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

[Xprimentyl]

They are already talking about Winter coming.

That'[s the exact reason I stopped watching the original series. Everyone kept talking about winter coming, and it was supposed to be epic, but on, the series just kept reverting to people drinking passive-aggressively drinking wine, politics and backstabbery. Then they kept killing off characters I got marginally invested in. I eventually called it about season 3 or so. Don't regret it. No interest in the prequel.

 

[gorfias]

That'[s the exact reason I stopped watching the original series. Everyone kept talking about winter coming, and it was supposed to be epic, but on, the series just kept reverting to people drinking passive-aggressively drinking wine, politics and backstabbery. Then they kept killing off characters I got marginally invested in. I eventually called it about season 3 or so. Don't regret it. No interest in the prequel.

There was a meme of a smirking George Martin asking, "Oh, you have a favorite character? Not anymore."

View attachment 6848

I have no immediate intention of watching it. I've reached this point in my viewing life where I have to ask myself some hard questions before doing this shit again. One of the nice parts about Sandman, which was pretty great, is that it's an anthology. The comic book is just a collection of stories. So if the show wasnt that great, like "oh well". Where this Tyler Perrys Big Dragons' House is one of those deals where they NEEEEEEEED us to invest. IT MUST BE 6 SEAASONS or fuckin whatever. So you know even if this season is solid, you know its going to be full of cliffhangers and shit. You have to pray the same people who just cancelled half their network commit to finishing the story. I say no thank you. I'll catch up when its a few seasons in and has some kind of exit strategy.



fuuuuuck that mystery box shiiiit. Not again, they fucked me hard on Raised By Wolves and my ass is still very sore.

I liked Season 1 of Raised by Wolves (Episode 1 was insane fun!) but couldn't stay involved in Season 2 and never finished. GIven your statement, I shouldn't go back.

 

[Piscian]

There was a meme of a smirking George Martin asking, "Oh, you have a favorite character? Not anymore."


I liked Season 1 of Raised by Wolves (Episode 1 was insane fun!) but couldn't stay involved in Season 2 and never finished. GIven your statement, I shouldn't go back.

season 2 took forever to start going somewhere and then it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, the series is cancelled so it was kind of a stab in the back because literally nothing is resolved.

I didnt like season 2, but this is that exactly mystery kinda series that isnt good unless the complete story is told.

 

[gorfias]

The Sandman.
Wasn't gonna bother saying anything about this as everyone has already said enough. But then they released the bonus 11th episode about cats so now I feel qualified enough to say yup! You did alright.

Funny coincidence. I just watched a movie called Licorice Pizza tonight. Bradley Cooper has a small part in which he plays Jon Peters and I'm asking who is that? I looked it up on Wikipedia and found,

"
The Sandman
Peters was a producer for a planned adaptation of the Sandman comics for Warner Bros., which became stuck in development in 2001.[11] Sandman creator Neil Gaiman called the last screenplay for the film that Warner Bros. would send him "not only the worst Sandman script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read."[12] In a 2005 interview regarding the film, Gaiman commented: "But Sandman movies, they just got increasingly appalling... They started out hiring some really good people... And then Jon Peters fired all of them and got in some people who take orders, and who wanted fistfights and all this stuff. It had no sensibility... they were horrible."[13] "

We could have had this 20 years ago if they guy hadn't screwed it up.

 

[Piscian]

Funny coincidence. I just watched a movie called Licorice Pizza tonight. Bradley Cooper has a small part in which he plays Jon Peters and I'm asking who is that? I looked it up on Wikipedia and found,

"
The Sandman
Peters was a producer for a planned adaptation of the Sandman comics for Warner Bros., which became stuck in development in 2001.[11] Sandman creator Neil Gaiman called the last screenplay for the film that Warner Bros. would send him "not only the worst Sandman script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read."[12] In a 2005 interview regarding the film, Gaiman commented: "But Sandman movies, they just got increasingly appalling... They started out hiring some really good people... And then Jon Peters fired all of them and got in some people who take orders, and who wanted fistfights and all this stuff. It had no sensibility... they were horrible."[13] "

We could have had this 20 years ago if they guy hadn't screwed it up.

