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What is the last Television series you watched?


Jay

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25 minutes ago, Jay said:

I've never seen The Crown, but my wife watches it, and I caught some of it the other day.  I was curious about it, since Olivia Colman is great, but from what I saw, she was barely in it, it was mostly about some mining accident and a whole bunch of other people talking about it, I saw her in like one scene.  Is the queen not even the main character?  Or was this just an usual episode?

 

It tends to jump around between episodes centered on her, episodes centered on other members of the royal family, and episodes that are telling the story of notable historic events through the lens of the royal family's experience (like the mining tragedy).  The Queen is always at the center of the show's universe, whether she's on screen or not.

 

But also, the show's entered the decades-long period where all the most dramatic stuff involves her children and relatives.  She's noted for her steadiness and reserve, after all.

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250px-Logo_of_The_Spy_(TV_series).png

 

Finished 'The Spy' to mixed results. Baron Cohen delivers a performance that is sometimes spot-on (it's great when he's on, performing as top Mossad spy Eli Cohen, less so when he's a doubtful israeli regular guy), and there are killing suspense scenes that honour the genre (i. e. when Cohen is invited to shoot his own people while visiting a secret syrian hideout) but also a lot of dour first-draft expository dialogue that's kinda acceptable because we're used to do a million other things while watching. The workmanlike tv level that drag the series down is best exemplified by its try at a cheeky early Bin Laden cameo that is heralded by a classic faux-throwaway line ('Osama, I told you to stay inside!') - it just doesn't get more literal than this and there's too much of that. It doesn't feel very authentic to the early 60's but that may also play to its advantage. All in all, the 6 episodes are watchable but two or thee polishes away from grade A level.

 

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Mixes well-known genre tropes to good effect. It takes its clue from 'Grosse Pointe Blank', 'Sopranos', 'Breaking bad' and other high-concept stuff of that ilk (national hitman becomes wannabe-actor in the shark pond that is Los Angeles!) but does enough with it that you don't get annoyed by it. Hader and his handler are very good, as are most of the performances. Three episodes in, i will probably finish and hope they don't louse it up. 

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1 hour ago, Alexcremers said:

That's right, Richard. You know your history well.

It was hard to miss, in 1969, as it was televised.

 

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

Richard is a Royalist, down to the bone!

That'll be the day. 

 

 

Did anyone watch BBC's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS?

Cosmic thoughts, gentlemen?

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Barry: is this comedy about an am-dram assassin the new Breaking Bad?

 

I remember reading that at the time and thinking it was a bit of an OTT suggestion, but it's also obvious to see where they're coming from, when thinking about the style and mood of the show.

 

Moreover Barry simply looks like it might take place in the same 'universe' as Breaking Bad.

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Modern Family 11x07 The Last Thanksgiving

 

Alex's chef boyfriend was the douchiest character they've ever had on the show and that's saying a lot.  The father/son-in-law/son-in-law storyline was good though.

 

 

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 14x09 A Woman's Right to Chop

 

Pretty funny, Dee was pretty good this episode.  It was also fantastic to see Andree Vermeulen (RIP Angie Tribeca!!) in something else.

 

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 14x10 Waiting for Big Mo

 

Meh, kind lame.  I enjoyed Charlie's riddles though.

 

 

Overall, it's a shame an otherwise strong seasoned whimpered out with 3 duds in a row to end the season.  Oh well.

 

 

Saturday Night Live 45x07 Will Ferrell / King Princess

 

Will Ferrell was pretty good, especially in the monologue.  Ryan Reynolds was good too.  All the guests makes the Democratic Debate sketch pretty fun.  Just saw this on wikipedia: "With this episode, Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che becomes the longest iteration of Update surpassing Dennis Miller's tenure of 111 shows" -- that's remarkable.

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The End of the F***ing World. Had this on my watch list for quite a while without knowing anything about it. I watched the first episode last Wednesday and continued to binge the entire first series that evening and the second one the next evening, and now I'm sad that's likely all there's going to be of it (although it's probably good to end it as it is). And a Yorkshire accent always gets bonus points in my book.

