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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 2, 2021 4:18:23 GMT -8
First two seasons good. Final two seasons meh. That was my experience with The Good Place. Don't expect anything too interesting philosophically--the show kinda gives up on that after the end of Season 1. I gave up on it someway into the third season (I couldn't even tell you where). It went from a show initially best described as The Prisoner meets Defending Your Life to an unfunny wheel-spinner where I simply couldn't be bothered remembering what was retconned, where loyalties lay or even where the gang were from episode to episode.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 2, 2021 12:28:50 GMT -8
First two seasons good. Final two seasons meh. That was my experience with The Good Place. Don't expect anything too interesting philosophically--the show kinda gives up on that after the end of Season 1. I gave up on it someway into the third season (I couldn't even tell you where). It went from a show initially best described as The Prisoner meets Defending Your Life to an unfunny wheel-spinner where I simply couldn't be bothered remembering what was retconned, where loyalties lay or even where the gang were from episode to episode. Yep. The first two seasons had just a bit of an edge to them. Not a particularly sharp one, of course--this is Mike Schur we're talking about--but it definitely made it interesting and often quite funny. At times, like in the show's best episode, the Season 2 finale, it even found real poignancy in the struggle to be a better person. Somewhere along the way though, Eleanor just gave up trying to be good. No more philosophy lessons each week + being on the run from Ted Danson. Bleh. It followed the Mike Schur arc to a t. Tons of potential, squandered. Even philosophically, anime like Texhnolyze and Buffy/ Angel have more meat to them. Oh, and Tahani was still making the same exact jokes to the end. And they were never funny to begin with.
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Feb 2, 2021 19:14:10 GMT -8
Forgot to reply to this... Jay, what was your opinion of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist? It was low-key one of my favorite shows of the year, because the good parts were good and the bad/cliched parts were funny bad. I'm sort of excited to see what the show is like when it comes back in a week or two. I didn't actually watch any of it as my ma was veryquick to hit pause the second she could hear me, such was her guilty pleasure in it. My experience with musical TV shows is quite limited indeed ( The Simpsons? Futurama's opera episode? That Buffy ep?) but when it comes to covering other works, I generally hold the same attitude I do to karaoke: I get bored with the staples and wish there were more variety available. I get that it's kind of the point to have the social experience of known crowd-pleasers and trying to play off the audience's enthusiasm, but it's worth trying to bring newer or forgotten or overlooked material into the mainstream, like Wayne's World did with "Bohemian Rhapsody" I guess. I could continue musing on that topic but from here on out it devolves into "It's okay to know no songs by The Replacements or at least two but it's not okay to know one" and various other forms of "Get off my lawn" commentary that have nothing to do with what you were asking. Jay, I think you need to know that the latest episode of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist had a completely unironic scene where Skylar Astin's character sang "Numb" by Linkin Park, and that throughout the rest of the episode "Numb" was used as a leitmotif.
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Post by Jay on Feb 4, 2021 12:55:26 GMT -8
Thus far, I've been enjoying Season Two of The Good Place. I don't know if I'm surprised by the general dislike for it here, but I would note that there are some seams showing. I don't think it's lost the philosophical edge entirely as the follow-up to the Trolley Problem episode was well-executed. There's this Camus / absurdist bent to the whole thing where their lives are meaningless and so is being good under the circumstances, yet they try anyway and I appreciate that. However, I think that one flaw is that the principal cast are more bits than they are characters. That's not to say that some of the bits aren't good, I think that Jason's particular brand of stupidity and obliviousness is brilliant (but I also say this having been deeply frustrated with "author surrogate" characters to whom nothing bad can happen and in comparison, it's refreshing), but as they've tried to bring in more demons it's become clear that those people are also boring. The beginning of season two also had me.... a bit concerned in that they set up the "will they or won't they but I guess they already did" between two of the principals and have played with the hard reset, which could prove gimmicky. There are plenty of shows that can pull off the truly episodic one-off zany episodes but I don't think that this is set up to handle that properly. Jay, I think you need to know that the latest episode of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist had a completely unironic scene where Skylar Astin's character sang "Numb" by Linkin Park, and that throughout the rest of the episode "Numb" was used as a leitmotif. Okay so, having been a part of a group that made fun of Linkin Park even in its heyday ("In The End" in particular), I've found their enduring relevance to be truly bizarre. It's absolutely not unusual for me to be teaching college freshmen and talking about their tastes in music and finding that Linkin Park is a centerpiece for a few of them (mostly dudes). But hey, this song was written thirty years ago and retains its relevance so...
