Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jan 24, 2023 16:03:41 GMT -8
I'd have to check the CT archives to confirm, but I think the apostrophe has missing from the "Whatcha Watchin?" thread title long enough to qualify as legally dead at this point. Of course, I have decidedly *not* been watching TV from 2023 yet, but rather playing catchup, both with 2022's TV and some old classics.
THE NEW
Mythic Quest, season 3: Mythic Quest bothered me in its earlier seasons for being a show about video games made by people who know seemingly nothing about video games, and this season really doubled down on that with the Playpen stuff which... is literally just Scratch, as far as I can tell? Which really sinks this show when it wants to be anything other than a hangout comedy, because it brushes up against so many contemporary topics - Web3! DEI! NFTs! - and then has literally nothing to say about any of them beyond name dropping. I know they want Ian to be a spoof of the tech bro "visionary," but how pointed can that spoof be when the show's idea of the artistic process as solely "I can see 'it,'" and Poppy's arc is just figuring out whether or not she can see "it," which she can, until she can't for mandatory penultimate-episode drama? The main thing this show has going for it is that Charlotte Nicdao is both very funny and very capable of breaking your heart, but most of the characters here are one-dimensional in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes just cricket-inducing (looking at you, Jo... and Rachel... and Brad... and David... and... wait, am I just listing the entire damn cast at this point?) Also, losing F. Murray Abraham really hurt here - he's the link towards a world of storytelling that the writers actually get and thus the show's most insightful moments. Ah well. Severance is the Pooh-in-tux version of Dollhouse. Which is to say, it's basically the same show, with similar strengths and weaknesses, but it's invested in the right class markers (pay TV vs network, serialized vs. episodic, etc), so critics luuuuuv it in a way they didn't with Dollhouse. This isn't meant as a put-down, because I think both shows are quite good. It is funny just how shallow literally every single one of these characters is, though. Like, Irv's "arc" may as well have been created by asking ChatGPT, "write two older gay guys who the audience will 'ship'" - and oh my god, Mark's "trauma" about his dead wife is just sooooo boring, and the scene where he says "LOOK, I'M RIPPING UP A PICTURE OF MY WIFE" but in a way that is so deliberate in obscuring what the picture looks like that any viewer without brain damage will immediately go "oh, we've never seen the wife's face, his wife is going to be the Dichen Lachman character, isn't it" and yet the show spends a seeming eternity having him paste the picture back together so we can have that SHOCKING END OF EPISODE REVELATION! is just so-o-o-o-o cringe-inducingly dumb that I almost wanted to give up the show then and there. But I didn't, and the finale is brilliantly tense. And, being vague here, but I think the second season has a very easy way to logically progress from the first by removing certain characters' innies from the equation (effectively killing the characters while keeping them on the show - very cool) so I have high hopes for it. Also, Alia "Me IRL" Shawkat is gonna be in it so I'm obligated to watch.
Abbott Elementary, season 2: I'm thrilled this show is getting awards love and hope the Emmys and nonstop adulation isn't just a PC thing, and that we're reaching the blessed end of "it's half an hour, it's a comedy!" crap in the vein of Transparent, and that 22-episode sitcoms get to be appreciated for their unique potential as an art form. This isn't my favorite network sitcom of the season (no, that'd be Ghosts, which is the most and possibly only successful UK sitcom remake/import since The Office), but it's consistently funny and it's nice to have a show I can watch with my mom (and then have to explain to her who Joe Budden is).
Evil, season 3: Just asking whether any of you are keeping up with this show like I have been. I think the show's becoming slightly more unhinged as it runs along (which you can measure through Katja Herbers' outfits, which have shifted from cute biz-caz getups towards increasingly baroque goth stuff that makes her look like a child being eaten by a black leather sofa), but the Kings are actually really, REALLY, good at capturing liberal dread and turning it into a weird blend of camp, gut-busting comedy, and genuinely scary shit. I'm genuinely so excited for this show and am curious where it goes from here.
