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Post by Jeremy on Jan 18, 2024 15:30:45 GMT -8
So I briefly considered bringing back the apostrophe in the title of this thread, but it just... didn't look right. I hate seeing an apostrophe at the end of a sentence or statement; it looks odd and awkward, especially against a question mark. I also considered changing the title of the thread to "Whatcha Watching" to make the question moot, but that would obviously be sacrilegious.
Anyway, whatcha watchin?
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 18, 2024 16:31:12 GMT -8
Been pondering the fifth, recently-concluded season of Fargo - which is being widely hailed as a return to form for the series after a couple of weaker years - and trying to figure out why it didn't fully work for me.
(Some spoilers for the whole season follow.)
There were definitely things I really liked, starting with the cast - Juno Temple is excellent (three Emmy nominations for Ted Lasso should presumably set her up for some love when the next awards season rolls around), as are Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The story is mostly well-paced, and I enjoyed the allusions to the original Fargo film. There are effectively funny moments and effectively dark moments, and both the cinematography and music are top-notch.
But I have to completely disagree with one sentiment I've seen pop up in a few places, which is that this is the season that "gets" Fargo more than any other. To an extent, I understand where it's coming from - as stated above, this season has a lot of direct allusions to the original movie, with several characters who feel like they could wander in and out of the average Coen Brothers film.
But Fargo (the series) tends to be at its best when its dark satirical undertones come from a detached, fractured perspective, and this season too often steps on its own toes in trying to be both fantastical and very real. My fears were first raised when it was announced that the new season would be set in the very recent past of 2019, and... yeah, that turned out to yield what I expected it would. Whereas previous seasons of the show were able to explore political dynamics of their moment in ways that felt subtle and clever and open to interpretation (e.g. Season Three's commentary about the distortion of truth and facts, resonant on a number of levels when it aired in 2017), Season Five is very obvious - at times to an almost Supergirlian degree - about who and what it is commenting on at any specific time. It's less subtle, more direct, and thus less interesting, especially for a show that usually prides itself on keeping the real world at arm's length.
There's also the season's treatment of spousal abuse and violence, which is obviously a serious issue worthy of addressing. The problem is it feels... out of place in Fargo, a show which usually delivers its most effective drama with detached irony, but simply cannot do so when it comes to this issue - especially with multiple episodes flashing a hotline number at the end. So a show that built its brand on featuring a disarmingly off-kilter version of America suddenly feels all too real to be funny. There are moments of creativity here - like the "puppet show" flashbacks - but even those feel undermined by the story's deeply serious intentions. (One aspect that does work - the moody remix of "Toxic" - may have been more effective if Promising Young Woman hadn't done it years earlier.)
This all results in a season of Fargo which feels less profound, and less distinctive, than several of its predecessors, and it means that the absurdism of the finale - predicated as it is on a centuries-old man learning about the values of kindness and decency - rings a little hollow. (The time-jump is also kind of disorients things; I wish TV dramas would come back around to realizing that not every finale needs a time jump.) It may have worked better if this season felt more like a traditional Fargo season, but the absurdist and the grounded elements ultimately work against each other, right up to the end.
In any event, this may sound a little more negative than it means to. I though S5 of Fargo was good, mostly entertaining. But it feels safe to say the show is never hitting the heights of those first two seasons again.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 18, 2024 20:25:07 GMT -8
Oh, the season certainly wasn't subtle, particularly with its depiction of MAGA Jon Hamm, but I think I enjoyed it more than the first season, which to me, felt too betrothed to the film, where it almost seemed redundant at times. I may need to revisit S1 at some point, though, because it's been a long time since I've seen it. Regardless, S2 remains the best, but I'm awfully high on this past season.
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Post by otherscott on Jan 19, 2024 5:31:11 GMT -8
I don't think there was ever an apostrophe personally, as someone who created the original thread, but I could be misremembering.
I will get to this season of Fargo when it gets to a streaming service. (Shakes head at Disney/FX Canada once again)
Anyways I wanted to talk about the For All Mankind finale, since Sepinwall apparently hated it despite it being pretty well liked generally (similar to Jeremy's strong dislike of the Season 3 finale.)
SPOILERS AHEAD
I am disappointed there isn't more of a reset here. We can't do another season of Ed and Margo - they just suck the life out of being able to firmly establish new characters because no matter what they will always be supporting. Somehow, Kelly took this entire finale off for instance, and she's probably the person the show has spent the most time investing in for characters that appeared in Season 2 or later. They also could have ended the finale 10 minutes earlier and just skipped the whole Dani fakeout, it was completely unnecessary and badly executed.