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 4, 2021 13:09:25 GMT -8
Thus far, I've been enjoying Season Two of The Good Place. I don't know if I'm surprised by the general dislike for it here, but I would note that there are some seams showing. I don't think it's lost the philosophical edge entirely as the follow-up to the Trolley Problem episode was well-executed. There's this Camus / absurdist bent to the whole thing where their lives are meaningless and so is being good under the circumstances, yet they try anyway and I appreciate that. However, I think that one flaw is that the principal cast are more bits than they are characters. That's not to say that some of the bits aren't good, I think that Jason's particular brand of stupidity and obliviousness is brilliant (but I also say this having been deeply frustrated with "author surrogate" characters to whom nothing bad can happen and in comparison, it's refreshing), but as they've tried to bring in more demons it's become clear that those people are also boring. The beginning of season two also had me.... a bit concerned in that they set up the "will they or won't they but I guess they already did" between two of the principals and have played with the hard reset, which could prove gimmicky. There are plenty of shows that can pull off the truly episodic one-off zany episodes but I don't think that this is set up to handle that properly. Jay, I think you need to know that the latest episode of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist had a completely unironic scene where Skylar Astin's character sang "Numb" by Linkin Park, and that throughout the rest of the episode "Numb" was used as a leitmotif. Okay so, having been a part of a group that made fun of Linkin Park even in its heyday ("In The End" in particular), I've found their enduring relevance to be truly bizarre. It's absolutely not unusual for me to be teaching college freshmen and talking about their tastes in music and finding that Linkin Park is a centerpiece for a few of them (mostly dudes). But hey, this song was written thirty years ago and retains its relevance so... I don't think I would describe myself as negative towards Season Two. As you mentioned the philosophy was still very much present, and the momentum kept things very entertaining.
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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 6, 2021 1:56:06 GMT -8
There's this Camus / absurdist bent to the whole thing where their lives are meaningless and so is being good under the circumstances, yet they try anyway and I appreciate that. It puts me in mind of a Jewish saying along the lines of "A perfect world might well be impossible, but that doesn't mean that to attempt making it is pointless". Google is directing me towards "You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it", which is sort of roughly analogous (the bit I just wrote from memory might be entirely apocryphal writer's liberty, but I like it nonetheless).
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 6, 2021 13:14:56 GMT -8
One thing I will say about The Good Place is that it makes me retroactively glad that Dollhouse (the show it most closely resembles imho) did not have a third and fourth season to fall off a cliff during.
(It also - topical film reference - makes me realize just what a perfect movie Groundhog Day is - that is a film playing in the same absurdist afterlife sandbox, and it is such a perfect mix of comedy and romance and pathos. The older I get the more I appreciate it - it's the Gen X A Christmas Carol.)
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 10, 2021 10:27:24 GMT -8
Open question: has the pandemic created a resurgence in bottle episodes?
I noticed this while watching Mister Mayor, which had its best episode yet last week in an episode set almost entirely within a single workplace harassment seminar - that was a show that started production pre-pandemic, then came back months later, and there's a noticeable difference between the freewheeling, location-heavy episodes from earlier in the season and these newer ones. I'm curious if the show is alone in this regard.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 10, 2021 15:16:26 GMT -8
I'm not quite certain, but I think all of Mr. Mayor (except maybe the pilot) was filmed post-pandemic. Most network shows don't start filming till a few months leading up to the premiere, except for maybe a first episode to sell the series to the network.