THE OLD
Oppenheimer: No, not whatever Chris Nolan is doing - the Oppenheimer miniseries from the '80s, starring a pre-L&O Sam Waterston as the father of the atomic bomb. Very compelling stuff, largely because I was ignorant of the history here. Being an overseas production means that the series ends up foregrounding - and being surprisingly sympathetic towards - Oppie's Communist tendencies in a way that's very weird for Reagan-era media, or even today's media. How many TV shows would have the protagonist say "well of course the New Deal is a sham meant to save capitalism from itself" and have him be the sympathetic figure? The Americans, I guess, but that's explicitly an antihero drama where Elizabeth and Philip's arc is driven by when/whether they will abandon their hidebound tankie beliefs. Oppie's politics remain essentially static.
Justified, seasons 1 and 2-ish: OK, here's an early Peak TV series that I missed the first time around and wish I hadn't. It's so fun, and reminds me a lot of the earlier seasons of Breaking Bad, when all the characters are kind of bumbling along and the show is more compelling than when it enters dueling-supervillains mode after Gus shows up. It's really great, and we're reaching the point where the show is giving all its characters backstories instead of being basically just the Raylan And Boyd Show, which is great.
What We Do in the Shadows, season 1: Wahahaha. This show is GREAT. I don't have much to say about it other than "lmao this rocks" - I didn't even care that, wait, vampires can be on video? Kinda playing fast and loose with vampire lore here, aren't they? Etc. BAT!
THE UPCOMING
Weirdly, the show I am most excited about in 2023 is a network series obscure enough that it doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page: I miss Gina Rodriguez, and I miss Wonderfalls, and the Gina Rodriguez-Is-Wonderfalls series Not Dead Yet. looks like it miiight scratch that itch? I actually have a relatively high tolerance for "quirky" network semi-procedurals - I may be the only person under the age of 50 who watched God Friended Me! - so this is great.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 24, 2023 16:50:59 GMT -8
Phew. We were near the end of January and no one had created this thread yet and I was worried I would have to do it myself. That's one less hassle to worry about.
I'd say that Severance has a bunch of strengths over Dollhouse (which, at its best, was still quite good), namely that Severance is one of the best-looking shows on TV and didn't need to spend the first half of its season being the world's dullest procedural. Casting Dichen Lachman as the psychiatrist did make the comparisons notable, though.
I still haven't gotten around to Evil, beyond watching a couple of eps back in its CBS days; it sounds like I would enjoy parts of the show, but my investment in the Kings' work has worn thin as of late. I tried watching the final season of the Good Fight, but could not even finish the first episode - that show has grown so strained in its character arcs that nothing carries any dramatic weight (and the endless cast turnover has made it tough to stay invested in anyone). The previous season was a fascinating dumpster fire of television - every scene with Mandy Patinkin's character brought with it excruciating levels of pain - but not even Andre Braugher's loudly colored spectacles could motivate me to get through Season Six.
I have been watching Abbott Elementary, though - the first network sitcom I've been regularly tuning in to since The Good Place. Though I grew bored with mockumentary comedies somewhere around 2015, this show has helped me come around again - it's consistently funny without being crass, and is populated by a group of entertaining characters, even of they sometimes fall back on easy stereotypes (the devout Christian, the over-woke liberal) in lieu of personality, and it strains credibility that Ava can maintain her job as principal even by Michael Scott standards. That said, considering the current trajectory of TV, I think the days when 22-episode network shows are appreciated as a unique art form are well behind us. But individual shows like Abbott Elementary can and should still get the respect they deserve.
As for what I've been watching in 2023 - thus far it's mostly animated stuff, like Star Trek: Lower Decks (still the only Trek series I'm keen to keep up with) and old Adult Swim shows on HBO Max that I may write about on the Western Animation thread. I did just watch the first episode of The Last of Us, despite my complete lack of familiarity with the source material, and liked it quite a bit - though the first 40 minutes were so good that it kind of made the last 40 minutes pale a bit by comparison, as the show needed to recalibrate somewhat at that point. Will try to keep up with it regularly for the rest of the season, while we wait for that other "Pedro Pascal trying to be a good father figure" show to return.
