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Current TV Boxset Addiction

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

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Skullmo

Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 20 October, 2014, 05:02:50 PM
Just finished 'The Wire' season 3 well now that was fun. I'm not sure it was quite as good as season 2, but then Omar wasn't quite as fantastic as he was in that. It certainly had some quite phenomenal episodes that for me would rank as highly as any in the other two great TV shows (Breaking Bad and The Sopranos) episodes 9 and 12 in particular. The rest had some really wonderful moments but overall for the longest time it felt like it was peddling too many things... which I guess is why episode 12 was such a relevant, it did manage to bring everything to an end very nicely indeed, quite brilliant.

The big letdown for me was the... well events of episode 11, if you've seen it you know. While I loved the balcony conversation and all weight that carried I felt the big ending had been coming for a while and therefore lost a lot of impact. Shame.

Still this is still up there with the afore mentioned big 2 quite breath-taking telly.

I loved Season 3, I even enjoyed that big ending.

Season 4 is my favourite though!
It's a joke. I was joking.

pictsy

I have recently been watching The X-Files and the original Battlestar Galactica.

The X-Files is pretty solid television.  Perhaps laughable in places, not to the extent that it distracts from a pretty well crafted formula.  Even though the show is enjoyable I am finding it difficult to binge on.  Maybe because I watched far too many episodes back to back when I had the flu.  I will be dipping back into this show in the interim between now and the next time I see my partner - we will be watching the new BSG hopefully in its entirety if it goes down well.

With the thought of that in mind I also started giving the original BSG a go.  Actually better than I was expecting and certainly a more enjoyable experience than that I had with Star Trek TOS(s).  It is still a little corny with a degree of insufferable sci-fi optimism that was common of the era.  It certainly has made me appreciate the rebooted version a lot more.  I may not get to the end of the series, but it's compelling enough to watch an episode a day at the moment.

Theblazeuk

I enjoy the X-Files most as a non-linear experience. In contrast to most shows, I prefer monster-of-the-week to ongoing mythology.

Wish it was on Netflix UK.

pictsy

I remember loving the ongoing mythology when it originally aired.  It was the most enigmatic thing I had ever seen on television at the time.  This is actually my first viewing of the show as a fully-fledged card-carrying adult and I was surprised how monster-of-the-week it is.  I am appreciating it in different ways than I did the first time around.

Watching this show and the first episode of the Constantine show has got me recently thinking more about Buffy the Vampire Slayer - which is my all time favourite monster-of-the-week show.

TordelBack

Sherlock, just finished Season 1.  Oh I don't know about this at all.  Obviously the two leads are impressive, but are the characters they portray actually any good?  After years of trying to persuade my Holmes-purist wife that we should watch this, I'm starting to feel a bit of a chump.  The season finale was fun simply because of the rapid succession of half-familiar puzzles, but at the same time, it was deeply silly. I suppose what annoys me, apart from inconsistent characterisation of Holmes himself (which could be intentional, I suppose, 'mercurial' covers many ills) and the slightly-unbelievable-as-an-army-doctor Watson, are the gaping plot holes... a Holmes mystery should be watertight, full of the outlandish and grossly improbable, but by the man's famous dictum never impossible - which these frequently are. 

I'll persevere for a bit longer.

Theblazeuk

Quote from: pictsy on 03 November, 2014, 01:50:07 PM
I remember loving the ongoing mythology when it originally aired.  It was the most enigmatic thing I had ever seen on television at the time.

Yeah I loved it too, though I was far too young to get it until it was well underway and the movie came out. I think this was part of the flaw of the mythology for me; by the time I could engage with it, I already had some suspicions that the conspiracies, secrets and more would ultimately fail to satisfy.

pictsy

Quote from: Theblazeuk on 03 November, 2014, 02:22:48 PM
Yeah I loved it too, though I was far too young to get it until it was well underway and the movie came out. I think this was part of the flaw of the mythology for me; by the time I could engage with it, I already had some suspicions that the conspiracies, secrets and more would ultimately fail to satisfy.

Yeah, I have been wondering about that.  The conspiracy and motives have already been spoilt for me (I haven't seen the movie in its entirety and my viewing was sporadic at best around the time it came out) it is a disappointment.  Thinking back, though, I think I enjoyed the mystery more.  These shadowy and mysterious people doing shady things for unclear purposes and ends was really compelling for me.  There was paranoia, uncertainty, subterfuge and distrust that lingered uncomfortably in the background - it was great.  Getting all the answers, in this case, could do nothing but disappoint as the compelling aspect is the frustration of not knowing the answers but, like Fox Molder, continuously pursuing it every week - mostly in the form of monster-of-the-week.  Given that I haven't seen all of the X-Files episodes and those I did watch I saw a long time ago I can't really say how well the show actually achieved this.  Nevertheless, from a nostalgic perspective this is what the show represented for me.

