The TV and Streaming Thread: Summer Re-reruns (it's always summer somewhere)

[InsaneCommander]

On 12/27/2022 at 5:33 PM, Hurlshort said:

Bummer, it was pretty good. 

I enjoyed Glass Onion almost as much as the first one, which I rewatched these days.

[Malcador]

Guess this fits here.

[Sarex]

15 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Guess this fits here.

Why not go for the main story? Not saying this can't be good, but why not use the good part of WH40k.

[Hiro Protagonist]

I've seen Dark and 1899 and liked both. Don't see the similarity in stories.

[Lexx]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Guess this fits here.

That trailer is ... I don't know. Feels like all those generic WH40k games that I will never play, because they all kinda suck.

[Bartimaeus]

11 hours ago, Hiro Protagonist said:

I've seen Dark and 1899 and liked both. Don't see the similarity in stories.

Image reply because the forums will not let me post it as text for some reason without breaking:

 

Have fun figuring this one out, @majestic. The apostrophes in the first sentence were originally quotation marks, and the brackets in the second sentence were originally parentheses, but it still doesn't post even after changing them.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

17 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Image reply because the forums will not let me post it as text for some reason without breaking:

I was going to make a joke about the forum software preventing you from being a hater, but the software ate it thrice.

[majestic]

My words were "complete stylistic clone of Dark" POST BREAKS HERE. I haven't seen the entirety of the show and I'm not going to do anything to change that, so I don't know what the story is (and frankly, I spent nary athought on the matter given how annoyed I was feeling like I had just dropped into another episode of Dark - the details may have changed, but it doesn't really matter to me whether we're in a small German town, on a boat, in a prison colony, or in outer space...the style of how the show presents itself and conveys its characters and information is much more important than interchangeable details).

Edit: Apparently following a quotation with a period is the cause, but only when the content of the quotation is sufficiently long or complex contains a certain set of words and is not wrapped in other text. Which ones beats me at the moment, but that is stranger than usual.

Edited December 31, 2022 by majestic

[ShadySands]

Knives Out and Glass Onion. The first one was really good and the second one was good but I would probably rank it at least a full letter grade lower.

Saw that 1899 was cancelled already. I'll probably still give it a watch, hopefully it doesn't end on a cliffhanger.

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by ShadySands

[Bartimaeus]

5 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Knives Out and Glass Onion. The first one was really good and the second one was good but I would probably rank it at least a full letter grade lower.

Saw that 1899 was cancelled already. I'll probably still give it a watch, hopefully it doesn't end on a cliffhanger.

Man, I don't like the show, but that's ridiculous. It is folly to ever get attached to any Netflix show ever: always assume there won't be a second season.

[Lexx]

Does it have at least an actual s1 ending that works as a show ending or does it just stop somewhere?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Man, I don't like the show, but that's ridiculous. It is folly to ever get attached to any Netflix show ever: always assume there won't be a second season.

I think that Netflix's constant cancelations is doing more damage to their brand than anything. Why would I bother getting invested in any show they put out when it's almost certainly going to end incomplete because the algorithm was displeased it didn't do Stranger Things numbers? Most Netflix films haven't been particularly memorable so that leaves us with limited series like Midnight Mass or Maniac, which are good but much less frequent than series with at least a few expected seasons. Netflix is lucky that HBO self-immolated to give reality tv man a tax write off (to make Real 1000 Pound Housewifes of Montana), because otherwise they would be the worst streaming service out there.

Anyways, moar Twin Peaks rewatching. I can't remember what episode I left off at, probably either 7 or 8. It's amazing.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Space KP, Baby

[InsaneCommander]

11 hours ago, Lexx said:

Does it have at least an actual s1 ending that works as a show ending or does it just stop somewhere?

It resolves most of the first season plot. Some things are still left out, like the motivation of some characters for example. Also, the way it ended, it could have gone literally anywhere in a second season.

Edit: not "could go", could have gone.

Edited January 3, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[ShadySands]

Black Adam. It was much better than I thought but my expectations were so low that it would have had to take something amazingly bad to disappointed me. If you can go in with low expectations and also go brain neutral while watching then I suggest it under those conditions.

[Gfted1]

I too watched Black Adam. It was my first exposure to that character and they did a good enough job explaining the backstory, but the movie itself was just meh. Imo, Dwayne Johnson is much better as a loveable rogue instead of "serious" roles.

[InsaneCommander]

Kaleidoscope

A Netflix heist show with 8 episodes. There is also a short episode first, explaining that you can watch episodes 1-7 in any order you want* before the last one, "White", which shows the heist. The other episodes take place years or weeks before the act (or after it) and give clues about who is gonna betray who or whatever.

Anyway, I saw some people complaining about watching first the episode that takes place after the heist and decided to watch them in chronological order. 4 so far and it seems ok to follow this order. I think it would be too confusing to do otherwise. The order they gave me was 3, 2, 5, 4, 1, 7, 8 and 6, if you consider 6 as the heist episode.