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The Good Place 4x09 The Answer

 

That was such a wonderful and sweet ending to a already pretty interesting and cool episode. No other comedy on network TV can pull of an emotional whopper of an ending like that.

 

Overall, the extremely rough first third of this season has been redeemed by a pretty strong middle third.  Can't wait now for the final third in January!

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Mr. Robot 4x08 408 Request Timeout

 

Hot damn that was another great episode.  This show is on absolute fire this season.  This is certainly the best season out of the four, a remarkable feat after how good season 3 was (which was impressive itself after how bad season 2 was).  The way the Dom/Darlene/Janice storyline ended was fantastic and perfect.  Nicely done.  The sequence with Elliot and the key was fantastic too.  And that final scene with Elliot and Mr. Robot was the icing on top of a superb cake.  They've got everyone where they want to be for an interesting episode next week as we finally get to the Deus hack.... can't wait to see how that will go down!  Especially since there's still 4 more episodes after that!

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Silicon Valley 6x05 Tethics


Decent, felt more like a "normal" episode with all kinds of changing stakes and backstabbings.Gilfoyle and Monica's b story was pretty good, as was the C story of Jared with Holden.  Russ showing up again was inevitable, and ended up being kinda funny, especially the Mad Max Fury Road homage

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7 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Not a TV show, but...has anyone seen this dreadful new four minute-plus commercial, with E. T.? It's terrible.

 

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/30816-a-holiday-reunion-et-the-extra-terrestrial-xfinity-tv-commercial-spot/

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Mr. Robot 4x09 409 Conflict

 

That was awesome, again.  This show is on fire this season, too many great episodes in a row to count now.  I don't know if it truly makes any sense that emptying the Deus' bank accounts would actually hurt them in any long term, meaningful way, but I suppose you're supposed to assume that they lose faith in Whiterose, and her project, by the fact that this happened... and that he'll be wanted by the FBI now that he murdered Price.

 

So I guess this means Whiterose's machine is no longer moving to the Congo.  Or was it already there by now?  It's all been nebulous.  I suppose Elliot can no longer return to his apartment ever again, so where's he gonna go?  I thought it was kinda funny that Price told Elliot Angela's last wish was to destroy the machine; wasn't she a believer in Whiterose's plan until the end?  I'll have to go back.

 

With so many characters dead and so much of the plot and goals behind us now, there's still a shockingly large amount to uncover in the final 4 episodes.  The hidden personality of Elliot, what really happened in the server room, what Whiterose's machine does, more about Elliot's past, what Darlene knew about it.... what's gonna happen to Dom.... can't wait!

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Yea season 2 was pretty bad, story moved very slowly for a while and some reveals were held back too long.  But season 3 they fixed every problem and it was fantastic, and now season 4 is somehow even better.  Sam Esmail has a big career ahead of him I'd say

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Season 1 was 10 episodes, season 2 was 12, season 3 was back to 10, and now season 4 is wrapping the entire series up in 13 episodes, so there'll be 45 episodes to the whole story altogether. They're 45 minutes each

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Silicon Valley 6x06 RussFest

 

Meh.  Combination of not funny enough, and not enough interesting plot either.  The funniest thing they could come up with for Russ to do all episode was change clothes?  Laurie is suddenly a scheming code stealer?   But worse then all that was solving all their problems with sheer, out of their control, dumb luck.  In theory it's actually really cool that it was code by Richard, Gilfoyle, and Dinesh that created a working Pipernet, but they way that idea was executed made it feel like the opposite effect, since we didn't know what Richard was doing in the bathroom, and didn't know Dinesh had ever worked on Gilfoyle's AI code between since it all happened off screen.  I continue to like Monica but I just don't see how they can possible wrap up all this story and all these characters in 30 minutes next week.  We'll see!