You may enjoy this story about Jon peters


Jon Peters is well known as this psychopath who got ahold of creative ownership of Superman among others. He started out as Barbaras Streisands hair dresser and somehow became an executive producer at WB. Nobody knows how or why. If you look it up he' got a credit on every superman movie, for no particular reason. Nolan supposedly kicked him off the set of Batman. I wont spoil the end of the Kevin Smith story but its hilarious.

 

[gorfias]

You may enjoy this story about Jon peters


Jon Peters is well known as this psychopath who got ahold of creative ownership of Superman among others. He started out as Barbaras Streisands hair dresser and somehow became an executive producer at WB. Nobody knows how or why. If you look it up he' got a credit on every superman movie, for no particular reason. Nolan supposedly kicked him off the set of Batman. I wont spoil the end of the Kevin Smith story but its hilarious.

Thank you that was terrific! And yes... giant spider in WWW! That explains so much! How an why do people fail up in Hwood!?!?! I've also seen Smith talk about his experiences with Prince. Special stuff.

I got to see Episode 11 of Sandman on Netflix. Pretty good. B.

These are pretty much straight up adaptations of existing works. 2 parts: 1 with cats inspired to dream of a better world for themselves and another of a muse captured by a writer. That 2nd part was really tamed for TV. The comic version was much, much more brutal.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh hey, Graham McTavish is in the new Game of Thrones show. Cool!

 

[Bartholen]

Oh hey, Graham McTavish is in the new Game of Thrones show. Cool!

The moment I saw him I went "where have I seen that guy". I didn't remember it in the moment, but he plays Dijkstra in the Netflix Witcher series. With pretty much exactly the same beard to boot. All he needs to do is show up in Rings of Power with the same beard again, and he'll have completed the giant budget streaming service fantasy adaptation trifecta.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The moment I saw him I went "where have I seen that guy". I didn't remember it in the moment, but he plays Dijkstra in the Netflix Witcher series. With pretty much exactly the same beard to boot. All he needs to do is show up in Rings of Power with the same beard again, and he'll have completed the giant budget streaming service fantasy adaptation trifecta.

I recognized him mainly from the Uncharted games.

 

[Agema]

Thank you that was terrific! And yes... giant spider in WWW! That explains so much! How an why do people fail up in Hwood!?!?!

My guess is that a fair bit of Hollywood is knowing people, rather than the business. After that, as we can see from failed blockbusters and unexpected hits, a lot of producers potentially have a poor idea of what is going to work when they start a project - not necessarily because of incompetence, though, maybe it's just very hard to predict.

Thus someone can perhaps get a start and go a fair way because they have the right connections, plus luck by working on projects that turn out well by chance more than design. However, that said, no matter how barking mad John Peters might seem from that story, and no matter that he seems to have got his start through little more than Barbara Streisand's favour, he has produced a lot of successful movies. He didn't fail up, he had a genuine track record of high achievement.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That'[s the exact reason I stopped watching the original series. Everyone kept talking about winter coming, and it was supposed to be epic, but on, the series just kept reverting to people drinking passive-aggressively drinking wine, politics and backstabbery. Then they kept killing off characters I got marginally invested in. I eventually called it about season 3 or so. Don't regret it. No interest in the prequel.

Same, people kept telling me "keep watching, it gets good", and it didn't. It kept showing signs of about to maybe get going, in between all the weird rape stuff, but I gave up after a while.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

House of the Dragon, episode 1

Turns out when you bring the actual creator of the world back to a project and are working with source material that's already finished, the end product is actually pretty good. It feels like a return to form for this world. While there are lavish special effects, sets and vistas (like seriously, the difference in production value between this and the first episode of GoT is staggering), they're used sparingly, and the core of the episode is still in the interplay between the characters. Which is also very well done and interesting based on this first episode. Paddy Considine is especially great as the beleaguered and troubled king Viserys. Daemon Targaryen seems maybe a bit too much like a smirking villain type, but still believable and multidimensional. It's maybe a bit disappointing visually since we're revisiting the same old locations we already had 8 seasons worth in Game of Thrones, but what are they supposed to do? One thing that definitely mars it are the blatant connections to Game of Thrones, but I don't know if that's a fault with the source material. I'm definitely interested to see where this is going.

The callbacks felt like cheap fan service more than anything, and were the lowest point of the premier. It’s been a few years but I doubt the audience needs to be given a, “Hey, remember this? *nudge-nudge, wink-wink*”. Although it’s still early and given we don’t know the course for the show or how close it'll get to the GoT timeline I’ll give it a pass. It must be kept plot relevant and to an absolute minimum though or it’ll be annoying.

