General Television Thread 2023

[Gabriel]

We've been watching Stan Against Evil on Prime, and it's been pretty solid. It knows what it is and leans into the ridiculousness well.

It's basically Ash Vs Evil Dead, only without the same budget and with John C. McGinley being his charming self.

[Benji]

Yeah Stan Against Evil is decent. Nothing to write home about but it does what it does well enough. Anything that gets more Janet Varney and Johnny C on my screen is always a win.

[tristy]

I binged 4 seasons of Yellowstone in 2 weeks. It's so good. I didn't think I'd like it, kind of scoffed at the premise, but it's not nearly as conservative as I thought it'd be. Like, yeah, I also don't want these big companies coming into states and tearing up the natural scenery and endangering wildlife. I don't know that my immediate reaction - on either side of the coin - would be to have huge shoot outs and hanging people, but it's TV and it's good entertainment.

So, anyone that has watched: are the spin offs worth it? I don't think I care about seeing the Duttons in the 1800s and early 1900s, but the cast for both shows look pretty damn good. Does they still have the Game of Thrones/Succession style drama or am I about to walk into a completely different type of show from Yellowstone?

I don't even know if I want to start Season 5 since it's not over yet. Watching The Last of Us week to week is already a bummer because I'm so used to binge watching.

[gunnar hendershow]

The general thing I've gotten about Yellowstone is that the audience is much more conservative than the show, in part because conservatives are so desperate for something that's well-made that doesn't also directly challenge their entire worldview. 

[Pooker]

I can't bring myself to start the fourth season of Yellowstone. I enjoyed the first three seasons, but it's never felt like a show I just had to watch, just something I would put on when I had an hour to kill. Probably doesn't help that I have a co-worker that thinks it's the best show ever and rewatches it every few months.

[Tigerstyle]

Physical 100 anyone? I love it.

[Benji]

It is genuinely amazing that my thought train has gone so far from "oh wow, a show on Netflix, that is sure to be great", to, "SHOW NAME is a TV SHOW OF A KIND I LIKE"... excited... "STARRING A BUNCH OF PEOPLE I LIKE"... oooh... "WITH AN INTERESTING PREMISE"... awesome... "on Netflix"... pass.

[livid]

Well that's a bit of a bummer but not exactly surprising 

[Colly]

10 hours ago, Benji said:

It is genuinely amazing that my thought train has gone so far from "oh wow, a show on Netflix, that is sure to be great", to, "SHOW NAME is a TV SHOW OF A KIND I LIKE"... excited... "STARRING A BUNCH OF PEOPLE I LIKE"... oooh... "WITH AN INTERESTING PREMISE"... awesome... "on Netflix"... pass.

We've just started watching Extraordinary on Disney+ which is actually brilliant, but my thoughts last night were that this should have been on Channel 4 because I'm not convinced people will even find it and it'll disappear after the first series.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

6 hours ago, Colly said:

We've just started watching Extraordinary on Disney+ which is actually brilliant, but my thoughts last night were that this should have been on Channel 4 because I'm not convinced people will even find it and it'll disappear after the first series.

It already got renewed thankfully.

[Colly]

Superb. Everyone should watch it. Now.

[K]

Watching the Mole on Netflix and the gameplay is really complicated. Cause you can never vote the mole out and the way you're eliminated is by knowing the least about the mole, it's in your best interest to pretend to be the mole... Which means they're all constantly fucking up on purpose, which means it's difficult to warm to any of them as people. 

[therockbox]

6 hours ago, K said:

Watching the Mole on Netflix and the gameplay is really complicated. Cause you can never vote the mole out and the way you're eliminated is by knowing the least about the mole, it's in your best interest to pretend to be the mole... Which means they're all constantly fucking up on purpose, which means it's difficult to warm to any of them as people. 

Have they ever explained how the mole wins? I assume it's not just a case of get to the end and win the money because there's no voting?

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

7 minutes ago, therockbox said:

Have they ever explained how the mole wins? I assume it's not just a case of get to the end and win the money because there's no voting?

Pretty sure The Mole doesn't really win anything. I believe they get a stipend from the show just for playing though. 

[K]

1 hour ago, Mx. Canadian Destroyer said:

Pretty sure The Mole doesn't really win anything. I believe they get a stipend from the show just for playing though. 

Yeah that's correct 

It's not a great concept because the person who is forced to leave each episode is the one who knows the least about the mole, so it's in your best interest to pretend to be the mole, even if you're not. So people are constantly just fucking up tasks in really blatant ways. It just makes for quite exhausting viewing watching people pantomime their way through challenges.

I think the traitors concept is slightly better in that regard, but I think there could be some way to marry the concepts.

[GhostMachine]

What I hated about The Mole:

Spoiler

Up until episode 9, I believed that either Joi or Will was the Mole. But Kesi sliding ice blocks made it way too obvious it was her. There is no logical reason whatsoever you'd remove ALL the ice blocks if you're playing to win, and I'm still surprised that her being caught by Joi didn't raise a red billboard, let alone flag.

Was happy that Will won, though. By episode 4, he was my favorite player.

Obviously, only read that spoiler if you watched it all the way through, or don't care.

[GoGo Yubari]

The era of peak TV seems like it's pretty close to done so I'm glad they got a Party Down revival in under the wire. First episode was fun, a little atypical because they had to do so much recapping for where the characters are a decade after season 2 but it works.

[Benji]

10 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

The era of peak TV seems like it's pretty close to done

I've been thinking on this for a while and I think we can nail Game of Thrones finale as the beginning of the end for me. The industry attitudes to things is obviously the bigger factor (Netflix cancellations, the ridiculous amount of streaming services, and the cable-esque packages that are incoming being the major ones), but fucking up arguably the biggest TV show of all time at the final hurdle seems like a pretty significant mark to call the end of the era. I would be intrigued to hear what others think are the end points.

[K]

The  redistribution of shows across dozens of platforms isn't great. I just don't hear about new shows anymore, and I imagine it must be the same for others. This combined with the netflix model of scrapping shows that don't immediately get memed to death, and replacing them with cheap reality shows can't be great for the industry.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

17 hours ago, K said:

Yeah that's correct 

It's not a great concept because the person who is forced to leave each episode is the one who knows the least about the mole, so it's in your best interest to pretend to be the mole, even if you're not. So people are constantly just fucking up tasks in really blatant ways. It just makes for quite exhausting viewing watching people pantomime their way through challenges.

I think the traitors concept is slightly better in that regard, but I think there could be some way to marry the concepts.

Yeah, I said this recently. It's like both shows are so close to figuring it out.

The thing with the Traitors is that there's no incentive to throw a challenge because they are competing for the same prize pot.