Television

ayayrawn said:
Succession is so fucking good, holy shit.
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That dinner scene in the last episode was perfect.
The way they built the tension in that room was masterful and you knew it was building to someone losing their shit but I never saw it coming that it would be Logan snapping at Marcia.
 
Watched the finale of BH90210 last night. Nothing spectacular, but I got a few laughs out of it. The one thing I kept thinking while watching this 6 episode run was, I wonder how the conversations with the actors' respective spouses went when talking about this project. "So I'm playing a version of Jason Priestly, but it isn't really me. And this "Jason Priestly" character is mulling over whether or not to participate in a reboot of the 90210 series, and he is married like the real me is. But, the character of my wife won't be based on you, it will just be another character. It's all just pretend you know? Acting. And the stuff that this "Jason Priestly" character does isn't stuff that I'm actually doing or have done. It's all just part of the story, you know? Clearly not at all real. Because I love us."
 
I finished NOS4A2 yesterday.
Had anybody watched it and can explain EVERYTHING to me? I really didn't understand what happened; don't know if I should read the book to fill the gaps.
 
Waitressboy said:
I finished NOS4A2 yesterday.
Had anybody watched it and can explain EVERYTHING to me? I really didn't understand what happened; don't know if I should read the book to fill the gaps.
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I had never even heard of it. Looks like it doesn't start until June 2 here in the USA.
 
So just here to say The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was really good. Great story line for a prequel, answered all the right questions, and kudos to them for sticking with the puppets even though there was a, well balanced, use of CGI.

Carnival Row is next ;)
 
Aron said:
Watched the finale of BH90210 last night. Nothing spectacular, but I got a few laughs out of it. The one thing I kept thinking while watching this 6 episode run was, I wonder how the conversations with the actors' respective spouses went when talking about this project. "So I'm playing a version of Jason Priestly, but it isn't really me. And this "Jason Priestly" character is mulling over whether or not to participate in a reboot of the 90210 series, and he is married like the real me is. But, the character of my wife won't be based on you, it will just be another character. It's all just pretend you know? Acting. And the stuff that this "Jason Priestly" character does isn't stuff that I'm actually doing or have done. It's all just part of the story, you know? Clearly not at all real. Because I love us."
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Agreed!

Also that last episode was very clunky. Maybe because I watched it with commercials but it tried to do a lot.
I’d watch season 2. Not sure if I could do a 13 episode season if that’s what’s happening.
 
Teeeee said:
I had never even heard of it. Looks like it doesn't start until June 2 here in the USA.
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It's based on a book by Joe Hill, a.k.a. Stephen King's son.
It's about... Oh man, where do I start.
There's a girl with a lot of imagination who can create a bridge that appears when she's riding her bike.
Ok, yeah, I'm doing well.
And then there's a bad guy (played by Zachary Quinto, an actor that I don't like but he's fine here) who drives a Rolls Royce. It seems like he's very old, but when he is driving the car he is young again. For some reason, he kidnaps children and he takes them to Christmasland. So he doesn't kill the children, but the car turns them into... vampires? And they are all vampires in Christmasland?
Something like that.
Oh, and there's a fat guy who is a friend of the biker girl. He killed his parents, and for some reason that I never understood, he starts working for the bad eternal guy in the Rolls Royce (i.e.: he helps him to kidnap children).
And there's also a girl that owns a bag of scrabble tiles, and she ask the scrabble a question and the tiles give her the answer.
And there's an old woman who used to be the bad guy's girlfriend and she... well, I'm not sure what was his point on the show.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Oh, and it's called NOS4A2 because that's the license plate of the Rolls Royce. Not because there's a Nosferatu on the show. Or maybe it is and I missed it. I don't know. I HAVE NO GODDAM CLUE.
 
We've been watching Veronica Mars from the beginning at our house. I've seen up through the movie, but my wife and the kiddo had never watched any of it. Some observations:

1. As a series, it is extremely heavy on rape as a plot device. Much more than I recalled.
2. I had forgotten how long it took the show to find its footing in the first season. There's a lot of tonal weirdness in the first year.
3. I didn't realize just how many of 2019's recognizable faces popped up in this show at some point while their careers were just getting off the ground. It's been fun pointing out people in small roles before they got famous.

