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Post by Jeremy on Jul 19, 2020 19:58:23 GMT -8
The 30 Rock reunion special had a few laughs, but it was mostly just a bloated hourlong commercial for NBC's upcoming shows and new streaming service, Peacock. Many of the original show's jokes have aged poorly, but it always knew how to mock its corporate overlords with tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. This new special, unfortunately, was not self-aware enough, contriving commercial breaks and celebrity cameos to promote every IP that NBC currently owns. The Parks and Rec special felt like it earned the title; sad to see 30 Rock return on such a comparative bum note.
On the subject of Peacock, I created an account (free, of course - I'm paying too much for streaming as it is) to see what sort of content they offered. It's a decent collection, mixing NBC shows both old and new, plus an assortment of Universal films that haven't been outsourced elsewhere (like Jurassic Park and the Bourne trilogy) and a few originals that haven't received particularly kind reviews. Perhaps the buzz surrounding the service will improve once The Office lands there in January - though I'll bet NBC is gnashing their teeth that they can't use the platform for Seinfeld and (especially) Friends.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jul 20, 2020 11:21:58 GMT -8
On the subject of Peacock, I created an account (free, of course - I'm paying too much for streaming as it is) to see what sort of content they offered. It's a decent collection, mixing NBC shows both old and new, plus an assortment of Universal films that haven't been outsourced elsewhere (like Jurassic Park and the Bourne trilogy) and a few originals that haven't received particularly kind reviews. Perhaps the buzz surrounding the service will improve once The Office lands there in January - though I'll bet NBC is gnashing their teeth that they can't use the platform for Seinfeld and (especially) Friends. What, out of curiosity, is worth watching on Peacock that wasn't easily available beforehand? I think the presence of every SNL ever might be fun, insofar as it gives you an excuse to watch all the "what were they thinking" episodes - "Francis Ford Coppola/Philip Glass" and "Al Sharpton/Pink" sound like the best kind of trainwrecks. (I assume "Donald Trump/Sia" has been nuked from the air.)
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 20, 2020 14:08:56 GMT -8
Unfortunately, Peacock does not have every SNL ever - just the past five or six seasons (plus a handful of "Best of" specials). And in fact, that includes the 2015 Trump episode! Watch it at your peril.
Most of the exclusive Peacock material seems to be from decades past - every episode of Columbo, Punky Brewster and Saved by the Bell. There's also the complete run of Leave It to Beaver, which I don't think has ever streamed before, plus a selection of old Johnny Carson episodes (though nothing from the 1960s - those episodes have been lost forever). And a bunch of obscure Universal cartoon shows. (Did you know that Beethoven - the dog, not the piano guy - had an animated TV series? I did not, until now.)
It certainly isn't up to par with some of the other streaming services available, but at the total price of $0.00 a month, I guess I can't really complain.
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Post by Jay on Jul 28, 2020 13:08:36 GMT -8
The pandemic has some of us (me at least) drifting towards "comfort media" and in light of that I've been trying to stem my ma's anxiety by finally watching Northern Exposure with her. I'm only two eps in but I'm going to note that in the pilot, Ed was wearing a Naked Raygun t-shirt and I was not expecting to see a band t-shirt advertising a somewhat obscure 80s Chicago punk band that I used to listen to as a teenager in this series. No sir. Also I may be developing a crush on Maggie.
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We also wrapped up Doc Martin, all nine seasons although going through an episode a day for eight-episode seasons, it hardly seems like a herculean undertaking. There are certain limitations to it. I think the "every week there's a murder!" format of rural British shows is even more at pains to get itself to make sense (PBS loves 'em though), but the show puts surprisingly little effort into making the village appear like a community in the middle seasons, instead focusing on its main cast which is not always great when there are certain wells (Mrs. Tishell keeps awkwardly flirting with the Doc, Bert's business is failing, Al keeps courting the doc's receptionist!) that the show goes to a bit too often. It also feels for a while as if there's nothing that can go any of the character's way, which works for a certain type of comedy with exaggerated characters, but less for this one where they're mostly down-to-earth and not too zany. While the show overall is sympathetic to the Doc (in acting, perhaps not in scripting, "tosser!") despite his being a haemophobic surgeon with limited patience and social skills, there are some instances where his love interest makes demands of him that are just plain unreasonable even under the best of circumstances. The writing there is definitely when the show is at its worst because there's no reason to make a shrew of her except that her misunderstandings are necessary to drive the plot near the end of seasons.
All that seems overly harsh, but that's just me being unable to turn the critical portions of my brain off. As a fish-out-of-water sitcom with a heady element, it works, and there is some effort put in intermittently to show why he's so socially inept by bringing in his parents, who are monstrous in their ways. The characters just remain somewhat static over large swaths of the show's run and that's glaring in this era of TV writing.
