.  And later he fleshed out a second piece-- The Lord of The Rings-- for his son to read as a young man.  I think it's interesting to think of the two stories as a father's messages for his son at different ages and ponder what he wanted his son to get from them.


For a TV series based on the Second Age, they'll be doing the same thing-- taking a portion of this long history, and distilling it into an up close look at a small portion and focusing on the characters and events in detail.


 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: TimG on March 10, 2019, 04:07:26 pm
It's written in a completely different style... The Hobbit and LOTR are up-close and detailed stories of tiny pieces of the vast realm he created, while The Silmarillion is the exact opposite, a Cole's Notes summary of a long history with only brief snippets focusing on the individuals and their specific deeds. There are a few parts where it does delve into specific events in greater detail, like the story of Beren and Luthien, but most of it is very terse.
I found the Silmarillion as appealing as a history text book and never got past the first couple chapters.  I am sure there is lots of material to build a story out off just like there is a lot of good historical dramas based on real history. I am looking forward to see what Amazon does with it.

Aside: I got in a argument with someone who insisted that Atlantis was a real place and rejected my explanation that it was fictional construct for an ancient Greek story. I wonder if there will be people in 1000 years insisting the middle earth was real?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on March 10, 2019, 08:44:58 pm
Aside: I got in a argument with someone who insisted that Atlantis was a real place and rejected my explanation that it was fictional construct for an ancient Greek story.

You should have told your friend that Atlantis was burned down by General Sherman, but has been rebuilt and has become the economic center of the US Deep South.

I wonder if there will be people in 1000 years insisting the middle earth was real?

If humans are still around in 1000 years, it's a fair bet that stupid humans will still be around in 1000 years!


Numenor, after its destruction, was referred to by the elves as "The Downfallen", or in their language, "Atalante". 

Just taking a trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, it seems that the tale of the fall of Atlantis, was-- like Tolkien's story of the fall of Numenor-- an allegory for man's hubris leading to his downfall.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on March 19, 2019, 09:46:28 pm
Jim Jeffries is back, I was worried he might have been cancelled.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on March 20, 2019, 06:01:55 am
The final season of Kimmy Schmidt finished and it was pretty much as expected, which is great for me.  I will miss it and hope something new comes up. 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on May 29, 2019, 05:41:55 am
Chernobyl !

Who is watching ?  It's an HBO gig.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Pinus or Vid or...????? on May 29, 2019, 07:12:16 am
For all you fans of the Karate Kid movies of the 80s, I watched a series last year called "Cobra Kai."  Stars the two main characters of the Original Karate Kid, but this time it makes Johnny the protagonist.  Well written and I urge anyone who is a fan to watch it.  Unfortunately, it is not on Netflix, but YouTube version of Netflix.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on May 29, 2019, 10:40:52 pm
  Stars the two main characters of the Original Karate Kid, but this time it makes Johnny the protagonist. 

Obviously Johnny was the protagonist!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wAtEBbYhv8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrzqc7F-Ans

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on June 03, 2019, 08:55:30 pm
Chernobyl ?  No one ?

Sheesh it's a word of mouth hit people !
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: TimG on June 03, 2019, 09:53:03 pm
Chernobyl ?  No one ?
Anti nuclear propaganda designed to make it even harder for us to use the only useful non-CO2 emitting power source? No thanks. Not much different than a show celebrating anti-vaxxers.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on June 03, 2019, 10:24:44 pm
Chernobyl ?  No one ?

Sheesh it's a word of mouth hit people !

Literally a masterpiece.  I've never understood that word until Chernobyl.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on June 03, 2019, 10:25:05 pm
Anti nuclear propaganda designed to make it even harder for us to use the only useful non-CO2 emitting power source? No thanks. Not much different than a show celebrating anti-vaxxers.

Lets pretend it didn't happen.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: TimG on June 03, 2019, 10:41:56 pm
Lets pretend it didn't happen.
There is a difference between learning the facts so we can learn from them and an emotion laden drama designed to attract viewers. The latter will always sacrifice facts for entertainment and, in this case, to support the ideology of the makers.

You argument is like saying a movie about the horrible consequences that rarely occur from vaccinations should be celebrated because it is good drama despite the anti-vax propaganda. Why is Chernobyl any different?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: JMT on June 03, 2019, 10:52:38 pm
Because you're wrong:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/06/chernobyl-finale-hbo-miniseries-craig-mazin-interview.html
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on June 04, 2019, 05:49:12 am
Anti nuclear propaganda designed to make it even harder for us to use the only useful non-CO2 emitting power source? No thanks. Not much different than a show celebrating anti-vaxxers.

Um.  No.  It's actually more edifying about the failings of Communism,  IMO.  In fact, several young people I have spoken to about the show were shocked as to how the regime worked.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on June 04, 2019, 05:50:22 am
There is a difference between learning the facts so we can learn from them and an emotion laden drama designed to attract viewers. The latter will always sacrifice facts for entertainment and, in this case, to support the ideology of the makers.

You argument is like saying a movie about the horrible consequences that rarely occur from vaccinations should be celebrated because it is good drama despite the anti-vax propaganda. Why is Chernobyl any different?

It has actually been lauded for its accuracy, from articles I've seen online.  It's about an incident, not the 'dangers of nuclear power'
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: TimG on June 04, 2019, 12:37:50 pm
Um.  No.  It's actually more edifying about the failings of Communism,  IMO.  In fact, several young people I have spoken to about the show were shocked as to how the regime worked.
OK. And a story about an incompetent government in charge of a nuclear facility is not going make people question if nuclear is worth the risk?

