Television

Max Sterling said:
I get HBO Max included with my internet, so hopefully it heads there. But I also have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney +, and Hulu... So too many.
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For any DC content, I think the plan going forward since Batwoman is to have all DC Shows on The CW to hit HBO MAX now and not Netflix. And DC shows currently on Netflix will move to HBO MAX when Netflix 4 year from last airdate exclusivity expires.
 
ranbalam said:
Is anybody watching Perry Mason on HBO? I watched E1 last night, I think I'll stick with it.

My wife and I started Downton Abbey last week, great first episode. We only watch TV together once, maybe twice a week, so it'll take awhile to binge it.
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I'm glad I stuck with "Perry Mason". I was a little unsure about it after the first episode, but it has really become something I look forward to each week. That and "I'll Be Gone In The Dark" have made for a good 1-2 punch to end my recent Sundays.

I'm finding the evangelical storyline in "Perry Mason" less interesting than the main storyline, but, overall, the acting and production are top notch.
 
Aron said:
I'm glad I stuck with "Perry Mason". I was a little unsure about it after the first episode, but it has really become something I look forward to each week. That and "I'll Be Gone In The Dark" have made for a good 1-2 punch to end my recent Sundays.

I'm finding the evangelical storyline in "Perry Mason" less interesting than the main storyline, but, overall, the acting and production are top notch.
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I’m enjoying PM for the most part but I wish I loved it. I definitely love I’ll Be Gone in the Dark though it has me triple checking all my doors and windows before bed. Sunday nights have never been so creepy!
 
I'm definitely loving Perry Mason. I echo the sentiment that it's nice to have something on Sundays to look forward to. We've never watched The Americans so we're thinking of giving it a shot given how much we like Matthew Rhys.
 
Ho-ly Fuck! I just wrapped up rewatching all of Deadwood and It is still great, probably better than I remember. The whole thing has a Shakespearean quality to it that is quite beautiful. Anyways I am looking over the Wikipedia page and just had my mind blown. William Earl Brown the actor that played Al’s right hand man, Dan Dority...
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...also played Mary’s brother Warren in There’s Something About Mary! 🤯
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I watched the first two episodes of United We Fall, ABC's new sit com. It's got potential. I love the parents and the kids--mainly because the oldest kid reminds me of my youngest and we get those same sort of calls and statements because he's a weirdo. I am not a fan of the peripheral characters (mom's brother and MIL). They aren't real enough and way too scripted. The tropes were extremely obvious. But the parents are real and believable and I found myself laughing a lot. I related to so much of what they were dealing with and saying. I really hope it leans into the parents dealing with everyday life while also fleshing out the peripheral characters so they are likable, because right now, if they were gone, the show wouldn't suffer at all.
 
Aron said:
I know TBS renewed The Search Party for a 3rd season a while back, so, when the hell is it actually coming back? Not like they have a ton of visual effects to work on for that show. I enjoyed the show, but it has been so long that I don't even remember where the story left off. I kind of remember, but when you go a year and a half (plus) between seasons, people are going to forget. And lose interest.
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It back.
 
Watched a movie called Mirage (Durante la Tormenta) last night, a Spanish mystery/drama/sci-fi of sorts. It's dubbed so don't panic, lol. Really well done, good story with some minor "issues". Worth checking out in my opinion ;)

Currently on Netflix
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I'm really looking forward to Lovecraft Country. It's been about 4 years since I read the novel and heard that HBO was adapting it. What a cast. I really hope it lives up to its potential.
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The trailers look wild - I'm pretty excited. Would you recommend the novel?

