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What are you watching?; Inspired by "What are you playing?"
Topic Started: Feb 14 2012, 12:12 AM (13,634 Views)
BigMac
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Real Trill Shit
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GoT
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Outlaw454
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Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies
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BigMac
May 18 2015, 11:27 PM
Also, cock merchants.
Context totally unnecessary.
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Romanticide
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GoT
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BigMac
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Oh yeah, started watching the Wire. About halfway through season 1.
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DarkFlashlight
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I don't really care about rating things right now, so I'm just gonna talk about things.


The Returned (The French one) [Season 1]
First thing you have to accept about this show is that you aren't supposed to take it literally. Tons of weird shit happens that doesn't really make sense, because it's more focused on conveying imagery and emotion than actual plot. There is a fairly strong plot, but it takes leaps and bounds that'll frustrate you if you try to delineate everything into making sense. Kinda Lynchian I guess? Anyway, I watched the French version because: A. It was the version on Netflix; B. Everyone says it's better anyway. I have no interest in the American version, but I would guess a lot of the weird stuff (i.e. twins having telepathic orgasms) is missing in the American one.
I did like this and I'll watch season 2, which I think exists, when I can. The show does a good job of actually making every character (and there are quite a few) interesting. There was no character that I just wanted to get off the screen every time their part started, which is pretty uncommon, especially since one of them was what I assumed was going to be a generic love-lost story.

Bates Motel [Seasons 1-2]
When the teasers started popping up for this show, I naturally assumed it would be terrible. It seemed like torture porn, but like, on A&E, so not even actual torture porn. Worse yet, it was just blatantly exploiting a classic to avoid having to make a name for itself.
But actually all of that was wrong. Here's the full disclosure notice where I say I haven't actually seen Psycho, but I don't think it really matters. Bates Motel treats itself like an independent story that you already know the end to instead of a prologue. It's honestly only even horror sometimes. At the core, it's a dark family drama about an overly attached mother trying to protect her dangerously mentally ill son. There's a fair amount of shock tactics, but it's not so common that it becomes routine and dull, and excluding a misstep in the pilot, they usually have a fair amount of thought behind them (as in, they were led up to or followed up by a plot arch rather than just being ADD moneyshots). There are more things I could say about this show, but I don't want to make this so long no one reads it, so I'll just throw out there that this is probably one of the best non-premium cable shows currently airing (assuming S3 isn't terrible, idk) and Vera Farmiga (who got a Golden Globe nom for the first season) and Freddie Highmore are really good.

Broadchurch (Season 1)
How is there a season 2?
Also, I'll probably never watch Doctor Who, so this is my David Tennant exposure. I guess the important thing to talk about with all these BBC detective shows is what makes them different or noteworthy. I can't honestly pin it down to one thing with Broadchurch. What it does well is a random assortment of things: Mark Lattimer yelling at people, the soultearing backstory twist that was actually more interesting and devastating than finding the killer, but also the fallout of finding the killer. Better than Top of the Lake, probably on par with The Fall. I'll watch season 2, if just to figure out how the hell there's a season 2.

American Horror Story: Coven
Fuck this stupid fucking show. Watch season 1 and stop. There was so much wrong with this that I don't wanna bother typing it out.

Halt and Catch Fire (Season 1)
AKA, one of those AMC shows that no one actually watches. The AMC-ness shows through in its main character, who is almost literally just half Walter White, half Don Draper. There's also a punk rock counterculture girl programmer and a distracted family man on the verge of a breakdown, but why bother with them when Donna is obviously the best character.
In true AMC-ness, it plunges over the edge occasionally with just completely bizarre moments that try way too hard, but if you can forgive the sporadic pretension there's a compelling story with some interesting characters, but also Donna is there and you should watch it for Donna. My biggest complaint was probably how weird Joe gets in the last couple of episodes, but we'll always have Donna to distract us from that.

