Whatcha Watchin? (2017)
Mar 24, 2017 6:15:46 GMT -8
Post by Jeremy on Mar 24, 2017 6:15:46 GMT -8
Admin Note: This thread begins with reposts from early March 2017, and continues from there.
3/8/17
Other Scott:
Anyone watch any of Big Little Lies yet? The title is pretty terrible, but the episode the show aired on Sunday was really quite excellent.
I love the way the show can start in a place of "welcome to the lives of a bunch of terrible people" then slowly immerse you in that to the point where you start to understand who they are and where they're coming from. It doesn't make them any less terrible exactly, but it does make you care about them and their stories, while still acknowledging you'll never be friends with them in real life.
I'm also excitedly watching Legion. The show is still too amorphous for me to really be able to dig my teeth into it. Like I understand what it's doing with mental illness and schizophrenia and trying to determine reality, but it hasn't really taken a form to which I know exactly how it's trying to get that across other than really confusing the viewer. I like that it has an idea where it's going though, and it's still one of my most anticipated shows.
The other show I'm interested in watching is Reza Aslan's CNN show "Believer." Being a Christian who has a background in a very fundamentalist branch of that, I think it will be helpful to me to expand my horizons and empathize with those of weird and outlandish beliefs to further understand mine and those of my close Christian friends who maybe aren't as liberal about those beliefs as I am.
Of course I'll be watching The Americansas well and I'm still going on Season 4 of The 100 and I had to make a decision to not even start Feud and keep American Crime unwatched for now because that's just too overwheming. Oh, and I've been frantically trying to catch up with Jane the Virgin. Oh, and my roommates and I are catching up on The Expanse. There is just too much TV.
I haven't really been as active here lately but I'll try to provide updates on what I think on things every few weeks or so.
Flamepillar112:
Someone else watching The Expanse. I'll take it.
Scott:
Yeah I just finished Season 1. Should start on Season 2 soon. I've actually read the books and enjoy them probably more than the show so far. Unfortunately the show just hasn't had the budget to really bring to life the imagery and creativity of the world created in the books to really do that justice. Plot wise of course it has been similar, but I don't think that's what made The Expanse books special.
Additional Edit to previous post: It's probably saying something that the show I'm watching that I forgot to mention is This Is Us
Jeremy:
I have The Expanse on my list (Season One is on Amazon), and may get to it soon. I'm also hyped for the return of Underground tonight, and the new season of American Crime on Sunday.
Still, I'm more caught up watching older shows right now, and very few of the new spring premieres have grabbed my attention.
J.C.:
I'm about four days behind on all of my shows on account of the new Zelda game (which I've put nearly 50 hours into since I got it on Friday). :lol:
My highest priorities are watching last night's The Americans, and of course, my favourite of the new crop of shows, Legion (I'm loving the ride, and I don't care how thematically-focused it ultimately ends up being).
Flamepillar:
Legion is so great so far. It's one of those love-it-or-hate-it shows, but I'm firmly on the love-it side.
filibanfi:
A quick update on my TV schedule.
Shows currently on the air I am regularly watching: Jane the Virgin, This Is Us, The Good Fight, The Americans, The 100, Riverdale.
Shows currently on the air I plan to watch once they are over: Big Little Lies, Legion, Feud.
Shows I'm independently watching: iZombie, Sneaky Pete, Shameless (US), One Day at a Time.
I haven't got a lot of free time in these days primarily due to school, but I promise I'll be posting soon my thoughts on two of the shows mentioned here and on a series I already finished and that has been... talked about here more than once - it appeared on Critically Touched's best series list last year!
(If you're asking it, yes: I'm getting fun out of these clues I give you every time.)
Jeremy:
Okay, I'm currently in middle of three on-air dramas (Legion, American Crime, and Feud) that are all airing eight-episode seasons. I'm also working my way through the eight-episode first season of A Series of Unfortunate Events. On top of this, there are numerous other dramas right around now (Stranger Things, Rectify, The Night Of, The Leftovers, The Defenders) that have aired or will air an eight-episode season.