Oh yes, and at the insistence of my 13-year-old nephew, I watched Wednesday, the new Netflix "adaptation" of The Addams Family. It is... not very good, something I anticipated upon learning that the showrunners are the same guys responsible for Smallville. Jenna Ortega (young Jane from Jane the Virgin) is the show's chief novelty, and she is quite good in the title role, but the show around her is a messy mashup of Harry Potter and Veronica Mars, and lays on the soapy CW drama pretty thick - the central love triangle is one of the most boring I've ever seen in a high school series. The murder mystery is also pretty lame (pretty easy to deduce whodunit well before the finale), and much of the "detective work" that Wednesday does relies more on plot convenience than anything else. Tim Burton directs the first four episodes, but with the exception of his final ep (the one that features the viral "Wednesday dance"), they don't feel very Burtony.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 25, 2023 14:26:50 GMT -8
What We Do in the Shadows, season 1: Wahahaha. This show is GREAT. I don't have much to say about it other than "lmao this rocks" - I didn't even care that, wait, vampires can be on video? Kinda playing fast and loose with vampire lore here, aren't they? Etc. BAT! Glad to hear you enjoyed this show. And it gets even better in its second season.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 25, 2023 16:57:03 GMT -8
Justified, seasons 1 and 2-ish: OK, here's an early Peak TV series that I missed the first time around and wish I hadn't. It's so fun, and reminds me a lot of the earlier seasons of Breaking Bad, when all the characters are kind of bumbling along and the show is more compelling than when it enters dueling-supervillains mode after Gus shows up. It's really great, and we're reaching the point where the show is giving all its characters backstories instead of being basically just the Raylan And Boyd Show, which is great. I've always respected Justified for the way it structured its 13-episode seasons, both on an episodic and seasonal level. Each season has its own Big Bad (like some other show we may be familiar with), and the early half of each season is more heavily weighted towards standalone episodes, slowly giving way to the broader story arc as the season progresses. Some arcs are better than others (for whatever reason, the even-numbered seasons were the best), but it's a solid show all around - and Margo Martindale's performance in Season Two - which effectively kickstarted her TV renaissance - is one for the ages. I'm a little skeptical about the upcoming revival (set for this summer or thereabouts), which is bringing back Olyphant but is otherwise populated by a whole new cast of regulars in a new setting. The original Justified never truly became an ensemble show, but it has a lot of great supporting characters, as well as a great sense of place in Kentucky. Hoping they don't screw it up.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jan 26, 2023 16:46:32 GMT -8
Justified, seasons 1 and 2-ish: OK, here's an early Peak TV series that I missed the first time around and wish I hadn't. It's so fun, and reminds me a lot of the earlier seasons of Breaking Bad, when all the characters are kind of bumbling along and the show is more compelling than when it enters dueling-supervillains mode after Gus shows up. It's really great, and we're reaching the point where the show is giving all its characters backstories instead of being basically just the Raylan And Boyd Show, which is great. I've always respected Justified for the way it structured its 13-episode seasons, both on an episodic and seasonal level. Each season has its own Big Bad (like some other show we may be familiar with), and the early half of each season is more heavily weighted towards standalone episodes, slowly giving way to the broader story arc as the season progresses. Some arcs are better than others (for whatever reason, the even-numbered seasons were the best), but it's a solid show all around - and Margo Martindale's performance in Season Two - which effectively kickstarted her TV renaissance - is one for the ages. I'm a little skeptical about the upcoming revival (set for this summer or thereabouts), which is bringing back Olyphant but is otherwise populated by a whole new cast of regulars in a new setting. The original Justified never truly became an ensemble show, but it has a lot of great supporting characters, as well as a great sense of place in Kentucky. Hoping they don't screw it up. The Justified writers were clearly possessed by the ghost of The Original Series films. Only even numbered things can be good. Unlike those, though, I think Justified Seasons 1 and 3 are pretty damn good (3 isn't too far below the 2/4/6 trio imo). Seasons 2 and 4 are really incredible, in particular, combining the thematic richness of something like Mad Men with intricate plotting (and that elegant structure you mentioned, which really could have helped the Marvel Netflix shows), colorful characters, and Elmore Leonard's signature wit and lack of pretension. They don't feel quite like anything else from the Golden Age of prestige cable dramas.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jan 26, 2023 16:48:33 GMT -8
I'd have to check the CT archives to confirm, but I think the apostrophe has missing from the "Whatcha Watchin?" thread title long enough to qualify as legally dead at this point. Of course, I have decidedly *not* been watching TV from 2023 yet, but rather playing catchup, both with 2022's TV and some old classics.
