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

[Underseer]

Just in case I didn't make it clear before, Luke Cage was really amazing. I'm giving it a 8 or 9 out of 10. It had some pacing issues and the final big bad was a lot less compelling than the many other villains, but still really amazing.

 

[KeepTalking]

I watched the first episode last night. I'm not sure why anyone would compare it to Game of Thrones, as it is entirely different. I guess any series HBO produces just has to be compared to GoT, but I don't get why. If you need to compare Westworld to something, why not compare it to the original Westworld?

Anyway, I can't really rate this one yet, after only one episode, but it certainly shows promise. It seems like they are going on an opposite track from the original, with the Man in Black, who was originally played by Yul Brynner now played by Ed Harris, being a human rather than a robot, and the couple they seem to be setting up as the main protagonists being robots. There is a lot going on in the first episode, multiple plot lines are being set up, but I didn't find it difficult to follow. I am anxiously awaiting the next episode, so that is a good sign.

I'm not sure how they're going to make a series out of it.

Basically it's a "robots become self-aware and rebel. Viciously" plot. The original Westworld was an adult theme-park, with sister parks of Romanworld and Medievalworld. Is the set up the same?

They have set things up to easily fill out a season, going beyond that, I'm not sure. No mention of the other parks in the first episode, but there are a few scenes that show the globe marquee for the original park down in the sub basement of the current park. The implication is that the built the new Westworld over the top of the old one. They also refer several times to incidents that happened "30 years ago" which would have been around the time of the original movie. I am willing to bet that they introduce the other two parks, and maybe more, in subsequent seasons.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Just in case I didn't make it clear before, Luke Cage was really amazing. I'm giving it a 8 or 9 out of 10. It had some pacing issues and the final big bad was a lot less compelling than the many other villains, but still really amazing.

I enjoyed it too. Coming up with compelling villains has been tough for the Marvel movies though. The TV shows on Netflix have done a bit better.

 

[tantric]

The Get Down
9/10

fucking fantastic. i didn't want to like it, given the setting, but damn. disco divas and the roots of techno, music without being a musical. and the whole black samurai angle - love it, love shao lin.

oh - it's 1977 in the bronx, the story of a group of kids growing up and getting into the music industry, but also an expose on disco and the roots of techno.

 

[credoconsolans]

I'm not sure how they're going to make a series out of it.

Basically it's a "robots become self-aware and rebel. Viciously" plot. The original Westworld was an adult theme-park, with sister parks of Romanworld and Medievalworld. Is the set up the same?

They have set things up to easily fill out a season, going beyond that, I'm not sure. No mention of the other parks in the first episode, but there are a few scenes that show the globe marquee for the original park down in the sub basement of the current park. The implication is that the built the new Westworld over the top of the old one. They also refer several times to incidents that happened "30 years ago" which would have been around the time of the original movie. I am willing to bet that they introduce the other two parks, and maybe more, in subsequent seasons.

Hmmm, I'll be interested to see where they think they're going with this.

 

[ZiprHead]

The Get Down
9/10

fucking fantastic. i didn't want to like it, given the setting, but damn. disco divas and the roots of techno, music without being a musical. and the whole black samurai angle - love it, love shao lin.

oh - it's 1977 in the bronx, the story of a group of kids growing up and getting into the music industry, but also an expose on disco and the roots of techno.

According to wiki, techno originated in Detroit. Don't know if that's really true or not, it is wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_techno

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Get Down
9/10

fucking fantastic. i didn't want to like it, given the setting, but damn. disco divas and the roots of techno, music without being a musical. and the whole black samurai angle - love it, love shao lin.

oh - it's 1977 in the bronx, the story of a group of kids growing up and getting into the music industry, but also an expose on disco and the roots of techno.

According to wiki, techno originated in Detroit. Don't know if that's really true or not, it is wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_techno

It depends what you mean by "techno". The music style has done a lot of rapid rebranding over the years. Techno didn't really have one birthplace. It was a whole group of disparate movement spread out over the world who borrowed from each other. Today we would probably call Detroit techno for House Music.

What makes this hard is that the star in the... well... today I guess it's just "electronic dance music" is that the star isn't the person who made the music. The star is the DJ. Derrick May is one of the earliest Detroit Techno/House stars. He was one of the people who started this whole thing. But he has very little original music created. Especially not originally. He just mixed stuff like Depeche Mode, New Order and Kraftwerk. The magic was in the mix. And mixes were immediate and temporary, made for/by a party. The DJ created the music/mixing in response to how the people reacted, at the party itself. Derrick May's mixes of Depeche Mode, (for instance) sounded very little like Depeche Mode. That whole culture around techno, I think it's fair to say, originated in Detroit. But you can make a fair argument that it also originated elsewhere. Over time, of course, techno producers started producing original works designed to be mixed by a techno DJ. But that happened elsewhere (in England).

Yes, it's my generation. This is my youth.

 

[ZiprHead]

According to wiki, techno originated in Detroit. Don't know if that's really true or not, it is wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_techno

It depends what you mean by "techno". The music style has done a lot of rapid rebranding over the years. Techno didn't really have one birthplace. It was a whole group of disparate movement spread out over the world who borrowed from each other. Today we would probably call Detroit techno for House Music.

What makes this hard is that the star in the... well... today I guess it's just "electronic dance music" is that the star isn't the person who made the music. The star is the DJ. Derrick May is one of the earliest Detroit Techno/House stars. He was one of the people who started this whole thing. But he has very little original music created. Especially not originally. He just mixed stuff like Depeche Mode, New Order and Kraftwerk. The magic was in the mix. And mixes were immediate and temporary, made for/by a party. The DJ created the music/mixing in response to how the people reacted, at the party itself. Derrick May's mixes of Depeche Mode, (for instance) sounded very little like Depeche Mode. That whole culture around techno, I think it's fair to say, originated in Detroit. But you can make a fair argument that it also originated elsewhere. Over time, of course, techno producers started producing original works designed to be mixed by a techno DJ. But that happened elsewhere (in England).