I'm enjoying it so far and I don't mind missing any "twists" that would be revealed if I followed a different order.

*Apparently, each person gets them in a random order, different from most of the other viewers.

Edit: there are actually two episodes after the heist, so I had to correct the order above. I finished the show and
 

Spoiler

First of all, I have to say it was really, really stupid to keep Bob in the group (or even hire him to begin with). The problems he caused were just as obvious as anyone could see straight away. Sending the explosives specialist to hurry instead of ahead of time was terrible too. It was not like she couldn't be there earlier. You'd think US$ 7 billion dollars would be worth more preparation and commitment...

The twist was obvious since you could see the bonds leaving in episode 7.

Spoiler

The FedEx cart looked exactly the same size as the one they were planning to steal.

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by InsaneCommander

[kirottu]

Slow Horses

"Follows a team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 due to their career-ending mistakes."

I ****ing loved it. I don't think there has ever been more perfect bastard than Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.

[ShadySands]

Gop Tun, the first one. My wife asked me why they're all so sweaty all the time. Then she said that it was one of the most homoerotic films she's seen in a long time, possibly ever.

All in all she liked it but got bored at times. Not sure if she'll want to watch the second one, I kinda don't.

Edited January 8, 2023 by ShadySands

[LadyCrimson]

I think Netflix likely looks at series watching completion rates, and within a fairly short time-frame at that (a month or three), when deciding whether to cancel a show. Fans pointing at the -most watched this week- type stuff, forget that may only consist of tons of ppl checking out only the first episode. In one way it sorta makes sense, because even if a shows first few episodes garner a lot of views, if a large percentage of people don't go back and finish it, a sequel may not fare well, with possibly even much lower early viewing. It's the kind of fast gauge metric pre-internet TV didn't have, and I remember shows back then sometimes being cancelled mid-season -usually over Xmas- if those weekly ratings dropped crazily each week after the premiere, so you wouldn't even get a full single season.  I'd theorize Netflix views a lack of a series quick completion rate in a similar vein.

That said, of course shows can/do take a couple seasons to grow/find its footing, or for more people to even be aware something exists, and current Netflix management apparently doesn't want to pay/contract commit for long-term maybes - unless it's easy and very cheap to produce fluff. They only want to renew series that hit total binge-watchers like a freight train vs. try and foster a slow burn popularity over time. Doesn't seem like a great long-term plan. 

[Lexx]

Yeah but this grows a new problem... why should I even start watching Netflix tv shows if I know they aren't done after one season? Funny enough, this is exactly the reason why I haven't started watched that 1899 show right away.

If they keep canceling shows after the first season, they will drive away more and more people, imo.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Lexx

[LadyCrimson]

^ Well that's why I said it doesn't seem like a good long-term plan, if only because gaining too much of a rep like that = self-fulfilling prophecy of low viewership/cancel, plus is likely to cause long-form content series creators to not even go to Netflix in the first place.

Although, at least I no longer have to watch most fictional TV on a certain day and time or otherwise lose the chance to see it ever. I don't want to go back to that, thanks. Cancelled shows happen constantly regardless, but I'm not ever going back to watching anything on a day/time schedule like that.

[Gfted1]

Wait, people wont watch shows unless they know it has a guaranteed multi-year run? Whats the minimum in your head...3 seasons...4 seasons? I think thats when actor contracts get expensive? For me, I dont care. If I like it I watch it and if I dont, I dont.

[Bartimaeus]

21 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Wait, people wont watch shows unless they know it has a guaranteed multi-year run? Whats the minimum in your head...3 seasons...4 seasons? I think thats when actor contracts get expensive? For me, I dont care. If I like it I watch it and if I dont, I dont.

For a show like 1899 where there's clearly plans to develop the main story and character arcs over multiple seasons, where you won't have a clear picture of the entire work unless it's allowed to be completed, the fear of never being able to see where it's all supposed to go can be a pretty heavy one. I mean, not really for me because I'm more of a journey and not a destination kind of person (in fact, I feel conclusions are almost always the weakest part of most practically anything if you did enjoy the journey), but for other people that aren't that way, yeah, I can understand it.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Gfted1]

Different strokes for different folks is fine too. Im still salty that Wrecked got cancelled.  Wrecked (TV Series 2016–2018) - IMDb

[Lexx]

42 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Wait, people wont watch shows unless they know it has a guaranteed multi-year run? Whats the minimum in your head...3 seasons...4 seasons? I think thats when actor contracts get expensive? For me, I dont care. If I like it I watch it and if I dont, I dont.

No, if the season has a good ending, I don't care. But most of those Netflix shows have cliff-hanger endings which make you want (or need) another season, which then never comes. It just sucks.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Lexx