THE NEW
Mythic Quest, season 3: Mythic Quest bothered me in its earlier seasons for being a show about video games made by people who know seemingly nothing about video games, and this season really doubled down on that with the Playpen stuff which... is literally just Scratch, as far as I can tell? Which really sinks this show when it wants to be anything other than a hangout comedy, because it brushes up against so many contemporary topics - Web3! DEI! NFTs! - and then has literally nothing to say about any of them beyond name dropping. I know they want Ian to be a spoof of the tech bro "visionary," but how pointed can that spoof be when the show's idea of the artistic process as solely "I can see 'it,'" and Poppy's arc is just figuring out whether or not she can see "it," which she can, until she can't for mandatory penultimate-episode drama? The main thing this show has going for it is that Charlotte Nicdao is both very funny and very capable of breaking your heart, but most of the characters here are one-dimensional in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes just cricket-inducing (looking at you, Jo... and Rachel... and Brad... and David... and... wait, am I just listing the entire damn cast at this point?) Also, losing F. Murray Abraham really hurt here - he's the link towards a world of storytelling that the writers actually get and thus the show's most insightful moments. Ah well. Severance is the Pooh-in-tux version of Dollhouse. Which is to say, it's basically the same show, with similar strengths and weaknesses, but it's invested in the right class markers (pay TV vs network, serialized vs. episodic, etc), so critics luuuuuv it in a way they didn't with Dollhouse. This isn't meant as a put-down, because I think both shows are quite good. It is funny just how shallow literally every single one of these characters is, though. Like, Irv's "arc" may as well have been created by asking ChatGPT, "write two older gay guys who the audience will 'ship'" - and oh my god, Mark's "trauma" about his dead wife is just sooooo boring, and the scene where he says "LOOK, I'M RIPPING UP A PICTURE OF MY WIFE" but in a way that is so deliberate in obscuring what the picture looks like that any viewer without brain damage will immediately go "oh, we've never seen the wife's face, his wife is going to be the Dichen Lachman character, isn't it" and yet the show spends a seeming eternity having him paste the picture back together so we can have that SHOCKING END OF EPISODE REVELATION! is just so-o-o-o-o cringe-inducingly dumb that I almost wanted to give up the show then and there. But I didn't, and the finale is brilliantly tense. And, being vague here, but I think the second season has a very easy way to logically progress from the first by removing certain characters' innies from the equation (effectively killing the characters while keeping them on the show - very cool) so I have high hopes for it. Also, Alia "Me IRL" Shawkat is gonna be in it so I'm obligated to watch.
Abbott Elementary, season 2: I'm thrilled this show is getting awards love and hope the Emmys and nonstop adulation isn't just a PC thing, and that we're reaching the blessed end of "it's half an hour, it's a comedy!" crap in the vein of Transparent, and that 22-episode sitcoms get to be appreciated for their unique potential as an art form. This isn't my favorite network sitcom of the season (no, that'd be Ghosts, which is the most and possibly only successful UK sitcom remake/import since The Office), but it's consistently funny and it's nice to have a show I can watch with my mom (and then have to explain to her who Joe Budden is).