First, 22 became 13, then 13 became 10, and now... is 10 becoming 8?
I'm not going to necessarily complain about shorter seasons, per se (it makes for a smaller commitment, after all). But I can't help thinking that you can only sharpen a pencil so much before it becomes impossible to use.
J.C.:
Wow, I thought Legion was the typical 13-episode order. I'd better savour these last few episodes.
So, what are they gonna name the Season 2 premiere? Chapter 9?
Jeremy:
Well, it'd hardly be the only show to use "chapters" for episode titles. Murder One, Boston Public, Jane the Virgin, and several other shows have all employed that device.
It's a cute gimmick, but it makes it especially hard to tell individual episodes apart.
Flamepillar:
J.C. wrote:
Wow, I thought Legion was the typical 13-episode order. I'd better savour these last few episodes.
Oh, damn, me too :lol: . I'm loving it so much I forgot about the episode order. Jeremy, what are your thoughts on the show so far?
Jeremy:
There are parts of it I find fascinating, and other parts that are... just plain weird. I'll probably post more complete thoughts once we've gotten a sense of the full season.
Are you watching the new season of American Crime? I'm interested in hearing how you'll respond to it, given the North Carolina setting.
J.C.:
Weird is good, Jeremy. Weird is good. There's far too much "normal" on TV already.
The Chapter thing might be done for the same reason Jerry Seinfeld wanted his writers to name everything "The ________" on his show, so they spend more time polishing the scripts, and less time trying to come up with a clever title. I'm now trying to remember if Hawley's name is on all the scripts, as writer.
Flamepillar:
[Jeremy wrote:
There are parts of it I find fascinating, and other parts that are... just plain weird. I'll probably post more complete thoughts once we've gotten a sense of the full season.
Are you watching the new season of American Crime? I'm interested in hearing how you'll respond to it, given the North Carolina setting.
]
I'm still watching the first season. I was finding it pretty good, then POI shot up in quality, so I started watching that more. That setting sounds great though (no bias whatsoever).
3/8/17
Other Scott:
Anyone watch any of Big Little Lies yet? The title is pretty terrible, but the episode the show aired on Sunday was really quite excellent.
I love the way the show can start in a place of "welcome to the lives of a bunch of terrible people" then slowly immerse you in that to the point where you start to understand who they are and where they're coming from. It doesn't make them any less terrible exactly, but it does make you care about them and their stories, while still acknowledging you'll never be friends with them in real life.
I'm also excitedly watching Legion. The show is still too amorphous for me to really be able to dig my teeth into it. Like I understand what it's doing with mental illness and schizophrenia and trying to determine reality, but it hasn't really taken a form to which I know exactly how it's trying to get that across other than really confusing the viewer. I like that it has an idea where it's going though, and it's still one of my most anticipated shows.
The other show I'm interested in watching is Reza Aslan's CNN show "Believer." Being a Christian who has a background in a very fundamentalist branch of that, I think it will be helpful to me to expand my horizons and empathize with those of weird and outlandish beliefs to further understand mine and those of my close Christian friends who maybe aren't as liberal about those beliefs as I am.
Of course I'll be watching The Americansas well and I'm still going on Season 4 of The 100 and I had to make a decision to not even start Feud and keep American Crime unwatched for now because that's just too overwheming. Oh, and I've been frantically trying to catch up with Jane the Virgin. Oh, and my roommates and I are catching up on The Expanse. There is just too much TV.
I haven't really been as active here lately but I'll try to provide updates on what I think on things every few weeks or so.
Flamepillar112:
Someone else watching The Expanse. I'll take it.
Scott:
Yeah I just finished Season 1. Should start on Season 2 soon. I've actually read the books and enjoy them probably more than the show so far. Unfortunately the show just hasn't had the budget to really bring to life the imagery and creativity of the world created in the books to really do that justice. Plot wise of course it has been similar, but I don't think that's what made The Expanse books special.
