Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)

[Old_Hunter_77]

I'm A Virgo - (Prime)

This appeared on my radar recently and I do plan on watching this.

The Serpent Queen, first three episodes
Continuing the style of historical soap opera cheese like The Borgias (which I watched) and The Tudors (which I did not), this show is about Catherine de Medici, queen of France in the 16th century. It takes the modernizing smug self-awareness of this genre to the max with 4th wall breaking and sensationalized scenarios very loosely based on history, with 3rd wave feminist trappings. So it's all very silly but also very fun, moves along at a nice clip and certainly gives you a lot to look at. The strength and weakness is the cast and characterization where everybody is like a caricature. Most annoying thing is plot shortcuts, like people will just do thing to move to the next situation not because it makes sense. It's pure costume drama spectacle cheese.

The Bear, most of the second season
I still don't know if I actually like this show. Critical darling. The actors are super-good and sometimes they do this thing where like everybody is yelling at each other and it's like watching a musician play a fuckton of notes which I'm sure is very impressive but I have a headache. There are scenes of lovingly crafted cinematography and style and food porn and it portrays skill and craft and passion better than anything I've seen on TV, but it also makes me think "what is the point of all this?" It's the most fun to watch show that I never know why I watch it.

Vinland Saga, first 2 episodes
Was in the mood for some animated action. I dunno... it's weird that I'm watching Vikings speak in Japanese, am I bad for thinking that? Also there has been so much Viking stuff including, you know, the whole show Vikings. So I'll give it a few more and see if it hooks me.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Black Sails season 1

Gratuitous sex and violence and pirates. Annoyingly hard to understand what they are saying sometimes when they aren't using gender specific slurs. There's one female character who is almost exclusively called the C-Word, and another who is almost exclusively called a whore.

One of those shows where everyone betrays each other and changes sides every episode, but fairly well done, but unnecessarily sleazy.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Black Sails season 1

Gratuitous sex and violence and pirates. Annoyingly hard to understand what they are saying sometimes when they aren't using gender specific slurs. There's one female character who is almost exclusively called the C-Word, and another who is almost exclusively called a whore.

One of those shows where everyone betrays each other and changes sides every episode, but fairly well done, but unnecessarily sleazy.

I thought it should have been sleazier. I enjoyed the show, but really what I wanted was a Pirate version of Spartacus Blood and Sand

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Started Suits season 3

Definitely getting messier in terms of character entanglements and raised stakes, but also incredibly safe. Like, it really doesn’t matter how much shit these characters go through because nothing really changes. Sure they got rid of one of the former senior partners, but that’s only because he wasn't originally part of the main cast anyways. And he’s still on here and there as a background villain of sorts. They may have different sides fighting over a merger but none of the drama and threats that precede it ever amount to anything lasting. It’s so unbelievably “made for TV drama”, which brings me to a pet peeve -

This is a show where documents play a big part in moving the plot forward. As in, person A hands person B a paper(s) with proof of something they can use against someone to help their case. It obviously, without question has more details on it than the words, “Hello, idiot.” But without fail, less than one second after being handed something, person B responds with something like, “Oh this is good. We can use this.” like they read the whole bloody thing. It’s of course to move the plot along but it’s just looks so SMH stupid when you stop to think at all. The show also has a main character who can apparently memorize entire law books and dig through dozens of file boxes overnight to find something like a single sentence that can change the course of their deposition the next morning.

But whatever. I’m still drawn this cutthroat world as it’s a window into something that I’d absolutely hate being a part of IRL.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Watched the first three and a half episodes of Kindred: The Embrace, and it's a boring soap opera with occasionally some vampire stuff involved, but mostly they just sit around whingeing at each other which isn't particularly vampirey.

And, yes, it is based on Vampire: The Masquerade, so it's supposed to be boring and pretentious and not make much sense, but it looked for a bit like it was going to do something else.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Swimming with Sharks

Devil Wears Prada meets Neon Demon in a six-episode, 20 minutes-each miniseries that plays like a chopped-up 2 hour movie. Trashy fun. Sally Draper in the role of a Midwest upstart fucking and/or murdering her way to the top of a Hollywood studio run by Diane Kruger. I don't quite believe the speed and ease with which everything unfolds but who cares. I binged the thing in one sitting so props.