Evil, season 3: Just asking whether any of you are keeping up with this show like I have been. I think the show's becoming slightly more unhinged as it runs along (which you can measure through Katja Herbers' outfits, which have shifted from cute biz-caz getups towards increasingly baroque goth stuff that makes her look like a child being eaten by a black leather sofa), but the Kings are actually really, REALLY, good at capturing liberal dread and turning it into a weird blend of camp, gut-busting comedy, and genuinely scary shit. I'm genuinely so excited for this show and am curious where it goes from here.
THE OLD
Oppenheimer: No, not whatever Chris Nolan is doing - the Oppenheimer miniseries from the '80s, starring a pre-L&O Sam Waterston as the father of the atomic bomb. Very compelling stuff, largely because I was ignorant of the history here. Being an overseas production means that the series ends up foregrounding - and being surprisingly sympathetic towards - Oppie's Communist tendencies in a way that's very weird for Reagan-era media, or even today's media. How many TV shows would have the protagonist say "well of course the New Deal is a sham meant to save capitalism from itself" and have him be the sympathetic figure? The Americans, I guess, but that's explicitly an antihero drama where Elizabeth and Philip's arc is driven by when/whether they will abandon their hidebound tankie beliefs. Oppie's politics remain essentially static.
Justified, seasons 1 and 2-ish: OK, here's an early Peak TV series that I missed the first time around and wish I hadn't. It's so fun, and reminds me a lot of the earlier seasons of Breaking Bad, when all the characters are kind of bumbling along and the show is more compelling than when it enters dueling-supervillains mode after Gus shows up. It's really great, and we're reaching the point where the show is giving all its characters backstories instead of being basically just the Raylan And Boyd Show, which is great.
What We Do in the Shadows, season 1: Wahahaha. This show is GREAT. I don't have much to say about it other than "lmao this rocks" - I didn't even care that, wait, vampires can be on video? Kinda playing fast and loose with vampire lore here, aren't they? Etc. BAT!
THE UPCOMING
Weirdly, the show I am most excited about in 2023 is a network series obscure enough that it doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page: I miss Gina Rodriguez, and I miss Wonderfalls, and the Gina Rodriguez-Is-Wonderfalls series Not Dead Yet. looks like it miiight scratch that itch? I actually have a relatively high tolerance for "quirky" network semi-procedurals - I may be the only person under the age of 50 who watched God Friended Me! - so this is great.
I greatly respect how you're still riding the Dollhouse train all these years later. Some things never change.
Yeah, What We Do in the Shadows is pretty fun. The film dragged a bit for me--didn't feel like there was enough comedic juice in the concept. And then the show's writers proved me very, very wrong.
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Post by otherscott on Jan 31, 2023 5:55:45 GMT -8
Evil wasn't really a show for me, it's hard to explain why other than I like my villains to have some depth and feel like they have motivations beyond nefariousness and Evil not only doesn't do that, the whole premise of the show is diametrically opposed to that.
I'm clearly not as big a Mythic Quest fan as Jeremy, but to me I don't think it actually cares about being a true representation of the gaming industry. It's just trying to find a different lens to tell the same stories, and occasionally make some really neat insightful standalones. I haven't seen Season 3 yet.
I recently watched Station Eleven and I feel bad for not being on the bandwagon when the show came out. It's not as good as the last two seasons of The Leftovers, but shares a lot of the same sensibilities about the way people can impact one another and perseverance through grief and guilt. I also really like when shows change up the format and Station Eleven has an interesting one where it's bouncing back and forth between the pandemic apocalypse and the 20 years later present day every episode. It leads to a lot more closed in stories and character pieces as episodes, some of which are very very good.
I'm also most of the way through The Patient, a miniseries by the creators of The Americans (Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields). It doesn't really seem to have any of the aspects that made The Americans great present, the show seems very mediocre to me. I'll finish it because it's short and because I'm somewhat curious how it ends. I'm curious if Jeremy had any thoughts since the show is very Jewish.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 31, 2023 18:35:09 GMT -8
I believe I watched the first four(?) episodes of The Patient. It was fine, I suppose, but nothing too special. Steve Carell and Domhnall Gleeson are very good, but the show itself isn't much we hadn't seen before, and what with the increasing episode lengths I just never got around to finishing it. (Also didn't hear great things about the ending.)
