The TV and Streaming thread renewed

[BruceVC]

We having an HBO special on our local DSTV channel and Im watching Banshee again, its such a brutal but brilliant series ...one of my all time favorite 

[Bartimaeus]

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

I started watching 24 because it popped up on Amazon Prime and I had nothing better to see. Never watched it back in the days ... turns out it's actually not so bad.. in fact, it's quite captive. It still has bits of the old 90s feeling, where everything was kinda cheesy, but you also feel how it's not really *that* anymore. Like... a bit of a middle ground between the "old" and "modern" tv shows.

I think I watched the first couple seasons some years ago and thought, "hey, this is actually...alright", but by the time I got to the third one, I'd really had my fill, since the format pretty fundamentally stays the same and there weren't any particular characters that I loved that were driving me to keep watching.

I wanted to watch something silly, so I've been watching My Life as a Teenage Robot from the early 2000s, which I only ever saw a tiny bit of when it first aired way back when. Apparently, there were three seasons, but they only ever aired two...and I'm not really sure why, since it's actually quite good, especially for an early 2000s cartoon. I've been very much enjoying it and it's difficult to see myself not finishing the three seasons pretty quickly here. Now wondering if there are any other good ones from this era...

Edited April 16, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Zoraptor]

First couple of seasons of 24 are pretty good. After that it very rapidly succumbs to threat inflation and scenario repetition. It was still (mostly) entertaining though even when it was stupid.

[Raithe]

55 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

First couple of seasons of 24 are pretty good. After that it very rapidly succumbs to threat inflation and scenario repetition. It was still (mostly) entertaining though even when it was stupid.

It started out with an interesting idea, and generally has a lot of strong actors in all the roles. They play the whole intrigue, threat, double / triple/quadruple agents quite well.

However, season 1 starts out with Jack Bauer as a very capable agent. By Season 3 Jack Bauer is American James Bond. By Season 5 he's pretty much Batman. It rolls like that.

[Guard Dog]

I finally watched all of Picard season 1. The first two episodes I was intrigued. By episode 4 I was really into it. Episode 8 I was really curious about the finale. Then came episode 9 & 10 and 

They blew it. 

Spoiler

So all of this was just to to get Sochi to trigger a Stellaris style end-game crisis. Really? You had eight great episodes of build up and that is the best you could come up with? Oh and it's nice the end game crisis just went away with the flick of the switch. God knows the Super AI and Unbidden in Stellaris don't go down near so easy.  And Seven stealing an entire Borg Cube didn't end up meaning much did it? And then there is Picard himself. OK, I kind of like the direction they went with him. An old man haunted by loss and past failures. Sure it wasn't always well executed and some of it didn't make sense but I liked the premise. And as bad as the ending of the show was they ALMOST pulled it out by letting him have a proper death scene. But they couldn't even do THAT right.

Do you realize they managed to get every single bad TV trope into the last two episodes? That whole ending could not have been more f----d if it was a cheap Bourbon Street whore the day after Fleet Week. 

It's a real problem in modern entertainment IMO. They can build suspense. They can get a good plot going. But they just can't end it well. They can get the plane off the ground, have a nice flight but just can't seem to bring it in for a landing. Which is pretty damned important you know. 

[Zoraptor]

That was pretty much exactly my thoughts on Picard as well, though I'm not quite as effusive about the earlier episodes.

37 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Do you realize they managed to get every single bad TV trope into the last two episodes?

From what I've seen of Kurzman that's if not a deliberate policy then it's all his projects are capable of- and it's the absolute scourge of nuTrek, Picard and Discovery having potential to be a lot better is what ultimately made them so disappointing. The writers are able to write scenes that when taken independently are reasonably well written, generally well acted and exciting enough to maintain interest. The trouble comes when they try to tie them together into a coherent whole, and find the cool scenes can't be made to fit together in a way that makes sense, and they simply don't have the dramatic fortitude to do anything with genuine emotional weight unless forced so settle for a bunch of emotionally manipulative twaddle instead.

Thank science Brent Spiner insisted that Data die permanently, or we'd probably have had two non sensical resurrections in the finale instead of just one.

[Orogun01]

Read Picard as Picasso and thought there was a better show out there. My bad, but to be fair both are bald and like cubes.

[majestic]

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The trouble comes when they try to tie them together into a coherent whole, and find the cool scenes can't be made to fit together in a way that makes sense, and they simply don't have the dramatic fortitude to do anything with genuine emotional weight unless forced so settle for a bunch of emotionally manipulative twaddle instead.

In their Star Trek: Into Darkness Half in the Bag Jay speculated that Kurtzman, et al. simply put the cart before the horse by first coming up with scenes they really want to have, then writing them and afterwards playing connect the dots with a disjointed overarching plot that makes no sense. And Into Darkness was a two hour standard action movie.

The most baffling thing is that after Trek 2009, Into Darkness and Star Trek Discovery they really thought Kurtzman could do this? Yeah, he got replaced, sure, but which buffoon thought it was a good idea to give him even more Trek to do?

