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Current TV Boxset Addiction

Started by radiator, 20 November, 2012, 02:23:29 PM

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The Legendary Shark

Just finished the first two series of 'Hannibal' - not sure if I'm interested in watching the third. There were some nice touches (like the 'demonic' manifestation of Hannibal); Mads Mikkelsen is properly good and Gillian Anderson just gets sexier every day but it got sillier and sillier as the story progressed. Hannibal puts so much time into his 'work' it beggars belief. The guy fastened to the tree in the car park - I mean, come on; Hannibal wouldd have needed a week, a truck and a JCB to set that up for a start. Still, enjoyable enough in a 'this is impossible but diverting' kind of way.
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radiator

We've been watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - the new Netflix-produced comedy series created by Tina Fey.

It's a light and breezy sitcom about a woman who has spent half her life underground in an Apocalypse cult bunker trying to make her way in New York City following her liberation, and if that sounds like a lot to take in, it's all covered - and all the main characters are introduced - in the first five minutes of episode one(!).

While it's unlikely to trouble my list of all time favourite sitcoms it's really good stuff - the writing is clever, the pace is ludicrously fast, the tone endearingly bonkers and the lead, Ellie Kemper, is absolutely adorable. The theme tune, which riffs on Autotune the News - is an insanely catchy instant classic.

Strong recommend.

TordelBack

Yeah, I've watched the first few episodes of Kimmy Schmidt too. I didn't think I'd like it but turns out I do - Carol Kane (from Scrooged) in particular is good fun. I find myself losing interest as it meanders through overfamiliar  'making it in NYC' territory, but then we get some more of the bunker flashbacks and I'm on board again. It 'goodhearted oddball' pitch reminds me a lot of Elf, which is no bad thing.

radiator

QuoteCarol Kane (from Scrooged)

Ah! Thought it was her, but assumed it wasn't as she barely looks any different to how she did in a film from 30-odd years ago...

CrazyFoxMachine

I've only seen the first episode so far but yeah I'm inclined to agree with both of you on this - pleasant but not outstanding, a premise and a cast strong enough to demand attention.

I also recommend the slightly more goofball Last Man on Earth from the minds behind Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Lego Movie etc which falls into the 'quirky but heartwarming' category.

radiator

Yes, LMoE is definitely on my radar, will definitely be checking it out.

Tiplodocus

Tiny Tips decided to start watching Alias. We got stuck about half way through Season 2 so it has been good fun catching up. It packs more into one episode than you get in most movies.

Tiny Tips thought that a good mark of the writing and characterisation was that he would quite happikly watch a spin off show of at least three of the supporting cast; an eighties set Young Jack Bristow super spy show; a Marshall Makes It gadget fest and a Will Tipping investigates.

Me, I was just wondering if there was a single more attractive woman on the planet (MMrs Tips aside) than Jennifer Garner and then Lena Olin turns up. Obligatory comic fan sexism aside, both are brilliant.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

The Bridge Season 1, on Netflix. So silly, so stylish, so much fun. The contrast between Kim Bodnia's completely believable Martin Rohde and Sofia Helin's completely unbelievable Commander Data Saga Noren is just a joy to watch. In fact the casting is the real star here - almost everyone on the screen is distinctive, memorable, and interesting, from junkies to receptionists. I also get the amusing feeling that there are huge jokes about respective pronunciation flying over my head, but I enjoy the characters' reactions to same, and all it does is enhance the feeling of observing a specific complex unfamiliar world, or maybe two.

It's all a bit broad, they do like to bash you over the head with the bleedin' obvious until you scream mercy, and I'm a bit disappointed that it isn't a finite story (a third series is in production), but it most definitely fills the aching gap between episodes of Better Call Saul.

Incidentally the gorgeous Sofia Helin was 39 when she made this. I must not be living right, she'd pass for my daughter, although very fortunately she isn't.

Colin YNWA

My wife really got into her Scandicrime and adored The Bridge. I think in her pantheon its ranks even higher than The Killing.

Fungus

The Bridge is certainly my favourite Scandi show, followed by Borgen, then The Killling (which I dropped then forced myself to complete on iPlayer, so plodding and stretchy did the plot become. Gave up on series 2 early on). There's a lot of fun in The Bridge and very glad more is on the way.

HdE

Ah, but season 2 of The Killing is the best of the three! Nicholas Bro really adds a lot to it - proving that (apologies in advance) YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU THOMAS BUCH IT!

Totally agree that the first arc was over-long. It got to a point where every time the finger of suspicion pointed directly at somebody, you knew it couldn't possibly be that simple, just because they overused the red herrings and rug pulls.

That said, and while season 3 actually regresses to that a little, I did find the whole shebang very entertaining. It's well acted and really atmospheric throughout. I can see myself digging it out again soon for a re-watch.

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Dark Jimbo

Hmm... maybe I'l return to The Killing and give it the benefit of the doubt, then. I only watched the first series and ended up pretty peed off with it for all the reasons given. There were some really good bits but the constant one-step-forward-two-steps-back nature of the series had undermined an awful lot of my goodwill by the (eventual) end.
@jamesfeistdraws

Hoagy

#927
So glad you are all talking The Killing! I am investing important time into the American version. The first " Killing takes two seasons to uncover the murderer and as with above posters it is trudging and lumbersome but it the end I found it holds in the memory well. I could tap dance around it and it was still ploughing on through a certain thread when I returned to give it my full attention. I did enjoy all the torturous events in it's plots and the endurance of the characters. And when my attention was better spent elsewhere I let them drift off as I did doing our own thing to return again in the moments of jump on crisis points. (Saul Goodman. Sorry.) It's all good man(, I mean).

Now on the final episode of the 3rd series and this season could be the Aliens to Alien it goes that mental, with all sorts of plots bursts and arcs both comfortable revisitations to tried and tested street urchin villainy, with only the police top brass being the impediment in the mix this time; rather than the Wire-like wider spread infractions embellishing the story from the first story arc.

Stiff and clogged in some places, it still has me hooked.

Better Call Saul? Now that's some damn fine tv.
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HdE

Never seen the US version fo the show. I gather it departs pretty dramatically from the Scandinavian one.
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Hoagy

From what I slept through of the Scandinavian one and woke up to, it does.
"bULLshit Mr Hand man!"
"Man, you come right out of a comic book. "
Previously Krombasher.

https://www.deviantart.com/fantasticabstract