Apparently this is a sort of reimagining of a 1994 movie, same name, about an abusive movie exec and a long-suffering intern. The twist here other than gender-bending the characters is that the intern is not only considerably more toxic than the boss, but is inarguably psychotic from the get-go. So if this is supposed to make people bemoan cycles of abuse and transfer of abuse, it misses the mark by having the underdog start off as a clearly manipulative sicko with a twisted backstory.

The premise suggests Diane Kruger is going to play the Miranda Priestly character, horribly cruel and fun to hate, but frankly I was just sorry for her the whole show. She's the most sympathetic character in here. She's abused by the dude above her (creepy Donald Sutherland), can't quite court clients, her husband is useless and probably cheating, is desperately trying to get pregnant and failing and to top it off has to suffer Sally Draper's crazy obsession for her.

The show doesn't quite stick the landing regarding Sally and what the hell is going on with her. She does the loony scrapbooking on the wall thing (pictures, magazines) and is continuously manipulating people in order to ingratiate herself with some or sow discord among others, but for all the forethought it's never clear what her endgame is. Too much planning ahead for someone who doesn't seem to have a specific goal other than to surrender to blanket obsession.

 

[gorfias]

Watched the first episode of season 3 of The Witcher, still wondering when will I start caring about it lol
I love the game (The Wild Hunt), but the show is so poorly written with characters uttering ultra-cliché lines we see coming full 2 mins before they happen on screen, it becomes tiring after a while...

I can tell that Cavill is really into the role, but this show is perhaps the biggest proof that the screenplay can make or break a TV show regardless of its production values...
And it's far too late for this one IMO

I was wondering if it was just me. I am so excited by this property and by Cavill being in it and yet asking myself why I am finding this to be such a slog. I note that IMDB scores for Season 2 episodes are in the 8s. Season 3? E1 is a 7.1. The other 4 so far? 5s and 6s.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I haven't started Witcher 3 season 3 yet, probably will this weekend, but one thing that's been bugging me about the reception of the show is this criticism that it reminds people of the Hercules and Xena shows from the 1990's.
But... what's wrong with that? Those shows were fun. Cheesy of course, but fun. And yes, I know the answer- it was supposed to be Netflix' "Game of Thrones," the Witcher has book fans and game fans and we're all supposed to be very angry about what the show did, blah blah, I know, I was asking a rhetorical question.
But I guess I kind of like that it feels like a 90's cheesy action genre show. I kind of don't care what actually happens plot-wise per se.

I will be checking out a couple of the books from the library today to re-read them alongside watching the show for the heck of it, maybe that'll make me proper internet-mad.

I think Cavill was the wrong choice of Geralt, in retrospect. He basically tries to copy the game version in a TV show. His being a fan- the thing the internet loves about him- actually hurt the show, I think. Of course primary responsibility goes to the show's producers and head writers and all that and I'm not going to defend the show's pacing problems and the fact that things often seem rushed, not at all. But the whole "Cavill is great, Hersich is poop" narrative seems... sus.

 

[Absent]

Trying to enjoy Dead Set.

Failing.

 

[Absent]

And finished Poker Face. Weak ending. The cheapest "how to conclude an ark while leaving it open for a similar second season". Still, possibly the best series of these last 10 years.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Black Sails season 1

Gratuitous sex and violence and pirates. Annoyingly hard to understand what they are saying sometimes when they aren't using gender specific slurs. There's one female character who is almost exclusively called the C-Word, and another who is almost exclusively called a whore.

One of those shows where everyone betrays each other and changes sides every episode, but fairly well done, but unnecessarily sleazy.

It's when you find out Michael Bay was listed as a producer on this and you get to the ship battles that I think the show really shows how good it can be.

Minor spoiler here but

From my experience the show gets a bit muddled in Season 2 - 3 where it feels like they do a big character reveal (that's actually kind of handled really badly IMHO) for Flint and then in season 3 can't decide if they want it to stick or walk it back a bit

 

[gorfias]

Beef on Netflix

10 episode mini series, about 30 min or so each.

