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What TV are you watching and how would you rate it? [Revive from FRDB]

11.22.63

This one's losing steam fast. What started as a really promising series has now moved into "Why the fuck are they doing that?" territory. One of the great things about the book was its pacing. It's a sprawling journey of discovery where one man has to build and live two very separate lives as a time traveler 50+ years ago. While the show is maintaining a respectable portion of it, it's also added a companion to the defined-by-his-loneness character, Jake Amberson. It's shit and the way it goes down just isn't plausible.

Sometimes the show is well paced, sometimes it really drags, and then, during the last episode, it just jumps ahead two years.

But whatever, for all that blistering I just gave it, I'll watch it until the end. It's certainly not the visual fuckup that Under the Dome was.
 
Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell: 8/10 (for the specific sort of genre the show exists in) - it's probably like a 2 if you try to rate it as an actual TV show.

this show is kind of hard to describe... it's basically... take Office Space, make it a 20 minute sitcom on Adult Swim, have it take place with some cubicle-farm demons in Hell with Satan as the manager, and mix it up with low budget late night TV effects and a B-movie vibe with lots of silly gore.
if you can get behind the intentionally cheesy and hokey aesthetic, and if you can appreciate really random absurdist humor in an office-hell setting, the show can be hilarious in a "what... what!? hahaha what the fuck did i just watch??" kind of way.
 
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell I ordered this in from the library but don't even know where I first encountered it.

Short series set in a 19th century where magic works. 8, maybe 9.
 
spikepipsqueak said:
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell I ordered this in from the library but don't even know where I first encountered it.

Short series set in a 19th century where magic works. 8, maybe 9.
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I tried to like it. While a well done series I was yawning 30 minutes in.
 
I think I understand you, it is slow. I am in about ep.5 and don't mind the time it takes to say what it wants to say.
 
11.22.63

The slide into "What the Fuck?" continues.

But then again, why take well crafted and well paced source material that's easy to follow and edit out only what's necessary for the different medium when you can add shit, go off on largely irrelevant tangents, and spend half of the very limited time you have on the least interesting parts of the story?

That's what I imagine goes in Hollywood writing rooms. "Let's see; this character is defined in large part by being alone and going on this quest alone, and that device worked so great in the book. Hmm... we should give him an idiot sidekick."

You know things are bad when you're hoping one of the protagonists dies so that the story can get back on track.

What started off as a 9/10 has now slid to...

5/10

and getting worse.
 
Damien 6.5/10

Not much to this first episode, but I expect it to find its direction in later episodes. And the last minute seemed to come out of the blue and so felt rushed. If you've seen the film series I suspect it takes a mental readjustment of this new history the show is offering.
Could not stand the "more than this earthly realm" crap, that was brought up, but thankfully it was brief.
Should be given a chance.
 
Better Call Saul, 7/10: Prequel to the very successful Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul tells the background story of one of the main characters from the series, Saul Goodman. I binged the first series on Netflix and started watching the second series on AMC and I'm pretty hooked on it now.
 
Restarted on Bones, into season 5 now, I think. Show is formulaic, but I like the characters and the show works. Laughed the most I have with a television show, ever, I think. A psychic said there were buried bodies in a location, and they could see, so Brennen comes up with the idea of using GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar). The mention of it makes me laugh (I've had bad experiences with the stuff). Then they cut scene to her pushing the GPR device around, which makes me laugh more, and then the X-ray images she is getting from beneath the ground (using Radar ?)... aww... that is why she is using it... bullshit television GPR, not actual useless GPR.

It gets better, they then do a large excavation about 15 to 20 feet deep, completely unbraced and vertical cut walls in the soil. To make matters worse, that'd only work (in television bs theory) if the soil was cohesive... which works the worst with GPR.

Yeah... the problem with television is that rarely is any one actually technically of any knowledge involved. I don't ever know how they knew GPR existed in the first place. Next week... Bones tries to use seismic refraction to find buried bones underneath Karst.

I'll stop nitpicking. I am aware that what I like about Bones is going to change in future seasons, but the main character is really good, being an atheist and all... and not out there killing because she can.
 
I didn't know the main character was an atheist. Very interesting, given that my wife is such a fan of the show.
 
X-Files Reboot: 2/10

It was awful. I was in my early 20s during the original series and liked it, despite its often anti-science, Mulder-is-always-right slant.
The reboot was terrible in every way. The first episode gave some promise of a story arc that would wrap up everything. But then episodes 2-5 had nothing to do with any arc or with each other. They were just incoherent silliness without even the pleasure of Mulder and Scully interactions because they spent almost no time together in the same scenes. The finale was just a frantic race to nowhere with a big "fuck you" ending. Also, the introduced 2 young agents that almost clones of Mulder and Scully, seemingly using the last 2 episodes to set up a spinoff series or something.
 