TordelBack

#712
Quote from: Theblazeuk on 03 November, 2014, 02:22:48 PM...I was far too young to get it until it was well underway and the movie came out.

Stop, you're killing me.

Coming at it from the perspective of being old enough at the time to know better, I too found the 'mythos' episodes the most compelling, and often resented what I thought of as filler.  Now, on the rare occasions that I have cause to think about X-Files, it's the better monster-of-the-weeks that really stand out as retrospective favourites.  Although I still have residual affection for the CSM and Krycek. 

Pictsy is absolutely right - knowing the solution to the big mysteries could never have been as satisfying as the search for truth.  But it still would have been nice if the answers were even vaguely interesting.


Professor Bear

Quote from: pictsy on 03 November, 2014, 01:29:46 PMWith the thought of that in mind I also started giving the original BSG a go.  Actually better than I was expecting and certainly a more enjoyable experience than that I had with Star Trek TOS(s).  It is still a little corny with a degree of insufferable sci-fi optimism that was common of the era.  It certainly has made me appreciate the rebooted version a lot more.

For me, the opposite was true - watching the new BSG made me appreciate the original a lot more, if only for being more ambitious, more forward-thinking, and less socially conservative than the remake (the original's Greek influence extended to a gay reading of the Starbuck/Apollo relationship, while the remake manages only to make a minor and unimportant character bisexual, but even then only manages to do so in a spin-off web series).

A good bridge between the two would be the underrated Space: Above and Beyond, which alongside Firefly was heavily stripmined for the BSG remake.  It's a straight-faced space war series about a squadron of fighter pilots based on a carrier craft, made by X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong (Fox Mulder even does a cameo).  It had the misfortune to run afoul of the (then) small world of sci-fi critics and fandom by getting into a feud with journalists who'd run a hatchet job on an early pirate print of the pilot, and as a result the show couldn't get a break even when it produced objectively classic episodes like Who Monitors the Birds, Sugar Dirt, or The Angriest Angel (the latter was remade beat-for-beat in the BSG episode Scar).  While not cheap-looking, it does show its age, but it's worth a gander.

Batman's Superior Cousin

Obsessively Watch

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Doctor Who
Game of Thrones
House of Cards

Occasionally Watch

Bojack Horseman
Criminal Minds
Falling Skies - Finishing next year
Have I Got News For You
Peaky Blinders
Star Wars Rebels
True Detective
Yonderland

Planning to Watch

Agent Carter
Daredevil
Galavant
Lilyhammer

Abandoned

American Horror Story
Continuum
Defiance
Homeland
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Blacklist
The Mentalist

Have a Healthy Interest In

Person of Interest
The legend of Korra

Ended

Boardwalk Empire
Utopia
I can't help but feel that Godpleton's avatar/icon gets more appropriate everyday... - TordelBack
Texts from Last Night

pictsy

Quote from: Allah Akbark on 03 November, 2014, 08:21:57 PM
For me, the opposite was true - watching the new BSG made me appreciate the original a lot more, if only for being more ambitious, more forward-thinking, and less socially conservative than the remake (the original's Greek influence extended to a gay reading of the Starbuck/Apollo relationship, while the remake manages only to make a minor and unimportant character bisexual, but even then only manages to do so in a spin-off web series).

We're probably going to disagree massively on this point.  I haven't completed the series but I haven't become aware of any reading of a gay relationship between Starbuck and Apollo and saying 'reading' suggests that it's never explicitly stated.  The remake makes other reference to non-hetero sexualities not only Gaeta (who I would argue is not a minor character and certainly not unimportant having many significant story lines including [spoiler]the attempted coup[/spoiler]) but also, for example, Admiral Helena Cain.  The show that is more open about sexuality would be the less socially conservative and that would be the remake.

I think the remake is certainly more ambitious, taking a beloved product and making such a drastic re-imagining but also adding weight with social, political, metaphysical and moral issues.  The original is barely equalling that ambition.  Although I was surprised to see Apollo's wife get killed in the original series I am not seeing anything as daring as a secret court dispensing people out of an airlock, yet.  Who knows, maybe things take a turn for the dark mid-season.

How watching the original is making me appreciate the remake more is seeing just which elements they took from the original show and what they did with them.  It's nice to see those elements in the original.  For instance I have just started watching the episode with the prisoners.  It's interesting to watch how that was originally dealt with it.  I think it's entirely appropriate how the remake built upon that foundation and really ran with the concept of convicts in the colonial fleet.

My bias towards the remake of BSG is always going to be fuelled by passion as I regard it as one of the finest Science Fiction shows I have ever seen.  There is only one show I would certainly say is better (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and maybe a handful I would consider better, but it really was an amazing breath of fresh air watching it.