The writing feels like it’s going to move the plot along with depth and nuance, but I feel that the show’s biggest hurdle will be creating a cast of equally if not more memorable characters as we had with GoT. I already miss Tyrion for instance. Hopefully it can stand on its own identity though too, as I can already sense another Littlefinger type of character brewing with what’s his face.

The lavish production values are of course welcomed and add a lot to the more actiony scenes, such as jousting and the melee fights that ensue therein. One cool detail was (IIRC, Daemon) getting knocked halfway off his horse after taking a hit and his metal armor wound up grinding the entire rail like a skater. The violence is occasionally brutal but with quick enough camera cuts it never feels excessive. GGRM is probably also pleased that the dragons seem to have more variety and individual characteristics here too.

 

[Piscian]

GOT was kind of a unicorn for the first few seasons in that pretty much all of the actors portrayal was identical to the books. They really breathed life into the characters. Specifically Tyrion and the Onion Knight. I loved the Onion Knight who acted as the audiences surrogate, being stressed out because all these lords & ladies are completely out of their tupperwear. I had this exact moment in episode 5.3 where I was just like "wtf" and stopped watching because not only did it stopped following the books but it started to drag. Like Walking Dead TV drama bad. Sure enough I found out that was when GRRM left, exactly at the start of season 5, leaving the writers with a loose outline. I really hate when shows are very clearly padding dialog and pacing to fill time and get from point a to point b and thats what it felt like. When the shows ending was announced I went back and finished it, but good god it was a slog, made especially painful by the fact that it had nothing to do with the books past Season 5.

One of the problems with GOT: Afterlife is while yes this series is prior history so it should be clean cut, I've read the wikis theres not a lot of story to be told. The funny thing about GOT is that all the big splishy splashy stuff mostly happened "in" GOT. The targaryens reign wasn't that interesting until the Mad Kings death which launched GOT. The other problem is that most of this is anecdotal. Martin didn't write a House Of Dragons trilogy or anything afaik, so a lot of this series was/is being made up on the fly. Technically, its filler. We also have to hope Martin sticks with it.

I'm just so tired of soulless franchising. I want to watch this series I really do, but I can't bring myself to invest a bunch of time like that again until this thing matures a bit.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Umbrella Academy

Similar to For All Mankind, this is a genre show that I don't really see discussed much and I don't know why, other than just the fact that there really is such a glut of content out there.
But it's pretty good!

I'm in the middle season 3 and it just kinda hit me that despite watching/reading/listening to almost everything on this site they don't talk about it.
It's as if Harry Potter and Marvel mushed together but actually fun. It's got the character relationship and humor of Marvel but IMO is never overly quipy or tedious about it. It somehow manages to be paced patiently enough to not irritate me with its corniness the way other big comic book stuff does but delivers on the thrills and action we watch this stuff for.

One thing this show does is go all-in on the PC/woke stuff, like it's so front-facing that it can't be targeted for complaints from the anti-woke dorks because it would be like criticizing steak for having too much beef. The most prominent season 3 realization of this is Elliot Page, formerly Ellen Page, transitioning in both real life and consequently on the show. But they also spent season 2 in Dallas 1963 and made the experience of the one black character during that time a core part of her story as well. None of it interferes with the action, relationships and humor which is key.

The show isn't hahah funny and yeah, there are quips especially with the crotchety old man in the body of a teenage boy. But it's never overwhelming and each episode is a good time. I think its ambitions are fair- a cool bit of escapism. It is a consistently good never great never terrible show. Maybe that's why it's not discussed? I highly recommend it though.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Watched Episode 2 of She-Hulk, which fairs a lot better than the first episode, probably because Jennifer Walters as a character gets to relax a bit and doesn't feel like she's thrown in the deep end. The actress playing her also gets to show off her a charisma a lot more, but unfortunately this gets severely curtailed by the green CG Michael Jackson face that gets slapped on her when she's actually She-Hulk.

Oh, and Mark Linn-Baker from Perfect Strangers is her dad, so that was nice. There's also a scene where we see Ally McBeal on a screen in the background, which is weird because Robert Downey Jr. was actually in that.