4. *deep breath* This show would launch a thousand thinkpieces if it were airing today. Everything from the treatment of (lots and lots of ) rape as a plot device instead of a trauma (and the unfortunate twist of the fake rape in the third season), to the watery depictions of class warfare, to the repeated rehabilitation of rich white characters with terrible histories (date rape, staging bum fights, racism, arson, revenge porn, misogyny, you name it)...it all fits the conventional narratives of noir, but in a context that trivializes all of those things to a degree that I don't think would fly today. It's an interesting show to watch through the lens that it raised several issues that would eventually come to dominate our cultural conversations, while seemingly doing it unintentionally and/or very clumsily. A few years earlier, and even Veronica's modicum of feminist perspective wouldn't have happened; a few years later, and the show would have been lambasted as incredibly tone deaf.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
We've been watching Veronica Mars from the beginning at our house. I've seen up through the movie, but my wife and the kiddo had never watched any of it. Some observations:

1. As a series, it is extremely heavy on rape as a plot device. Much more than I recalled.
2. I had forgotten how long it took the show to find its footing in the first season. There's a lot of tonal weirdness in the first year.
3. I didn't realize just how many of 2019's recognizable faces popped up in this show at some point while their careers were just getting off the ground. It's been fun pointing out people in small roles before they got famous.

4. *deep breath* This show would launch a thousand thinkpieces if it were airing today. Everything from the treatment of (lots and lots of ) rape as a plot device instead of a trauma (and the unfortunate twist of the fake rape in the third season), to the watery depictions of class warfare, to the repeated rehabilitation of rich white characters with terrible histories (date rape, staging bum fights, racism, arson, revenge porn, misogyny, you name it)...it all fits the conventional narratives of noir, but in a context that trivializes all of those things to a degree that I don't think would fly today. It's an interesting show to watch through the lens that it raised several issues that would eventually come to dominate our cultural conversations, while seemingly doing it unintentionally and/or very clumsily. A few years earlier, and even Veronica's modicum of feminist perspective wouldn't have happened; a few years later, and the show would have been lambasted as incredibly tone deaf.
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I tried watching this a few years ago for the first time and just couldn't get into it. How far into the first season would you say it finds its footing/tone?
 
Bohnjaggs said:
I tried watching this a few years ago for the first time and just couldn't get into it. How far into the first season would you say it finds its footing/tone?
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Like...halfway through the second season? That’s one of the frustrating parts of the show, IMO. It had a lot of potential that was stymied by being a UPN teen show that had to do stuff like stunt casting Paris Hilton in an early episode, and there’s a long story about how they completely fumbled the character of Duncan Kane (aside from casting a not-very-good actor to play him), in addition to the other issues I outlined above. As a series, it definitely has its own tone that it never quite breaks out of, but the mystery of the first season gets increasingly interesting over time and has what I found at the time to be a pretty surprising resolution (albeit another one whose impact is never really examined all *that* closely).

If you give it 4-5 episodes and still aren’t into it, I’d say skip the series. It’s got redeeming qualities, but far from required viewing.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
We've been watching Veronica Mars from the beginning at our house. I've seen up through the movie, but my wife and the kiddo had never watched any of it. Some observations:

1. As a series, it is extremely heavy on rape as a plot device. Much more than I recalled.
2. I had forgotten how long it took the show to find its footing in the first season. There's a lot of tonal weirdness in the first year.
3. I didn't realize just how many of 2019's recognizable faces popped up in this show at some point while their careers were just getting off the ground. It's been fun pointing out people in small roles before they got famous.

4. *deep breath* This show would launch a thousand thinkpieces if it were airing today. Everything from the treatment of (lots and lots of ) rape as a plot device instead of a trauma (and the unfortunate twist of the fake rape in the third season), to the watery depictions of class warfare, to the repeated rehabilitation of rich white characters with terrible histories (date rape, staging bum fights, racism, arson, revenge porn, misogyny, you name it)...it all fits the conventional narratives of noir, but in a context that trivializes all of those things to a degree that I don't think would fly today. It's an interesting show to watch through the lens that it raised several issues that would eventually come to dominate our cultural conversations, while seemingly doing it unintentionally and/or very clumsily. A few years earlier, and even Veronica's modicum of feminist perspective wouldn't have happened; a few years later, and the show would have been lambasted as incredibly tone deaf.
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My wife just finished her first full watch recently and since I was around I also watched 2/3 of it. Had almost exactly the same thoughts, especially the bold.
 
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