It has actually been lauded for its accuracy, from articles I've seen online.  It's about an incident, not the 'dangers of nuclear power'
I don't think that message can be avoided in a drama about an incident because a drama does not lend itself to providing an esoteric discussion of nuclear safety features in modern plants and the challenge of managing a risk that can never be eliminated.

But I am glad to hear that does not appear to be an over the top propaganda piece.

Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Omni on June 04, 2019, 01:04:47 pm
It has actually been lauded for its accuracy, from articles I've seen online.  It's about an incident, not the 'dangers of nuclear power'

I haven't read the articles but of course accuracy is very important when portraying an actual event of such magnitude. I also think we probably all know/knew the details of what happened 30 plus years ago in Russia and a TV drama of that event will not likely alter peoples current opinions of nuclear power. 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on June 04, 2019, 04:15:36 pm
OK. And a story about an incompetent government in charge of a nuclear facility is not going make people question if nuclear is worth the risk?

Well, of course it might.  But ?  I don't know how to respond to this.  A lot of people think Die Hard is really a Christmas movie too.

Quote
I don't think that message can be avoided in a drama about an incident because a drama does not lend itself to providing an esoteric discussion of nuclear safety features in modern plants and the challenge of managing a risk that can never be eliminated.

But I am glad to hear that does not appear to be an over the top propaganda piece.

Well, fair enough.  The thing is, with each passing year we get father from Chernobyl and three mile island.  The number of people who die due to fossil fuel accidents must be the same toll annually at a minimum.  Lac Megantic, for example.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on December 13, 2019, 03:43:38 am
Do people still watch network TV anymore?  I still watch network TV sometimes.

Right now what I'm watching on network TV is Stumptown, starring Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother).

Stumptown is set in Portland, Oregon (Stumptown is a nickname of Portland dating back to settler days) and centers on Dex Parios and her messed up life.  Dex is a former US Marine suffering from PTSD and spending her disability cheques on booze and gambling.   Almost by accident she ends up working as a private investigator.

Each episode has a standalone mystery-of-the-week, but there's also an ongoing story as Dex tries to build some kind of life for herself, and for her younger brother Ansel, who has Down's syndrome.  Her care for her brother is one of Dex's few redeeming qualities, although in truth he's more often the one taking care of her.  He's the only thing providing her any stability in her trainwreck life.

Dex is an interesting character, because in a lot of ways she's not very likable. She's a dirtbag with a heart of gold.  She has a conscience and principles, but she's also selfish, self-pitying, and manipulative. She ruins everything she's part of. She creates chaos for everybody in her life as she self-medicates with booze and casual sex.  You want to root for her, but you also want to grab her and shake some sense into her. 

One of the treats of the show is Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal, in a recurring role as Sue Lynn Blackbird, the chief of the local native band and operator of a big casino. Sue Lynn is also the mother of Dex's late boyfriend which is an ongoing source of stress between the two.  Sue Lynn's morally flexible business practices and her personal connection to Dex result in Dex being Sue Lynn's go-to troubleshooter for jobs where discretion is required. 

I am enjoying this.

 -k




Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on December 13, 2019, 09:58:42 am
HBO's Watchmen is the best show of 2019, and the finale hasn't even aired yet.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 13, 2019, 05:55:16 pm
Watched Stumptown for the first time. I liked it. Smulders was born and raised in Vancouver.

Mourning the end of the Jim Jeffries show. Bad language but a truly funny man with a social conscience. He covered all sorts of topics and was just about the only topical comedy network show that wasn't completely absorbed by Trump and US politics.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on December 13, 2019, 06:50:15 pm
New Star Wars series The Mandalorian is really good so far, surprisingly.  But then again, dead ghosts haunt people and don't have much time for the ol' boob tube!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on December 14, 2019, 01:46:31 pm
HBO's Watchmen is the best show of 2019, and the finale hasn't even aired yet.

Are you familiar with the Watchmen-- the original comic book series or the movie?  I'm a huge fan of the Watchmen comic book series, so I am feeling a little trepidation over this.  On the one hand, I'd love to spend more time with that series. On the other, I'm concerned about tarnishing the legacy of the Alan Moore series, and I'm not sure it needed anything added to it.

I read the comics once as a teenager, again as an adult, and again a few years back. Each time I got more out of it and saw things I didn't understand in previous readings.  As a teenager I was too dumb to understand much of what the book was really about.  As an adult, and after spending some time trying to write and participating in a writing group, I was able to put a lot more of what Moore was saying together, and was completely mesmerized and enchanted.

I did like the Zach Snyder movie.  While it didn't manage to capture the full breadth and depth of the source material, it was at least a worthy tribute that touched on the main themes.

The missus isn't familiar with Watchmen at all, so I'm not sure if I should make her read the graphic novel, or watch the movie, or both or neither, before we dive into the new series.


 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on December 16, 2019, 08:47:02 am
Are you familiar with the Watchmen-- the original comic book series or the movie?  I'm a huge fan of the Watchmen comic book series, so I am feeling a little trepidation over this.  On the one hand, I'd love to spend more time with that series. On the other, I'm concerned about tarnishing the legacy of the Alan Moore series, and I'm not sure it needed anything added to it.

I read the comics once as a teenager, again as an adult, and again a few years back. Each time I got more out of it and saw things I didn't understand in previous readings.  As a teenager I was too dumb to understand much of what the book was really about.  As an adult, and after spending some time trying to write and participating in a writing group, I was able to put a lot more of what Moore was saying together, and was completely mesmerized and enchanted.

I did like the Zach Snyder movie.  While it didn't manage to capture the full breadth and depth of the source material, it was at least a worthy tribute that touched on the main themes.

The missus isn't familiar with Watchmen at all, so I'm not sure if I should make her read the graphic novel, or watch the movie, or both or neither, before we dive into the new series.