A construction worker and a socialite keep getting back at each other after they have a small road rage incident with each other. As the show progresses and the payback escalates, they make it obvious these 2 have other issues.

People kept telling me I have to see this and they were right. Great show. 9/10.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The Rig

8/10

(Free with Prime Video)


Premise:

The crew of the Kimloch Bravo oil rig were preparing for a change over with a number of them getting to go home having finished their latest time on the oil rig. Whatever plans they had are however thrown out of the window when a mysterious fog rolls in meaning no helicopters can come get them and a power fluctuation hits the rig followed by a mysterious tremor and massive pressure load. This is made worse by the loss of all contact with the outside world. The situation is made more dire when a crew member gets critically injured to the extent of needing a hospital and life saving surgery. Oh and then ash begins to mysteriously fall from the sky.

Thoughts in a tagline

Is this Lovecraft?

Expanded thoughts

Honestly I'd say this is possibly the best modern version of for a more appropriate term Lovecraftian or Cosmic horror. With some really actually cool visual story telling elements to the show that actually give visual changes to character development and arcs. Most of the effects are pretty good and oddly it's got quite a bit of grounding in real science concepts just taken a little further. It loses points because it does feel like a couple of episodes were mostly the show spinning its wheels to fill time with a formula of ' Something goes wrong on the rig, crew have to find a way to fix it, crew do daring / risky thing, disaster averted' and without these the show could maybe have been an episode or two shorter with a tighter story.

Spoilers thoughts be warned I'm spoiling it almost all now

So I like the fact the show really does keep you guessing as to what is going on until about the last 2 episodes. With episode 2 or 3 introducing the idea of the ash rain and fog having dropped a load of symbiotic spores over the platform that can infect people and cause rapid healing and regeneration of organisms they infect also causing the first of the crew infected to have prophetic visions of an impending disaster and begin acting irrationally. So initially it seems like a "The Thing" style scenario

As things progress however it seems more and more like something bigger is going on and these spores are something very old. The eventual reveal being a giant ancient mycelium network under the north sea and maybe longer that is an intelligent entity as such trying to act to protect itself and stop the earth becoming too damaged and being responsible for many mass extinction events on earth by manipulating the earths crust to cause devastation. Oh and the energy company running the place? They know about it and know it's been "infecting" oil wells turning all the oil back into organic matter and they've launched a plan to destroy the organism.

What I really liked was the evolution (and visual evolution) of the character Rose who starts off as a very prim proper corporate looking person with what I'd say was way too much make up and business attire with slicked back super neat pulled back hair. Only as she becomes more disillusioned with the energy company and starts to side with the rig workers more and more the make up lessens, she business shirt and skirt is replaced with rig worker gear and her hair while still tied back is far less tightly pulled back

I watched it based on your recommendation (it's a pretty easy watch since it's only 6 episodes), and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Spoiler

I don't think it's ever answered in the show whether "the ancestor" as they end up calling it caused the previous 5 extinction events, or just survived all of them. It doesn't seem like it would make sense for it to have caused all of the previous mass extinctions since it supposedly only competes with and destroys other life when it's attacked, and I don't think dinosaurs would have had any means of endangering it.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Beef on Netflix

10 episode mini series, about 30 min or so each.

A construction worker and a socialite keep getting back at each other after they have a small road rage incident with each other. As the show progresses and the payback escalates, they make it obvious these 2 have other issues.

People kept telling me I have to see this and they were right. Great show. 9/10.

Cool. Definitely my favorite show of the past couple of years.

 

[Piscian]

I'm just gonna be honest. I did not like The Bear season 2, for the same reason I stopped watching BEEF after episode one. It's just....fuckin depressing.

I'm not sure when I got like this, but I'm becoming less and less interested in non-fiction drama. I do not want to watch "The Whale" or "A Good Person" and I know what kind of person that makes me, but fuck I do not need to be sad when I'm off work. Watching people hate their lives and hate other people is just not my idea of a good time.