That being said, I thought the finale on the whole was For All Mankind doing stuff that For All Mankind does best, which is big moments and big scenes that are rooted in the history, worldview and traumas of our main characters. Ed needs the asteroid to be stolen because he can't go back to earth, he can't fade into irrelevancy on a planet he's lost so much at, he needs to keep moving forward and being the frontierman. It still all stems back to the loss of Shane (which was a plotline I didn't like at the time but the show has done well getting mileage out of it). He wasn't there when his son died, and the only way it will ever be worth it to him is if he keeps the space program moving forward. The way that contrasts Dani who does have her whole life back on earth and sees Mars as her job, not her raison d'etre, makes sense that they would come into conflict.
The Margo-Aleida turn into helping keep the asteroid on Mars is a bit shakier, but there's still some excellent work with Margo and Aleida on Sergei's death in the previous episode. I'm sure Margo's plot is not ending with her going to prison, so we'll see her next season again to have to reconcile with everything that's happened to her, and while I'd prefer we moved on because the show really needs some fresh blood, I still think they'll continue to do a good job crafting her storylines.
I don't think there's anywhere to go left with Ed (there was barely anywhere to go with him this season, he was just kind of there until 2/3rds of the way through the season) and the show really needs to find a way to create a new principal character or three, but there's still a lot of talent working on this show and I'm excited to see where it goes in 2025 (I'm assuming).
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 19, 2024 11:27:20 GMT -8
Oh, the season certainly wasn't subtle, particularly with its depiction of MAGA Jon Hamm, but I think I enjoyed it more than the first season, which to me, felt too betrothed to the film, where it almost seemed redundant at times. I may need to revisit S1 at some point, though, because it's been a long time since I've seen it. Regardless, S2 remains the best, but I'm awfully high on this past season. My take on Season One is that it was intended to feel connected to the film, to some degree, in order to remind viewers that this wasn't just a cheap Fargo knockoff* but of a piece with the genuine article. And once the first season had established the template, Season Two felt free to get more experimental. I'd probably rank the seasons as 2>1>5>3>4. *I wonder what history would have been like if that Fargo network TV series starring Edie Falco as Marge Gunderson had been greenlit in 1997. Would have probably altered the fate of at least two famous prestige dramas. |
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 20, 2024 0:41:20 GMT -8
I just need to revisit the first and second seasons at some point. It's been a long time. I think the only thing I really recall not being thrilled with in S1 was that the two hitmen/kidnappers (I honestly can't remember what they did) felt like pale facsimiles of Buscemi and Stormare. At any rate, yes, it established the template. S5 felt more expansive to me, though. So we'll see where I stand on the overall order once I've revisited the earlier seasons. I've thoroughly enjoyed the entire series, though, unlike some folks.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 6, 2024 18:13:46 GMT -8
Finished Season Four of For All Mankind. I didn't hate the finale like I did with S3 (except for one big scene, which I'll mention below), but that's in no small part because the season building up to it wasn't all that good to begin with. It was just kind of a shallow and disappointing season all around. (Some SPOILERS below.) The level of wheel-spinning in this series is nothing new - most previous seasons have started slowly and padded things out - but it grows more noticeable with each passing season, as the show has to essentially reintroduce a new setting (and an abundance of new characters) each season, and not every new recalibration works right away. This is true on a micro level (Margo spends far too much time in Russia before the show figures out what to do with her arc) and the macro level (the first half of the season featuring little in the way of a compelling overall storyline). This is compounded by the ever-growing problem of the show's dwindling original cast, to be replaced by a lot of new characters who aren't that interesting and struggle to find their footing in the show. Sam is dull, Miles is bland, Dev doesn't have much in the way of substance. And Ed, for all his history as the show's driving force, has grown so unlikable that it's difficult to care for him, a problem which has only grown as the show keeps contriving every reason to keep him at the center. Ed needs the asteroid to be stolen because he can't go back to earth, he can't fade into irrelevancy on a planet he's lost so much at, he needs to keep moving forward and being the frontierman. It still all stems back to the loss of Shane (which was a plotline I didn't like at the time but the show has done well getting mileage out of it). He wasn't there when his son died, and the only way it will ever be worth it to him is if he keeps the space program moving forward. I think this sort of perspective on Ed would have made sense in Seasons 2 and maybe 3. But we are now twenty-five years removed from the events of S1, Ed has now seen multiple friends and family members die, and the way he keeps rationalizing every new move he makes as being in the name of the space program only highlights what a self-serving man he's become. That we are apparently meant to root for his and Dev's plan to steal the asteroid strikes me as a major disconnect from the show's creators. (And trying to juice up the climax with that awful, manipulative Danni fakeout didn't help; it only underscores how the writers are doing what they can to keep as many of the original characters as possible, while still wringing emotion from their peril.) I dunno. I think For All Mankind was a very good show for the back half of Season One and the bulk of Season Two. Since then, it's been... kind of a slow balloon leak. There just aren't enough compelling characters at this point to maintain long-term story investment, and I suspect that even more is likely to be lost after another decade-long time-jump. |
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Post by Jeremy on Apr 12, 2024 15:04:34 GMT -8
Been bogged down with all sorts of stuff in recent weeks, but will try to get back into the writing groove soon. For now, some shows I've been watching recently...
