• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

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

Started watching Sleepy Hollow (gonna catch the second ep tonight)
So far it seems to be doing alright and heres hoping they keep it up because they seem to be on the right track
 
Kill La Kill
2 out of 10

killlakill2.png

Yes. She is using one half of a pair of scissors as a
weapon. That's because the bad guys are clothes.

  • Teen girls in ridiculously revealing schoolgirl uniforms battling each other, resulting in lots of gratuitous panty shots and T&A shots.
  • Magical girl-style semi-nude shots as people magically transform their clothes in preparation for battle. About the only saving feature here is that you have to put up with these silly transformation sequences for both teen boys and teen girls, so at least the ladies will also... be as annoyed as I am at these things?
  • More over-the-top macho chest-thumping and posturing than a Dragonball Z episode
  • Ridiculous story involving people getting superpowers from schoolgirl and schoolboy uniforms
  • Ridiculous story involving sentient clothes trying to take over the world and wipe out humanity
  • Did I mention it includes a mother-daughter lesbian rape/molestation scene?
The only thing separating this from typical Japanese cartoon porn dreck is
  • No schoolgirls are raped by tentacles
  • No explicit sex scenes
  • For some reason I cannot fathom, the art is actually decent, which is why I'm giving it 2/10 instead of 1/10

Confession: this anime TV show was so awful that it often reached so-bad-it's-funny status. If that kind of humor is your cup of tea, you'll probably love this.
 
OK, but your review is useless without any cosplay pics.
 
Been getting through the first few seasons of Dexter. This was a show that I didn't watch at first because I couldn't go for the premise but decided to give it a shot. There are some really good aspects to the show but it is far from polished and the writing/acting can go through some major slumps (particularly form the supporting actors).

The concept of the serial killer targeting bad guys and living in plain sight as part of law enforcement are what turned me off when I first heard of the show. Too convenient a premise. But where I think this show fails the most is in Dexter's struggles with real life relationships - despite him admittedly having no feelings. He behaves almost exactly as you would expect yourself to, with some of the same rationalisations and emotional realisations. The conflicts or problems in his personal relationships are clearly introduced so we can see him balance his secret life with his public one but the interaction doesn't appear alien enough for someone that is capable of and driven to dismembering people.

I like the sunny setting with dark subject matter and some of the characters are interesting. Overall the show is entertaining but not great. I tried to get into Penny Dreadful and Hannibal recently and gave up both after about 5-6 episodes, despite far better production value, so for me in terms of pure entertainment Dexter has both those shows beat.

Give it a 7/10
 
I reckon some of what you've observed is offset by Dexter's years of being trained in camouflaging his lack of affect, and by the internal voice you hear when he is having to consciously decide what spontaneous reaction to show.

I keep watching it because he is eventually going to have to whether to kill, to cover his hide, a person who can't be called "a bad guy". Then we'll see what he is made of.

Agree with your 7/10
 
Been getting through the first few seasons of Dexter. This was a show that I didn't watch at first because I couldn't go for the premise but decided to give it a shot. There are some really good aspects to the show but it is far from polished and the writing/acting can go through some major slumps (particularly form the supporting actors).

The concept of the serial killer targeting bad guys and living in plain sight as part of law enforcement are what turned me off when I first heard of the show. Too convenient a premise. But where I think this show fails the most is in Dexter's struggles with real life relationships - despite him admittedly having no feelings. He behaves almost exactly as you would expect yourself to, with some of the same rationalisations and emotional realisations. The conflicts or problems in his personal relationships are clearly introduced so we can see him balance his secret life with his public one but the interaction doesn't appear alien enough for someone that is capable of and driven to dismembering people.

I like the sunny setting with dark subject matter and some of the characters are interesting. Overall the show is entertaining but not great. I tried to get into Penny Dreadful and Hannibal recently and gave up both after about 5-6 episodes, despite far better production value, so for me in terms of pure entertainment Dexter has both those shows beat.

Give it a 7/10

How many weeks has Penny Dreadful been on? That many already?
 
Banshee. I've just finished the first season in 2 sittings. Initially, the premise (ex-con steals the identity of a dead guy and actually takes over his job as sheriff of a small town) sounded ridiculous(and also like a setup for one of those heartwarming "bad guy grows a heart and discovers the power of friendship" plots that I fucking hate), so I never bothered with it until I happened across some Youtube clips depicting some of the fight scenes. I had to check this show out after that.

It turned out to be a serious crime drama, much edgier than I'd expected, and impressive on pretty much all levels.