The show is indeed quite Jewish, and pretty accurate for the story its trying to convey. (Weisberg and Fields are both Jewish themselves and seemingly drawing on historical experience, as they did with Weisberg's CIA background for The Americans.) The wedding flashback - where Carell's wife gets up to sing, despite protests from the rabbi - is particularly striking and authentic in its awkwardness. I appreciated that. I also find it interesting that the show inverts the typical "rebel child" trope - often it's depicted as an agnostic kid rebelling against conservative religious parents, but here we have a son rebelling against his Reform Jewish parents by converting to Orthodox. (Naturally, this story is told from the parents' perspective. Go figure.)
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 4, 2023 18:59:04 GMT -8
Poker Face is great - I think it's transcending the Columbo pastiche and becoming its own thing, and with great aplomb. I like it.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 9, 2023 0:13:28 GMT -8
Poker Face is great - I think it's transcending the Columbo pastiche and becoming its own thing, and with great aplomb. I like it. OK, OK, I watched the fourth episode and I no longer merely like Poker Face, I love it. Weirdly, the show I'm most reminded of is Killing Eve, if Killing Eve did not actively chuck all the good things about it out the window in favor of tedious lesbianbait.
The other show I mentioned upthread - Not Dead Yet. - is... um, you know, Gina Rodriguez is really funny in it, and the pilot was pretty tight, but this isn't reaching above "just OK" and almost certainly is not getting renewed. I think a nice reference point would be Wonderfalls, if Wonderfalls was only half an hour per episode - there's just no room for any of the pathos to work, or for the characters to have any dimensionality. A bit disappointing, since as the only under-50 God Friended Me fan I have a thing for this genre of show. Ah well.
Oh, and I'm belatedly watching What We Do in the Shadows, and boy, I knew from conversations here that the Jackie Daytona episode was going to be funny. But I didn't realize it was going to be that funny, christ on a cracker. The stuntcasting is super fun too.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 26, 2023 19:23:57 GMT -8
OK, OK, I watched the fourth episode and I no longer merely like Poker Face, I love it. Weirdly, the show I'm most reminded of is Killing Eve, if Killing Eve did not actively chuck all the good things about it out the window in favor of tedious lesbianbait. So I've been watching Poker Face as well, and while I don't get the Killing Eve connection (both series do a great job blending drama and comedy, but not much else to directly compare the two), it's a ton of fun. Natasha Lyonne is great, selling every comedic line in her perfect two-packs-a-day voice, and the show manages to feel like an anthology throwback while still offering something fresh and creative each week. And the scripts are incredibly tight from one week to the next, with lots of little details set up in the first half of each episode that pay off spectacularly before the end. It's clever and funny, and proof that even in 2023, an hourlong drama doesn't need to be heavily serialized to be entertaining. Speaking of serialized hourlong dramas, though, I've been keeping up with The Last of Us each week, and while it is quite good (episode 5, from a couple weeks back, was particularly powerful) with impressive acting and production values, it has become something of a hassle avoiding spoilers, both from each new episode (the Internet is abuzz with the show, so gotta keep up to date) and from the source material (since I haven't played the game and have little knowledge of it). This is probably a show that might benefit from... if not bingeing, then at least watching two or three episodes a week. But I'll stick to the old-fashioned way of checking a new ep out each Sunday night. And speaking of sci-fi shows where Pedro Pascal grapples with the responsibilities of reluctant fatherhood, The Mandalorian is back this week. Hopefully it continues the entertaining streak of the previous season (and hopefully they explain to viewers who did not sit through the awful Boba Fett why Mando and Grogu are now back together).
