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

[stroopwafel]

Lain isn't the most accessible show but it's a fucking brilliant one. A meditation on identity, communication and technology in an increasingly connected world. I have no idea why I didn't watch it sooner but I'm glad I finally got around to it.

You should give Texhnolyze a try. It's by the same creators as Lain and it's hands down the best show I've ever seen(anime or otherwise). Infact I can't think of any story that ever impressed me more. It's a product of visionary genius.

I've heard of it! Isn't it supposed to be super bleak and depressing?

Only a little. It is exceptional though. I love how the show contrasts the animalistic will to live with the passive complacency of a tranquil utopia, and how you can't remove the undesirable instincts without eradicating the very thing that drives us. In that way it examines the second half of nihilism, when there is no reason for existence the very will to live is the reason. Without this primitive drive, people become too depressed to even end their own lives and can only passively wait. The show examines the human condition and it's conflicting motives but also recognizes the element of fate. Not in some kind of supernatural sense but how the patterns of human behavior, both the individual and the society at large, are railroaded by our impulses and beliefs and draws them to their natural conclusion.

Like with the protagonist Ichise, Ran predicts he will die alone and unloved, and Ichise does everything to prevent this fate. He protects Ran and never loses himself like most people do, but his own character and the circumstances he finds himself in only ever allowed for a predetermined set of outcomes, and he ends up alone again. It's sobering, but I think it says something that is very true about life. Every person, in a way, is set on the trajectory of genetics and circumstance that allows for only a limited set of outcomes.

The cyberpunk element is also extraordinary, with invasive cybernetic changes allowing for a selective kind of inbreeding that changes human nature beyond recognition. This also is drawn to it's natural conclusion, with one of the main antagonists thinking reality itself exists only in his mind as he..well I don't wanna spoil. xD The show is just an absolute masterpiece in how it escalates it's philosophical themes in conjuction with story and character progression. In the end you're totally convinced that yeah, this is probably how humanity ends. However 'depressing' the pointlessness of suffering is in a life without implicit meaning, the show still makes a convincing case how only eradication of primitive impulses robs life of the only direct meaning it has; namely the mere will to live itself. Even if that, as life fades away, produces no more than a melancholical reminiscence of what could have been.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Happy! (Season 2)

The first season of Happy! was something I had very mixed feelings about. The second season is something I have mostly the same feelings about but I think now I am more confident about them. Happy!, the first season, was a show about an unhinged ex cop with an alcohol problem saving his daughter from a syndicate of child slavers lead by a depraved television host with the help of the daughters Imaginary Friend, a small blue alicorn named Happy. The second season is about the same cop confronting said syndicate and its leader once again. And his daughter getting kidnapped once again, even if this time it only happens about midway through.

I really tried my hardest to like the series, it's certainly a charming enough premise, but at the same time I can't help but feel it's trying too hard. Happy! is a show constantly trying to out-gross, out-weird and out-gore itself, it's a vulgar joke in desperate need of a straight man. And I think that's my problem with it. It's whole shtick feels like it's taking the inherent cynicism of the film noir genre and taking it to it's logical extreme, showing an almost surreal New York where practically everyone is violent, everyone is perverted and everyone is insane. Insane protagonist, insane kidnapper, insane mobsters, insane cops... there is certainly something kinda punk about Happy!'s depiction of a man on the edge taking on a world gone mad in a way mostly involving groteque violence, especially juxtaposed with the titular unicorns cheery attitude, but to me it feels like everyone's just a bit too self aware for the dark, gritty humor to really land. Chris Meloni, playing protagonist Nick Sax is just too exaggerated a caricature of the "cop gone over the edge" character and so is most of the supporting cast. It's not that everyone's pretty much a cartoon, it's that everyone seems to be aware that they're a cartoon and insisting they turn a film noir premise into a loony toons routine. And at some point the whole things become's too zany and too unrelatable too hit, especially seeing how it's just a bit too overproduced for the gritty, sleazy low budget action flick style to feel authentic.

