The TV shows you've seen recently thread.

[Mupepe]

Ultimate Beastmaster is way more entertaining than it has any right to be. I've been watching it off and on all day.

[Mr. Gundam]

Ultimate Beastmaster is way more entertaining than it has any right to be. I've been watching it off and on all day.

It's pretty much more Ninja Warrior, which isn't a bad thing at all.

However, Charssia Thompson is a bit jarring for me as one of the American commentators. She's from Seattle and does a series of commercials for a local Chevrolet dealer and I keep expecting her to start shilling for the "Lee Johnson Auto Family."

[chronovore]

Arrow s3 notes:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Killing Ollie off, only to "well, actually" him back to life was silly. Ra's Al Ghul would not botch killing Ollie. He'd be fucking deader-than-dead.

If he wasn't already dead, the ONE MILE FALL would have turned him to jelly.

I KNOW I'm arguing cartoon physics here, but we are in NANDA FUCKING PARBAT, somewhere near the League's headquarters. Why not just have Ollie thrown into the Lazarus Pit and revived, revealing more about Ra's?

Merlyn's plan to use a hypno-drug on Thea, so she would kill Sara, so that Ollie would have to challenge Ra's Al Ghul was fucking stupid. This is so far into soap opera territory, I'm surprised there's no-one with an eye patch, or an evil twin showing up. Jesus.

Now Ollie thinking that Merlyn can train him to defeat Ra's is stupid. If Merlyn isn't strong enough to be Ra's on his own, why does Ollie think Merlyn can train Ollie to a point where Ollie can win against Ra's?

Why kill Sara? Merlyn could have done any number of things, then invoked League of Assassins' law to challenge Ra's to a duel. If Merlyn won, the blood debt is cleared.

[close]

Merlyn apparently has hacked Felicity's webcam so he can eavesdrop on Team Arrow. Felicity is a technology-focused genius who hacks people's stuff, not the other way around. This is like flooring Muhammed Ali with a jab, or catching Batman off guard with a whoopee cushion. The scenario was so unbelievable, I assumed that Felicity knew about it and was using the opportunity to give Merlyn manipulative INTEL, the way Ollie did with Slade/Deathstroke at the end of last season. But, no, it's just dumb.

Thea should be a central character with all the crazy stuff they've started with her. Instead, they're focusing on Felicity. I like Felicity, but feel like she gets more screen time than Arsenal or Diggle.

The flashback mechanic is becoming overused to explain things within the current episode. Geeks love continuity, so referencing something in ep 7 flashbacks which then come to fruition in ep 8 or 9 would be nice. Instead, we get something brought up in the present, and then see Ollie having dealt with a similar situation in the past -- which he appears to have forgotten in the intervening 5 years.

[toku]

Legion is a powerful show.

[chronovore]

SHIELD was outstanding last night.

Agents of SHIELD s3 /just/ became available here. 

So I probably shouldn't talk about Legion I'm guessing. I bet you'll get it after I come visit next year.

Oh, I'm used to spoilers here. A couple of the young'ns here can't seem to keep their spoiler tags in order, so I'm used to it.

I may grab LEGION on iTunes, but that's always $30-40 a pop for the season (or ½ seasons in the case of Star Wars: Rebels).

Legion is totally worth it after the first three episodes.

Just watched most of the first episode during my lunch break.

It's really neat, but my first thought is someone REALLY liked this parody piece:

[Mupepe]

Fucking Ross constantly saying "But Juice!"  "JUICE!" and constantly being on the verge of tears. Just suck his dick already or something.  It was entertaining as background noise.

[Yeti]

[toku]

[Stoney Mason]

For whatever reason, I've been watching a lot of b tier 30 minute comedies. Watched the complete first season of all of these.

I'll rank them in order of best to worst of them imo.

Search Party

This one starts off as the worst one and ends up being the best of the three by the end. At first its annoying to watch a bunch of shitty TV millennials act douchey. But the more you watch, the more you realize that's kind of the point of the show. Without spoiling anything I'll also say that it ends well. Apparently there will be a season 2. I would have been fine with one season as I think that story was told pretty well but whatever I guess. Has Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development.

