The TV and Streaming Thread: Summer Reruns

[Lexx]

I agree, they really should have killed some of the main cast and give new people a chance to shine. Now we have some character stories that will repeat at infinity.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

19 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I get that a bit. I told my wife from the beginning that there was no way they could afford Samwise Gamgee/Rudy for more than a season. Although I was a bit surprised Paul Reiser avoided a similar fate. But the first season was a lot less clear about the stakes and who was considered a main character.

It has settled into a more comfortable show for me. I just remember turning it off years ago after the 2nd episode because it was upsetting me. I also struggled with The Black Phone recently, but watched it because my wife and daughter wanted to, and I enjoyed it at the end.

I'll admit that my memory of the first season is not clear, but it premiered on July 15 2016 and a lot of stuff has happened since then, some personal, some historical, and some apocalyptic. In many respects I think the show works better when it dials the horror down and dials the adventure up, seeing the gang doing fun shenanigans is more interesting than them getting chased by a monster that you know they're going to beat. 

@Lexx Steve should have died like a hero in season 2, now he is condemned to a fate worse than death as a high school burnout stuck in a small town. That is the real horror in Stranger Things.

Edited October 25, 2022 by KP From Another World

[Raithe]

Because who doesn't enjoy nostalgia filled supercuts?

 

[Raithe]

https://www.ign.com/articles/heres-the-first-look-at-amazons-fallout-series

 

 

[xzar_monty]

Watched a bit of the Sandman for the first time; bits and pieces from here and there to see whether I'd want to watch a whole episode.

One interesting thing was that every new line, i.e. one not from the comics, seemed to be worse than what was in the comics. I wonder how much of a hand Gaiman in any of that stuff. I suppose everything from "none" to "he wrote all of it" is possible.

Casting Stephen Fry as Fiddler's Green seemed like a wonderful idea, but it just didn't work at all, in my view. Making Lucifer female, on the other hand, worked splendidly. The guy playing Morpheus did a really good job.

All in all it looked pretty decent but I can't see myself watching more of it. I wonder if it's been a success.

Edited October 25, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, Raithe said:

https://www.ign.com/articles/heres-the-first-look-at-amazons-fallout-series

 

 

Wheel of Time with guns.

[Chilloutman]

3 hours ago, Raithe said:

Because who doesn't enjoy nostalgia filled supercuts?

 

 

What an amazing actor - so many 'smaller' roles but man he can play **** out of them

[LadyCrimson]

I'm sure many (many, many) videos have referred to this general topic (lack of experienced writers, differences between tv writing and series formats today vs. in the past) in some fashion, since half of YouTube these days seems filled with angry "Why TV/films/games/whatever suck".  I appreciated Escapist's non-ranting version. 

 

[Zoraptor]

Caught up on House of the Dragon. Overall, a strong start, though certainly a lot of room for improvement in certain aspects. Which probably ought to happen, since S1 was ultimately scene setting over an extended period which doesn't lend itself to coherent storytelling on TV.

Spoiler

Or in other words no criticism for the time skips, which are almost always either confusing, or necessitate a load of exposition, or seem kludgey, or all three; and the slightly disconnected feel that came as a result. Not really any way to get around it given the subject.

Rather more difficult to get around from the 'historian' pov is the obsession with one aspect of 'feudal' law- male biased succession rules- while ignoring others. If you beat someone to death- and assault the bridegroom- at basically the heir's wedding you're toast. Doesn't matter if the person killed was a literal nobody, you don't ruin a state function and about the most important short of coronation or the monarch's marriage like that and get away scot free. Then there's the much derided Rhaenys escape scene... plus a couple of others. It's a shame, because things could be done better and those sorts of spectacle for spectacles' sake were a huge part of what made S7/8 bad. Fortunately there weren't too many of them. In terms of just stupid stuff it's hard to go past the Stepstones action in Ep3. Not so much the set up, but the denouement had literally nothing to recommend it post the extremely memeable scene with Daemon receiving the message from Visc. And at times Xena/ Hercules- or even WoT- would have been embarrassed at that 'battle'.