About two years ago there was an incredibly underappreciated series named Blood Drive that was just slick enough to work as a high budget pastiche of sleazy 70s and 80s B-movies, succesfully navigating itself not only through a plot that managed to combine the earnestness of the movies it was parodying while still maintaining a self aware sense of humor about itself. Blood Drive turned hyperviolent, oversexed direct-to-video shlock into an entertaining posapocalyptic odyssey through a variety of American Anxieties, Happy! is not quite smart and not quite well made enough to justify how it indulges in its own disaffected cynicism. There's nothing wrong with mean spirited humor but humor does require a certain sense of restraint and timing that Happy! mostly lacks.

In the end it still has some creative ideas and neat action sequences but overall I don't feel it was worth sticking with as long as I did. It failed at entertaining me more often than it succeeded.

 

[09philj]

The Virtues (Channel 4, four episodes)

Shane Meadows, the director of This is England and Dead Man's Shoes, is well known for his harsh social realism. The Virtues might be one of his bleakest works yet. Stephen Graham stars as Joseph, who ran away from a children's home in Ireland to Liverpool aged nine, and has returned to Ireland to reconnect with his sister. It's an astounding piece of work. The performances are real and raw, and the cinematography mixes fantastically intimate and artful shooting for the present day sequences, and shaky handheld video for flashbacks. PJ Harvey's oppressive score complements all this beautifully. It's not a fun watch, but it's captivating viewing.

 

[Nuuu]

Been looking for anime with some really unique art/animation styles recently, and that brought me to watch:

The Tatami Galaxy/Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei (No English dub so its English name doesn't give great search results)

Which I absolutely loved. Produced by Madhouse so it's already got that seal of quality, but the entire show has fantastic art direction, planning, and undertones that really makes it stand out in the end. The writings very fun too and creates an interesting Japanese take of a Groundhog Day type of scenario.
The only downside I can give it is that it's not a subtitled show to watch if you're a slow reader. The characters talk VERY fast and it takes a little bit to get used to the verbal pacing.

The other I just finished was Ping Pong The Animation, which while not the most aesthetically beautiful, I had to give a watch because of how grounded and normal all the characters looked.
Loved all the different artstyles the show used, and ended up being a very feel-good story. No real antagonists, just different people with their own problems, aspirations, and personalities.
Plus the opening is great.

Spoiler

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v6iOVhw6mQ If the embed didn't work)

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

The Virtues (Channel 4, four episodes)

Shane Meadows, the director of This is England and Dead Man's Shoes, is well known for his harsh social realism. The Virtues might be one of his bleakest works yet. Stephen Graham stars as Joseph, who ran away from a children's home in Ireland to Liverpool aged nine, and has returned to Ireland to reconnect with his sister. It's an astounding piece of work. The performances are real and raw, and the cinematography mixes fantastically intimate and artful shooting for the present day sequences, and shaky handheld video for flashbacks. PJ Harvey's oppressive score complements all this beautifully. It's not a fun watch, but it's captivating viewing.

Yeah, been watching that also as Shane Meadows' work has always been of impressive quality and heartfelt characters. I read an interview recently he brought inspiration from his own troubled past with the subject matter in the show, and it shows. Very empathetic experience. Stephen Graham is consistently great whatever he does too.

 

[Hawki]

X-Ray and Vav: Season 2 (2/5)

Season 2 is an improvement over season 1. That isn't to say that it's good. When you start out bad, just because you improve from being bad, that doesn't mean you're necessarily good, or even average.

Pretty much all the complaints I listed in my season 1 review still exist here, only they're slightly mitigated. The voice acting is slightly better. The plot is slightly better. The characters are slightly better. There's improvements here and there, but what improvements exist, they're not nearly enough to elevate this show into something I really want to watch. The creators said that there wouldn't be a season 3 because season 2 was the end of "the story," and I'm left to ask "what story?" Story about two man-children either messing things up, or saving the city from unengaging villains? Yes, it's a comedy, but it doesn't even really work as that.

Am I being harsher here than before? Yes. It's easy to forgive flaws in a show's first season, or at least, easier to forgive them than when compared to the second. By the second though, I've run out of patience. All I can say is that even if I confine this to Rooster Teeth, when it's got 2D animation like Camp Camp and Nomad of Nowhere (still waiting for season 2 guys...), the question is thus raised, what reason is there to watch X-Ray and Vav over them? Far as I can tell, the answer is none.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Good Omens

You know, sometimes you're just glad you got to see something. The novels of Terry Pratchett were a big part of my youth, I'd even go as far as to say that they were for me what Harry Potter was to most of the rest of my generation. And, well, the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman novel this was adapted from was also something I grew up with and... man, it's just such a great adaptation.