People of Earth

I had the highest hopes for this one as the premise is the closest to something that is right up my alley. It's "okay". It's going for a community the tv show vibe meets Men in Black. There are definitely funny bits to it. And the premise has enough steam to go on for awhile but I kept feeling like this is okay but it should be better than this as I kept watching episodes. Has Wyatt Cenac from the daily show.


The Santa Clarita Diet.

The creator of this show has made a lot of shows I adore. Better of Ted and Andy Richter controls the Universe. Both awesome.

The Santa Clarita Diet is not as good as those shows. It's basically a zombie show (think izombie) mixed with modern family. The problem is none of the actors nail their role the way the people have in his other shows. Drew Barrymore just never works for me in anything. She doesn't feel like a human. Tim Olyphant is meh in it. The premise is very thin. It's basically one joke over and over again. It is watchable. It is enjoyable in a turn your brain off and enjoy the predictable silly shenanigans way. But its very much of a gimmick show that feels like its two steps away from embarrassing itself. It's almost like a Youtube video. You can skip full scenes because they are either corny or you know exactly where its going when the scene starts so if its not funny just fast forward.

[toku]

rip better off ted, what a fucking show

[chronovore]

Still enjoying Arrow, just starting s4 now.

This is not a smart show. It's probably smarter than the comic books which inspired it, but there are so many lame twists for drama's sake, characters acting outside their core behavior for plot reasons, and story arcs which reach their conclusions stupid-fast, while others seem more ignored than slow burn.

EVEN SO: This is the Batman TV show we need, even if it's not the one we deserve:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Billionaire heir traumatically loses parent.
• Decides to save his city. Not the world, not the universe – just the city which he considers his own.
• Decides to save his city as a vigilante, despite having the resources to contribute philanthropically.
• Trained by League of Assassins, only to leave them. (Nolanverse)
• Is told, "The world is too small a place for someone like Oliver Queen to disappear." (Nolanverse)
• The Daughter of Ra's Al Ghul continues to refer to the hero as though they're married (Nyssa called Thea "sister-in-law")

[close]

...I had a few more thoughts while watching last night, but between the anCnoc shots then and not finishing my coffee yet this morning, they elude me. Eluuuuuuuude.

[etiolate]

Caught up with Legion. I thought it was crazy to try to do a show about an obscure, super-powerful and weird mutant, and the show is weird and crazy in a wonderful way.  I think using a bit of period piece works well as a callback to the post-70s era the character comes from. As opposed to Dr Strange, which entirely updated a Marvel Psychedelic character into modernity, Legion finds ways to invoke the comics that came before the 90s that gave birth to the character while keeping it in modern times. There's a lack of certain modern technologies. I don't recall cellphones and fashion/vehicles are a mix. This adds to the feeling of displacement in the show while pulling of the callback to the comics.

I do wonder if Xavier, Moira or any character like that will show up. They don't really go into his lineage in the story.

[toku]

Still enjoying Arrow, just starting s4 now.

This is not a smart show. It's probably smarter than the comic books which inspired it, but there are so many lame twists for drama's sake, characters acting outside their core behavior for plot reasons, and story arcs which reach their conclusions stupid-fast, while others seem more ignored than slow burn.

EVEN SO: This is the Batman TV show we need, even if it's not the one we deserve:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Billionaire heir traumatically loses parent.
• Decides to save his city. Not the world, not the universe – just the city which he considers his own.
• Decides to save his city as a vigilante, despite having the resources to contribute philanthropically.
• Trained by League of Assassins, only to leave them. (Nolanverse)
• Is told, "The world is too small a place for someone like Oliver Queen to disappear." (Nolanverse)
• The Daughter of Ra's Al Ghul continues to refer to the hero as though they're married (Nyssa called Thea "sister-in-law")

[close]

...I had a few more thoughts while watching last night, but between the anCnoc shots then and not finishing my coffee yet this morning, they elude me. Eluuuuuuuude.

Good news and bad news chrono! all the things you dislike about the show kinda peak in s4! Good news! they kinda use s4 ending to reset things a bit (again) and so far (15 episodes in) into season 5 it's been much better than s4 as a whole. s5 kinda goes back to that sorta grimdark nolan batman verse arrow from s1-2. The villains are better and more grounded, ppl die, etc.