I don't know whether I saw any Space: Above and Beyond.  I would certainly seek that one out and give it a go.  I always like Sci-Fi recommendations ;)

Frank


I just took a long toke on season 6 of Mad Men, where brylcreem and seersucker give way to love beads and cheesecloth. Highlights were the insane episode where they all lock themselves in the office over a weekend, get wrecked on uppers, and the show turns into The Prisoner; the droll device of having a soap within the show *, resulting in the gift of three Megans on screen at the same time **; and the psychological Hiroshima of Don's pitch to Hershey's.

I had to watch that last scene through my fingers.



* a show which takes flack for being too soapy

** evil blonde Megan with Mia Farrow's haircut rocks

Professor Bear

Quote from: pictsy on 03 November, 2014, 09:05:33 PMWe're probably going to disagree massively on this point.

Indeed we are, but when Starbuck tells Apollo he's jealous of Apollo's new wife, I'm afraid there's really no turning the Gay Subtext Train around and going back to the closet station.
Also don't watch Galactica 1980.  I enjoy it but I'm not blind or deaf - it's complete horseshit.  The final episode is great, though, and belongs in season 1 as the finale.

You cite Stand Alone Complex so I salute you, but shall see your anime reference and raise you one Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (redubbed in the west as Robotech), in which the titular giant starship searches for Earth while infiltrated by enemies made to look human, one of whom has a baby with a flight chief on the starship.  There's a love triangle between the daring space pilot main character, a sensible lady on the bridge whose job is supposedly important even though all she does is answer the phone and state the obvious (to the gruff and experienced Admiral who was close to retirement before the events of the series occurred), and a flighty, immature younger woman - the triangle is seemingly resolved after the show jumps ahead 18 months halfway through and everyone on the starship has relocated to a desolate planet they call Earth.  The pilot character ends up with the sensible lady from the bridge, all the fighters on the starship look like planes, and the ace fighter pilot character shockingly dies halfway through the series.

It reminds me of something, but I can't recall what that might be. :-\

pictsy

Quote from: Allah Akbark on 03 November, 2014, 10:48:51 PM
Indeed we are, but when Starbuck tells Apollo he's jealous of Apollo's new wife, I'm afraid there's really no turning the Gay Subtext Train around and going back to the closet station.
Also don't watch Galactica 1980.  I enjoy it but I'm not blind or deaf - it's complete horseshit.  The final episode is great, though, and belongs in season 1 as the finale.

It's not explicit enough for me.  When Starbuck says he is jealous I - in all honesty - took it to mean jealous of the love and commitment, not jealousy to Apollo's wife.  With Starbucks rampant womanising as well I am finding a gay subtext to be dubious and this to be a clear case of the difference between implication and inference.  Believe me, I'd love it if there was any 70's sci-fi show that challenges sexual 'norms'. 

Oh and I'm steering well clear of Galactica 1980.  I was exposed to it as a child and it left me with the impression that all of BSG was utter shite to be avoided like the plague.  It even took a bit of convincing to get me to watch the remake.

Quote from: Allah Akbark on 03 November, 2014, 10:48:51 PM
You cite Stand Alone Complex so I salute you, but shall see your anime reference and raise you one Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (redubbed in the west as Robotech), in which the titular giant starship searches for Earth while infiltrated by enemies made to look human, one of whom has a baby with a flight chief on the starship.  There's a love triangle between the daring space pilot main character, a sensible lady on the bridge whose job is supposedly important even though all she does is answer the phone and state the obvious (to the gruff and experienced Admiral who was close to retirement before the events of the series occurred), and a flighty, immature younger woman - the triangle is seemingly resolved after the show jumps ahead 18 months halfway through and everyone on the starship has relocated to a desolate planet they call Earth.  The pilot character ends up with the sensible lady from the bridge, all the fighters on the starship look like planes, and the ace fighter pilot character shockingly dies halfway through the series.

It reminds me of something, but I can't recall what that might be. :-\

I see what you did there ;)

Not seen that anime.  There's a massive list of anime shows that are on my 'need to watch list'.  I get hassled most for not having seen Cowboy Beebop.  Neon Genesis Evangelion is the one that I'm most curious about.

HdE

For the love of God, Pictsy, see if you can watch one or to episodes fo Evangelion before you commit to watching the whole thing. I think it's appallingly over-rated, and more than bit crap. But it seems to endear itself to a lot of folks, so clearly I'm just on one side of the fence there.

Cowboy Bebop, on the other hand, is really essential viewing. You may find, as I did, that you watch it through and think 'huh, what's all the fuss about?'

But it leaves a deep groove. And when you get to the final episode, there will be tears. Oh, lawdy, will there ever be tears.

Incidentally, Stand Alone Complex is THE anime everyone should see before they die. Or, at least, before Dreamworks screw it up with a horribly butchered and mis-cast summer movie version of it.
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