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I think I'll leave Silicon Valley at the previous season. It had already been in decline before then. But still, I seem to recall there were two seasons of genius level gold before that, so I would never hold a grudge or anything.

 

Managed to watch a couple more of the final Good Place the other day. Still struggling, but it's harmless. What I don't understand is why fans still seem to unreservedly adore it. The gags have practically vanished and the creative wit of previous seasons has been reduced to conventional sitcomy cringe, which to me is just deeply unfunny in this setting. So I really don't understand the fawning reviews this still gets.

 

We're into S4 of The Office and loving it. I prefer this over the UK original, which isn't a slight on the Gervais version at all, but I just really enjoy and admire how Carell and his cast managed to very successfully go off on their own path and manage to constantly come up with hilarious new storylines in what are very long seasons. This takes serious writing talent and great casting. So yeah, another great case of lighting in a bottle.

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7 hours ago, Quintus said:

I think I'll leave Silicon Valley at the previous season. It had already been in decline before then. But still, I seem to recall there were two seasons of genius level gold before that, so I would never hold a grudge or anything.

 

Season 6 is only 7 episodes long so you might as well watch to say you saw the whole thing.

 

In my opinion season 1 was the only truly great season of the show, and its been in a steady decline ever since.  Seasons 2-4 weren't outright bad, but once Erlich left it's been in a steeper decline than it already was.  It's going to be interesting how they wrap the entire show up this weekend.

 

7 hours ago, Quintus said:

Managed to watch a couple more of the final Good Place the other day. Still struggling, but it's harmless. What I don't understand is why fans still seem to unreservedly adore it. The gags have practically vanished and the creative wit of previous seasons has been reduced to conventional sitcomy cringe, which to me is just deeply unfunny in this setting. So I really don't understand the fawning reviews this still gets.

 

I'd say episodes 1-7 of Season 4 are the clear low point of the entire series, however, luckily episodes 8 and 9 were truly great again, so I think we just had to suffer through the awful "new experiment" that really in the end just felt like nothing but filler, unwisely largely focused on new characters who have no charisma instead of the great original 4.  Now that the show is focusing on them again, I have faith the final 5 episodes in January will bring it all home satisfactorily.  We'll see!

 

7 hours ago, Quintus said:

We're into S4 of The Office and loving it. I prefer this over the UK original, which isn't a slight on the Gervais version at all, but I just really enjoy and admire how Carell and his cast managed to very successfully go off on their own path and manage to constantly come up with hilarious new storylines in what are very long seasons. This takes serious writing talent and great casting. So yeah, another great case of lighting in a bottle.

 

That season 3 finale has one of the best endings I can think of for a network sitcom.  The Jim and Pam storyline from the pilot until their marriage is as good as you can hope for in a network sitcom

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4 hours ago, Quintus said:

Season 5, the penultimate one. Before that there had been good stuff throughout, but the first couple are the cream of the crop.

 

I watched that for a while, only remember that i stopped when the Zap Brannigan-like Hooli guy went to the Himalayas. Every comedy show should have a character like that.

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Same old, same old. Americans just don't know when to stop. It's no Peep Show, but as far as these polished/overscripted US shows are concerned, it was breezily funny. 

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

I'd say episodes 1-7 of Season 4 are the clear low point of the entire series, however, luckily episodes 8 and 9 were truly great again, so I think we just had to suffer through the awful "new experiment" that really in the end just felt like nothing but filler, unwisely largely focused on new characters who have no charisma instead of the great original 4.  Now that the show is focusing on them again, I have faith the final 5 episodes in January will bring it all home satisfactorily.  We'll see!

 

 

Yeah, the new experiment wasn't as good, and the new(ish) characters not as charismatic as the first four. I appreciate what they tried to do with Brent's story arc, I mean, can people like him (which, in 2019, feels almost like the epitome of what a bad person is) can redeem himself and be better? It's like the show was trying to ask if Harvey Weinstein could change, be forgiven and became a better person, which is one of the fundamentals of most religions (specially, of course, christianism), but not exactly a popular thing to say in 2019, post-MeToo, post-Trump, etc. But, despite this boldness, I didn't find the arc of the new experiment all that amusing or funny.