Additional Edit to previous post: It's probably saying something that the show I'm watching that I forgot to mention is This Is Us
Jeremy:
I have The Expanse on my list (Season One is on Amazon), and may get to it soon. I'm also hyped for the return of Underground tonight, and the new season of American Crime on Sunday.
Still, I'm more caught up watching older shows right now, and very few of the new spring premieres have grabbed my attention.
J.C.:
I'm about four days behind on all of my shows on account of the new Zelda game (which I've put nearly 50 hours into since I got it on Friday). :lol:
My highest priorities are watching last night's The Americans, and of course, my favourite of the new crop of shows, Legion (I'm loving the ride, and I don't care how thematically-focused it ultimately ends up being).
Flamepillar:
Legion is so great so far. It's one of those love-it-or-hate-it shows, but I'm firmly on the love-it side.
filibanfi:
A quick update on my TV schedule.
Shows currently on the air I am regularly watching: Jane the Virgin, This Is Us, The Good Fight, The Americans, The 100, Riverdale.
Shows currently on the air I plan to watch once they are over: Big Little Lies, Legion, Feud.
Shows I'm independently watching: iZombie, Sneaky Pete, Shameless (US), One Day at a Time.
I haven't got a lot of free time in these days primarily due to school, but I promise I'll be posting soon my thoughts on two of the shows mentioned here and on a series I already finished and that has been... talked about here more than once - it appeared on Critically Touched's best series list last year!
(If you're asking it, yes: I'm getting fun out of these clues I give you every time.)
Jeremy:
Okay, I'm currently in middle of three on-air dramas (Legion, American Crime, and Feud) that are all airing eight-episode seasons. I'm also working my way through the eight-episode first season of A Series of Unfortunate Events. On top of this, there are numerous other dramas right around now (Stranger Things, Rectify, The Night Of, The Leftovers, The Defenders) that have aired or will air an eight-episode season.
First, 22 became 13, then 13 became 10, and now... is 10 becoming 8?
I'm not going to necessarily complain about shorter seasons, per se (it makes for a smaller commitment, after all). But I can't help thinking that you can only sharpen a pencil so much before it becomes impossible to use.
J.C.:
Wow, I thought Legion was the typical 13-episode order. I'd better savour these last few episodes.
So, what are they gonna name the Season 2 premiere? Chapter 9?
Jeremy:
Well, it'd hardly be the only show to use "chapters" for episode titles. Murder One, Boston Public, Jane the Virgin, and several other shows have all employed that device.
It's a cute gimmick, but it makes it especially hard to tell individual episodes apart.
Flamepillar:
J.C. wrote:
Wow, I thought Legion was the typical 13-episode order. I'd better savour these last few episodes.
Oh, damn, me too :lol: . I'm loving it so much I forgot about the episode order. Jeremy, what are your thoughts on the show so far?
Jeremy:
There are parts of it I find fascinating, and other parts that are... just plain weird. I'll probably post more complete thoughts once we've gotten a sense of the full season.
Are you watching the new season of American Crime? I'm interested in hearing how you'll respond to it, given the North Carolina setting.
J.C.:
Weird is good, Jeremy. Weird is good. There's far too much "normal" on TV already.
The Chapter thing might be done for the same reason Jerry Seinfeld wanted his writers to name everything "The ________" on his show, so they spend more time polishing the scripts, and less time trying to come up with a clever title. I'm now trying to remember if Hawley's name is on all the scripts, as writer.
Flamepillar:
[Jeremy wrote:
There are parts of it I find fascinating, and other parts that are... just plain weird. I'll probably post more complete thoughts once we've gotten a sense of the full season.
Are you watching the new season of American Crime? I'm interested in hearing how you'll respond to it, given the North Carolina setting.
]
I'm still watching the first season. I was finding it pretty good, then POI shot up in quality, so I started watching that more. That setting sounds great though (no bias whatsoever).