I've been catching up on a few HBO shows lately, and they've all been pretty solid.
  • Watchmen was fun, weird, and gripping. Based on some of the feedback from folks who watched when it came out, I expected it to be more difficult to watch or stick with, but I thought it was pretty thrilling, and the characters and plotlines were so carefully drawn - I was impressed by how many of the bizarre elements came together and made some kind of sense by the end of it. The Looking Glass guy's backstory was really interesting. The eighth episode, "A God Walks Into Abar" blew me away, too. I'm a sucker for gut-wrenching storylines that somehow avoid total despair like that. I wonder how episode 6 (when Angela sees the memories) would have struck me if I'd watched it before I knew the names "George Floyd," "Breonna Taylor," and "Ahmaud Arbery." The last few minutes of the last episode though (when Angela goes out by the pool in her backyard) didn't really work for me, though, and felt a little cheap.
  • Years and Years was really interesting and sucked me in, too. It was really interesting see the rise of authoritarianism in the near future through the lens of a complicated family with a wide range of views and experiences, flawed relationships, plenty of conflict, but an enduring love for each other underneath it all. I loved hearing each of the family members' unsolicited takes on what was going on in each other's lives - it felt like a real family in that way.
  • I'm halfway through I Know This Much Is True right now, and I'm definitely hooked, but just bracing for impact of how this all will end. Mark Ruffalo is brilliant and tough in a pool of talent where everyone is at or near the top of their game. Juliette Lewis in that first episode seems like she's having so much fun as that character. Kathryn Hahn and Rosie O'Donnell are captivating, too. Every single second of the show just feels so significant, you can't look away. You can feel the crushing weight of all of these situations bearing down on Dominick, and there's something heart-breaking about how ordinary it all seems while actually being just nearly unbearable if you're the person trying to deal with it all. Watching Dominick try to hold it all together and seeing his exasperation and Thomas's desperation and their backstories from when they were kids just hits so hard. It reminds me a lot of how it felt watching Tom Hardy in "Warrior," but I'm not holding out hope for as positive of an ending in this show. It feels much more personal for Ruffalo than many of his other roles. The guy who plays the younger version of the brothers is incredible, too - you really get that sense of simultaneous love/anger/loyalty/resentment that binds the brothers together. That "you are me, Dominick" scene just felt so raw.
  • I also watched Bad Education [which was just a movie, not a show], and I had high expectations with Hugh Jackman and Alison Janney. It started off pretty well, but got pretty sad and boring by the end of it. I feel like it focused too much on the perpetrators and their motivations (i.e. uh, yeah, greed - what else?) and not enough on the amateur investigative work that ultimately uncovered the bad behavior. It was just kind of depressing without really being that interesting.
But yeah - I might need something a little lighter to watch next - I want to watch Perry Mason, and am hoping it's not quite as heavy as these shows have been.
 
Ericj32 said:
Would you recommend the novel?
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It's a quick read and a fun story (I mean, as much as using America's history of racism as a backdrop for cosmic horror can be said to be "fun"). It's broken up into several vignettes about different members of this family and their encounters with the supernatural, which all thread together in the climax to the book. To be honest, it's been long enough since I read it that a lot of the details are a bit hazy, but the premise and the source material give them a lot of freedom to do something interesting in the medium of TV. The use of American racism as a vehicle for a horror story feels slightly less fresh now than it did when Get Out premiered and the book was first published -- even Watchmen has figured out an angle on "genre racism" since then -- but if it's done well then this could easily be the next thing that captures some of that internet thinkpiece energy.
 
During my current re-watch of Fargo, which I'm enjoying, I've been supplementing with episodes of Detroiters. Not having cable I was unaware this thing existed but it's the beautiful dumb nonsense that is absolutely brilliant that I needed in this moment. It sucks Comedy Central seems to think that keeping their shows behind a paywall is somehow going to benefit them because things like this seem to be getting lost in the streaming shuffle, but if you're looking for something that plays on the charming idiocy of two numbskulls with the backdrop of ever-gentrifying Detroit this is worth your time. Of course if you try and stream via CC be prepared for as much commercial time as show time... ironic since the main characters run an ad agency
 
Ericj32 said:
The trailers look wild - I'm pretty excited. Would you recommend the novel?

