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Post by Zarnium on Dec 24, 2017 19:40:17 GMT -8
OK, not a TV show, but there's not really a better place to put this. I just watched Petscop, a video series about a guy playing through a creepy unreleased PS1 game. Now, "haunted video game" creepypastas are a dime a dozen, most of them not amounting to much, but this one really sticks out for a few reasons. One, it's not based around hacked or edited footage of an existing game. Whoever made this created their own entirely original game just for this video series, and they did an incredibly good job of it. It really does look like it could be a PS1 game from 1997. Two, there's no flavor text surrounding the videos. Stuff like this is typically accompanied by (or is primarily comprised of) a lot of overly-dramatic fluff detailing the narrator's every thought and emotion that they had while "playing" the game, and it's usually written in such a way that it doesn't actually sound like what a genuinely frightened or troubled person would spend time writing. Petscop eschews this and just has the videos themselves, accompanied by sparse, deadpan narration that sounds like something that a random guy with no interest in presenting a polished product would actually say. It's nothing mind-blowing, but it's an interesting little diversion that the creator clearly spent a lot of effort on.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 25, 2017 19:43:50 GMT -8
I finished Season Two of Better Things. Really good, especially the second half.
I've never quite seen a show which structures its stories in this way. Most episodes feel like they tell a complete story, but they constantly deviate from the main focus with little asides, and some episodes even alter their trajectory midway through, perhaps more than once. Character arcs are brought to the foreground in one episode, and then spend several more on the back burner, making only the faintest of impressions.
It should all feel silly and pretentious, and yet... it doesn't. It feels honest. Sam's interactions with her daughters feel genuine, whether they're fighting or trying to be civil. There's never a false note between these characters, even if the show tells their stories in a most unconventional way.
I was mostly able to ignore the Louis CK factor of the show (it helps that he's only a writer, and never appears on camera), and just focus on what Pamela Adlon was doing. And what she's doing is quite impressive indeed.
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Post by ThirdMan on Dec 25, 2017 21:57:19 GMT -8
Yeah, I really liked the second season (didn't see much of the first). My only wish is that they didn't make the middle child quite so obnoxious. I could especially see the hand of the writers during that scene where she's saying absolutely horrendous (and seemingly unprovoked) things to her mother at that kid's bar mitzvah.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 26, 2017 6:29:53 GMT -8
Yeah, Frankie is probably the least defined of the three daughters (even Duke seems to be getting more character development than she is). You can probably chalk her obnoxiousness up to middle-child syndrome. Or just to TV's current difficulties at writing characters with gender ID issues.
Still and all, her "Remember the end of The Flintstones?" line in the bar mitzvah episode utterly cracked me up.
Elsewhere, I also finished Season Two of Search Party. Incredibly, I'd venture to say it's just as good as Season One. Though it lacks the overarching mystery and big twist of its predecessor, S2 really digs into its characters and delivers one of the most nuanced dissections of millennial culture I've ever seen on television.
It's a shame that critics mostly seem to be overlooking this show, which is the kind of biting social satire I'd never have expected from TBS. It's dark, it's funny, it effectively builds tension across each season, and it constantly mocks its characters while also making us sympathize with them. I'm hoping the show gets a third season (not a certainty, given the lack of publicity).
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Post by otherscott on Jan 3, 2018 7:07:40 GMT -8
Finally starting the final season of Halt and Catch Fire. The season premiere was quite good, but in the way that the show's baseline is fairly good - I expect things to get more interesting later as what is interesting about the show's relationships is not where they stand at the start at each season but how they progress. The Cameron-Donna plot in Season 3 was as natural and interesting a relationship projection as anything in Mad Men.
Also I want to put a good word in for Travelers, a Canadian sci-fi show that is currently on Season 2. It's just well executed time travel drama, which is not something that is traditionally all that well executed.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 3, 2018 7:41:47 GMT -8
Yeah, Season Four of HaCF really builds as it goes. The second half is particularly strong. Also - new year, new thread. .
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