Current TV Boxset Addiction

[Theblazeuk]

Got up to Bullseye in Daredevil S2 and ok, properly hooked again where before I was just interested. The FBI and Fisk is driving me nuts though. "We've got him under 24 hour surveillance apart from those big stretches with his lawyers and yo a guy literally got out of prison and ended up mysteriously dead in a newspaper office but who cares and boy, we won't bkther putting a camera in his bedroom. But yes we've got him under eye every second no chance he's playing us."

[Dandontdare]

It becomes less implausible later when we find out just how deep Fisk's reach goes. And I am so dense - without the name and the costume it took me ages to twig that he was Bullseye - even when he started throwing office supplies around with deadly accuracy!

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Anyone else suffer from an over-supply of telly? Oh to have three channels...

I'm like a telly magpie, flitting from one shiny thing to the next.

- Daredevil: watched first ten minutes
- Ozark: two episodes
- Safe: six
- You: two
- Preacher: to end of season 2
- Mr Robot: two episodes
- Lost in space: three

... and so on. That excludes the stuff we have decided NOT to watch (eg Better Call Saul, which I gave up on when my wife actually painted a wall I could watch dry... the real thing is more entertaining).

All are good but there's always something else and new, and so we pretend we'll go back to it.

In fact, I have started watching more films because that way I know I will get to the end.

[Tiplodocus]

I'm with you.

A lot of the genre telly is no more than average at best. I can't afford 13 hrs on "Meh!?".

Dinosaurs and spaceships and superhero outfits were such rare sightings when I was young, I would watch any old shite. But now, you get dinosaurs in mineral water adverts.

[The Legendary Shark]

I don't have a tv, so all I watch are dvds and whatever my mates download for me. It's so much better than having the chattering cyclops squawking away in the corner all day and night, filling my ears with piffle and my heart with hoover bag overflow.

[Theblazeuk]

It becomes less implausible later when we find out just how deep Fisk's reach goes. And I am so dense - without the name and the costume it took me ages to twig that he was Bullseye - even when he started throwing office supplies around with deadly accuracy!

Literally just got to that point, yes.

[radiator]

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, the snappily-titled follow up to The People Vs OJ Simpson from a few years ago. We actually watched episode one of this about a year ago, and then binged the rest a year later when it showed up on Netflix.

Like that series, it's essentially extremely well-produced trash TV - unashamedly exploitative and soapy, but also very entertaining, and much better than first appearances would suggest.

It's not really in the same league as the previous season - the OJ story murder trial is so much meatier a subject that a single TV series covering every aspect of it felt really satisfying, whereas the subject this time round honestly feels a bit stretched and padded over the course of an entire season. It also doesn't feel anywhere near as focused - there's an attempt to tie the story into a broader narrative about the persecution of gay men, but imo it's a bit too wide-ranging and as a topic doesn't really have all that much to do with the actual murder itself. We get a lot of backstory for most of the principal characters, and while it's all very well done, some of it does feel a little superfluous.

The Versace side of the story (which thankfully gets relatively little screen time) is far less interesting than the story of cut-rate Talented Mr Ripley figure Andrew Cunanan, and for reasons that never really became clear to me, the season plays out in reverse chronological order, Memento style. I'm guessing the writers had a reason for doing this, but to me it felt like a pointless gimmick, and as far as I'm concerned the series would have been much better if it just played out chronologically.

You also get the impression that the writers are taking a ton of liberties with the material - unlike the OJ trial, one of the most widely covered and documented media events in history, the actions and motives of Cunanan, as he killed himself shortly after his murder spree, remain largely shrouded in mystery - even his immediate family had no inkling. There are dozens of scenes in the show that can only have been purely fictionalised, as there would be no way anyone living would have witnessed them. We said some variation of "but how would they know that happened?" to each other a lot while watching.

Still, a decent watch. Next series is covering Katrina.

[radiator]

The Americans.

Watched the first two episodes on Amazon Prime last night and was really impressed. Each of the episodes pack in a movies worth of plot, and the pacing and escalating sense of unease and tension really hooked me in. Great use of music too. And I've heard it just gets better from here on out. Good stuff.

[radiator]

Watched another 3 eps of The Americans last night and all I have to say is this show is really, really good. Bit of a hidden gem as far as I'm concerned. Every episode is like a mini movie, and unlike a lot of TV shows it moves at such a pace and trusts the audience to keep up, so it never feels like they're wasting your time.

I love how the plots are sometimes based around historical events - for example episode 4 revolves around the attempted assassination of Reagan and the Soviet attempt to steal the plans for what is obviously the Star Wars defence system, it's really gripping stuff. It's also nicely synced up as I just recently finished watching that exhaustive CNN doc series about the Cold War, which worked as a great primer.

For those who've never heard of it, I'll give you the pitch: its set in early 1980s Washington DC, where a married couple running a successful travel agency are in fact deep cover Soviet spies, having lived in the US for almost 20 years. They are married and have two children together (as part of their cover story) and the peculiar dynamic between them becomes really interesting as the story starts to unfold. It has some of the most intense, clever, borderline ludicrous (in a good way) twisty turny plotting I've seen in a show since Breaking Bad.

[radiator]

Sorry to keep harping on about it - but The Americans really is an outstanding series. It's a bit too early to say as I'm only on season 3 so far, but it's seriously looking like it's going to join Breaking Bad and Sopranos on the 'best TV shows evar' list.

[Smith]

I know Im way too late to the party,but Downton Abbey.Which is easy to get hooked on.

[Proudhuff]

Just crashed my way thro American Gods and totally enjoyed it... season two in March 

[Rara Avis]

I too am a tv magpipe .. picking up and dropping shows seemingly at whim ..

Started watching Star Trek : Discovery and really wanted to but do not like it. Michael is a one dimension Mary Sue who keeps failing up, no one follows orders, the new Klingons are dreadful and that MF'ing [spoiler]spore drive[/spoiler]

Watched Sabrina and Mary Sue strikes again, very surprised a pair of centuries old witches can't keep a handle on one teenage witch. And [spoiler]no talking Salem?? what in the name of the Dark Lord is going on here?[/spoiler]

Also started to watch Mars on Netflix which is a weird documentary / sci-fi series mashup. I don't think I'll be finishing that one.

Watched the Ted Bundy Tapes .. I must see if there's a thread about this on here somewhere. Enjoyed it but hated the way they glossed over the crimes to feed into Bundy myth ..

Also watched 'Abducted in Plain Sight', if you like shouting 'what the f**k?' at your monitor check this out. As someone else said .. you know this is messed up when the [spoiler]aliens[/spoiler] aren't even the weirdest part.

[Mardroid]

Too early to be an addiction yet, but I've seen three episodes of Kingdom, and it's very enjoyable. Upper class Koreans had very flamboyant hats back then, didn't they? 😁

I also just started The Umbrella academy. Just one episode in, but I liked it. It's sort of a superhero thing, with a future plot point that could have been nicked from Heroes (although it probably wasn't) but it has some pretty weird stuff mixed in and it all works. Too early to tell how this will be, but it has a promising start.

[Colin YNWA]

Any thoughts on Cloak and Dagger. While I don't normally do superhero telly for whatever reason this one intrigues me - well cos I loved them back in the day I guess - and I see Season 2 has started so I was wondering what thoughts folks had on Season one if any (see some quite positive things about the first couple of episodes).