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Post by otherscott on Sept 16, 2019 10:35:00 GMT -8
I would entirely agree that the greatest weakness of The Americans is sticking with people and storylines multiple seasons after their stories ran their course. Or, related to that, introducing new storylines that never should have been introduced. (Looking at you, Mischa).
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Sept 16, 2019 16:32:03 GMT -8
I would entirely agree that the greatest weakness of The Americans is sticking with people and storylines multiple seasons after their stories ran their course. Or, related to that, introducing new storylines that never should have been introduced. (Looking at you, Mischa). Ah, yes, that fun (depressing) waste of a storyline. Some poor penultimate seasons are made retroactively better by their final seasons-I think Season 5 of The Americans actually gets worse in retrospect. They could have spent that time seeding Elizabeth's big choice in "The Summit", or showing Paige's reaction when she learns what her parents really do, not sugar-coated.
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Post by guttersnipe on Sept 19, 2019 10:02:35 GMT -8
Fleabag's already finished its run, huh? Well, that should make it easy enough to get caught up on. What kind of delay is there on British television to overseas? Fleabag returned here back in March (not that I could be bothered to watch it) and it's already having a second airing thanks to theatrical screenings of the live performance (which sold out like nobody's business at my arthouse).
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 19, 2019 11:16:17 GMT -8
All episodes of Fleabag Series 2 dropped on Amazon in May, about a month after it ended in the UK. That's about the normal delay of Britcoms on Amazon.
Are you saying you're not planning to watch it? Ouch.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 19, 2019 13:15:28 GMT -8
Television is only for peasants like us, Jeremy.
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Post by guttersnipe on Sept 19, 2019 17:02:26 GMT -8
Well, I did umm and ahh for literally minutes before the first episode aired before I came to the conclusion that I simply couldn't care less whether it returned or not, and that position hasn't changed since. For what it's worth, I had even less compulsion to try Killing Eve.
We have better on offer, world. Seriously.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 19, 2019 18:55:16 GMT -8
And it's all in film. Yadda yadda yadda. Boo, TV, boo! Speaking of, The Vancouver International Film Festival is coming up, but I only notice one film in the program that I'm interested in making the trek into downtown Vancouver (I live in a suburb) to see: Bong Joon Ho's Parasite. His Madeo was my favourite film of 2009, and I saw that at the same festival. It's too bad we don't get anywhere near the selection of upcoming films as Toronto.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 19, 2019 19:46:51 GMT -8
Parasite is also playing at NYFF, which kicks off next week. Some promising films there, though I'm not sure I'll wind up going myself.
Also, Guttersnipe, I refuse to believe the UK has better to offer than Fleabag. Maybe better than Killing Eve, but that's where I draw the line.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Sept 19, 2019 20:15:48 GMT -8
Zimbabwe has better to offer than Killing Eve.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 20, 2019 0:08:36 GMT -8
I'm sure Snipe could tell us all about the rich arthouse cinema coming out of Zimbabwe.
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Post by guttersnipe on Sept 20, 2019 14:38:32 GMT -8
Also, Guttersnipe, I refuse to believe the UK has better to offer than Fleabag. Maybe better than Killing Eve, but that's where I draw the line. You know, this has actually been an exceptional year for British television; I intended to make praising posts about The Virtues, Years and Years, Summer of Rockets (from arguably our strongest writer, Stephen Poliakoff) and the I Am trilogy, but simply didn't find the time. Ghosts was also pretty good, Chimerica was a bit disappointing and I was transfixed only earlier today by a trailer for the upcoming Giri/Haji. Long story short, I'd hate for Fleabag to become some sort of flagship for a country otherwise worth ignoring, especially when I've remarked before that it isn't even far removed from Drifters or Chewing Gum; hell, its most idiosyncratic formal detail is the low-key title with the two-second blast of acid jazz. (Not to mention that I was happy to follow their subsequent series given that they were simply funnier.) I'm sure Snipe could tell us all about the rich arthouse cinema coming out of Zimbabwe. A few years ago I decided to embark upon a "Globetrotter Quest" which involved hunting down at least one film from the world's most unlikely or nascent film industries. I downloaded dozens of them but only watched a few before the drive they were sitting on became corrupted and had to be binned, which indeed included a Zimbabwean picture called Jit. So as it turns out, I can't comment on their stuff, so for now I still have reason to believe that Senegal remains the leading voice in African cinema. By the way, we have a staff-and-public film quiz event on the horizon to celebrate our twenty-five year-old cinema - that I'm disqualified from entering out of fairness to everyone else.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 20, 2019 15:53:44 GMT -8
Well, that clears things up. I was sort of under the impression that you'd shunned television altogether. Heh.
I have no opinion on Fleabag, BTW, as I haven't yet seen it. But it seems like an easy show to get caught up on, given its short run. That could apply to a lot of UK TV, of course.
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Post by guttersnipe on Sept 21, 2019 16:47:47 GMT -8
No, I don't see an outright retreat ever happening - if you recall that Sopranos discourse I had with unkinhead a few years ago where I emphasised my need to watch something based squarely on my own interest, that's simply way more pronounced when it comes to TV.
And everything I just mentioned was six episodes a series, or even less. Doctor Who aside, that's pretty much industry-standard for us.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 21, 2019 18:23:48 GMT -8
Okay, in seriousness, I've really watched very little British TV. Heck, among the shows you list, the only ones I've even heard of are Ghosts and Chewing Gum. I should watch more at some point, since they've never been more easily accessible and typically have low episode counts, but the amount of British shows I've seen from start to finish probably numbers in the single digits. I dunno why, maybe the accents and vernacular just scare me off.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Nov 6, 2019 17:11:37 GMT -8
Something I've been thinking about recently re: the past decade of television. The "platinum age" of TV starts in the aughts, probably; the streaming era starts in 2013 with House of Cards and arguably the Breaking Bad finale. (Or at least, I doubt Breaking Bad would be a mainstream hit if not for Netflix - it'd probably just be something like Weeds or Deadwood where it's well-regarded but not an epoch-defining work of drama. "Deadweeds." Haha.)
So where does that leave the first third of the decade? Is there a room for a show like Bunheads in the vision of the 2010s that's going to emerge via critical consensus?
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