 -k

I never read the Graphic Novel. I watched the 2009 Zach Snyder movie. I've heard it's a rather detailed theatrical re-telling of the graphic novel. I know that's debatable but you can follow along with this Mini-Series by just watching the movie. You know who all the big players are.

The one big difference is that Ozymandias uses some sort of EMP to destroy New York in the movie. In the comic it's this weird Squid Monster.

The mini-series is true to the latter. Squids a plenty.

The Damon Lindelof "sequel" focuses on race and takes some huge liberties with the backstories of existing characters in the Universe. Commies aren't the enemies anymore it's racist.

I have not heard or read a bad comment on HBO's Watchmen. I saw the finale last night and was completely satisfied with how it ended.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on December 20, 2019, 02:14:54 pm
The Expanse on Amazon Prime TV is very good. 

From Google:
Quote
DescriptionHundreds of years in the future, things are different than what we are used to after humans have colonized the solar system and Mars has become an independent military power. Rising tensions between Earth and Mars have put them on the brink of war. Against this backdrop, a hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain come together to investigate the case of a missing young woman. The investigation leads them on a race across the solar system that could expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 20, 2019, 10:16:39 pm
Been watching Shetland on Knowledge Network. An excellent BBC whodunnit police series filmed in The Shetlands, Scotland and locations in Norway. Each season covers one case. Great cast, complex characters and plot lines, stunning scenery. Fifth season and has been renewed through 2021.

Turns out it is also on Netflix.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on June 01, 2020, 11:23:29 am
Anyone watching Killing Eve? Started watching season 3 on CTV Drama, now I will have to get Crave to watch 1&2. Great black comedy, Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh are dynamite.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on June 01, 2020, 01:34:36 pm
I just finished Baskets (Louis Anderson and Zach Galifianakis) and Kidding (Jim Carrey)

BOTH are artsy sitcoms and BOTH are recommended, but the latter much more than the former.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on September 17, 2020, 01:38:00 am
Do people still watch network TV anymore?  I still watch network TV sometimes.

Right now what I'm watching on network TV is Stumptown, starring Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother).

Disappointing news today. Stumptown had been renewed for a 2nd season, but now will not be not going ahead because COVID-related issues have made filming impractical.  I liked this show and I'm sad that it's not going to return.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on September 17, 2020, 12:50:12 pm
Disappointing news today. Stumptown had been renewed for a 2nd season, but now will not be not going ahead because COVID-related issues have made filming impractical.  I liked this show and I'm sad that it's not going to return.

 -k
I liked it too. It’s filmed in LA, why would it be more difficult to produce than other shows?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on November 27, 2020, 12:00:45 pm
The new season of The Crown and Queen's Gambit are both worthwhile on the Netflix.

You can't hate The Crown.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on November 29, 2020, 01:02:41 pm
Anyone seen Big Sky? Watched the second episode and it looks like it might be one of those shows where you never know who gets bumped off next. Stars Katheryn Winnick (Lagertha from the Vikings) and is filmed around Pit Meadows.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: waldo on November 29, 2020, 01:25:18 pm
You can't hate The Crown.

British actor/comedian Kieran Hodgson offers it up in 2 minutes... good sport Gillian Anderson called his summation 'genius'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LQTBOBfA18
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on December 01, 2020, 12:35:31 pm
British actor/comedian Kieran Hodgson offers it up in 2 minutes... good sport Gillian Anderson called his summation 'genius'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LQTBOBfA18

That is very good. Spot On impressions too.

Would have enjoyed more than 2 minutes of that.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on December 04, 2020, 12:06:39 am
Anyone seen Big Sky? Watched the second episode and it looks like it might be one of those shows where you never know who gets bumped off next. Stars Katheryn Winnick (Lagertha from the Vikings) and is filmed around Pit Meadows.

That sounds interesting.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 04, 2020, 12:21:09 am
That sounds interesting.

 -k

Winnick should appeal to you. Two martial arts black belts and used to run her own studio before she started acting.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on December 04, 2020, 12:23:35 am
Winnick should appeal to you. Two martial arts black belts and used to run her own studio before she started acting.

She seems nice. :)

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 04, 2020, 09:26:32 am
She seems nice. :)

 -k
I thought you were into martial arts stuff.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on December 04, 2020, 10:05:33 am
I thought you were into martial arts stuff.

For sure! I've done judo and boxing... not the sort of acrobatic flying Shao Lin Monk kind of stuff Kathryn Winnick is known for. I actually haven't watched Vikings yet, but I remember seeing Winnick as a villain-of-the-week on Criminal Minds and CSI:NY and probably other shows as well. I also remember seeing footage of her rehearsing for a fight-scene or stunt-work or something and remember thinking "whoa, she moves like a woman-shaped cat."

Also,
(https://i.imgur.com/ICDVZmw.png)
...  ;)

How is Big Sky so far?

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: guest78 on December 15, 2020, 09:18:16 pm
A co-worker recently got me into Columbo.  I knew very little going into it.  But I can honestly say that it’s one of my favourite shows.  Peter Falk is/was an international treasure!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 15, 2020, 11:34:03 pm
Very popular show when it first aired. I watched it. Peter Falk really made that character.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on December 15, 2020, 11:35:59 pm
A co-worker recently got me into Columbo.  I knew very little going into it.  But I can honestly say that it’s one of my favourite shows.  Peter Falk is/was an international treasure!

I remember watching those as a kid.  They were corny and predictable, but fun.  Peter Falk made the whole thing work. "Oh,  ah, just one more thing sir..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxBnaMGP2aY

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 15, 2020, 11:52:05 pm
I liked  it for his old Peugeot. I used to own a 1978 Peugeot 504 wagon.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on December 16, 2020, 05:09:37 am
I liked  it for his old Peugeot. I used to own a 1978 Peugeot 504 wagon.