House of Cards (Season 3)
I finally watched this. I have a lot of opinions. I can't voice them all. The obvious dynamic this season is Frank/Claire, which is baffling to me, since it was made pretty clear in the past seasons that even if they like each other somewhat, they're mostly just together to scheme and connive. It seemed basically retconned this season, but that's okay I guess because I like Frank/Claire. I felt like Doug's weird moping took up a disproportionate amount of screen time, and the end of that arc was just...not really that important to the story. Honestly, this was probably my favorite season, until like the last 2-3 episodes, which I thought were sort of annoying.

Daredevil (Season 1)
AKA gritty Marvel. I haven't totally collected my thoughts on this show yet, so I liked it, but I have a string of unrelated complaints. Matt was like not even there for two episodes towards the end; Foggy was being a boring bitch; the MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE integration (re: Madame Gao) was awkward and didn't make sense; Rosario Dawson is only occasionally a main character. I liked the idea of Fisk, but don't really know if he was a good villain since he did almost none of the actual villainy. I was supremely disappointed that Wesley was his last name, since he looked so much like Wesley Wyndham-Price. Other stuff. I like how they used their ability to go uncensored (both by TV and Marvel, since they didn't need to hit a PG13 equivalent to make sure people saw it), but also didn't go over-the-top with that freedom like a lot of things do. I just really don't like the MCU connections. Daredevil is a lot rawer and less grand than most super hero movies/shows; sure, what he does is obviously impossible, but it's a huge leap away from being able to fly, so when they mention "people getting punched through buildings," it destroys the really personal/realistic atmosphere it spent so much time setting up.

Hannibal (Seasons 1-2)
*caps-lock*
HOOO BOY LET'S FUCKING GET INTO THIS OK.
*uncaps-lock*
Actually, hold on. I really liked season 1. It set up a blend of episodic crime that was controlled by and bled into an overarching plot. The recurring hallucinations (not really a spoiler) were actually sometimes convincing, which is rare for TV. The style was the best thing of all though. All the murders were completely preposterous and would absolutely never happen, but this isn't meant to be realistic. Murder is an artform in this world for some reason, and these murders really are very pretty and memorable. Should also probably mention they are insanely graphic and I'm surprised this show is on NBC. I'm getting bored of this though, let's fast-forward to rage.
*recaps-lock*
SEASON 2. WHAT. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. I'LL TRY TO BREAK IT DOWN SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND MY RAGE WITHOUT SPOILING IT:
IMAGINE ONE OF THOSE PLOTS WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS RIGHT BUT NO ONE LISTENS TO THEM AND EVERYONE HATES THEM AND IT'S ANNOYING AND AWFUL. OK. THAT'S THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEASON. AND NOW IMAGINE ONE OF THOSE PLOTS WHERE THERE ARE LITERALLY NO LIKEABLE CHARACTERS AT ALL. THAT'S THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEASON. YEAH. THAT'S THE WHOLE FUCKING SEASON.
AND TO MAKE IT WORSE, THEY COMPLETELY CHANGED THE GENRE. THERE ARE NO MORE EPISODIC EPISODES (OK, THERE ARE LIKE 3). THE SIGNATURE STYLE OF GRISLY MURDERS IS BASICALLY GONE. THEY TRY TO PROP IT UP BY HAVING THE PEOPLE WHO DIE IN THE COURSE OF THE PLOT DIE WEIRDLY, BUT WHEN IT'S NOT THE MAIN SUBJECT OF THE EPISODE, IT'S NOT REALLY THAT NOTEWORTHY; THEY JUST GLOSS OVER IT LIKE TWO MINUTES LATER. THE FINALE IS COMPLETELY UNSATISFYING, SO THERE'S ALSO THAT.
But yeah I'll probably watching season 3 BEEEECAUSE it's basically impossible for the third season to have the same problems as 2. That'd be hilariously illogical and repetitive. But if season 3 somehow manages to be as infuriating as 2 was, I'm just gonna give up.
More detailed, spoiler-filled rage



My reactions to things are directly proportional to how long ago I watched them. I did more than half of S2 of Hannibal last night. That might've been an influence.