A word on the fight scenes: these are pretty much the perfect fight scenes for my taste-- brutal, with a very real feeling to them, meaning that in contrast with the vast majority of action that I see in movies, tv shows, and comics, the fights in this show(and its other action sequences, for that matter) succeed at giving me the impression that the characters are really in danger, that they're not just invulnerable, stoical Hollywood badasses just showing off. People get progressively more visibly injured and winded, they show fear and pain, they fight dirty and messy and in the end someone's usually crippled or dead. And there are no fancy spin kicks. Banshee does not pull punches.(at least not during the fight scenes. The most obvious Hollywoodized aspect of the action is the fact that the protagonists have a tendency to survive and recover from their injuries fast enough to remain involved in the plot)

The action was what drew me to the show, but the characters and ongoing story arc have been compelling enough to keep me watching. It is an intense show, thanks in large part to its score on top of the action and performances. It's rare for me to see a show that's so effectively able to build tension and excitement and at times creepiness through its score, but this is the third series I've watched this year that's succeeded in that area, the others being Fargo and Hannibal. Horror filmmakers could learn a thing or two from this show.

9/10
 
How many weeks has Penny Dreadful been on? That many already?

I stopped on episode 5 and that was a few weeks ago. It's a very polished product but the end result is just a bit meh.

Wow, time flies.

Just saw the first episode of "The Strain" by Guillermo Del Toro on TNT.

Am underwhelmed, so far.

I thought it was going to be some new sort of Andromeda Strain. So far it looks like


a supernatural zombie/vampire movie. With worms.

The lead character is a jerk but that is refreshing. But some of the scenes only happen and the action can only move forward because the characters

act dumb. The old Jewish guy - and I was wondering why it was important that the fact he was Jewish was pointed out so strongly, multiple times. I am told that will make sense later - tells the lead investigators things that only someone with insider knowledge would know and the lead investigator just ignores him and walks away.

The useless woman investigator is - so far - only there to be put in danger and be a paramour to the lead investigator. She is apparently a quality woman of upstanding integrity who doesn't mind dating a guy who lies to his wife in marriage counseling ("We are on a break!").

When told of things only someone with knowledge about the contaminant would know, her CDC leadership position and field training, allows her to feign deep surprise and unease but other than that, does nothing, letting the man be dragged away to jail. :rolleyes:

Another member of the CDC team willingly allows a possible Ground Zero contaminant into one of the most heavily populated cities in the world - the WORLD - because of some personal issue.



Dumb actions, dumb characters. The members of the CDC are cringing somewhere.
 
True Detective
Season 1 Episode 1 HBO
HBO is my last hope for anything worth a damn on TV. After only one episode, it's obvious this is one of their better series. No implausible crap. Excellent writing, characters, and setting. I'll usually binge watch the entire season but I'm going to try to show restraint as there will be plenty of mediocrity before I see anything this good again.
It stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. McConaughey's character looks really interesting.
 
True Detective
Season 1 Episode 1 HBO
HBO is my last hope for anything worth a damn on TV. After only one episode, it's obvious this is one of their better series. No implausible crap. Excellent writing, characters, and setting. I'll usually binge watch the entire season but I'm going to try to show restraint as there will be plenty of mediocrity before I see anything this good again.
It stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. McConaughey's character looks really interesting.

It only gets better. Haven't been as impressed with any TV I've seen since The Wire.
 
Watching the first season of Homeland. A pretty good show. I completely missed the first twist when you find out Claire Danes is that chick from The Rainmaker. Wait... that wasn't the twist.
 
The Leftovers

The show is horribly named but intriguing. In it, a small percentage of the world's population suddenly disappears. There are no common traits among those who disappear, which of course makes it even more confounding to those [ugh] left behind.

It isn't a Jesus series. One of the things many of the characters struggle with is that there's no indication that The Rapture has taken place. It's just this inexplicable event that happens. This leads them to question their faith.

Anyway, is it aliens? Or was it Jebus that took these people away? Or was it something else?

The only problem with the show is that it's slow and thus far leaves questions unanswered from one episode to the next; and it's too plodding to get away with that.

But the characters are interesting as are the scenarios, so it's worth it to keep watching.

7/10
 
I'm going to give Psych a watch, and am plowing through the second season of How I Met Your Mother
 
I'm going to give Psych a watch, and am plowing through the second season of How I Met Your Mother

Psych is brilliant. I just watched through it on Netflix. I'd never even heard of it before I started watching it, but it was amazing.
 
Doctor Who, series 1 from 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. Until now, I had mostly just seen the Steven Moffat Doctor, and I am positively surprised. I don't realy care who the next doctor is, I just hope they switch the show runner to someone else.
 
Back
Top Bottom