Amazon's Mr. and Mrs. Smith series (a loose reboot of the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film) is a lot of fun, featuring a great power couple in Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, some clever and funny writing, and strong episodic stories that make for a well-paced season that doesn't succumb to streaming bloat. It's got some top-notch stunt casting as well, with an array of recognizable guest stars who fit right in without distracting from the broader story or the two leads (who remain the prime focus, as the only major characters throughout the season). The story inverts the premise of the original movie - here, John and Jane meet through their mutual recruitment as spies, and began the series as undercover partners - and develops it in some very entertaining ways. Definitely recommend.
I also finished A Murder at the End of the World (started it a few months back, but lost track for a while). It's another Agatha Christie-style whodunit, this one a seven-episode miniseries framed against a pseudo-sci-fi setting in Antarctica, and (a la the Benoit Blanc films) tinged with a recognizable air of modern social commentary. Emma Corrin (Princess Diana in S4 of The Crown) is very good as the young (and the script pointedly calls attention to her Zoomer status at several points) sleuth, and there are some reliably good names in the supporting cast (including Clive Owen, and Joan Chen of Twin Peaks). The show is also well-shot and well-scored, with a great sense of atmosphere, although the scripts do have their share of lulls, and most of the supporting characters are kind of one-note.
And the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm was... fine, I guess. The show has been running low on steam for a few years now, with recent seasons feeling a cut below the series at its heyday. But I'm amused at the way David stuck to his guns and used the final episode as a way of defending the Seinfeld finale. It's a very fitting move for Larry (both the character and actor), and while the Seinfeld parallels do feel a bit on the nose, the result is a final episode that feels less forced and out-of-place than David's previous series-ender. Plus, Allison Janney showed up for a few minutes! That was pretty cool.
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Post by Jay on Apr 20, 2024 12:23:07 GMT -8
The first two Fallout games were huge part of my adolescence, but I've been very much hesitant to re-engage after Interplay's financial incompetence resulted in the IP being sold to Bethesda, with a new title most of the way through development at that point. I'm... not someone who has a lot of experience with Bethesda games beyond casually watching glitch showcases, so it was more the sting of having the franchise sold off to someone else that did it for me. Those I know who have played Bethesda games seem to find them fun, when functional (and rarely that), but with poor writing, so I wasn't eager to explore them. So when a series was announced, it was probably good that the first thing I heard was that Kyle MacLachlan plays the overseer, taking advantage of his Lynchian training in works that have an "aw shucks" 1950s sincerity with something horrible lying underneath that.
I was having a rough week, so while I initially intended to stagger it out daily, I ended up shotgunning it over the course of a few days. I didn't find anything objectionable about it in terms of lore and there would've been some easy mistakes to make there. It also nailed the sense of humor, juxtaposing a cultural innocence with extreme physical and ideological violence. Walton Goggins, whom I'm less familiar with than I would like, was also outstanding in his role and (thus far) character arc. About as much as I found objectionable was that there was some naivety from the lead surrounding ghouls, which makes sense in context, but also tripped up my leftover anger from The Walking Dead where several seasons in, you were still encountering folks looking at ravenous zombies and saying, "no, I can fix him!" And the same doesn't really apply to ghouls at all, as they're not categorically mindless flesh-eaters.
I didn't expect my more niche familiarity with the franchise to be respected, but it was. I'm now probably ready to try some of the modern games, but New Vegas first, since it was made by the original creators, and probably ignoring 76, which seems like an empty cash grab.
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Post by ThirdMan on Apr 21, 2024 5:22:49 GMT -8
Baby Reindeer is a pretty harrowing experience. Very sad, poignant, and at times darkly comic. Almost certain to win Outstanding Limited Series at this year's Emmys.