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 28, 2020 18:45:03 GMT -8
Also I may be developing a crush on Maggie. Where has Janine Turner been lately? I don't think I've seen her anywhere since that one season of Friday Night Lights. In my own recent TV voyages, I watched Little America, an eight-episode anthology series about immigrants adjusting to life in the US. All the episodes are based on true stories, and while not all of them hit the mark, each one manages to tell a compelling story in ~30 minutes ("The Cowboy" and "The Silence" are the two real standouts), complete with warmth, emotion, and humor. Most impressively of all, the show manages to capture the difficulties and conflicts of immigrant life without resorting to cheap stereotypes or strawmen. I also watched Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet, likely one of the funniest shows of 2020. It has an Always Sunny flavor (sharing some of the same creative talent), but in the setting of a gaming environment, with a great cast and some genuinely funny scripts. ("Dinner Party," a sharp and satirical look at the free speech debate, made me laugh as hard as any TV episode I've seen this year.) The show offers some clever commentary on the issue of toxic men in the gaming environment, and its creative highlight is undoubtedly "A Dark Quiet Death" - an unusual episode that puts the series in a perceptive new context - but it typically works best as a laugh-producing machine. And there's even a bonus episode, produced during the quarantine! It's just as enjoyable as the others.
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Post by Jay on Jul 29, 2020 9:17:21 GMT -8
Where has Janine Turner been lately? I don't think I've seen her anywhere since that one season of Friday Night Lights. She's living on longhorn cattle ranch outside Dallas! Seems on brand.
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Post by Jay on Aug 2, 2020 19:55:16 GMT -8
Having watched the first season (only eight episodes) of Northern Exposure, I find myself deeply troubled by the question of whether David Foster Wallace is cosplaying Chris Stevens or vice-versa.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 10, 2020 20:34:23 GMT -8
I watched Devs, the eight-episode miniseries from Alex Garland. At times it feels like FX retooling Legion - heavy focus on visuals and (especially) atmosphere, spottier focus on character. Admittedly, this may be partly because the premise of the series (without giving much away) makes the very concept of "character development" seem arbitrary.
The show is deliberately paced, unfolding slowly and carefully. It's rarely boring, though it does retread thematic ground at a few points and the messages don't always click. As the central character, Sonoya Mizuno is... fine. She's not a great actress, but she fulfills the role of audience surrogate. Nick Offerman is quite good, though I could not get over his haircut.
Like fellow FX-on-Hulu show Mrs. America, this is a show that has some notable issues (particularly in terms of character and plot), but it's also a challenging and thought-provoking series with some nifty special effects. And that musical score is just sublime.
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Post by guttersnipe on Aug 12, 2020 10:12:36 GMT -8
How about that - a CT post referring to two TV shows I actually watched!
I think (perhaps predictably) I enjoyed Devs more than you did, not least because of the atmos and imagery. Conceptually it's in the mad scientist mould, and I think some of its revelations are secondary to creating a tone, but I love microcosms, and it felt to me like the freeway crash suggested the outermost limits of the world it created, not unlike when an immersive videogame puts up artificial barriers to suggest that the world isn't in fact limitless, ergo an inevitability was set up to converge around the eponymous campus. And speaking of which, the stunning golden, gravity-defying temple of the compound reinforced everything I know about organised religions' attempts to craft a heaven on earth, and of course, Forest tries to pretend his scope isn't inherently fascist and engineered to serve his own interests.
In other news, I have been watching the David Lynch episodes of The Cleveland Show, long after most of my good will towards Seth MacFarlane was pretty much exhausted. Weird to think that everyone's favourite love-child of Jimmy Stewart and Hieronymus Bosch devoted more time this last decade to a bizarre voiceover cameo than to feature filmmaking.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 12, 2020 19:33:45 GMT -8
I had no idea that David Lynch was on The Cleveland Show. It always freaks me out when you know something about TV that I don't.
Yeah, I'm not surprised you enjoyed Devs more than I did. (I imagine J.C. would enjoy it more as well; not sure if he's seen it.) Like I said, it's a very atmosphere-driven show, and some of its characters and story threads can feel shortchanged as a result. The religious parallels also felt kind of flat, although I'll grant that the questions the show raises about fate vs. chance can be read in a number of other interesting ways. (The conversation between Lily and Katie about the concept of "random events" and whether they can theoretically exist was particularly effective.)
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Post by otherscott on Aug 13, 2020 6:00:39 GMT -8
I really enjoyed Devs. It's not a perfect show, it's a little predictable from a plot perspective, and it requires a large amount of suspension of disbelief for a show that is at least on the surface pretending to be an intelligent tech show (it's not tech, it's 100% philosophy, but the surface is tech).
That being said, I love ambitious shows that go all-in on philosophical principles while actually working from a thriller perspective. It's ambitious, and I'm always going to appreciate the ambitious thing that's nothing like what I've seen over the well made and well produced show I've seen 5 variations of. Devs is exactly what Westworld has always been trying to be, but Devs never gets lost or loses the plot. It never philosophizes in a way that seems complex but is actually straight-forward, it's the exact opposite. It presents its philosophies in a way that seem straight forward but are actually incredibly complex.