What??? Our family too !!!!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on December 16, 2020, 07:24:58 am
BTW, I know it's not exactly high-minded, but The Mandolorian is probably the best thing Star Wars related since the Original Trilogy.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on December 16, 2020, 08:10:08 am
BTW, I know it's not exactly high-minded, but The Mandolorian is probably the best thing Star Wars related since the Original Trilogy.

Will everyone please stop telling me this.  I don't need another disappointment like the last 8 films.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on December 16, 2020, 08:18:35 am
Will everyone please stop telling me this.  I don't need another disappointment like the last 8 films.

I sense FOMO.

Not up for Disney Plus? Hamilton is fantastic BTW.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on December 16, 2020, 08:37:03 am
I sense FOMO.

Not up for Disney Plus? Hamilton is fantastic BTW.

My wife and I are oddly idealogue when it comes to Disney ie. we are politically against it 100%.  I don't think they have any properties I need in my life... although I'm not sure about 'Gravity Falls'.

That said, we were at another family's place on Friday (we are bubbling with them but yes it is cheating).  And Fantasia was on.  They have like a massive TV with maximum resolution - I don't know technical specs - but it was perfect.  And Mikey Mouse was on this mountain conjuring up winds... the colours and the animation were heart stoppingly beautiful.  The TV is low to the ground and I looked over and Easy was as transfixed as I was.

Seemed like a drug.  Wow though.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on December 16, 2020, 08:38:07 am
Also - Hamilton... I have no desire.

I am going to write a f***ing hilarious Canadian music about Sir Mackenzie Bowell and it's going to make Hamilton look like fluffy bird ****.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on December 16, 2020, 09:15:58 am
What??? Our family too !!!!

Good car. Roomy, solid, comfortable, but guttless.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on December 16, 2020, 10:27:29 am
Good car. Roomy, solid, comfortable, but guttless.

I think it was kind of an 'image' thing... We became more practical after that  :D:

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/zHIA7Tqpw4i-kIKNBS_u5XrzLIR4U_gvmafu8E0S_1ZY22_KtSY9LWfq5OASYG7FtRhXbXpbv3y398XuT1DYya7Tf0yCb7_4B5MGmBSdMlYpE-dS37xzNSyb3ke2KiaTv1N7HuNyzD-5QxIMWHNz0PYUOs-cNz5yb_CvdDKI0w)
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: guest78 on December 16, 2020, 11:07:47 am
I liked  it for his old Peugeot. I used to own a 1978 Peugeot 504 wagon.
And his dog named Dog.  He had the Peugeot from the first episode in 1968 to the last episode in 2003!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: guest78 on December 16, 2020, 11:09:30 am
I remember watching those as a kid.  They were corny and predictable, but fun.  Peter Falk made the whole thing work. "Oh,  ah, just one more thing sir..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxBnaMGP2aY

 -k
That was my favourite part, oh one more thing!  I like the concept of the show, because they tell you who the murderer is at the start, and then Columbo works his way through the case.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on May 26, 2021, 01:05:08 am
Flashback to 2017. I honestly don't know why. Just boosting this because I'm quite drunk.

Even though Inhumans is really bad, I have to keep watching. Part of it is an academic exercise.  I'm fascinated at how bad it is, and I need to analyze it from the perspective of what makes it fail. I try to identify what aspects specifically make me hate it, and then I try to analyze my own writing to look for the same elements. Do I make the same mistakes? 

I'm intrigued at how Inhumans made it all the way to network TV.  Surely at some point somebody must have looked at it and realized that it's a terrible product.  It doesn't just fail by August1991/Michael Hardner type criteria, it fails by the standards of its own genre, its own aspirations. Surely somebody at either ABC or Disney or Marvel must have thought "this is really bad. We shouldn't put this on TV."

I watched the entire Twilight series of movies because I was fascinated at how bad it was. I was intrigued that people spent tens of millions of dollars making each of those bad films. I was amazed that people spent hundreds of millions of dollars watching each of those films.  Each step of the way I thought to myself "I can't believe adults made this. This seems like something junior high kids would have made."

And I watched the entire first season of the "Shadowhunters" TV series on Netflix. It's probably the single worst thing I have ever seen produced by allegedly professional creators. So astoundingly stupid that Twilight looks brilliant by comparison. For me it was a multi-car pileup I just couldn't look away from. So incredibly inept.  Watching it was like reading Donald Trump news articles. It was maddening and yet somehow addictive.  I hated every moment but I just couldn't stop. I had started to crave the pain, the anger, the hate.  I forced myself to not watch season 2 of Shadowhunters.  I felt like I just couldn't expose myself to that kind of punishment again without risking my sanity. I went cold-turkey on Shadowhunters.

Inhumans isn't quite as bad as Twilight or especially Shadowhunters, at least from an execution point of view. I think that from the point of view of learning how to create a bad program, I have learned what I needed from Inhumans.  But I still need to find out what the payoff is for the bizarre politics of the program. 

It's a program where the intended protagonists are enthusiastic supporters of a system based around eugenics, aristocracy, the establishment of a permanent underclass,  and the enslavement of those deemed genetically inferior.  The supposed heroes of this show are, almost literally, Moon Nazis.  They boast openly of their genetic superiority and openly express their contempt of those like their own brother who are deemed genetically inferior.   In 2017, we had white supremacists marching in the United States, and here is a program where "the good guys" are fighting to restore such a system after it has been toppled.

It's like the creators of the show said "you know, we've had a lot of one-sided coverage of eugenics and racial supremacist ideology this year, and we just wanted to present an alternative view, to show a more positive side of racial supremacy ideologies."