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Post by Jeremy on Apr 21, 2024 8:05:35 GMT -8
I was having a rough week, so while I initially intended to stagger it out daily, I ended up shotgunning it over the course of a few days. I didn't find anything objectionable about it in terms of lore and there would've been some easy mistakes to make there. It also nailed the sense of humor, juxtaposing a cultural innocence with extreme physical and ideological violence. Walton Goggins, whom I'm less familiar with than I would like, was also outstanding in his role and (thus far) character arc. About as much as I found objectionable was that there was some naivety from the lead surrounding ghouls, which makes sense in context, but also tripped up my leftover anger from The Walking Dead where several seasons in, you were still encountering folks looking at ravenous zombies and saying, "no, I can fix him!" And the same doesn't really apply to ghouls at all, as they're not categorically mindless flesh-eaters.
I'm a bit baffled by Amazon's decision to drop the entire first season of Fallout in one go, particularly as it looks quite expensive and they seem, like most non-Netflix streamers, to have largely moved away from the "all episodes at once" model to better keep their shows in the cultural conversation. In any event, I have no familiarity with the games (big shock, of course), but between the cast and the positive feedback, I decided to check the show out anyway. Only seen the first two episodes so far, but it's definitely investing, with a good post-apocalyptic setup and a refreshing sense of humor (certainly contrasting it with something like The Last of Us). Ella Purnell is quite compeling as the lead, and I can't help but notice she looks like she could be Kyle MacLachlan's daughter. So that works in the show's favor. Baby Reindeer is a pretty harrowing experience. Very sad, poignant, and at times darkly comic. Almost certain to win Outstanding Limited Series at this year's Emmys. It's a little early for me to start predicting, but I would be fairly surprised if Baby Reindeer wins the Emmy (or even gets nominated). Limited Series has become the Emmys' most high-profile and competitive category in recent years, and despite the strikes, 2024 is no exception - high-profile shows like Masters of the Air, Shogun, and The Sympathizer are all heavy hitters, and old winners like Fargo and True Detective might mount a comeback. Should be an interesting category this year. |
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Post by ThirdMan on Apr 26, 2024 11:35:35 GMT -8
Baby Reindeer is a pretty harrowing experience. Very sad, poignant, and at times darkly comic. Almost certain to win Outstanding Limited Series at this year's Emmys. It's a little early for me to start predicting, but I would be fairly surprised if Baby Reindeer wins the Emmy (or even gets nominated). Limited Series has become the Emmys' most high-profile and competitive category in recent years, and despite the strikes, 2024 is no exception - high-profile shows like Masters of the Air, Shogun, and The Sympathizer are all heavy hitters, and old winners like Fargo and True Detective might mount a comeback. Should be an interesting category this year. I think it'll get nominated, at the very least, if only so Emmy voters can score brownie points for supporting a series with prominent LGBTQ (especially the T) themes. Also, it's tangentially about the entertainment industry, and we know how Hollywood loves anything about itself, even if it involves moral scrutiny. As for Fargo, I thought it was already nominated this past year, but I guess this past season got split over two voting periods? Anyways, it doesn't really matter, but we'll see. |
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Post by Jeremy on Apr 26, 2024 13:13:11 GMT -8
There may be some room for a smaller show like Baby Reindeer (haven't seen it yet, but it's on the list), but I'd expect Netflix to put most of their awards-season chips on a more high-profile show like Ripley, which has earned strong reviews and is based on a property that Emmy voters are previously familiar with.
And believe it or not, Fargo hasn't been nominated for any major Emmys since 2017. Season Five aired entirely during the 2023-24 eligibility period, and while I'm not fully convinced it'll get nominated, it does have something of an interesting "comeback" story after the tepidly received fourth season.
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Post by Jay on Apr 27, 2024 11:56:41 GMT -8
Finally finished the most recent season of What We Do in the Shadows, which should indicate my enthusiasm for it. TBH, I feel like the show peaked around season three and since then it's been a bit of a slog. I didn't find the main storyline with Guillermo to be all that arresting (although at least they followed through with it) and I couldn't see much point in the role The Guide had when she was just around for everyone to neg her, which was the role Guillermo held anyway. I'm glad that they're calling it quits after next season because the characters have started to bleed into each other a bit. Also, based on my sample size of Blade III, this, and what I've heard of the MST3K reboot and the recent Ghostbusters flick, I feel as if Patton Oswalt guest starring in a sci-fi or fantasy franchise is a bad sign, a rule somehow avoided in The Sandman, possibly because he was there from the get-go.
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