I'm not keeping up with a lot of network shows, but I don't think there's been much difference in terms of scope and location. Productions have had to comply with Covid restrictions (meaning regular testing for everyone on set, all must wear masks except for actors when they're on camera), which means inflated budgets, but I don't think that's being reflected in set limitations; more likely it just means that production is moving at a slower pace, and TV shows will be delayed and produce fewer episodes this season than usual. (2020 was the first year in over a decade when the number of scripted TV programs on air decreased from the year before.)
The larger conundrum among TV writers is how, of at all, to address the pandemic. Some shows are trying to write it into ongoing stories (with mixed success - it's hard to touch on the topic without acknowledging how much it has impacted the most mundane aspects of daily life); other shows are ignoring it entirely, often skipping ahead a couple of calendar years to a post-pandemic world. Mr. Mayor "resolves" the pandemic with a one-liner in the first episode, which was presumably written in after the rest of the episode had been produced.
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Post by otherscott on Feb 11, 2021 9:22:24 GMT -8
After more or less taking a month off TV, I've decided to jump back in and start 2021 with The Boys and The Queen's Gambit, a couple of shows that I had not gotten to at their initial peak of popularity.
The Queen's Gambit is a particularly well made show, and the first episode in particular is excellent. I'm through 4 episodes and it's settled into something more comfortable now, and not exactly shocking or unpredictable in its beats. I wish the writing was a bit more exciting and groundbreaking here, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with this show and I enjoy it while I'm watching.
I have a bit of the opposite problem with The Boys through two episodes. There is some really ambitious things going on here, but there seems to be a core of anti-capitalistic, anti-humanistic cynicism that I'm having difficulty fully getting behind. This very much feels like Black Mirror: Superheroes and I was never the biggest Black Mirror fan for similar reasons. But there's a story here with interesting ideas at its core, and I am very curious to see where it goes. I think it just needs to cool it on the "all bad deeds get rewarded and all good deeds get punished" vibe it has going at the moment.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 11, 2021 17:00:25 GMT -8
The first episode of Queen's Gambit is quite good, but the show didn't really grab me until the next couple of episodes when Taylor-Joy showed up. It's a consistently entertaining show overall, and clearly captured the zeitgeist when it premiered, though I never quite saw it as revolutionary television.
The Boys clicked with me once I realized it was, at its core, more a dark comedy than a drama. It is at times cynical and excessive (like Deadpool with a straight face and harder edge), but it does develop some very interesting ideas and characters as it goes along. I'd love to discuss the show in detail, but I'll wait till you get further into it.
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Quiara
Grade School
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Post by Quiara on Feb 11, 2021 20:06:14 GMT -8
Stuff I've been watching on Showtime, which we get for some reason. (Suggested slogan - "it's not HBO, it's TV!") KiddingThis is a show without an obvious point of comparison in the Platinum Age of TV, but I think there's a serious case to be made that the prestige drama this most closely resembles is... The West Wing! Yes, that West Wing. Yes, I am comparing it to Kidding, the show where Jim Carrey plays a mentally-fraying ersatz Fred Rogers. Okay, this might need some explaining. So The West Wing is about a quirky but superhumanly decent man with unimaginable power and influence over America, and the behind-the-scenes drama between him and the crew/family reining in his public persona. At least, Jeremy has put the show in these terms - our dearly departed Alex C. liked to describe Bartlet as a mediocre Carteresque president, and there are plenty of people who have far more scathing critiques of the show who would object to Jer's description of Bartlet as "purely good." I had to dig through the review archives to learn when I had described Bartlet as "purely good" - it was way back in June 2014. Boy, some of those reviews are really dated in retrospect. Anyhow, I didn't stick with Kidding for very long, but the character you're describing sounds closer to Ted Lasso than Jed Bartlet. Although Kidding did not strike me at all as a feel-good series. Having finished up the first season, I have to say... yes, this is definitely NOT a "feel-good" show. LOL. Or even, strictly speaking, a comedy - although it is very capital-Q Quirky. That being said, there are moments where the show really incidentally nails emotional beats through its willingness to be so unabashedly sugary from time to time. Weirdly, I think the show would be better if Jim Carrey's character was unambiguously a good person, without the touches of darkness? The final twist of the season was certainly a bridge too far for me. On the other hand, it's a wildly, wildly inventive and interesting show visually, from the unique title sequences which open each episode to some EXTREMELY impressive BTS material:
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Post by Jay on Feb 16, 2021 16:23:25 GMT -8
Oh, dip, I finished The Good Place a couple of nights ago? I have to say I was quite worried when everyone came in near-consensus that the last two seasons are bad and now I'm curious as to why that was the case (outside of widespread hatred for the "reset button" technique). That's not to say I have high praise of the show either (do I come to bury it?), but I felt like the final seasons and the two concluding episodes in particular worked well with the idea of creating meaning in an absurd universe where everything is broken seemingly by design if not widespread incompetence. Probably the lowest I felt on the show was early in S2 when I wasn't sure if we were going to switch into episodic and wacky themed resets, but those stayed in the realm of cutaway gags where they belonged. That was also around the time when the characters were drifting uncomfortably towards being bits rather than human surrogates, but they managed to contextualize them and I managed to relate to Eleanor's self-destructive self-reliance, Chidi's indecision, and Tahani's toxic family situation. The show wasn't even in quality throughout, but I think that was more on an episode basis than a season basis. I'd probably still give it a B, B-, with some credit for having the nerve to jump between existential questions of how a person should be and demons making fart jokes (it didn't work for me, but they tried it). I can think of stuff they could have done better quite easily but I wasn't ever really frustrated with it in the same way I have been with a lot of other shows that I thought had higher peaks.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 16, 2021 23:03:51 GMT -8
Oh, dip, I finished The Good Place a couple of nights ago? I have to say I was quite worried when everyone came in near-consensus that the last two seasons are bad and now I'm curious as to why that was the case (outside of widespread hatred for the "reset button" technique). That's not to say I have high praise of the show either (do I come to bury it?), but I felt like the final seasons and the two concluding episodes in particular worked well with the idea of creating meaning in an absurd universe where everything is broken seemingly by design if not widespread incompetence. Probably the lowest I felt on the show was early in S2 when I wasn't sure if we were going to switch into episodic and wacky themed resets, but those stayed in the realm of cutaway gags where they belonged. That was also around the time when the characters were drifting uncomfortably towards being bits rather than human surrogates, but they managed to contextualize them and I managed to relate to Eleanor's self-destructive self-reliance, Chidi's indecision, and Tahani's toxic family situation. The show wasn't even in quality throughout, but I think that was more on an episode basis than a season basis. I'd probably still give it a B, B-, with some credit for having the nerve to jump between existential questions of how a person should be and demons making fart jokes (it didn't work for me, but they tried it). I can think of stuff they could have done better quite easily but I wasn't ever really frustrated with it in the same way I have been with a lot of other shows that I thought had higher peaks. B- is probably where I'd place the series too. My opinion (and I think Jeremy's too) dropped when the show was still perceived as a solid A everywhere else. Perhaps I seemed more negative than I really was? I haven't actually re-watched the series. But I remember feeling like the show just stagnated for large stretches--the first half of Season 4, for example, was entirely superflous--and thought itself far more clever than it actually was. Though parts of the final episode (the wave metaphor) got to me a lot. I love me some absurdist themes. I think I've just seen it done better elsewhere (like in Buffy's "The Wish" or Doctor Who's "Heaven Sent").
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 17, 2021 17:25:56 GMT -8
Jay, I was never quite as high on the show as others seemed to be during the first two seasons, and probably nowhere near as low as some folks were during the last two. To me, the first two seasons were in the B-to-B+ range, and the last two seasons hovered mostly in the B- range (not exceptional, but certainly watchable). I think I preferred Season 4 to Season 3, to the best of my recollection, though. Putting the characters back on Earth for a spell did the show no favours.
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