He builds a team in s5 and while this show has a bad track record of adding characters only to do nothing with them or fucking it up it's working so far. Partly because it feels more like x-force or justice league dark instead of say, batman & friends.

[Momo]

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-03-08/taboo-series-2-confirmed-tom-hardy-to-return-to-bbc1-as-the-devil-delaney

FUCK YES

[etiolate]

The two best shows right now are Legion and The Expanse, they both air at the same time on the same night and one is a serious sci-fi and the other a speculative fic that mixes Lynch, British influence and a disdain for plot expectancy.

[Momo]

The Night Manager: BBC drama set to return for series two

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-39197012

BBC Keeps winning

[Momo]

http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/twitch-power-rangers-streaming-free-marathon-1202004761/



Twitch sure likes it's meme shows

[benjipwns]

rip better off ted, what a fucking show

abc did them dirty, along with airing out of order, couldn't even be bothered to burn off the last two episodes

guy who made it was a writer for first three of my name is earl's seasons then went on to make sean saves the world

other sitcoms that got shotdown too early from around that era:
kitchen confidential
andy barker p.i.
knights of prosperity
the goode family
mr. sunshine
outsourced (just when it was finally getting past the whole HAHA INDIAN TELEMARKETERS component imo, i liked the cast...kinda like go on)
don't trust the bitch in apartment 23 (if only because it got aired out of order and then they didn't bother to air like half the second season anyway PLUS LIKE ERIC ANDRE)

like half of these are abc

spoiler (click to show/hide)

not sitcoms but "dramedy?" still more times they broke my heart:
reaper
the good guys
the defenders

[close]

if you told me always sunny would be getting at minimum thirteen seasons back when it first started i'd say u were nuts, especially since it was the lesser hyped half with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starved

[benjipwns]

sunny 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

SOLVE PROBLEMS. DON'T CAUSE THEM.

[close]

[Rufus]

http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/twitch-power-rangers-streaming-free-marathon-1202004761/



Twitch sure likes it's meme shows

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but if you're an adult in 2017 and think Power Rangers is a show you can rewatch as an adult and pretend it's "awesome", you're probably an asshole. It's basically Saved By The Bell x Godzilla, which might sound awesome until you watch an episode with adult eyes, and they're like 

I'm sorry, but Mr. Wrestling doesn't get to throw shit at people over embarrassing shows.

[Momo]

lmao

[CatsCatsCats]

Legion is disjointed and abstract and it really works so far, binged the first 5 eps yesterday

[Valkyrie]

How are none of you watching Riverdale? Pretty good stuff! Well it's kind of teenage-y, so maybe none of you will like it.

Completed Season 1 of Santa Clarita Diet. It was okay. Slightly above average at best, but a decent time-passer.

[toku]

im watching riverdale but i love trash so i watch 94% of cw's lineup

[Valkyrie]

Yesss. Trash is the best. I feel like Riverdale is only trash if you're over 22.

[toku]

my favorite thing about riverdale is how archie is pretty much always the slow/dumb one in the room if he's not in a scene by himself. He's like a 6 ft puppy.

[Valkyrie]

There are a lot of boring characters, like Veronica and her mom. I like Jughead though, but a part of me kinda wishes he's the one who killed Jason. I wanna cheer for the bad guy, but he needs to be cool and unpredictable  too, something  alas Walter White.

[toku]

betty also the secret edgelord of the crew is great, jughead wishes

[Yeti]

How can you say Veronica is boring? She's hilarious, bouncing from plotline to plotline dispensing sage advice and sass.

My favorite part of this show is how completely shitty every single parent is to their children, except for Sherriff Keller and Fred Andrews (although Fred was kind of a dick to Archie in the first few episode).

[Momo]

How are none of you watching Riverdale? Pretty good stuff! Well it's kind of teenage-y, so maybe none of you will like it.

Completed Season 1 of Santa Clarita Diet. It was okay. Slightly above average at best, but a decent time-passer.

I'm a pretty big Archie fan (have a ton of comics at home) and yeah I've been watching the show, but with how no one mentioned it I kinda kept it to myself because I assume there is some social shame attached to it.