Right now, as of episode 4,  our "villain" Maximus has consolidated power in Attilan. He has imprisoned the ruling "Genetic Council", the ruling eugenics experts at the core of the caste system. I gather we're supposed to hate Maximus because he has beaten and imprisoned his political enemies, and even killed one. Compared to real-world revolutionaries, Maximus has been a model of restraint, but on this show even one murder is too high a cost for liberating thousands. No it isn't! Slaves are dying in the mines while the "Genetic Council" lives in comfort! Go Maximus!

Meanwhile our Nazi "protagonists" are floundering around Hawaii, pursued by agents of Maximus, and surviving only with the help of inferior humans. Who help them even though our heroes are horrendous people and treat them terribly.  I expect that the eventual payoff is through their misadventures on earth, our obnoxious royals will learn to have empathy with the inferiors. This is kind of like a story where David Duke and Richard Spencer get lost in north Detroit and survive only with the help of black people, and we're supposed to be cheering for Duke and Spencer to get home. No doubt that when Medusa Duke and Black Bolt Spencer get back to Attilan and take back power, they will be kinder to the slaves when they send them back to the mines.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on May 26, 2021, 09:08:20 am
There's a new season of Master of None on Netflix.

I've only checked out the first of 5 episodes, but it doesn't resemble the first two seasons in any way, shape or form.

It follows Lena Waithe's Denise character as she lives with her wife in a rural setting. They tackle typical relationship issues. The Season is titles "Stories in Love".

It's filmed in 3:4 letterbox and done and shot in a very artistic manor. Azari is the director and he makes cameos, but this isn't a story about him.

Azari has certainly moved well beyond the 20-something urban globe-trotting narrative. I guess getting Me-Too'd will do that to you.

Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on May 26, 2021, 09:41:03 am
There's a new season of Master of None on Netflix.

I've only checked out the first of 5 episodes, but it doesn't resemble the first two seasons in any way, shape or form.

It follows Lena Waithe's Denise character as she lives with her wife in a rural setting. They tackle typical relationship issues. The Season is titles "Stories in Love".

It's filmed in 3:4 letterbox and done and shot in a very artistic manor. Azari is the director and he makes cameos, but this isn't a story about him.

Azari has certainly moved well beyond the 20-something urban globe-trotting narrative. I guess getting Me-Too'd will do that to you.

Well he did that in Season 2 and it was pretty good.  I liked the idea of an artistic brown person capturing the Euro new wave and owning it... on Netflix of all places.

This season ... we started episode 1 last night and it's boring.  Not sure if he lost his touch or what.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on May 26, 2021, 09:43:01 am
This season ... we started episode 1 last night and it's boring.  Not sure if he lost his touch or what.

It's a different tone. Not even really a comedy.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on May 26, 2021, 09:44:33 am
It's a different tone. Not even really a comedy.
 

He did this in Season 2.  Did you not see Season 2 ?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on May 26, 2021, 10:15:56 am
He did this in Season 2.  Did you not see Season 2 ?

He did what? Change the tone? Each episode of Season 2 had a different feel but there was still the under current of his relationship with the Italian girl.

The tone of this season isn't even remotely comparable.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on May 26, 2021, 10:25:17 am
He did what? Change the tone? Each episode of Season 2 had a different feel but there was still the under current of his relationship with the Italian girl.

The tone of this season isn't even remotely comparable.

Yeah, I thought so ... by the end of Season 2 I recall it to be distinctly in the style of European art film which he seems to be continuing.

Maybe I misremember.

I'm talking about long, slow moving scenes with little plot or camera movement.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on May 26, 2021, 11:00:42 am
Yeah, I thought so ... by the end of Season 2 I recall it to be distinctly in the style of European art film which he seems to be continuing.

Maybe I misremember.

I'm talking about long, slow moving scenes with little plot or camera movement.

I've only seen one episode, and it's been years since I saw the previous episodes. But the tonal change is obvious.

Long establishing shots of moss on fences, farm animals and decor. AND the Zack Snyderesque choice of using a 3:4 aspect ratio.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on May 26, 2021, 12:40:20 pm
1. I've only seen one episode, and it's been years since I saw the previous episodes. But the tonal change is obvious.

2. Long establishing shots of moss on fences, farm animals and decor. AND the Zack Snyderesque choice of using a 3:4 aspect ratio.

1. Yes, from season 1.
2. I don't think it's working anymore.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on May 26, 2021, 12:41:21 pm

Mare of Easttown anyone ?

Small town murder mystery w/Kate Winslet.

Recommended... can't wait for next episode...
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on May 26, 2021, 02:08:50 pm
Mare of Easttown anyone ?

Small town murder mystery w/Kate Winslet.

Recommended... can't wait for next episode...

Compelling TV. Looking forward to the finale this coming Sunday.

This model of getting A-List movie stars to do limited Miniseries' seems to work well.

Here's a funny parody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaKZi6p6sxg

The small town motif where everyone is everyone else's business seems weird.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on May 26, 2021, 04:03:04 pm
Not new but does anyone watch Moosemeat and Marmalade? I really enjoy it.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on September 14, 2021, 10:35:05 am
So ... we're posting about TV and Movies again.

Has anyone seen COUNTERPOINT ?

Although it flagged near the end of season 2 for a few episodes ... I thought at a time it was better than Breaking Bad.

Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on April 18, 2022, 09:40:56 pm
Has anyone been watching the new season of Star Trek: Picard?  I think that so far season 2 is even better and more compelling than the first season.  The Borg Queen, Q, etc, it’s been great!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on April 19, 2022, 09:13:51 am
If you subscribe to Apple TV+ you must watch Severance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEQP4VVuyrY
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on April 29, 2022, 01:40:07 pm
A woman from Nova Scotia is kicking ass in Jeopardy!   I think she is up to $400k+ in winnings!  Good for her! 