James Brown said:
I didn't know the main character was an atheist. Very interesting, given that my wife is such a fan of the show.
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She's an atheist

that has been proven wrong.

There was a crossover episode earlier this season with another TV show Sleepy Hollow, where demons and angels, god and gods do exist.

So now, Bones has been proven wrong, even though she doesn't know it.

That was a really shitty thing to do to one of the only atheist characters on TV today (aside from British TV)

.
 
James Brown said:
Too bad. I had hopes for it. Oh well.
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It's only halfway through, so it can get better. The first episode was great and seemed to make only the most necessary deviations from the book. The second was was okay. The third sucked, and then this latest episode was the worst yet, with the non-existent sidekick from the book falling in love with Oswald's wife. I really want to know how this kind of bullshit happens.
 
ronburgundy said:
X-Files Reboot: 2/10

It was awful. I was in my early 20s during the original series and liked it, despite its often anti-science, Mulder-is-always-right slant.
The reboot was terrible in every way. The first episode gave some promise of a story arc that would wrap up everything. But then episodes 2-5 had nothing to do with any arc or with each other. They were just incoherent silliness without even the pleasure of Mulder and Scully interactions because they spent almost no time together in the same scenes. The finale was just a frantic race to nowhere with a big "fuck you" ending. Also, the introduced 2 young agents that almost clones of Mulder and Scully, seemingly using the last 2 episodes to set up a spinoff series or something.
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Totally agree. What a disappointment. The original was so great.....
 
credoconsolans said:
James Brown said:
I didn't know the main character was an atheist. Very interesting, given that my wife is such a fan of the show.
Click to expand...

She's an atheist

that has been proven wrong.

There was a crossover episode earlier this season with another TV show Sleepy Hollow, where demons and angels, god and gods do exist.

So now, Bones has been proven wrong, even though she doesn't know it.

That was a really shitty thing to do to one of the only atheist characters on TV today (aside from British TV)

.
Click to expand...

Curious. Because my wife's a fan of that show, too, because of the crossover, as I recall.
 
ronburgundy said:
X-Files Reboot: 2/10

It was awful. I was in my early 20s during the original series and liked it, despite its often anti-science, Mulder-is-always-right slant.
The reboot was terrible in every way. The first episode gave some promise of a story arc that would wrap up everything. But then episodes 2-5 had nothing to do with any arc or with each other. They were just incoherent silliness without even the pleasure of Mulder and Scully interactions because they spent almost no time together in the same scenes. The finale was just a frantic race to nowhere with a big "fuck you" ending. Also, the introduced 2 young agents that almost clones of Mulder and Scully, seemingly using the last 2 episodes to set up a spinoff series or something.
Click to expand...

I started re-watching the old X-files a while back. Remembered how much I loved the show back in the day. It was absolute shite. Unwatchable garbage. Has not aged well. I think it's a product of the 90'ies and should stay there. I think it's the world that has changed. Back then we didn't know whether or not there could be some truth to cover-ups and conspiracies. It was the tail end of the cold war. Dictatorships were falling one-by-one and we learned all kinds of horrific stuff about them. Today we just laugh at conspiracy theories. We think it's dumb.
 
DrZoidberg said:
ronburgundy said:
X-Files Reboot: 2/10

It was awful. I was in my early 20s during the original series and liked it, despite its often anti-science, Mulder-is-always-right slant.
The reboot was terrible in every way. The first episode gave some promise of a story arc that would wrap up everything. But then episodes 2-5 had nothing to do with any arc or with each other. They were just incoherent silliness without even the pleasure of Mulder and Scully interactions because they spent almost no time together in the same scenes. The finale was just a frantic race to nowhere with a big "fuck you" ending. Also, the introduced 2 young agents that almost clones of Mulder and Scully, seemingly using the last 2 episodes to set up a spinoff series or something.
Click to expand...

I started re-watching the old X-files a while back. Remembered how much I loved the show back in the day. It was absolute shite. Unwatchable garbage. Has not aged well. I think it's a product of the 90'ies and should stay there. I think it's the world that has changed. Back then we didn't know whether or not there could be some truth to cover-ups and conspiracies. It was the tail end of the cold war. Dictatorships were falling one-by-one and we learned all kinds of horrific stuff about them. Today we just laugh at conspiracy theories. We think it's dumb.
Click to expand...

Funny how perceptions are different. I didn't think the show was that great when it was out in the 90s, but now I like watching them on Netflix. As for conspiracy theories, they're alive and well. Look no further than the 9/11 Truthers.

As for the new run, it was disappointing. I still enjoyed it, but as someone earlier pointed out, they went with an idea in the first episode and then completely ignored it until the last. The entire run should have been a serial based on the first episode.
 
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