Yes, it's my generation. This is my youth.

I worked stage security at a techno/dubstep festival. Stood in front of the stage almost right in front of the right-side PA stack. Even with earplugs, it was brutal.

There were only a couple of the acts I enjoyed, Ty Beats https://twitter.com/asaptybeats, and the closing act, a real band https://www.facebook.com/naiswan/. I still follow Naiswan on FB although they've moved to LA so my chance of seeing them again is near nil, one of the most innovative live sets I've ever seen. The rest was crap, imo.

 

[blastula]

These shows, I watched the first episode and bailed.

American Gothic - Wants to be dark, but is just boring
Vice Principals - waste of Boyd Crowder's talents
High Maintenance - tries too hard
Designated Survivor - This is the worst, couldn't make it through the episode, it managed to make the bombing of the capitol building look uneventful.

I saw the first season of Blindspot, I liked the premise, though hated the zero dimensional characters, just kept hoping for a good payoff, which never materialized, and the second season looks no better, bailing on this one too.

 

[DrZoidberg]

These shows, I watched the first episode and bailed.

American Gothic - Wants to be dark, but is just boring
Vice Principals - waste of Boyd Crowder's talents
High Maintenance - tries too hard
Designated Survivor - This is the worst, couldn't make it through the episode, it managed to make the bombing of the capitol building look uneventful.

I saw the first season of Blindspot, I liked the premise, though hated the zero dimensional characters, just kept hoping for a good payoff, which never materialized, and the second season looks no better, bailing on this one too.

Did the same for Hannibal. Did not see the genius in that one. Same with Da Vinci's Demons.

Watched Reign, all the way through looking for a historical figure that I'm related to and which had a lot of dealings with Mary Queen of Scots. Didn't make it to the show. So disapoint. an awful show.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I just finished Season 2 of Catastrophe, an Amazon original series. I'd give this one a 7/10 if I'm feeling generous and rounding up.

If you don't mind sex scenes and lots of foul language you might like this. It's the story of an American man visiting London and having a six-night stand with a woman who ends up pregnant. He moves to London and they try to make it work. It was created and written by the two main actors and sometimes the dialogue comes across as forced, sometimes it's witty, and sometimes it just feels mean. Although I don't really relate to the couple, I found it entertaining overall, and, as a parent of two children, I appreciate some of the unvarnished talk about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. Some of the side stories with supporting characters work and others don't. I'd recommend giving it a try at least.

 

[Jayjay]

The Man in the High Castle
10/10 swastikas

Did you ever watch Mad Men, thinking how much better it would be if it was about the Nazis? Then this is the show for you. It details the life of Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith and his constant frustrations with the jews, the nips, the negroes, the traitors, the crippled, and the unions. There is even a special cameo by Fuhrer himself, as he helps Smith get out of a particularly tricky situation. Heil Hitler!

Seriously though, one of the best current TV dramas. Season two coming December 16th on Amazon.

 

[Underseer]

Kuromukuro
3/10

Oh look, more giant robots punching each other! But this time with teenage antics! Whee!

Ugh.

Bumping it up to three stars because the main character is an ancient samurai, thus some of the resulting fish-out-of-water jokes are mildly amusing, and the animation isn't half bad.

 

[TSwizzle]

Peaky Blinders, Season 3, 7/10: I must admit, after a long layoff I'm having a hard time picking up where I left off in season 2. Never the less, despite my lack of understanding of the plot line I am quite enjoying it but I am not as engrossed as before. As always Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby is excellent and Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby looks menacing in every scene.

 

[TSwizzle]

I watched Jim Jefferies comedy special and it was ok. He has some funny stuff but he is getting a bit preachy which is a bit of a turn off.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I just finished Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm: 7/10. I had watched the first seven seasons quite a while ago but hadn't gotten around to season 8 until just now. I absolutely loved the first seven seasons: Larry David's comedic genius really shined and it gave a lot of insight into the Seinfeld show as well. I loved the intricate plots, the awkward social interactions, the crazy scenarios, and especially the longer arcs and recurring themes of the later seasons. But Season 8 just sort of didn't work as well for me. Something was missing. Maybe it was just going to be too hard to top the Seinfeld reunion season. I still rate it pretty highly because it has all the elements that work in the prior seasons, but I was a little disappointed given the high bar that the rest of the series has set.

 

[Ford]

Just watched the first episode of the 3rd season of Black Mirror.

I'm sold.

I'd thought that after "White Christmas" the series was pretty much done. No way they could top that. Handing it over to Netflix made it even more risky. Well "Nosedive" was an excellent episode. The only part that wasn't up to snuff was the cosplayers in the RV part, but aside from that it was worth many upvotes.

4.6

 

[DrZoidberg]

Bobs Burgers 10/10

Archer meets Gravity falls. Genius. The fun part is how the kids are out of control (as they so often are) and the parents barely holding it together.

 

[Jayjay]

Bobs Burgers 10/10

Archer meets Gravity falls. Genius. The fun part is how the kids are out of control (as they so often are) and the parents barely holding it together.

Bob's Burgers and Archer are actually in the same continuity:

 

[beero1000]

Just watched the first episode of the 3rd season of Black Mirror.

I'm sold.

I'd thought that after "White Christmas" the series was pretty much done. No way they could top that. Handing it over to Netflix made it even more risky. Well "Nosedive" was an excellent episode. The only part that wasn't up to snuff was the cosplayers in the RV part, but aside from that it was worth many upvotes.

4.6

Wait til you get to "Playtest". Wow.