Good Omens is a story about the biblical end times, you know, Antichrist, Horsemen of the Apocalypse and stuff. Our protagonists are angel Arziraphael (Michael Sheen) and demon Crowley (David Tennant) who, during their time on earth, have not only grown fond of each other but also of life on earth itself. So when both heaven and hell prepare for their last battle the two of them do their best to sabotage the coming apocalypse and sage earth. The book was a wonderful little piece of british humor and stands as one of the best works of both Pratchett and Gaiman and the series is a mostly very faithful adaptation. Almost all the characters look and act exactly the way they are supposed to, most of the humor lands, most of the setpieces are presented as well as they could have been on a made for tv budget.

I'm sure by the end of the year Good Omens will stand as one of my favourite... things to have come out in 2019, I was fully prepared to nitpick the show to death if it didn't do the book justice but it absolutely did. It was exactly what I wanted it to be, I loved it, go watch it. 'nuff said.

 

[Hawki]

Nightflyers (1/5)

This show is crap.

The writing is crap. The characters are crap. The pacing is crap. The set design is crap. The music is crap. The whole thing is just crap.

Okay, maybe a bit harsh, but I can't think of a single thing this show actually does well, because all round the board, it's just lacklustre. Lost interest quickly, and it never regained my interest since that early point. Honest, it would take far too long to explain everything that's wrong with this, so all I can say is that it has no redeeming value. I mean, FFS, intentional or not, the series has elements cribbled from 2001 and Solaris, but somehow manages to be even worse.

Like, maybe it's a problem with the source material. I dunno. But if Syfy wanted to adapt sci-fi stuff from George R.R. Martin, couldn't they have chosen Tuf Voyaging instead?

 

[Baffle]

Good Omens

I started watching this but just couldn't get into it -- I think both of the leads are good actors but it was a bit too hammy for me. They did a great job of making Tennant look a bit (but not too much) like a lizard though.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Firefly

A one season Science-Fiction series by Joss Whedon, the man responsible for Buffy, the worse half of the Avengers movies and guilty of Justice League and Alien Resurrection. Firefly is a cult classic among people slightly older than me and generally considered to have been cancelled prematurely.

Having now finally gotten around to seeing it I'm not entirely sure if it deserves that cult status. It follows a small group of outlaws under ruggedly handsome war veteran Malcolm Reynolds as they take on various jobs,run from the government and reluctantly protect a pair of siblings, one of whom has been experimented on in a government facility for her telepathic powers.

Firefly is going for a Western movie inspired approach to its genre which surely has a certain novelty and most of its characters are decently likeable (the always enjoyable Alan Tudyk as goofy pilot Wash and Gina Torres as his wife and first mate Zoe standing out especially) but... Let me be honest, I don't think Whedon is a very good writer. His approach to dialogue worked in Buffy, when it came from ditzy teenagers, having hardened space outlaws talk like that isn't cute, it's stupid. I feel like the series only really lives up to its potential in episodes neither wirtten nor directed by him. Highlights to look out for are episodes written by Ben Edmund, creator of superhero parody The Tick.

If Whedon had been more interested in setting up a larger plot and properly building his world than in Monica Baccharins cleavage and Jewel Staites feet his show might not have been cancelled after the first season but it is as it is. I'm not saying that what there is of Firefly is bad. By all accounts, it did deserve better than it got. But for having been hyped up as some sort of masterpiece it was somewhat less than I expected.

I have yet to see the movie. Maybe that's gonna change my opinion.

 

[Trunkage]

Firefly

A one season Science-Fiction series by Joss Whedon, the man responsible for Buffy, the worse half of the Avengers movies and guilty of Justice League and Alien Resurrection. Firefly is a cult classic among people slightly older than me and generally considered to have been cancelled prematurely.

Having now finally gotten around to seeing it I'm not entirely sure if it deserves that cult status. It follows a small group of outlaws under ruggedly handsome war veteran Malcolm Reynolds as they take on various jobs,run from the government and reluctantly protect a pair of siblings, one of whom has been experimented on in a government facility for her telepathic powers.