As for the show itself, I hate jughead's hat design, some of the deviations from the source is just lmao what but overal I kinda like it in the same way i liked watching The O.C. or Forever Eden or other trashy drama pots.

[toku]

[Mr. Gundam]

Legion

[chronovore]

Legion

I'm going to bite, but only after I've finished the available seasons of Arrow. We're on the last one offered in Japan, s4. I think my wife will like it, but I worry that she'll get confused. The a-serial nature of its story was intriguing for me, but she likes more straightforward stuff. The psychology stuff might catch her, though.

[benjipwns]

I finally watched the second season of Mr. Robot.

I'm glad I decided to do what I do with Homeland and probably anything else serialized I start from now on is wait and watch the season as a whole once it completes.

I really liked it, I know a lot of people are upset because nothing BIG happened but it was all character stuff and that was nice. This is supposedly the first half of act two, with season three being the rest of act two. Then seasons four and five are act three which ends it. But writers say lots of stuff.

Dom was great, and I loved more White Rose. The first half with Darryl was kinda unnecessary like with the drug dealer in the first season I thought. It just kept Elliott with things to do while everyone else moved forward in the plot beats. Joanna's plot had the same thing. But once again she maybe got the epic oh god she's frightening scene of the season that almost justified it all.

The one thing I love about this show is that the reveals aren't really reveals in the standard TV method, it's all there before, Elliott's not an unreliable narrator as much as he's in the dark as much as we are. And there's a way that the unpeeling of the onion doesn't make me go "wow didn't see that coming" instead it makes me want to go back because I know it's all there before. Even stupid stuff like two seconds of a shot of Darlene in a park with an open laptop sitting next to her, how they put in obsessive detail about the hacking being legit, Mobley mashing Alt+F4 and Ctrl+Alt+Del while pretending to be an IT guy, etc. I thought the "routine" thing was a bit hokey and they went out of their way to show it all which lessened it (and also made the conclusion of that arc with Darryl not make as much sense) rather than thinking back to exactly okay that explains the basketball, and the Seinfeld and so on...I have a feeling explaining Angela is going to get kneecapped like that.

I know there's been a lot of criticism over letting Sam Esmail direct every episode this season and man does he certainly get up his own ass at times, but there are just some great framing in the shots. He did a lot with just leaving a camera in one place for every scene in a certain location. The camera not moving while people pause and there's hanging silences put tension into some otherwise weak dialogue, White Rose got that treatment a lot I noticed. Where he's just looking at someone for a moment.

One thing I'd like White Rose to do is help the show inform me of time better. That might be intentional and will unfold as we go but it gives the impression at times that we've seen four years of events in the two seasons.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Loved Darlene's walk through the FBI and then looking at the big board. And it backward explaining the busts they thought were someone else.

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also I get why especially since it has some obvious similarities, but people comparing this to Fight Club irk a little because this season really gave me the further impression that EvilCorp and FiveNine aren't really much more than MacGuffin's rather than some kind of "message" about debt or corporations or class or something. The show seems vastly more concerned with playing with the medium for its messages. Even Angela's storyline is using EvilCorp for building her character, literally in some cases, and the season started to strip away what initially seemed like its overimportance to her.

Of course, I'm not sure Fight Club is anywhere strong enough to carry its own attempted message as claimed by Fincher/Norton/Pitt but that's my own issue I guess.

[close]

I really hope this show stays tight and focused, like I don't know, Deadwood did, instead of sprawling towards levels it can't hold up and was never built to work with in an effort to chase a new high. What's that? No, I wasn't intentionally referencing Homeland up above because of this.

Unlike Deadwood, I hope it gets to finish though. Ugh. Still hurts.

[toku]

i like you forum poster benjipwns

[Madrun Badrun]

Iron fist!

[CajoleJuice]

Iron fist!

is reportedly dogshit

[Madrun Badrun]

[Momo]

I'm 4 eps in and it's no worse than any of the other marvel netflix shows so far, Reports are the things seemingly dogshit.

[Madrun Badrun]

I'm on episode 11, its basically the best season of Arrow without 70% of the CW drama tropes.  Very much a solid 7/10. 

