Current TV Boxset Addiction

[radiator]

Yeah, I kind of burned out on The Good Place somewhere in the middle of season 2. Seems like one of those shows that maybe would have been a perfect miniseries rather than an ongoing (well, 4 seasons).

[Rately]

I watched the first three Mindhunters and loved it. But it's not the sort of thing to watch just before going to bed. Which is the only time I get to watch stuff.

I watched 6 episodes today (slow, wet, dank day (weatherwise)) and I have to say I need something light and fluffy tonight to lift my spirits. This stuff is pretty dark.

The Good Place will sort you out!

I'm still watching, but I think the Good Place is getting a bit tired - the original premise was so original and fun, but they've wrung just about as much out of it as they can I reckon.

I still enjoy it, and I can understand the idea of shortening it, as the first season and a bit are pitch perfect.

Now, while not as good as the early seasons, it is still a go-to for me, and one of the few shows that I watch as the episodes are released.

[Mattofthespurs]

We enjoyed the first season of The Good Place but soon tired of the format after that.

[Dark Jimbo]

Yeah, Good Place was superb, but two series was enough. The quality of S3 was surprisingly good, but it felt more contrived and tired with each episode. I've watched the first episode of S4 and just have no enthusiasm or energy for more, even though it's supposedly the final series.

[Professor Bear]

For All Mankind - for those who know how torrenting works signed up to Apple TV, Ron Moore's new show is now releasing three episodes a week.  It's another alternate history show, this time based on the premise that the Soviets beat the US to the Moon.  I do like that the writers are having none of the "one human race" nonsense and that everyone in the space programme is spurred on by jingoism or the tantrums of president Nixon, and it's nice to see a speculative sci-fi about the space programme that doesn't hinge on humanity being pushed forward thanks to the generosity of a white billionaire rather than collective endeavour.

[Frank]

For All Mankind - for those who know how torrenting works signed up to Apple TV, Ron Moore's new show is now releasing three episodes a week.  It's another alternate history show, this time based on the premise that the Soviets beat the US to the Moon.  I do like that the writers are having none of the "one human race" nonsense and that everyone in the space programme is spurred on by jingoism or the tantrums of president Nixon, and it's nice to see a speculative sci-fi about the space programme that doesn't hinge on humanity being pushed forward thanks to the generosity of a white billionaire rather than collective endeavour.

I went for The Morning Show, so if someone wants to take one for the team and suffer through The Jason Momoa Show we could crowdsource a review of Apple's service in toto.

The Morning Show is a lightly comedic drama about a ludicrously frivolous topic that, given the cast it's been blessed with*, would probably work better as all-out comedy.

It's insanely meta - what they've done is hire a bunch of folk who've worked on telly to make a show about folk who work on telly, which is about telly^**

The result is a show that feels like any mid-range US drama you've seen in the last twenty years, rather than establishing a visual and narrative sensibility of its own or offering any surprises.

It's a reminder that if you stick a washing machine motor in a Ferrari it's just a washing machine that won't get your clothes clean and is too big to fit in your kitchen.


* The show has a reputed budget of $15 million per episode, which, if true, must all have gone on the salaries. The whole thing plays out on ordinary-looking sets and there's one effects shot, which wouldn't have looked out of place on Buffy, 20 years ago. All new shows claim to cost $15 million per episode, probably because that's what Game Of Thrones cost.

** Maybe that's because this is the first time they've made a telly show that isn't on telly and the people who hired them to make a show that isn't on telly want it to seem as much like a show that's on telly as possible. There's some insanely self-referential stuff about how when people hold a device in their hand that can bring them the entire world all telly can offer them is entertainment, which reads like a plea of self-justification from the programme-makers to their phone-maker employers

[Tiplodocus]

So sadly we made it to the end of THE AMERICANS. I really enoyed it through all six seasons. Thought they kept the stakes high and interesting and building each season.
And with good solid character arcs that didn't seem to flip-flop their positions from week to week. 

Felt very tense during the scenes of flight and a bit sad during the confrontation in the garage and then a gut punch when the train leaves the border control station which were pretty good feels and an indicator of how the characters get under your skin.

Was everything tied up neatly? No, not everything - in fact some of the ambiguity was very deliberate and all the better for it.

But main threads all got satisfactory closure for me as a viewer if not for some of the poor characters.

Just brilliantly written and realised telly.

[broodblik]

I enjoyed The Americans but I would have ended it where the family integrated into the American society rather than getting split up.

[radiator]

I really admired how restrained the ending to The Americans was, as it didn't end with the explosive fireworks Breaking Bad 'everybody dies' climax I was half expecting, and the resolution was much more concerned with character and personal cost than spectacle or body count.

I enjoyed The Americans but I would have ended it...

I disagree - the theme of the whole show was identity - having the family split at the end, with Philip and Elizabeth relegated to a 'home' they no longer recognise - seems a perfectly poignant and logical endpoint. It also allowed them to get out of the show alive, which lets be honest we all wanted them to, and yet still have to pay an unimaginable cost for everything they have done.

We ended up watching four or five episodes of the Reese Witherspoon/Jennifer Aniston/Steve Carrell drama seriesThe Morning Show on Apple TV+ yesterday - a sort of Network for the #metoo era. It's not a show I'd have chosen myself, but my girlfriend wanted to watch it. I didn't like it at all at the start, but must admit I got somewhat involved as it went on. If there is a problem with the show, it's that the writing is very heavyhanded and on the nose at times, and it's honestly really hard to get invested in the overall stakes, because who really gives a shit about the mainstream, squeaky floor studio news format anymore? It seems like a relic from a different era to me. The show is at it's most interesting when it lays bare the artificiality of everything, but other times it seems to want the audience to genuinely care about the news show and the plight of its pompous characters. It's a weird one.

[The Legendary Shark]

Several months ago I bought a box set of the first seven seasons of The Walking Dead for silly cheap from a pawn shop. It's been sat there ever since, giggling at me, because I don't really enjoy zombie stories. I've been regretting buying it.

In a moment of weakness, however, I started watching the thing and have properly enjoyed it. Great characters and absorbing stories with quite a few outstanding episodes (such as the one with the two little blond girls, and the one with Darrel in the cell).

Now I have to get the rest of it. Bloody zombies.

[Tiplodocus]

Yeah, that Season 4 episode ("The Grove") is some of the best television I've ever seen and has stayed with me. Sadly, that was peak Walking Dead got me, nothing matched it since.

[The Legendary Shark]

Maybe it's because I've binged the whole thing in a couple of weeks after expecting to can it in season one but it just got better for me. That Negan dude is an awesome villain and it's clear the actor playing him is having enormous fun ("Little pigs, little pigs, let me in,). It has its faults - flashbacks at the start of episodes have had me thinking I'd skipped ahead, or back, from time to time and Rick's trapped animal expression got old quick - but I can forgive them because, overall, it's all just so damned freaky deaky!