Firefly is going for a Western movie inspired approach to its genre which surely has a certain novelty and most of its characters are decently likeable (the always enjoyable Alan Tudyk as goofy pilot Wash and Gina Torres as his wife and first mate Zoe standing out especially) but... Let me be honest, I don't think Whedon is a very good writer. His approach to dialogue worked in Buffy, when it came from ditzy teenagers, having hardened space outlaws talk like that isn't cute, it's stupid. I feel like the series only really lives up to its potential in episodes neither wirtten nor directed by him. Highlights to look out for are episodes written by Ben Edmund, creator of superhero parody The Tick.

If Whedon had been more interested in setting up a larger plot and properly building his world than in Monica Baccharins cleavage and Jewel Staites feet his show might not have been cancelled after the first season but it is as it is. I'm not saying that what there is of Firefly is bad. By all accounts, it did deserve better than it got. But for having been hyped up as some sort of masterpiece it was somewhat less than I expected.

I have yet to see the movie. Maybe that's gonna change my opinion.

The first half of the season is not very good. Didn't mind the silliness of Janetown but that's when a lot of people check out. Ariel is my fav by far, then Jubal Early.

Serenity isn't that much better. It won't change your mind.

And this comes from a person you likes Firefly, one of those old folks who watched it in the day

Edit: Only partially guilty of Justice League. I also thought it was better than MoS and BvS

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Edit: Only partially guilty of Justice League. I also thought it was better than MoS and BvS

Yes, that's a fairly popular opinion but I don't agree with it. I'm a pretty big fan of Snyder and while I didn't like Man of Steel much, the Director's Cut of BvS is easily one of my favourite movies of the decade. Would Justice League have been better received or more commercially succesful if Snyder would have had the final cut? I don't know. But I do know that I'd have enjoyed it more.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I don't think Whedon is a very good writer. His approach to dialogue worked in Buffy, when it came from ditzy teenagers...

Did it though? Did it really? The problem with whedon, especially Buffy whedon, is that every character's dialogue is written is if they're the same person. That person being whedon wanting to quip about everything and explain their feelings out loud all the time is if no-one ever suppresses anything, so you might as well just replace each person's face with that of the writer and get a far more accurate experience instead. Ditzy teenagers still have individual personalities and a sense of not wanting to describe every personal emotion out loud. Some even aren't ditzy! Who would've thought? I haven't seen all his work, but what I have seen still follows that similar pattern of everyone basically being whedon's mouthpiece. Ever since youth, I found that style irritating and couldn't figure out why nobody around me noticed it. They'd all talk about how cool the show was and I'd just sigh as usual that another popular thing isn't as enjoyable as it was made out to be.

 

[Trunkage]

Edit: Only partially guilty of Justice League. I also thought it was better than MoS and BvS

Yes, that's a fairly popular opinion but I don't agree with it. I'm a pretty big fan of Snyder and while I didn't like Man of Steel much, the Director's Cut of BvS is easily one of my favourite movies of the decade. Would Justice League have been better received or more commercially succesful if Snyder would have had the final cut? I don't know. But I do know that I'd have enjoyed it more.

I actually don't hate Mos and BvS that much. I liked the bait and switch of Lex but the worst part of the movie was the fight (which everyone seemed to enjoy). It's pretty much Batman throwing heaps of green because Batman is actually useless. Sure he's prepared but it the exact same preparedness, there is no creativity there. But then, if your fighting Superman, there probably wouldn't be. Also, Martha.

I don't like the Christopher Reeves movies for pretty much the exact reason why I don't like Captain America 1. Pompous, Self-Righteous, Propaganda laden trash. MoS was better.

 

[Elfgore]

I've just hit season four of Scrubs. I tried to watch it once before about five or so years ago, but completely failed to get into it. Not this time. Been having a total blast, it's got just the right amount of wackiness a comedy needs while not being afraid to throw in some very dramatic or sad moments.

 

[BrawlMan]

Firefly

A one season Science-Fiction series by Joss Whedon, the man responsible for Buffy, the worse half of the Avengers movies and guilty of Justice League and Alien Resurrection. Firefly is a cult classic among people slightly older than me and generally considered to have been cancelled prematurely.