And even more, it keeps things moving, it always has a purpose, and the show is structured incredibly well. The episodes are for the most part episodic - not self contained, but they always have fairly specific beginning, middles and ends - they don't all run together.
I think this show is Garland in Ex Machina mode. Making a beautiful movie that engages intellect without forgoing the actual need to make it into a narrative that works and is satisfying. And of course the visuals and production of the show are astounding at times. I'm a big fan and would love to see Garland do more small screen.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Aug 13, 2020 9:33:57 GMT -8
I really enjoyed Devs. It's not a perfect show, it's a little predictable from a plot perspective, and it requires a large amount of suspension of disbelief for a show that is at least on the surface pretending to be an intelligent tech show (it's not tech, it's 100% philosophy, but the surface is tech). That being said, I love ambitious shows that go all-in on philosophical principles while actually working from a thriller perspective. It's ambitious, and I'm always going to appreciate the ambitious thing that's nothing like what I've seen over the well made and well produced show I've seen 5 variations of. Devs is exactly what Westworld has always been trying to be, but Devs never gets lost or loses the plot. It never philosophizes in a way that seems complex but is actually straight-forward, it's the exact opposite. It presents its philosophies in a way that seem straight forward but are actually incredibly complex. And even more, it keeps things moving, it always has a purpose, and the show is structured incredibly well. The episodes are for the most part episodic - not self contained, but they always have fairly specific beginning, middles and ends - they don't all run together. I think this show is Garland in Ex Machina mode. Making a beautiful movie that engages intellect without forgoing the actual need to make it into a narrative that works and is satisfying. And of course the visuals and production of the show are astounding at times. I'm a big fan and would love to see Garland do more small screen. Everything Westworld is and does is simply an inferior version of Person of Interest was and did, minus everything that made it special. Devs is good. The ending was strange, but it's another enjoyable sci-fi work from Alex Garland ( Ex Machina was pretty fantastic).
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Post by guttersnipe on Aug 13, 2020 15:43:52 GMT -8
I had no idea that David Lynch was on The Cleveland Show. It always freaks me out when you know something about TV that I don't. I'd like to be able to say it's a kind of esoteric tip of the hat to a legendary artist, but I think it's really just indicative of these very faddy, meme-y times, where a cult or arthouse figure features in a mainstream work largely because of idiosyncratic behaviour or simply because of a strange voice (see Werner Herzog playing a version of himself in Penguins of Madagascar). Still, I think the most inexplicable moment of leftfield-popcorn blending I've seen must be a reference to Marina Abramovic on 2 Broke Girls, a move that surely served no purpose other than to inflict cultural whiplash. As for the show in general, it's better than I expected. I eventually got tired of Family Guy thanks to a formulae of expecting/fearing offence instead of letting jokes pay off earnestly, and American Dad soon exhausts a lot of its funny on obvious political statements and leaning heavily on the character of Roger despite (because of?) a self-awareness of him being annoying. Cleveland was never much of a character, which is actually fine in his own show, because he is largely an audience surrogate for a lot of the 'larger' characters around him, and there's far fewer cutaways or need for provocation than the source.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Aug 13, 2020 16:05:54 GMT -8
I had no idea that David Lynch was on The Cleveland Show. It always freaks me out when you know something about TV that I don't. I'd like to be able to say it's a kind of esoteric tip of the hat to a legendary artist, but I think it's really just indicative of these very faddy, meme-y times, where a cult or arthouse figure features in a mainstream work largely because of idiosyncratic behaviour or simply because of a strange voice (see Werner Herzog playing a version of himself in Penguins of Madagascar). Still, I think the most inexplicable moment of leftfield-popcorn blending I've seen must be a reference to Marina Abramovic on 2 Broke Girls, a move that surely served no purpose other than to inflict cultural whiplash. As for the show in general, it's better than I expected. I eventually got tired of Family Guy thanks to a formulae of expecting/fearing offence instead of letting jokes pay off earnestly, and American Dad soon exhausts a lot of its funny on obvious political statements and leaning heavily on the character of Roger despite (because of?) a self-awareness of him being annoying. Cleveland was never much of a character, which is actually fine in his own show, because he is largely an audience surrogate for a lot of the 'larger' characters around him, and there's far fewer cutaways or need for provocation than the source. Far be it from me to praise Family Guy.....but I actually enjoyed the pre-cancellation seasons.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Aug 13, 2020 18:31:26 GMT -8
I really enjoyed Devs. It's not a perfect show, it's a little predictable from a plot perspective, and it requires a large amount of suspension of disbelief for a show that is at least on the surface pretending to be an intelligent tech show (it's not tech, it's 100% philosophy, but the surface is tech). To be honest with you, I'm pretty sure most discussion of the potential of future technology is just philosophy with a tech veneer. (Sometimes quite literally - elsewhere today I was talking about the insane world of Roko's basilisk, which is basically Pascal's wager updated for the Internet age, complete with insane EVIL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE!) Anyway Devs is a show I am considering watching, alongside Dispatches from Elsewhere (which my friends seem to have really liked but I have no idea what the hell it's about).
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