 

But I would say though that this isn't the low point of the series. For me, that's the initial episodes on S3. I mean, when the show came to Earth, it lost much of its surreal and absurd humour, and it almost became like a "normal" sitcom. They somehow even managed to waste Trevor, which was one of my favorite characters on S1! Fortunately, S3 became better after that, with some great episodes (that one with Chuck from Better Call Saul, the one when the four become Janets, Chidi and the Time Knife, the actual Good Place, etc).

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I didn't think their time on earth was that bad, but I do agree it was probably the second least interesting stretch of the show after the New Experiment.  At least Simone is a cool character (or at least was in season 3, KHB's talents have been utterly wasted in S4) and the stories were still focused on the original 4; I just could not care less about toxic masculinity guy or gossip column guy, and I like the Chidi that has all his memories much more than the Chidi we had to suffer through for most of this season.

 

Overall, I think the show is a bit of a victim of its own success, in that Schur had such a cool concept for a show, and such a cool twist to bake into how it was presented over its inital season, and captured such lightning in a bottle with all 6 actors hired absolutely killing in their roles, that once you got past that first story, and the cool rebooting stories that opened season 2, anytime you veer off into a new direction it just feels like filler, passing time to fill out a 13 episode order until they can move the actual main plot forward again towards the end of the season. Now that we are at the end of it all, and episodes 8 and 9 were so good, I hope 10-14 wrap everything up as good as season 1 introduced everything.  We'll see!

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15 minutes ago, Jay said:

I just could not care less about toxic masculinity guy or gossip column guy

 

Yeah, John wasn't all that interesting, he was basically there to do jokes about famous people with Tahani, but he wasn't exactly developed. 

 

15 minutes ago, Jay said:

Now that we are at the end of it all, and episodes 8 and 9 were so good, I hope 10-14 wrap everything up as good as season 1 introduced everything.  We'll see!

 

That's true, the latest episodes were great. And, in the best tradition of the show, I don't know where the story is going after the cliffhanger, which is very exciting. Maybe they'll meet the show's version of God? I mean, so far the show implied that Maya Rudolph's Judge is the most powerful character of the afterlife, but who knows if there's someone above her?

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I am currently watching Netflix's Green Eggs and Ham and I cannot help myself from recommending it. It's got some cringy moments, but so far the good outweighs the bad. It can be quite funny and I also found myself getting very emotionally invested with a large part of the characters, both main and ensemble. 

 

The art itself is not that pretty but the 2D animation of the characters is gorgeous, all traditional. The mix of 2D and 3D gives it a 2000's vibe, which can be off-putting but also seems weirdly nostalgic... Like something that got made some time ago that only recently got discovered.

 

Also, the music is by David Newman and is really good! Glad to see getting some better than average picture to work with.

There's a song with a mouse that almost made my cry. 

 

It's stupid but also it's really smart. It's the right amount of weird for me.

 

Give it a try!

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Modern Family 11x08 Tree's a Crowd

 

ZZZZzzzzzzzzz

 

 

Saturday Night Live 45x08 Jennifer Lopez / DaBaby

 

Lopez was actually pretty good, though too many of the sketches revolved around the same ideas.  Opening political sketch was pretty clever.

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Mr Robot 4x10 410 Gone

 

Another good episode!  I have no idea if Dom or Darlene are actually in trouble or not and if Irving was truly there as a coincidence or not.  Bummer they had to film in JFK Airport and make it look like Logan, instead of actually filming in Logan, too.  I'm not convinced that Darlene's redistribution of wealth made much sense but I think you're just supposed to believe in this reality it would work.  I wonder where Darelene is headed next and what Dom will do when she lands in Budapest.  Can't wait to see finally see what Whiterose's machine is all about next week!

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