Having now finally gotten around to seeing it I'm not entirely sure if it deserves that cult status. It follows a small group of outlaws under ruggedly handsome war veteran Malcolm Reynolds as they take on various jobs,run from the government and reluctantly protect a pair of siblings, one of whom has been experimented on in a government facility for her telepathic powers.

Firefly is going for a Western movie inspired approach to its genre which surely has a certain novelty and most of its characters are decently likeable (the always enjoyable Alan Tudyk as goofy pilot Wash and Gina Torres as his wife and first mate Zoe standing out especially) but... Let me be honest, I don't think Whedon is a very good writer. His approach to dialogue worked in Buffy, when it came from ditzy teenagers, having hardened space outlaws talk like that isn't cute, it's stupid. I feel like the series only really lives up to its potential in episodes neither wirtten nor directed by him. Highlights to look out for are episodes written by Ben Edmund, creator of superhero parody The Tick.

If Whedon had been more interested in setting up a larger plot and properly building his world than in Monica Baccharins cleavage and Jewel Staites feet his show might not have been cancelled after the first season but it is as it is. I'm not saying that what there is of Firefly is bad. By all accounts, it did deserve better than it got. But for having been hyped up as some sort of masterpiece it was somewhat less than I expected.

I have yet to see the movie. Maybe that's gonna change my opinion.

Considering Whedon "borrowed" notes from Outlaw Star, just watch that instead.

 

[Hawki]

Still the most disappointing thing since my son...

Eldarion? 0_0

F

If Whedon had been more interested in setting up a larger plot and properly building his world than in Monica Baccharins cleavage and Jewel Staites feet his show might not have been cancelled after the first season but it is as it is. I'm not saying that what there is of Firefly is bad. By all accounts, it did deserve better than it got. But for having been hyped up as some sort of masterpiece it was somewhat less than I expected.

I can't flaw Firefly for lack of worldbuilding. It's character rather than setting driven, and at one season long, any worldbuilding would be fairly redundant.

Want worldbuilding, go for the EU.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Still the most disappointing thing since my son...

Eldarion? 0_0

F

If Whedon had been more interested in setting up a larger plot and properly building his world than in Monica Baccharins cleavage and Jewel Staites feet his show might not have been cancelled after the first season but it is as it is. I'm not saying that what there is of Firefly is bad. By all accounts, it did deserve better than it got. But for having been hyped up as some sort of masterpiece it was somewhat less than I expected.

I can't flaw Firefly for lack of worldbuilding. It's character rather than setting driven, and at one season long, any worldbuilding would be fairly redundant.

Want worldbuilding, go for the EU.

Well he ain't no Dior the Fair that's for sure.

 

[Hawki]

Murder on the Wireless (3/5)

If I had to sum up this stage play in one word, it would be "quaint." The premise is that we, the audience, are in the year 1959 watching a BBC radio play. Y'know, the type of stuff that was common before movies and TV took over. We're treated to two murder mysteries, one an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, the other an original work that emulates detective pulp fiction. So, less stage acting, and more recitation, as we see the actors reading their lines from set up microphones, plus the audio technician (a grumpy chain smoker who never says anything, but makes it clear that she's fed up with her job through her facial expressions).

Going into this, I actually expected an actual murder to occur, that the technician would murder one of her colleagues. That didn't happen. It's effectively us just watching a radio play. So, that's why I can call it quaint, because the material we're given is quite simple. Which is kind of the point, I guess, but still, while I can respect its originality, doesn't change how the material we're provided with lacks a lot of 'meat.' Still, not a bad time.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Lucifer Season 4 on Netflix

I liked it. Then again, I've always liked the series. I like the mix of seriousness and humor and think the show has always had a pretty good level of quality. And it certainly doesn't hurt that it seems quite obvious that the cast and crew are actually having fun while making it.

If I had any major quibbles about the direction they went in the current season, it would be that the previous seasons had moments of very good subtle acting mixed in with the over-the-top bits. The mixture seems to have slid more towards the overt side of the spectrum for this season. Not completely, but enough that it is noticeable.

It's a show that isn;t to everyone's tastes, but I love it and highly recommend it.