The Bear season 2 was greatly written, but the entire time I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's almost ironic that Carmy literally brings it up at one point and that Christmas episode, jesus christ. Thanks for explaining in ultra expressive detail why this guy killed himself. Awesome. I knew exactly how the season would end 3 episodes in and I was just on pins and needles throughout.

Help a brother out Marvel and make Hit Monkey Season 2 already. Cheer a ************ up.

 

[gorfias]

Cool. Definitely my favorite show of the past couple of years.

I think Beyond the Trailer with Gracie listed Beef at #4 so far this year.

I'm just gonna be honest. I did not like The Bear season 2, for the same reason I stopped watching BEEF after episode one. It's just....fuckin depressing.

I'm not sure when I got like this, but I'm becoming less and less interested in non-fiction drama. I do not want to watch "The Whale" or "A Good Person" and I know what kind of person that makes me, but fuck I do not need to be sad when I'm off work. Watching people hate their lives and hate other people is just not my idea of a good time.

The Bear season 2 was greatly written, but the entire time I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's almost ironic that Carmy literally brings it up at one point and that Christmas episode, jesus christ. Thanks for explaining in ultra expressive detail why this guy killed himself. Awesome. I knew exactly how the season would end 3 episodes in and I was just on pins and needles throughout.

Help a brother out Marvel and make Hit Monkey Season 2 already. Cheer a ************ up.

I could have skipped the Xmas episode. I was told it was great but I hated it and didn't need it to know what was happening in the show over all.

But episodes Honeydew and Forks were some of the best, uplifting, wonderful TV shows I've seen in some time.

Drama comes from conflict. Things couldn't keep going so well and have a great reason for season 3.

 

[jojithepainter]

Beef on Netflix

People kept telling me I have to see this and they were right. Great show. 9/10.

110% agree, hell - I even named my profile here after one of the characters in Beef I really, really hope they make more of it (somehow)

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Beef on Netflix

10 episode mini series, about 30 min or so each.

A construction worker and a socialite keep getting back at each other after they have a small road rage incident with each other. As the show progresses and the payback escalates, they make it obvious these 2 have other issues.

People kept telling me I have to see this and they were right. Great show. 9/10.

110% agree, hell - I even named my profile here after one of the characters in Beef I really, really hope they make more of it (somehow)

The biggest issue I had with it is the people in question and like half the supporting cast are often just too painfully stupid to watch. One of those shows that had me verbally cursing what I saw on screen. Not relaxing viewing lol. On that note, might be because it’s a not so gentle reminder I also too often do my own learning through experience (though not for road rage thank Christ).

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Caught up on The Witcher. It's fine... I know the internet likes to shit on it, some for good reason, some for racist/sexist stuff, and everything in between... but it's fine.
My favorite "criticism" of the show is that it's reminiscent of the 90's Hercules and Xena shows. But those shows were fun! I mean, silly at times, kind of chintzy, but exciting fun campy adventures with sexy powerful characters. So, yeah, The Witcher is Xena Warrior Princess. I'm fine with that.

 

[Absent]

Finished the WHOLE of Black Mirror's first season. First episode was just amusing. The other two were interestingly disturbing although a bit cheap at times (why did Daniel Kaluuya's character need to learn dancing if the plan was just to stick a glass shard to his own throat ?). But that's very evocative of scifi short stories, "what if's" that get pondered a lot but not too much. I also found them quite male-centered, that is centered around male scares above all (the sentimental loss of the woman) even though peripheral and more universal anxieties are also mobilized.

It's the least unenjoyable Charlie Brooker thing so far (after "A Touch of Cloth" and "Dead Set"), but still in that "more interesting than enjoyable category". I'm curious enough to check a second season. And maybe beyond, even though I've been warned of a drop in quality once it shifter to netflix.

But no Twilight Zone charm for now. Still too "dry" (like the other two series), lacks some... warmth, some human vibe, which, in Twilight Zone, took the form of some underlying poetry, and which would have made the "Touch of Cloth" jokes as funny as ZAZ stuff.

Oddly, Brooker's production gives me the impression of having been produced by an AI. Or Joachim Phoenix's Joker. Good ideas, too mechanical implementation.