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What is the last Television series you watched?


Jay

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6 hours ago, Quintus said:

Four or five episodes into Seinfeld S5 and Jerry's mullet is becoming an unfortunate distraction. It's like a fifth cast member.

 

Battle of the 90's hairstyles! Mad About You's Paul Reiser or Jerry Seinfeld?

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1 hour ago, KK said:

Ah, been thinking about starting that sometime too. Is it any good?

 

The first season was pretty good, but sadly, S2 is much weaker. Fortunately, I only have one more episode to go. 

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MV5BMjUyMDE4MzkzN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzIw

 

Needs a few episodes to get going (helped by Emma Stone's aggressiveness, a welcome change from the doe-eyed melancholy you could have expected with a topic like this), but once our main characters enter their dreamland adventures, it becomes one of the best new Netflix additions in recent memory. After 5 episodes i say it's a doozie - not perfect, a bit too drawn out at points, but definitely memorable and well directed.

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Ohhh Emma Stone. I like women named Emma.

 

Anyhoo, finished Bates Motel Season 2. This one lacks the mystery component that Season 1 had, but it made up for it with tons of hilarious moments with Norma at the centre of it all. Vera Farmiga carries this show with energy and gusto reminiscent of the old Hollywood greats, but obviously with a modern edge. I'd never get along with the character, but she's so fun to watch.

 

As for Norman... poor kid, he must be on the spectrum somewhere. But that's what I find infuriating about this show is that Norman's portrayed as such a weirdo from the getgo. What was so essential to Hitchcock's film was that Perkins portrayed Norman as largely a regular guy hiding some dark secrets. His everyman persona was his greatest asset. He was someone you probably wouldn't mind chatting about stuffed birds with whenever. But on the TV show they make the same mistake as the 1998 film by portraying him as an out-and-out freakshow you'd know immediately to avoid. Sad.

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1 hour ago, Cherry Pie That'll Kill Ya said:

As for Norman... poor kid, he must be on the spectrum somewhere. But that's what I find infuriating about this show is that Norman's portrayed as such a weirdo from the getgo. What was so essential to Hitchcock's film was that Perkins portrayed Norman as largely a regular guy hiding some dark secrets. His everyman persona was his greatest asset. He was someone you probably wouldn't mind chatting about stuffed birds with whenever. But on the TV show they make the same mistake as the 1998 film by portraying him as an out-and-out freakshow you'd know immediately to avoid. Sad.

 

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She doesn't seem to notice.

 

Anyhow, anyone with a mother like Norma Bates can't be a normal kid.

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Up to Bates Motel Season 5. Well, Norman's imagining his apparition mother as a full-on housewife! And ewwww, they copied the 1998 movie and had him wanking while peering through his spy hole - yep, Bates Motel went there! I love how this show really hooks you in, although it does have a few dead spots here and there. Can't wait to see how all this ends.

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Bates Motel... finished.

 

Those episodes featuring Reeanna(sp?) as Marion Crane were a cheeky set. And Norman wanks again, how sinister. It's like those episodes were set up simply to subvert expectations, introduce some "girl power", and give Apparition Norma an excuse to spout some thinly veiled feminist dogma into Norman's ear to stand up for women who've been jerked around by blokes like Marion's dickhead boyfriend!

 

The finale was an operatic work. It's certainly a different animal to the familiarity of the original Psycho timeline, but this needed to do its own thing. Despite all the carnage and tragedy, at least a few characters got a happy ending, although I won't say who.

 

Definitely better than everything on television from the 2010s.

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3 minutes ago, Cherry Pie That'll Kill Ya said:

Definitely better than everything on television from the 2010s.

 

So you liked it more than you like Westworld so far?

 

You liked it more than you liked the Twin Peaks revival?

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4 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

So you liked it more than you like Westworld so far?

 

You liked it more than you liked the Twin Peaks revival?

 

Westworld hasn't finished yet, still more seasons to go, but at least Bates Motel doesn't flash a million ugly bare dicks that gross me out.

 

Twin Peaks Season 3 is an extension of an existing show from the 1990s, so I don't really consider it a purely 2010s show. Same with The X-Files revival, which was fun in a shits and giggles way.

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On 9/23/2018 at 2:37 PM, publicist said:

MV5BMjUyMDE4MzkzN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzIw

 

Needs a few episodes to get going (helped by Emma Stone's aggressiveness, a welcome change from the doe-eyed melancholy you could have expected with a topic like this), but once our main characters enter their dreamland adventures, it becomes one of the best new Netflix additions in recent memory. After 5 episodes i say it's a doozie - not perfect, a bit too drawn out at points, but definitely memorable and well directed.