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 26, 2023 20:14:20 GMT -8
OK, OK, I watched the fourth episode and I no longer merely like Poker Face, I love it. Weirdly, the show I'm most reminded of is Killing Eve, if Killing Eve did not actively chuck all the good things about it out the window in favor of tedious lesbianbait. So I've been watching Poker Face as well, and while I don't get the Killing Eve connection (both series do a great job blending drama and comedy, but not much else to directly compare the two), it's a ton of fun. Natasha Lyonne is great, selling every comedic line in her perfect two-packs-a-day voice, and the show manages to feel like an anthology throwback while still offering something fresh and creative each week. And the scripts are incredibly tight from one week to the next, with lots of little details set up in the first half of each episode that pay off spectacularly before the end. It's clever and funny, and proof that even in 2023, an hourlong drama doesn't need to be heavily serialized to be entertaining. Speaking of serialized hourlong dramas, though, I've been keeping up with The Last of Us each week, and while it is quite good (episode 5, from a couple weeks back, was particularly powerful) with impressive acting and production values, it has become something of a hassle avoiding spoilers, both from each new episode (the Internet is abuzz with the show, so gotta keep up to date) and from the source material (since I haven't played the game and have little knowledge of it). This is probably a show that might benefit from... if not bingeing, then at least watching two or three episodes a week. But I'll stick to the old-fashioned way of checking a new ep out each Sunday night. And speaking of sci-fi shows where Pedro Pascal grapples with the responsibilities of reluctant fatherhood, The Mandalorian is back this week. Hopefully it continues the entertaining streak of the previous season (and hopefully they explain to viewers who did not sit through the awful Boba Fett why Mando and Grogu are now back together). Man, don't even get me started on the 'pure serialization is always better' dogma. Yes, it's true serialization can pay enormous dividends when done properly (Like the "Loyalty"/"Sleep Tight"/"Forgiving" trilogy or the final two of The Shield S7 or the Gilligan Albequerque universe). It's also true that narratives that stand on their own also have their place, and may even be a better way of reaching the full heights that tv's capable of. Haven't seen Poker Face yet, but it's on my list. I haven't loved everything Rian Johnson's done, but some of it's certainly been excellent (Brick, Looper). Sounds refreshing.
I wonder how Mando will play in a post-Andor world. Hm.
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Post by otherscott on Feb 27, 2023 8:30:25 GMT -8
This is only partially related to The Last of Us, but I think I have finally crystallized in my head that I don't really like flashback episodes. This appears to be more of a "me" problem, because this is not the first time I've come across an episode where the general consensus is very positive, and I didn't feel that way.
I think my problem is that for the most part, they have a tendency to show things you already know about the characters. The depth they add can already be inferred by some of the things the character has told you about their past. Further, the flashback stories on their own are heavily influenced by you knowing the future, so while you don't know how things progress, the fact you know how it ends impacts your viewing of that story in a way that makes it impossible to stand on its own.
So for many flashback stories, you get caught in between stories that cannot stand alone because the ending is tied to what you already know, but also stories that don't really advance the main story that is being told either. I think that seems to be a hump in my viewership I can't get over.
(This also explains why I found "The Garvey's At Their Best" episode of The Leftovers to be the worst episode of the series by far. This week's Last of Us I thought was fine, just maybe not up to the quality of the other episodes.)