Trust other people for opinions on your entertainment

[Madrun Badrun]

OK on last episode.  Its the best season of Arrow without 10% of the CW drama tropes.  Very much a 7/10. 

[etiolate]

I'm on episode 11, its basically the best season of Arrow without 70% of the CW drama tropes.  Very much a solid 7/10. 

Trust other people for opinions on your entertainment

I'd be down with Arrow minus the soap opera stuff. Will check it out tomorrow probably. 

[Madrun Badrun]

soap opera stuff gets really played up in the last few episodes unfortunately.   

[Bebpo]

twin peaks - S1 was great, last ep didn't really wrap much up but a lot happened.  Watched the first ep of S2 and the season transition was really well done.  S2 ep1 seemed way more Lynch than the entire S1; was great.  Giant man was cool.  Looking forward to how weird it gets.

[Momo]

Finished Iron Fist, thought it was better than Luke Cage overall. It had a lot more positives than negatives at least.

[CatsCatsCats]

Review is back and hilarious still

[Madrun Badrun]

Finished Iron Fist, thought it was better than Luke Cage overall. It had a lot more positives than negatives at least.

Its biggest issue was the writing which I hope will get fixed for next season.  Though what I really want is LC season 2 to finish up his background story and then just do Heroes for Hire instead of ironfist 2/LC 3

[toku]

[Momo]

Yeah i watched the first two eps and decided to hold off on Legion until the season is done, i wont watch stuff like that week to week, fuck that.

[toku]

yo niccas are crazy if you think iron fist is better than even trashy arrow 

[etiolate]

Oh, its better than the trashy Arrow eps for it lacks some of the said trash. I think Arnell is more engaging the IF actor at this point though. Iron Fist's biggest weakness is the acting/characters in general. The best roles are the Meachums and the actors who come from the other Marvel shows.

However, it's mostly enjoyable average Arrow-tier stuff.

[chronovore]

"Provider has not made the content available in your country." -

n.b. I am not looking for a solution to this; I know I can get a VPN. I'm just saying IT'S FUCKING DUMB.

Fargo is available in Japan, it's even free for the first couple seasons on Amazon Prime Japan's streaming service. So why block something which is ancillary material which would build awareness for the series? What's the point?

[chronovore]

Speaking of Arrow, I've got one DVD from season 4 left. The show has gotten dark and serious again pretty fast.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

• Amanda Waller gets shot in the damned head. It's a shame, I preferred her to the cinematic universe's representation.
• Maseo is killed by Katana.
• John ends up killing his younger brother Andy, and lying about its need to his wife.
• Laurel is killed by Dahrk, ending speculation about the season's flash-forward gravesite. With the typical comicbook "death yo-yo" effect in play, it was hard to watch her father refusing to accept that there was no way to bring her back.

[close]

So many deaths! Likely permanent ones, even! Even so, while Murmur is a visually great, creepy character, it's kind of unbelievable that the creators won't just off him.

[Valkyrie]

Anyone else excited for Orange is The New Black's new season on June 9th?! I know, I know, season 1 was the best, but I still love the show, regardless of how shitty Chapman is!

[bluemax]

Yo, demi is on season 2 of Into the Badlands, you should all support him and watch it.

[Momo]

I dunno what to make of The 100, like I liked seasons of it, but it shifts way too much season to season for me to continuously care.

[Momo]

Yo, demi is on season 2 of Into the Badlands, you should all support him and watch it.

Hahaha

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Narcing scum :'(

[close]

[toku]

I dunno what to make of The 100, like I liked seasons of it, but it shifts way too much season to season for me to continuously care.

Its def. the first tv show since hannibal that i can think of where each season has felt like a new book in a series. Characters die, our heroes get maimed/traumatized in a new way and new characters get introduced.

[etiolate]

Legion continues to do creative, wonderful things.

I feel Aubrey Plaza needs some recognition for her work. Spoilaz:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I would never picture someone like her as the Shadow King but she's been a great Shadow King. Lenny is basically an Aubrey character as we've known, and Shadow King is that type of mischievous crazy gone to however far she can take it.

[close]

[Bebpo]

Haha, Twin Peaks S2 is amazing early on.  This is one of the most batshit crazy hilarious shows I've ever seen.  It's awesome.