The other and probably more fundamental problem was that they were clearly aiming to not make the war anyone's fault- except perhaps Otto and Daemon, and they were ultimately proven right despite (more or less) following instructions not to escalate. In the end that made most of the women involved look, well, dumb. I can understand not wanting to go with them all being bloodthirsty manipulators interested only in power but they ended up in a situation where trying to avoid the negatives makes them look weak instead. Particularly Alicent, who does not come off well at all really. Apart from the incredibly long bow she draws from Viscerys' last words there's her dislike of Rhaenyra's infidelities while, uh, indulging Sir Larys herself and being flabbergasted that Otto had set up a coup (no really? first time meeting your father?), and that Sir Larys would bump off his dad and brother on a hint. Plus of course covering up for Aegon (an obvious Joffrey analogue, much as Otto is an obvious Tywin analogue). The other main sufferer from this is Rhaenys, Rhaenyra gets away (at least from a modern perspective, to be sure having bastards is a big no no for a woman in feudal terms) relatively well. Rhaenys' "it's not my war to start" was ridiculous, though to be fair it stems mostly from the even more ridiculous close to the previous episode. It was already treason, they'd imprisoned you and murdered two nobles (and to show it isn't just the women who suffer from this, Cole managed to kill Beesbury by accident, making him look an utter idiot instead of ruthless...) one of those by the peasant's punishment of hanging. All to get something functionally similar to what we got in Ep8 where she eventually declared for Rhaenyra on the Driftmark succession issue, just with her husband doing it instead. In any case, she'd already picked a side, certainly as far as Otto was concerned. Hopefully now that the war is on we'll get rather less of that though.

Perhaps the only occasion where I'd give some leniency in that regard is the dragon fight. It makes Aemond and Lucerys both look kind of dumb, but at least realistically/ justifiably so and not just because they're basically still both kids. If a dragon decides something is happening... it's happening and you're just along for the ride.

Also rather hit on you the head at times with the symbolism/ foreshadowing. Perhaps most of all when fighting broke out as soon as Viscerys left the feast in Ep8...

Good acting, locations, sfx etc, but then those were always strong points even when the writing, plotting and direction were weak in GoT. Mostly good writing/ plotting and direction too. Perhaps a bit of an obsession with childbirth, and that seemed to have almost replaced the gratuitous sex (of which there wasn't much at all really. Personally, didn't miss it).

Might also make a note that if you want people to dislike a character don't cast Matt Smith. Or don't be surprised when people like his characters despite your best efforts.

I have a strong suspicion Aemond may have hijacked my keyboard once or twice there, looking back.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The Midnight Club. 1-whatever

Like many others, I very much enjoyed Midnight Mass. Arguably the best horror series to have come from Netflix, with beautiful performances that manage to be heartfelt and heart wrenching at the same time. The Midnight Club is nowhere near that level. It's like following up Braking Bad with a generic CW show, complete with Playstation 2 effects.

Little Demon 1-5.

Danny Devito voices the devil. Nothing else needs to be said, this show is great.

[Bartimaeus]

12 hours ago, KP From Another World said:

The Midnight Club. 1-whatever

Like many others, I very much enjoyed Midnight Mass. Arguably the best horror series to have come from Netflix, with beautiful performances that manage to be heartfelt and heart wrenching at the same time. The Midnight Club is nowhere near that level. It's like following up Braking Bad with a generic CW show, complete with Playstation 2 effects.

That seems very disappointing. Have you watched Flanagan's Haunting of Hill House as well? I was recently recommended it...

(e): Wikipedia on The Midnight Club:

Quote

The first episode of the series broke the Guinness World Record for the most scripted jump-scares in a single episode of television at 21 jump-scares.

So...like, the opposite of Midnight Mass?

Edited October 28, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

44 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Have you watched Flanagan's Haunting of Hill House as well?

Yes. Both of the Haunting shows are more in line with Midnight Mass, but I don't think either are as good. They're both better than Midnight Club though.