This doesn't apply in circumstances where we are getting flashbacks of characters we don't actually know at all, or interweaving flashbacks in with a present day story, which is the format of a couple of my favourite shows, LOST and Orange is the New Black.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 27, 2023 13:01:11 GMT -8
Man, don't even get me started on the 'pure serialization is always better' dogma. Yes, it's true serialization can pay enormous dividends when done properly (Like the "Loyalty"/"Sleep Tight"/"Forgiving" trilogy or the final two of The Shield S7 or the Gilligan Albequerque universe). It's also true that narratives that stand on their own also have their place, and may even be a better way of reaching the full heights that tv's capable of. Haven't seen Poker Face yet, but it's on my list. I haven't loved everything Rian Johnson's done, but some of it's certainly been excellent ( Brick, Looper). Sounds refreshing. The funny thing is that Poker Face features almost no serialization at all (apart from the Benjamin Bratt character who pops up from time to time). It's been years since I watched an hourlong drama that was this self-consciously standalone, but Rian Johnson and co. have taken full advantage of the format and made this one worth checking out each week. This is only partially related to The Last of Us, but I think I have finally crystallized in my head that I don't really like flashback episodes. This appears to be more of a "me" problem, because this is not the first time I've come across an episode where the general consensus is very positive, and I didn't feel that way. I think my problem is that for the most part, they have a tendency to show things you already know about the characters. The depth they add can already be inferred by some of the things the character has told you about their past. Further, the flashback stories on their own are heavily influenced by you knowing the future, so while you don't know how things progress, the fact you know how it ends impacts your viewing of that story in a way that makes it impossible to stand on its own. So for many flashback stories, you get caught in between stories that cannot stand alone because the ending is tied to what you already know, but also stories that don't really advance the main story that is being told either. I think that seems to be a hump in my viewership I can't get over. I like flashback episodes as long as they're not overdone and impart some actual new information about the characters, and I always appreciate if they're skillfully woven into the story. (Conversely, I get pretty annoyed if a show gets "flashback fatigue" as it goes, a la Arrow or the middle seasons of Lost.) I liked the newest episode of The Last of Us a lot, even if it wasn't the most groundbreaking of flashback episodes and doesn't feature the strongest framework (i.e. the present-day scenes aren't really developed beyond last week) - it's a disturbing (and important) reminder that the kids in the show's world don't have any semblance of a real childhood, and never will. The show has touched upon this in the past, obviously, but it's the kind of thing that needed more focus, and I'm glad the writers gave it to us before season's end.
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Post by Jeremy on Apr 5, 2023 14:54:10 GMT -8
Well, I meant to update this at some point in March, but I suppose it's not too late to give more detailed thoughts on the first two major shows to debut in 2023, both of which have now concluded their inaugural seasons.
First, Poker Face. As said above, I really dug the early episodes of this show, and am glad to say it maintained its quality for the remainder of the season. The series makes every argument for the sanctity of the Episode, and why standalone procedurals don't have to be boring or factory-processed. Every episode has its own feel, its own identity, with an impeccable blend of drama, mystery, and humor*, and Natasha Lyonne** is wonderful throughout. The show's use of stunt casting is terrific - every episode features delightful guest stars, who play both to and against type, and nearly all fit wonderfully in the show's quirky noir world. The visual style - established by Rian Johnson in the first two episodes and then continued by several other directors (mostly from indie film backgrounds) for the rest of the season - is icing on the cake. Loved the show.
Next, The Last of Us. I'm slightly cooler on this series than much of the Internet - it's got all the technical whiz-bang-ery we've come to expect from HBO, and Pedro Pascal is great in a role that actually allows him to regularly show his face - but it doesn't quite bring as much of a fresh perspective on the zombie apocalypse genre as I was hoping. As a character-based survival drama, it works pretty well, grappling with heavy themes about love and abandonment and the sheer selfishness of humankind in the face of global destruction. Story-wise, it's hit and miss, with a lot of the standard beats and archetypes we've seen in similar post-apocalyptic dramas (the factions, the virus, the one true Cure), and a fair bit of Point A to Point B storytelling. (Not to sound too harsh, in part because I've never played it, but it's not difficult to tell that this show is adapted from a video game.) Episode 5 is the only one I'd unquestioningly call great, and while most of the season around it still falls under "very good," it didn't quite click with me at the level it did with so many others. Still, I was definitely engaged with most of the season, and will happily watch more. (Well, not happily - the show is pretty depressing - but you know what I mean.)
*Apparently the producers will be submitting the show to the Emmys in the Comedy category. Not sure if that's the best fit, but the Ghosts of Pensacola episode made me laugh harder than most shows this year. **Lyonne has now starred in three great TV shows that debuted in the past ten years. Can any other actor make this claim?
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