I haven’t watched…. Just saw some headlines.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on April 29, 2022, 02:09:18 pm
If you subscribe to Apple TV+ you must watch Severance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEQP4VVuyrY

i'm getting Homecoming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WJSdpE-sJQ&ab_channel=PrimeVideo) vibes from this one.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on April 29, 2022, 03:34:36 pm
A woman from Nova Scotia is kicking ass in Jeopardy!   

She's from TORONTO

People from Nova Scotia make mistakes, people from TORONTO do not
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on April 29, 2022, 05:38:26 pm
She's from TORONTO

People from Nova Scotia make mistakes, people from TORONTO do not

Sure she is…. 

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/i-can-t-believe-it-nova-scotia-s-mattea-roach-takes-her-18th-jeopardy-win-thursday-night-1.5881165

From NS, resides in Toronto. 

Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on April 29, 2022, 06:01:33 pm
Sure she is…. 

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/i-can-t-believe-it-nova-scotia-s-mattea-roach-takes-her-18th-jeopardy-win-thursday-night-1.5881165

From NS, resides in Toronto.

I set a trap to laugh at myself.  See - I was wrong and I'm from Toronto get it ?  Ha ha.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on July 04, 2022, 08:53:02 am
"Raised by Wolves"

Anyone ?  I watched it all but resentfully ... by the end.  The writing was bereft of discipline IMO.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Boges on August 22, 2022, 12:26:07 pm
Anyone into House of the Dragon?

It's going to need a bit of runway to become the sensation Game of Thrones was. But it's got a good head start.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on August 22, 2022, 12:44:47 pm
Anyone into House of the Dragon?

It's going to need a bit of runway to become the sensation Game of Thrones was. But it's got a good head start.
One of my co-worker’s said that it was really good.  But I’m also gonna wait a few weeks or so.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on August 22, 2022, 12:48:47 pm
Anyone into House of the Dragon?

It's going to need a bit of runway to become the sensation Game of Thrones was. But it's got a good head start.

Gonna have to work pretty hard to make up for the disaster GoT ended up being. I don't think there's been a bigger bag fumble in TV history than D&D tanking that show.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on September 27, 2022, 10:19:13 am
lists lists lists - I have seen 77 of these and only missed to of the top ones: Atlanta and The Americans

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/best-tv-shows-of-all-time-1234598313/the-sopranos-5-1234599298/
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 23, 2023, 08:23:32 am
Sad sad weekend for Cowboys and Bills fans especially... like my neighbour and me...

The upstart teams of the season (including a superbowl team from last year?) came through.

Next... Daytona 500.   Do I know ANY drivers ???
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Moonbox on January 23, 2023, 09:53:19 am
I am a Titans fan first (Music City Miracle is where it began) and Bills fan second.  The NFL is over for the year, as far as I'm concerned now.

On a positive note, The Last of Us on HBO/Crave is very good. 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on January 23, 2023, 10:14:51 am
On a positive note, The Last of Us on HBO/Crave is very good. 

Maybe it was the hype, but I was let down. The first episode in particular felt very network TV if you know what I mean. I really hated the cold open explaining the nature of the fungus and spelling out how it could evolve to people. That said, episode 2 was a big improvement.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Moonbox on January 23, 2023, 11:04:05 am
Maybe it was the hype, but I was let down. The first episode in particular felt very network TV if you know what I mean. I really hated the cold open explaining the nature of the fungus and spelling out how it could evolve to people.

I didn't really like the cold open either, but a lot of TV-watchers (or readers for that matter) get annoyed if things aren't explained to them right away and they can't just go with the flow.  I remember how many people complained about the Witcher and how the different timelines were running concurrently.  I thought it was a cool device.  Lots of people were just confused.

Anyways, the first episode of the Last of Us was great other than that, practically following the opening of the game shot-for-shot.  Video game adaptations have always been garbage in the past and this seems like a case where they finally figured it out. 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on January 23, 2023, 11:16:27 am
I didn't really like the cold open either, but a lot of TV-watchers (or readers for that matter) get annoyed if things aren't explained to them right away and they can't just go with the flow.  I remember how many people complained about the Witcher and how the different timelines were running concurrently.  I thought it was a cool device.  Lots of people were just confused.

Anyways, the first episode of the Last of Us was great other than that, practically following the opening of the game shot-for-shot. Video game adaptations have always been garbage in the past and this seems like a case where they finally figured it out.

I think my one other beef is that it follows the game too closely, and I say that has someone who has played TLOU through at least three times. As you say there's a lot of scenes that are lifted straight from the game which I think is lazy, but I do get why they do it.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 23, 2023, 11:27:28 am
I am a Titans fan first (Music City Miracle is where it began) and Bills fan second.  The NFL is over for the year, as far as I'm concerned now.

On a positive note, The Last of Us on HBO/Crave is very good.

Watched Ep 1.

Didn't like.

I'll refrain from ridiculing it but I really really didn't like it.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on January 23, 2023, 11:34:06 am
This scene was shot right in front of my old office, so that's kinda cool.

(https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/content/dam/ctvnews/en/images/2023/1/12/the-last-of-us-1-6228780-1673566366515.jpg)
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Moonbox on January 23, 2023, 03:12:41 pm
This scene was shot right in front of my old office, so that's kinda cool.

(https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/content/dam/ctvnews/en/images/2023/1/12/the-last-of-us-1-6228780-1673566366515.jpg)

Pretty cool effects to change it all up.  NGL I am a fanboy for the source material. 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on January 23, 2023, 03:18:36 pm
Pretty cool effects to change it all up.  NGL I am a fanboy for the source material.