[Lexx]

I just watched the new Im Westen Nichts Neues on Netflix. It's pretty much what I expected - nice images, etc. but everything else was somewhat better in the movie from 1979. Dunno. Thought the character introduction was lacking. In the 1979 movie there's more of the school and the training in the beginning, the new movie just throws you into it all. Generally not a bad movie, and I guess for people who haven't seen the old movies or read the book, it's for sure worth to check out.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Lexx

[LadyCrimson]

I still have never watched the last ... two? three? episodes of The Sandman, but I'd heard about the extra episode and that it had ... cats.
So I watched that, recently. I very much enjoyed the animation section, not only the cats (haha) but the little story it was sharing, and the animation style. Then the live-actor story began, and while that was watchable/all right, I spent it mostly wishing the whole episode had stuck to the animation.  Although I did enjoy seeing Derek Jacobi, because he's awesome.

[Sarex]

So after s3 of Witcher Henry Cavill is getting replaced by Liam Hemsworth.

[Lexx]

wtf why

[Keyrock]

Not even Chris but Liam Hemsworth? We can't even get Thor Witcher... Thritcher?

[Zoraptor]

OTOH, could have been Luke for the even lower profile option.

40 minutes ago, Sarex said:

So after s3 of Witcher Henry Cavill is getting replaced by Liam Hemsworth.

Not surprising, as there have been significant... creative differences between Cavill and the showrunners which have leaked out around the edges. Enough that a lot doesn't seem to be rumour at least*- though stuff like Cavill wanting some sort of creative control/ influence isn't confirmed. Superman gives a convenient excuse, but it could easily be two years or more before that goes into actual shooting. Would be funny if Cavill popped up on Hot D for a season; shame the current Stark isn't a Brandon or he could have played another Lord Brandon after his role in The Tudors.

Guess they couldn't really replace the entire series leadership... but then is anyone watching for Lauren Hisrup's writing and showrunning? Mighty have been better to just cancel the thing.

*recently one of the ex writers cited TWitcher as a project he worked on where a lot of the writing staff 'hated' the source material, which would definitely have annoyed Cavill. That writer didn't seem to have any reason to lie about it.

[Lexx]

Well, Henry pretty much confirmed that he had to force his hand on the scene where Roach died ... apparently the writers originally wanted Geralt to make a funny joke about it, which Henry refused to do. Now imagine you have to fight about stupid stuff like that in every episode...

Edited October 29, 2022 by Lexx

[Sarex]

Tbh, I liked s2 more than I did s1, so I was fine with the direction. Then again the short stories (book 1) was the best thing about the series for me.

[InsaneCommander]

Peripheral 1-3

Sci-fi show about VR games. Or at least that is how it starts. It's based on the 2014 novel by William Gibson. The first three episodes were good. A good amount of action, the story doesn't develop too fast or too slow and the actors are doing a decent job.

Spoiler

I really can't understand why Flynne won't ask the huge question and address the elephant in the room. Why did they need her (or her brother maybe)? In episode 3 we learn that other people can use the tech too, as should be expected, and the peripheral can be made in any way they need and can even be changed after it's been made. But they wanted one of the Fishers in the first mission. Once that was done, it was understandable that they would stick with her, since she took something from RI. And considering how she changed the peripheral, the only thing she could have taken was data. But why would she need to use the other eye when doing it?

Anyway, this has me intrigued enough to look forward to the next episode.

[Lexx]

 

Looks like s2 is going to get inspired by Cube and co.

[Bartimaeus]

I watched the first episode of that show like six months after it came out (i.e. after everyone was already over it) and then I completely forgot that I watched the first episode until just now. I am going to do absolutely nothing to remedy this situation.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Cabinet of Curiosities 1 and 2

Guillermo Del Toro hosts a horror anthology series. At least the first two episodes are well made and plenty scary, so I'd strongly recommend it to horror fans.

17 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I watched the first episode of that show like six months after it came out (i.e. after everyone was already over it) and then I completely forgot that I watched the first episode until just now. I am going to do absolutely nothing to remedy this situation.

Stop being naughty.

[uuuhhii]

why are so many subtitle just say song in some language when a bgm song is playing

what use does it serve