Probably Six Feet Under now.
Edited by DarkFlashlight, Jun 1 2015, 01:08 AM.
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Snowman
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I also liked the first two seasons of Bates Motel. I don't care about the drug stuff, but the other stuff is cool, and I agree, Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore are excellent. I haven't seen season three, but I think I might at some point.

As for Daredevil, I didn't think the MCU integration was that distracting. I was kinda taken aback the two or three times they mentioned "iron suits" and "magic hammers" and Captain America, because it's so tonally different from everything else Marvel that it's weird to think they're all in the MCU. I don't think Madame Gao's thing was too awkward, though. If she returns, anyway. If they just bring her into another show/movie without any explanation in Daredevil, that could be annoying.
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Snowman
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"I used to take a tampon, soak it in grain alcohol, and insert it into my rectum. That got me high, Richard. But not half as high as the drug you just gave me. A second chance."

Plz give yourselves a second chance to consider watching Silicon Valley. It's really very good.

-----

Uh what else have I watched lately...

The X-Files (season 4) -- Very good. I've been watching the show pretty slowly, but I think this might be my favorite season so far. It was relatively light on the overall conspiracy stuff compared to 2 and 3, but that's fine, since diving into the conspiracy is supposedly what ruins it in the future.

Archer (season 5) -- Okay, I'm only halfway through, but I'm watching things slowly and just wanted to let you all know that I've been watching it and don't judge me this thread doesn't have rules. Umm, anyway, it's still pretty funny and fun to watch when I need a laugh.

Danger 5 (season 1) -- This show felt hilarious at first, but the idea of a modern show that's made as if it's in the 60s about spies who try to kill Hitler during WWII gets kinda stale after a few episodes. But it's so over-the-top and ridiculous. I guess it's more the concept of each episode that I find funny, more than the actual jokes. The jokes aren't always all that funny.

Mad Men (season 7) -- I enjoyed the ending. Pairing off everyone into couples seemed kinda rushed, especially Peggy/Stan. I wanted them to be together earlier, but it just felt like the opportunity passed a while ago, idk. I liked Don's ending though. That hug was beautiful <3.

Silicon Valley (season 2) -- This is my favorite show that's on TV right now. I don't just mean spring/summer 2015, I mean like, out of everything all year long (well, Mad Men was better, but it's over now). It's just so funny and the characters are great and the plot moves at a good pace. My only problem with it is that the season two finale just kinda handwaved some characters out of the show... There was a lack of female characters in season one, and they got more in season two, but one of the prominent two female characters that got introduced this season was just gone during the finale. It was just weird. But yeah other than that awkwardness, no complaints here.
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Romanticide
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Snowman
Jun 17 2015, 03:36 AM
"I used to take a tampon, soak it in grain alcohol, and insert it into my rectum. That got me high, Richard. But not half as high as the drug you just gave me. A second chance."
This is 10/10 and something I'm trying if I buy Everclear.


GoT stuff, obviously. Didn't get around to it because E3, so getting to it now I guess?


GoT
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Asfan
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I couldn't decide if I wanted to watch Scandal or Parenthood, so I just decided to go with Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23. It's funny.
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Asfan
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Thought I'd let everyone know who doesn't yet: David Simon has a miniseries coming out in a week called Show Me a Hero starring, among others, Oscar Isaac. It's about middle-class white people reacting to the development of public housing in Yonkers in the '80s.
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Snowman
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My exemplary study habits convinced me to rewatch Stargate SG-1 while doing homework. I have the first two seasons on DVD and have rewatched the first two episodes so far. It's still excellent.
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DarkFlashlight
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Nobody likes reading these, so I made them snappy and short and with pictures, motherfucker. The spoiler boxes are photo galleries, not spoilers. I didn't want to hyperextend the page and also something something Comcast data limit.


Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: A bunch of hackers get together to hack shit and remake Fight Club and the writers have actually heard of computers before.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: Breaking Bad when it's good, and Breaking Bad when it's bad
RATING: 8/10
BEST EPISODES: "Brave Traveler", "White Rose"
THOUGHTS: This is the new circlejerk show, and it's not quite as good as everyone says it is, but just because it's inconsistent. At its best it really does remind me of Breaking Bad's best moments, but has a tendency to meander with things that just aren't super interesting or coherent. Also, that fucking plot twist got me. Not the lame one. The cool one. The lame one also got me I guess, but I don't really care.
How long have you two been together?





Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: Undercover Soviets deal with marriage, assassinations. Also, sex.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: I can't really think of any TV shows that burn this slow in a similar genre, so think highbrow political thriller, but in the style of a character driven drama.
RATING: 9/10
BEST EPISODES: "Trust Me", "The Colonel", "Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?", "Stingers"
THOUGHTS: Probably the most underwatched show that I think everyone has heard of, it also is the king of award snubs. This is one of the best written/acted/produced shows airing, and like, no one fucking talks about it. What's wrong with all of you. There's like, fucking tons of sex.
"He attacked the mail robot!"




Posted Image
(Season 3 specifically, ramblings on seasons 1-2 are above, rating is for whole show)
WHAT IS IT: Art house pretension plus hardcore gore I'm surprised NBC allowed plus superfluous violence plus literally just Red Dragon in TV form.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: A homicidal film student's fever dream after reading all of Thomas Harris's books
RATING: 6.5/10
BEST EPISODES: "The Great Red Dragon", "The Wrath of the Lamb"
THOUGHTS: JESUS. FUCKING. CHRIST. The first half of S3 is honestly borderline unwatchable. Nothing happens for like 5 episodes. Absolutely nothing. It's just artistic shots of blood dripping or whatever for like 40 minutes. If something does happen, it's surreal because it seems out of place, and you kind of want it to go away but also don't because it's the only thing keeping you awake. And then the second half is basically a self-contained storyline that you might recognize as literally just the book Red Dragon, with very few changes. It's actually really good. But you still have to suffer through the first half. And that's Hannibal in general. When it's good, it's super good. But it's usually not.
You should've seen their faces when they heard what he ate.




Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: Cinemax show about a recently out-of-prison thief pretending to be a sheriff in a small town in an attempt to get back together his old girlfriend/heist partner, who is now married with kids. But really, it's more like 30% sex, 30% fight scenes, and 40% other stuff.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: The Raid + Titanic + Pulp Fiction
RATING: 10/10
BEST EPISODES: "Bullets and Tears", "A Fixer of Sorts", "Tribal"
THOUGHTS: I have a lot to say about this one, because I feel like no one really knows what this is. I didn't, and I'm still not really sure why I watched it in the first place. First off, this show is not supposed to be realistic. It's so thoroughly implausible that your optic nerves would snap if you tried rolling your eyes at it. Accept it for the sex and violence fest it is for the first few episodes and eventually you'll suddenly realize that what's essentially an action movie TV show is actually really well acted and has surprisingly interesting and complex characters. Season 3 is one of the best seasons of TV I've ever seen, and the show does evolve a lot. Season 1 is honestly pretty weak, but it's still thoroughly entertaining, once it breaks the 'Hood will subdue the enemy with his fists' formula.
"Oh I wasn't talking to you. Go on, now. Go get pregnant."





Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: Horror period drama that uses some characters from classic literature, all League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-like
WHAT'S IT LIKE: 1930's horror movie version of an HBO character drama about doomed people being sad together
RATING: 8/10
BEST EPISODES: "Closer than Sisters", "Glorious Horrors", "And They Were Enemies"
THOUGHTS: I really like this show, and the second season vastly improves on everything that was off about the first one, but there are still some flaws it's hard to completely overlook. Frankenstein's monster's plotlines are usually a drag. I'm not really sure why Dorian Gray is even a character in some episodes. The first season was blisteringly slow but didn't even really focus on any specific plot to not address in that time. The action scenes are surprisingly bad. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, you also get one of the best characters in modern TV with Vanessa Ives, an A-list cast, horror television (which is surprisingly rare) that's also a compelling drama, and a pretty stellar second season. The biggest thing that bugs me about this show is that the public domain characters are like, unnecessary. Not every character is from something--the three most interesting ones are all original. It's kinda dissonant, but I got over it.
"I need blood, you devilwhore."





Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: Not the American reality competition, the British conspiracy thriller that the Internet is treating like the new Firefly. The one that David Fincher was going to adapt for HBO but couldn't get enough money. That one.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: The conspiracy elements of The X-Files on crack, with an ungodly impressive set design, and lots of betrayal and plot twists.
RATING: 9/10
BEST EPISODES: #1.6, #2.1, #2.6
THOUGHTS: This is just a really good show. I'm struggling to come up with a lot to say on the plot front even though it's a really plot heavy show, because I'm distracted by how much I want you to look at the pictures.
"Yeah...suicide's not gonna work."




Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: Uhhh, so it's basically like, not really a zombie show honestly? It is, but it's not like The Walking Dead where zombies shamble around and eat people. The zombiism is used to propel other, more complicated plotlines. It plays out like a case-of-the-week character study dramedy. I know it sounds like it's for teenage girls, but it actually panders to neither of those demographics at all.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: Basically Veronica Mars postgrad with zombies. Also basically Tru Calling with zombies.
RATING: 8.5/10
BEST EPISODES: "Astroburger", "Live Rat, Dead Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat", "Blaine's World"
THOUGHTS: I guess I should disclaimer that I've only seen the first season (the second is airing, I'll watch it soon). It's just a really fun show with a good balance between light-hearted characters and actual drama. The first season does at some point start to seem repetitive, and maybe too far on the comedy side, but the plot swoops back in to save the day, as evidenced by the fact that the three episodes I listed above are just the last three episodes of the season. I have to give "Astroburger" special credit because it totally fucks up the whole mental disorder thing with lame cliches, and then fucking pulls the rug out from under you with an unexpected and soul-crushing twist that I didn't deserve. Basically, watch this if you like episodic dramas with overarching plots and wisecracking characters (see: Buffy).
"I'm guessing nobody's gonna let me watch Harvey?





Posted Image
WHAT IS IT: Okay, this one actually is aimed at teenage girls, but only partially and only for a little while. I watched this at Reddit's repeated request, under the promise that it's arguably the best sci-fi show on air. Goes like this: Teenage criminals (all the adult criminals get executed) get sent to Earth from their futuristic, post-Earth space station to see if it's inhabitable because air is low in space. It is, but it's also filled with people who want to murder you.
WHAT'S IT LIKE: Someone else phrased it like this, but I'm stealing it because it's accurate: The O.C.+Lost+Battlestar Galactica
RATING: 8/10
BEST EPISODES: "The Calm", "Spacewalker", "Rubicon", "Blood Must Have Blood: Part 2"
THOUGHTS: There's a lot to explain here. If you ever need an example of a show that seamlessly reinvents itself, here you go. Season 2 pretty much drops all the teen drama in favor of a copious amount of moral ambiguity. The thing that happens in the season 2 finale, which I wouldn't dare spoil, is one of the darkest things I've seen in a TV show, and it happened on the CW. The way everyone pitched this made me think that S1 was literally going to be Dawson's Creek and S2 was suddenly The Walking Dead but S1 is honestly pretty good too, it's just that it has a tendency to spiral the Lord of the Flies thing too close to melodrama, and there's some sporadic cringe value (I promise playing "Radioactive" in the pilot is the worst thing in the whole show), but it gets weeded out pretty thoroughly in S2. What I like about that though, is how organically it happens. It doesn't feel like a different show; it feels like the characters matured and don't have petty quarrels anymore. So yeah, this ends up packing a hefty punch, even if you will at times feel outside the target audience. They have to appease the CW gods I guess.
Oh, also, the surprise genre switchup at the end of S1 is pretty amazing.
"Camp You is that way."


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dwestfan13
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I like iZombie. I've only seen a few episodes but I think the concept is pretty cool. At one point in Season 2, she investigates a murder at a frat house. It goes pretty much how you'd expect.
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Snowman
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You watch a lot of TV.
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LifeAgainstDeath
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Sexual Orientation: Not Picky

Or maybe we just don't watch enough.
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