Me every time I see a location I recognize on this show:

(https://media1.giphy.com/media/L3ERvA6jWCd0qO4NdX/giphy.gif)
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on January 23, 2023, 06:21:01 pm
Anybody watch The Curse of Oak Island? 
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 23, 2023, 09:03:36 pm
Anybody watch The Curse of Oak Island?

I think that I saw a show in the 70s about that place.  Did they ever solve the mystery?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on January 24, 2023, 10:04:48 am
I think that I saw a show in the 70s about that place.  Did they ever solve the mystery?
Not really.  But some of the things they’ve found on the island are incredible.  A stone road that was excavated estimated to be several hundred years old.  Roman and Chinese coins, a 400 year old lead crucifix traced back to France, etc.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 24, 2023, 12:11:44 pm
Not really.  But some of the things they’ve found on the island are incredible.  A stone road that was excavated estimated to be several hundred years old.  Roman and Chinese coins, a 400 year old lead crucifix traced back to France, etc.

Noice.  Are those things shown in the doc ?  I could probably get buy in from the Mrs. on this one if she hasn't heard of it
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on January 24, 2023, 12:41:54 pm
Anybody watch The Curse of Oak Island?

It’s a fake, dramatized show that appeals to the gullible and those who watch fake history on tv, but would never pick up a  properly researched book.

Quote
Few seem bothered by the fact that there is no reason to believe there has ever been treasure on Oak Island. Skeptics call it “Hoax Island,” because for two centuries, the obsessed and gullible—including former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt—have been persuaded by the flimsiest evidence, stories told by pseudohistorians and treasure hunters, to invest millions of dollars in digs.

Historian Dan Conlin, who wrote about the island in his 2009 book Pirates of the Atlantic and teaches a class on it at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, is blunt. “It’s nothing beyond an interesting example of pop culture obsession and greed,” he says. “There’s nothing there beyond a natural sinkhole filled up with 200 years of junk from treasure hunting. It’s just the generations of treasure hunters who have created a self-sustaining myth that keeps going and going.”
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/treasure-hunters-flock-to-oak-island-where-no-one-has-ever-found-treasure/amp/
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on January 24, 2023, 12:45:35 pm
It’s a fake, dramatized show that appeals to the gullible and those who watch fake history on tv, but would never pick up a  properly researched book.
 https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/treasure-hunters-flock-to-oak-island-where-no-one-has-ever-found-treasure/amp/
It’s not fake.  They carbon date many things that have been discovered.  Unless you’re one of those religious crazies that don’t believe in carbon dating.  But I couldn’t care less whether there’s any vast treasure there.  I’m more interested in the various countries that were there a few hundred years ago.  That’s a great conspiracy theory you’ve got there!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on January 24, 2023, 01:09:00 pm
It’s not fake.  They carbon date many things that have been discovered.  Unless you’re one of those religious crazies that don’t believe in carbon dating.  But I couldn’t care less whether there’s any vast treasure there.  I’m more interested in the various countries that were there a few hundred years ago.  That’s a great conspiracy theory you’ve got there!

Lmao

Quote
The Curse of Oak Island, which comes from the same production company that produces the hit pseudohistory series Ancient Aliens, presents various outlandish theories, especially those centred on the Knights Templar, a disbanded European religious order that Dan Brown put at the heart of his best-selling thriller, The Da Vinci Code. “It’s classic pseudohistory. It’s taking archeological sites out of context, building on coincidences and speculation with no real evidence,” says Conlin.

Otherwise serious journalists help keep the stories alive. CBC’s The Current recently aired a book promotion interview with American journalist Randall Sullivan, who worked on the series. He thinks that the island may contain proof that Francis Bacon wrote William Shakespeare’s plays.

Conlin can’t make himself watch the Oak Island show because it is so absurd. “I saw one expert they brought in holding up a railway spike … and saying, this is the keel spike of a Spanish galleon,” says Conlin.

Between this and your defence of the Netflix Atlantis show, one really gets a sense of your media habits and why you are the way you are (extremely dumb).
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on January 24, 2023, 02:43:36 pm
Shady thinks Muppets - Treasure Island is a documentary!
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on January 24, 2023, 02:49:50 pm
People’s wild theories have nothing to do with the actual archeological work that’s been done.  Carbon dated wood is carbon dated wood.  Chinese, Spanish, British coins, are coins.  It doesn’t mean there is some kind of treasure there, but there is evidence of extensive work by various groups of people that’s very interesting.  It’s sad that you children get so distracted by fables.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on January 25, 2023, 10:48:24 am
there is evidence of extensive work by various groups of people that’s very interesting.

When they hold up a railroad spike and say it came off a ship, that’s not “evidence” of ships.  It’s evidence they’re full of sh!t.  But you don’t question what you see on tv. 

Do you watch the alien show that the same people make?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on January 25, 2023, 11:04:00 am
When they hold up a railroad spike and say it came off a ship, that’s not “evidence” of ships.  It’s evidence they’re full of sh!t.  But you don’t question what you see on tv. 

Do you watch the alien show that the same people make?
That’s not what happens.  Long planks of wood are carbon tested, and the totality of artifacts found, including a ships wharf are studied and hypothesis are made.  But I get it, it’s a giant conspiracy, between the federal government, the Nova Scotia government and academic institutions like Acadia University, to fool everyone! 😂

Look, it’s obvious you’ve never watched the show for any length of time, and there’s ok.  But you’re grossly ill informed as to how the show works.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on January 25, 2023, 11:21:55 am
That’s not what happens.  Long planks of wood are carbon tested, and the totality of artifacts found, including a ships wharf are studied and hypothesis are made.  But I get it, it’s a giant conspiracy, between the federal government, the Nova Scotia government and academic institutions like Acadia University, to fool everyone! 😂

Look, it’s obvious you’ve never watched the show for any length of time, and there’s ok.  But you’re grossly ill informed as to how the show works.