[Raithe]

Regardless of everything else.. I have to say, damn I fell in love with Riker and Troi's retirement home. That was a house I would love to kick back in.

[Chilloutman]

What we do in shadows - awesome!

[LadyCrimson]

On 4/16/2020 at 1:52 PM, Zoraptor said:

First couple of seasons of 24 are pretty good. After that it very rapidly succumbs to threat inflation and scenario repetition. It was still (mostly) entertaining though even when it was stupid.

Agreed. I stopped after 3. I actually watched Season 2 first thus (I suppose) it's my favorite season.  Except for the puma scene. in fairness, the puma was still cute. Jack's daughter Kim was not my favorite character is all.  Also, not a series I can really re-watch. Great fun the first time tho.

 

[Lexx]

Jack's daughter feels to me like the absolut generic tv show chick from the early 2000s. She looks always perfect, always has the same drama face, her story arch... she is the same character as any other "I am the daughter of a tough guy" ... This is what makes that show feel old to me. 

In comparison, the daughter of Harry Bosch is a lot more likable to me. It's partly the same cliche, but at least she feels believable.

 

Oh, while I'm at it... New Bosch season is out. Binged through it on Saturday. Nice, but now it's waiting tyme again until the final season next year.

[uuuhhii]

the 2016 lethal weapon are casually entertaining

at least for someone doesn't remember the movies at all

[Skazz]

21 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

the 2016 lethal weapon are casually entertaining

at least for someone doesn't remember the movies at all

Wait, there was a Lethal Weapon series? What?

More importantly: why?

[Malcador]

16 minutes ago, Skazz said:

Wait, there was a Lethal Weapon series? What?

More importantly: why?

I am waiting for the Die Hard TV series.  Well or A Right To Die Hard, with an aging John McClane.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Malcador

[Orogun01]

1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:

the 2016 lethal weapon are casually entertaining

at least for someone doesn't remember the movies at all

It really goes downhill and not in a interesting way the farther along it goes.

[ShadySands]

I liked Seann William Scott as secret agent man but he's only in the last season

[Raithe]

37 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I liked Seann William Scott as secret agent man but he's only in the last season

That was a big point for it. The character really let him show his acting chops outside of his normal roles.

[Bartimaeus]

Samurai Jack. I'm halfway through season 1. Though slightly inconsistent, it's been pretty good. Enjoying it so far, don't know if I'll be able to watch 5 seasons of it, though.

[algroth]

Looks very neat

[Bartimaeus]

I was going to say "color palette and animation style reminds me a lot of Adventure Time, only this show looks even more unpleasant in subject matter than Adventure Time was", but then it actually said "from the creator of Adventure Time, Pendleton Ward" right in the video and I was like "oh". Guess that makes sense.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Raithe]

Deadline - Leverage reboot , with Noah Wyle and 4 original cast members to return ordered by IMDB TV

[Skazz]

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

from the creator of Adventure Time, Pendleton Ward

Whenever someone mentions AT, I find myself perpetually shocked that "Pendleton" is a real first name.

[Lexx]

Is Adventure Time a show for kids, or also something for the older generation? Everyone keeps talking about it, but I never felt the mood to check it out, because it looks like a kids show to me.

[Bartimaeus]

5 hours ago, Lexx said:

Is Adventure Time a show for kids, or also something for the older generation? Everyone keeps talking about it, but I never felt the mood to check it out, because it looks like a kids show to me.

For the most part, I would not consider it either appropriate for or really even comprehensible to children - maybe young teen (somewhere in the 10-13 range) at the earliest. It's a really messy show that's all over the place in terms of subject matter, maturity, quality of writing, consistency of characters, etc. It's the nature of shows that have very different types of writers from episode to episode: some writers will have your characters act out-of-character and/or unreasonably stupid/weird/immature, or manifest new traits that are immediately discarded, just for the sake of a gag, while others have like a perfect idea of how characters and the world should behave and will write strictly within that framework to make some legitimately great and fully-realized episodes. Those better (IMO) writers also tend to write overarching story and character arcs over the length of a season or two that lend verisimilitude and depth to the world and its characters. Why they let these two types (and others) work on the same show, I really don't know. It was a frustratingly inconsistent show for most of its run because I never knew what I was going to get from episode to episode, and there were times where you'd get a few legitimately great episodes in a row and think the show was turning a corner followed up by a cliff-fall to just the stupidest crap.

The show did get better and more consistent once its creator, Pendleton Ward, stepped down after season 5, and I'd say the first couple of seasons especially mostly just feel like random silly nonsense a la some random saturday morning cartoon meant for children (albeit with some weird subversive elements that sometimes work and sometimes don't). I would personally have difficulty recommending it due to its all-over-the-place and constantly shifting nature, but there are certainly fanatics out there that insist it's the best show to ever be made (...that I think are probably crazy).

Edited April 23, 2020 by Bartimaeus