I've been catching up on a few HBO shows lately, and they've all been pretty solid.
  • Watchmen was fun, weird, and gripping. Based on some of the feedback from folks who watched when it came out, I expected it to be more difficult to watch or stick with, but I thought it was pretty thrilling, and the characters and plotlines were so carefully drawn - I was impressed by how many of the bizarre elements came together and made some kind of sense by the end of it. The Looking Glass guy's backstory was really interesting. The eighth episode, "A God Walks Into Abar" blew me away, too. I'm a sucker for gut-wrenching storylines that somehow avoid total despair like that. I wonder how episode 6 (when Angela sees the memories) would have struck me if I'd watched it before I knew the names "George Floyd," "Breonna Taylor," and "Ahmaud Arbery." The last few minutes of the last episode though (when Angela goes out by the pool in her backyard) didn't really work for me, though, and felt a little cheap.
  • Years and Years was really interesting and sucked me in, too. It was really interesting see the rise of authoritarianism in the near future through the lens of a complicated family with a wide range of views and experiences, flawed relationships, plenty of conflict, but an enduring love for each other underneath it all. I loved hearing each of the family members' unsolicited takes on what was going on in each other's lives - it felt like a real family in that way.
  • I'm halfway through I Know This Much Is True right now, and I'm definitely hooked, but just bracing for impact of how this all will end. Mark Ruffalo is brilliant and tough in a pool of talent where everyone is at or near the top of their game. Juliette Lewis in that first episode seems like she's having so much fun as that character. Kathryn Hahn and Rosie O'Donnell are captivating, too. Every single second of the show just feels so significant, you can't look away. You can feel the crushing weight of all of these situations bearing down on Dominick, and there's something heart-breaking about how ordinary it all seems while actually being just nearly unbearable if you're the person trying to deal with it all. Watching Dominick try to hold it all together and seeing his exasperation and Thomas's desperation and their backstories from when they were kids just hits so hard. It reminds me a lot of how it felt watching Tom Hardy in "Warrior," but I'm not holding out hope for as positive of an ending in this show. It feels much more personal for Ruffalo than many of his other roles. The guy who plays the younger version of the brothers is incredible, too - you really get that sense of simultaneous love/anger/loyalty/resentment that binds the brothers together. That "you are me, Dominick" scene just felt so raw.
  • I also watched Bad Education [which was just a movie, not a show], and I had high expectations with Hugh Jackman and Alison Janney. It started off pretty well, but got pretty sad and boring by the end of it. I feel like it focused too much on the perpetrators and their motivations (i.e. uh, yeah, greed - what else?) and not enough on the amateur investigative work that ultimately uncovered the bad behavior. It was just kind of depressing without really being that interesting.
But yeah - I might need something a little lighter to watch next - I want to watch Perry Mason, and am hoping it's not quite as heavy as these shows have been.
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Totally agree with your take on "I Know This Much Is True". I like that you made mention of Juliette Lewis' performance. It was brief, but she chewed up the screen time she had.

Perry Mason isn't as heavy as "I Know This Much Is True", but it does have dark edges. The first few episodes in particular are pretty gritty and even kinda creepy in places.
 
jaycee said:
During my current re-watch of Fargo, which I'm enjoying, I've been supplementing with episodes of Detroiters. Not having cable I was unaware this thing existed but it's the beautiful dumb nonsense that is absolutely brilliant that I needed in this moment. It sucks Comedy Central seems to think that keeping their shows behind a paywall is somehow going to benefit them because things like this seem to be getting lost in the streaming shuffle, but if you're looking for something that plays on the charming idiocy of two numbskulls with the backdrop of ever-gentrifying Detroit this is worth your time. Of course if you try and stream via CC be prepared for as much commercial time as show time... ironic since the main characters run an ad agency
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Part of the most recent season was filmed in my small hometown in Central IL.
 
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