 

Funny. I loved the first few episodes, and the rest was still very good, but somehow not quite as special as the beginning (I watched the last episode yesterday). Excellent cast (especially Emma Stone and Justin Theroux), nice anamorphic cinematography and a lovely ambient score. The whole thing was a bit like a crossover between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Twin Peaks, without every being to close to either. The 80s styling was fun. And more than a few moments of pretty absurd humour that's just my style.

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5 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

 The whole thing was a bit like a crossover between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Twin Peaks ...

 

Funny, I only saw the first episode and immediately thought that Maniac feels as if Michael Gondry has made a TV show. However, I found none of it intriguing. FWIW, Twin Peaks, I did not see in it.

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7 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

Funny, I only saw the first episode and immediately thought that Maniac feels as if Michael Gondry has made a TV show. However, I found none of it intriguing. FWIW, Twin Peaks, I did not see in it.

 

Not precisely Twin Peaks per se (although it did for some reason remind of that), but I thought there's definitely a Lynchian element to the farther out turns of the story.

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netflix-maniac-teaser.jpg&client=amp-blo

 

Maniac

 

It's fun, but boy does it need a real editor. It seems to suffer from Netflix syndrome, where any semblance of narrative structure in a given episode is largely forsaken because you know - everyone will just binge-watch it anyway! As such, I don't think the series truly nails the right energy until the penultimate episode. After the long setup, it sort of just crawls its way to the grand final act, where it's finally firing on all cylinders.

 

It's all sort of like Eternal Sunshine-lite, performed by an ensemble cast, who's all around really great in this. Justin Theroux, especially, shows how much of a criminally underrated talent he is (he's the best part of the show, followed by Stone).

 

Most of it came off more restrained or drawn out than I was expecting it to be, which is a shame considering there's a lot of potential in the concept. And I don't think the show is quite equipped to handle the big cathartic questions it aims to ask about pain, loss and mental illness. So without fully embracing either end of the spectrum, it sort of just meanders in the middle for about 7 or 8 episodes.

 

But it's better than a lot of the stuff Netflix is producing these days. 

 

2 hours ago, publicist said:

What it definitely not is: a series recalling earlier works by Cary Fukunaga.

 

Indeed. I read somewhere that he deliberately moved away from the tone of his past work and just wanted to do something "light and fun".

 

The results are a bit of a mixed bag.

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Well, no. What I meant is that it doesn't quite figure what kind of show it wants to be until the last couple of episodes. It's mostly entertaining all throughout, with good gags, solid visuals and ensemble chemistry, but it's a little confused.

 

Give it a try Lee. Curious to hear how it plays with you.

 

Oh and there's a new season out for The Good Place ? Awesome.

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21 minutes ago, Cherry Pie That'll Kill Ya said:

Is Rome any good?

 

Yes!

 

46 minutes ago, KK said:

 

 

Maniac

 

It's fun...

 

:eh:

 

Not the first episode! Lots of forced quirkiness but no fun.

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36 minutes ago, KK said:

 

Oh and is there's a new season out for The Good Place ? Awesome.

 

Yeah, and word is it's better than ever.

 

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/09/the-good-place-season-3-best-show-nbc-1202006904/

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/0/good-place-season-3-episode-1-review-back-earth-still-wickedly/

 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/sep/28/the-good-place-season-3-review

 

Last year I hoped Twin Peaks: The Return would in part provide my big hit of existential comedy smarts. Little did I know it would instead come from Ted Danson's (and Kirsten Bell's) latest TV show courtesy of NBC. 

 

It's a funny ol' world!

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Kristen.

 

And yea, I love The Good Place! Season 2 never reached the grand height of Season 1 and it's glorious finale twist for me though.  Looking forward to seeing where Season 3 goes.

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I can't think of anything that comes close off the top of my head.

 

The Mr. F run of episodes on Arrested Development is amazing too though

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Well, that's the same with AD, they buries clues about Mr. F and about Buster losing his hand and all kinds of other stuff for weeks before their reveals

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I finally sat down and watched Williams' AFI tribute show. I thoroughly enjoyed it, incoherent editing irritations aside; but damn that a capella Close Encounters intro was shudder inducing. It nearly flailed the skin from my back such was the high level of cringe I had to get through.

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I found it quite moving in places. It was pretty wonderful at times. I'll link you to my hi-def version in a bit.

 

One highlight was when they showed a Superman clip and the theme played. My missus says to me, "eh, that's Superman? I thought it was from Indiana Jones."

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Anyone else looking forward to this new BBC miniseries of Vanity Fair? It's from the same author as Barry Lyndon and stars the oxygen tank chick from Bates Motel, who I reckon is cute as a button. I might give it a watch since it might satisfy my thirst for soaps, even though this is the period piece costume drama variety that I never watch.

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