A veritable multiverse of quality TV options across dozens of platforms and you're watching History Channel junk, that's the real Boomer mindset
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on January 26, 2023, 10:24:33 am
That’s not what happens.  Long planks of wood are carbon tested, and the totality of artifacts found, including a ships wharf are studied and hypothesis are made.  But I get it, it’s a giant conspiracy, between the federal government, the Nova Scotia government and academic institutions like Acadia University, to fool everyone! 😂

Look, it’s obvious you’ve never watched the show for any length of time, and there’s ok.  But you’re grossly ill informed as to how the show works.

You really do think it’s real….  you’re actually being sincere in showing how truly stupid you are.   Do you believe the other shows on History?  Ancient Aliens?  Bigfoot?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: ArriveScam Shady on January 26, 2023, 10:48:08 am
You really do think it’s real….  you’re actually being sincere in showing how truly stupid you are.   Do you believe the other shows on History?  Ancient Aliens?  Bigfoot?
I don’t know what you mean by believe it’s real.  Do I believe there’s a vast treasure?  I highly doubt it.  Do I believe Europeans were there a few hundred years ago?  Yes, the evidence is quite clear.  Are you suggesting that Acadia University is faking carbon dating data?  That’s quite a conspiracy! 😂😂😂
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on March 05, 2023, 04:14:11 pm
Last of Us... I was set to give about a 5/10 when someone convinced me that acting, direction, cinematography, and scenery count.

But originality... No.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on September 08, 2023, 02:55:33 pm
Probably a longshot but is anyone watching The Rehearsal ?

A kind of metamodern reality show.

Watch Epsode 1 to see - I was gripped...
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on September 08, 2023, 02:55:55 pm
It's created/hosted by Vancouverite Nathan Fielding btw
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Queefer Sutherland on September 08, 2023, 03:09:43 pm
What's it about?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on September 08, 2023, 05:15:15 pm
How To with John Wilson is Better
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on September 09, 2023, 06:21:35 am
It's a kind of reality show where the guy helps people rehearse for tough life moments.

But eventually he ends up putting himself into the stories to move things along more smoothly, and it wrecks the frame of the reality.

By the end there are some truly real and heart breaking moments.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on November 28, 2023, 01:26:32 pm
"Slow Horses" (Apple TV) is a very good spy show based on Mick Herron's Slough House novels and features an incredibly hilarious performance by Gary Oldman as a washed up spy overseeing a group of intelligence agents who have screwed up in some way and have been assigned to mind-numbing desk duties in order to get them to quit. Two seasons down with a third on the way.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Squidward von Squidderson on December 25, 2023, 06:09:26 pm
Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix.  Beautiful animation.  Classic Japanese samurai storytelling. So far, I’m really enjoying this one.

https://youtu.be/nJ1yQn17lbE?si=Gh96xHYqWlRREONj
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on December 26, 2023, 06:04:22 am
How To with John Wilson is Better

Same family of shows maybe..

Anyway, I started watching these..

Interesting so far.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on February 20, 2024, 09:37:33 pm
True Detective Season 4

Anyone watch it?
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Bubbermiley on February 21, 2024, 09:00:33 am
I was watching Fargo season 5 because Jennifer Jason Leigh > Jodie Foster.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Michael Hardner on February 21, 2024, 09:27:31 am
I was watching Fargo season 5 because Jennifer Jason Leigh > Jodie Foster.

I do like her
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on March 01, 2024, 10:30:24 am
Mr. and Mrs. Smith is so good. poker Face is also excellent.

Hyped for the new adaptation of Shogun as well, been hearing lots of great things.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Bubbermiley on March 01, 2024, 10:44:09 am
True Detective Season 4

Anyone watch it?
Just finished. Actually Jodie Foster was very good. Very well-written and well acted. Would recommend.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on March 01, 2024, 10:51:29 am
Mr. and Mrs. Smith is so good. poker Face is also excellent.

Hyped for the new adaptation of Shogun as well, been hearing lots of great things.

Will start watching Shogun on the weekend. The response has been very positive.

Speaking of Disney. Inside North Korea's Dynasty. A National Geographic mini series on the Kim family. They really are awful people.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on March 01, 2024, 11:00:41 am
Will start watching Shogun on the weekend. The response has been very positive.

Speaking of Disney. Inside North Korea's Dynasty. A National Geographic mini series on the Kim family. They really are awful people.

Have you watched Masters of the Air, the new Speilberg/Tom Hanks produced WW2 show about an 8th Air Force bomber group? I'm three eps in and it's...fine? Not as great as Band of Brothers or as visceral as The Pacific, but we'll see how it goes.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: kimmy on March 03, 2024, 10:45:24 am
Will start watching Shogun on the weekend. The response has been very positive.

I am also looking forward to this.  I saw an article last week talking about the phenomenal success of the James Clavell novel and the equally phenomenal success of the the TV miniseries that was made back in the early 1980s. It was obviously before my time and I didn't realize that the book and TV series had been so huge.

Speaking of Disney. Inside North Korea's Dynasty. A National Geographic mini series on the Kim family. They really are awful people.

I did not authorize this biography and I'm exploring legal options.

 -k
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: wilber on March 03, 2024, 04:09:47 pm
Watched the first two episodes of Shogun and it lives up to its press. It has been a big hit in Japan because of the accurate way it portrays Japanese society and culture, something western movies about Japan have never done. Having worked for the Japanese and spent a lot of time there I'm finding it fascinating and the Japanese characters the most interesting.
Title: Re: New TV Season
Post by: Black Dog on March 04, 2024, 09:54:16 am
Watched episode 1 of Shogun last night, I'm all in.