Also, why is 1/5th of the runtime of this show end credits? It's weirdly unsatisfying watching a half hour episode and cutting to credits with a full 7 minutes still on the clock.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Also, why is 1/5th of the runtime of this show end credits? It's weirdly unsatisfying watching a half hour episode and cutting to credits with a full 7 minutes still on the clock.

All the Marvels shows do that. The first time I saw it I just assumed there were going to be a bunch of post/in credits scenes and there was! But then there wasn't. So yeah I guess they have a lot of grips and costume designers and executive producers, I dunno. My wife and I make fun of it all the time. One episode ends, "I gotta go to the bathroom. Since it's Marvel credits I might as well do the dishes and catch up on work email."

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Boundless
(On Prime Video)


Premise
A series following the attempts to find a shorter route to the West Indies vaguely based on real events supposedly playing into the genre idea of the whole Men vs nature survival shows like The Terror and The Northern Waters.

Thoughts Tagline: Less the Northern Waters more the Western Bore-turds.

Thoughts:

So this is the 2nd property I've seen coming from Amazon's collaboration with a Spanish TV company / studio. Unfortunately this one is mediocre at best, despite starting with surprising levels of quality it all starts to fall apart the moment they get onto the ship set which feels small and claustrophobic but not seemingly by design. The set issue would be forgivable if the show managed it's writing and pacing better but at 6 x 45 minute episodes it tries to go through too much story and end up not giving the audience enough time to get to know most of the characters that end up as plot points early on. It's a case of "Hey remember those people you met for a whole 2 scenes previously? Well half an episode is no about their actions and untimely death are you shocked to see them die?" The problem being having had so little time to get to know the characters and their motivations and personality beyond their bare bones functionality in the plot you don't care about them being put to death it's not some great shock. Only about 2 moments and deaths really hit home for me and that was because they related to characters or were due to characters we'd spent far more time with and even one of those only borders on OK because again we got so little time with the character and only about 1 minute worth of scenes showing any kind of motivations or desires. I never finished the Northern Waters because jesus it was grim but I did finish the Terror and this show really feels like it falls short of what I saw of the first and falls definitely short of the second.

It's a real shame it feels like with a bit more budget and maybe 2-6 more episodes to spread the story over this could have been really something good.

 

[Hades]

They are already talking about Winter coming.

You'd think they'd want to avoid bringing up the Whitewalkers considering the audience knows that they can be beaten in a single episode by a little girl with a knife. What's that king so worried about.

So, I'm giving this a chance. And so far, it's pretty good. Matt Smith is a properly hissable villain. I look forward to seeing if he can out do Joffrey.

He's more akin to Jaime honestly. There's another character in the show who seems deliberately designed as a Joffrey expy.

 

[gorfias]

The Umbrella Academy

Similar to For All Mankind, this is a genre show that I don't really see discussed much and I don't know why, other than just the fact that there really is such a glut of content out there.
But it's pretty good!

I'm in the middle season 3 and it just kinda hit me that despite watching/reading/listening to almost everything on this site they don't talk about it.
It's as if Harry Potter and Marvel mushed together but actually fun. It's got the character relationship and humor of Marvel but IMO is never overly quipy or tedious about it. It somehow manages to be paced patiently enough to not irritate me with its corniness the way other big comic book stuff does but delivers on the thrills and action we watch this stuff for.

One thing this show does is go all-in on the PC/woke stuff, like it's so front-facing that it can't be targeted for complaints from the anti-woke dorks because it would be like criticizing steak for having too much beef. The most prominent season 3 realization of this is Elliot Page, formerly Ellen Page, transitioning in both real life and consequently on the show. But they also spent season 2 in Dallas 1963 and made the experience of the one black character during that time a core part of her story as well. None of it interferes with the action, relationships and humor which is key.

The show isn't hahah funny and yeah, there are quips especially with the crotchety old man in the body of a teenage boy. But it's never overwhelming and each episode is a good time. I think its ambitions are fair- a cool bit of escapism. It is a consistently good never great never terrible show. Maybe that's why it's not discussed? I highly recommend it though.

So far, 2, 1, 3 in order of favorites. A 4th and final season is coming. Episodes that kinda fail in this show are still better then the best of other shows.

 

[Agema]

So far, 2, 1, 3 in order of favorites. A 4th and final season is coming. Episodes that kinda fail in this show are still better then the best of other shows.

I concur: Umbrella Academy episodes are generally somewhere between satisfactory and good. Overall, it's pretty good TV.