General Television Thread

[Benjamin]

4 hours ago, Lars Kuyt said:

So my girlfriend is making me watch Gossip Girl. I must be honest, it is not as terrible as I thought it would be.

I finished all of season 1, it was not bad. Tapped out at like the end of episode 2 of season 2, though, became bad garbage really quick.

[=BK=]

 

I wanna see where this goes.

[tristy]

If you're not watching the new Twin Peaks revival - what the fuck is wrong with you, and why do you hate good television????

[Alex.]

50 minutes ago, tristy said:

If you're not watching the new Twin Peaks revival - what the fuck is wrong with you, and why do you hate good television????

 I've watched all four episodes. Its so fucked..yet so good..yet so confusing..yet i cant look away

[GhostMachine]

Is it a remake, or a continuation?

[MalaCloudy Black]

Continuation.

Also, watched the Elementary finale last night. It's been a middling season with some good episodes, a bunch of "alright, this is ok" episodes, and a few really bad ones (the eSports episode, ugh). I have to say, Elementary finales almost always deliver, though. And this was no exception.
 

Spoiler

I had been under the assumption that Sherlock's mother was a physical manifestation of his addiction, because I couldn't really think of what else it could be -- but it turns out I was hilariously wrong. Sherlock's mother is his coping mechanism, for the fact that something is wrong with his brain. He's started forgetting things and doing exercises to try and jog his memory, but the exercises don't seem to be helping. That's huge.

And then Sherlock's absence from the case is huge. We get more Joan as a POV character, and she's making questionable decisions - because her brand of justice is not the same as Sherlock's. She effectively killed the leader of a huge street gang, because she told the guy's rival that if she can get him sent to prison, there would be no shortage of people willing to hurt the guy for a) ratting out his whole gang and b) killing the rival gang leader's sister. For a few minutes I was actually under the impression that Watson was going to kill him herself, but that's a bit too violent for a CBS procedural.

Still, next season should be interesting: Holmes is dealing with medical issues, and Joan's using her own methods to get justice for people. I would think maybe the first few episodes of the next season will see Sherlock sitting cases out while he's sick, and Joan using more questionable methods to put people behind bars.

 

[Benjamin]

Halfway through UKS, and I realize the new season of Bloodline starts next week as well. Motherfucker.

[Benji]

I don't know why Netflix insists on dropping so many shows at once. Maybe cause most network shows are ending around this time?

[Benjamin]

Yeah, well, they can be staggered two weeks apart! Now I don't know if I'm going to be spending my birthday weekend vacation watching just TV shows while my girlfriend is studying. It doesn't sound too bad, but then again, a new Bloodline season is 10 hours, the rest of UKS is about another 3, The Keepers is 7 episodes long, and those are just the Netflix stuff!

[Skummy]

I watched the first two episodes of new Twin Peaks - the two-parter thing - and will likely watch at least one more tonight. I have close to no idea what's going on.

Spoiler

The Log Lady almost made me cry, I forgot she had filmed her scenes. Heartbreaking.

I don't like how much of it took place outside of Twin Peaks. I know that, from the very first episode, it was clear that whatever was happening had ramifications far beyond that one small town, and that Fire Walk With Me only expanded on that, but the charm of the series, for me, is that it's viewing all this weirdness through the lens of one quirky little town. I don't watch Twin Peaks to see sinister experiments conducted by a shady billionaire in New York City. I don't want to see New York City at all in Twin Peaks, I want to see Twin Peaks.

I just don't like the idea of some billionaire having some scientific connection to the Black Lodge, that doesn't sit well with me. It's like the Secret History of Twin Peaks book, which I disliked, in which the mythology of Twin Peaks ends up tied to UFOs, government conspiracy and so on, and it just undermines the inherent small town oddness of it all. I hope the series doesn't go in that direction - if anything would kill Twin Peaks for me, it would be explaining things too much.

 

From these two episodes, I would say it's more Fire Walk With Me than the series - darker, and storytelling in broader strokes. The dichotomy of Twin Peaks, for me, is that - as Fire Walk With Me makes horrifically clear - it's a story about some very disturbing, very horrible things, that manages to disguise itself under a layer of quite goofy soap opera charm. It's a story about inanity and banality of everyday life masking a darker underbelly. My biggest criticism of Fire Walk With Me has always been that it lacks that goofiness and that charm, and that's what made me love Twin Peaks.

So I hope this series brings a bit of that back - what's promising is that, at the very least, some of the scenes that actually do take place in the town of Twin Peaks seem to have kept that firmly in place.

 

[MDK]

10 hours ago, Skummy said:

I have close to no idea what's going on

So it is being faithful to the original series?

[Hobo]

I have watched all 4 episodes of Twin Peaks.

Episodes 1 & 2

It's very Fire Walk With Me. I'm glad I watched that before watching this. There is so much going on in the first couple of episodes that it makes your head spin. I'm okay with it being a bit spread out. It feels to me like it's drawing a lot of threads together into that all lead back to Twin Peaks. It felt in the first couple of episodes that BOB possessing Cooper for the past 25 years has resulted in BOB has been moving around the country a lot and effecting a lot of places. Also, Sarah Palmer still lives in the family home and watches violent nature documentaries.

3  and 4

I have so many questions about BOB/Cooper and Dougie and why there are two Coopers in our world. Also how? Dougie was wearing a ring so that implies someone else made him. Cooper's entire exit from the Black Lodge was great. It was incredibly dreamlike.

Some of the milling about in Dougie's house was a bit meh but Kyle MacLaughlin was killing it in every scene.

I love Andy/Lucy/Hawk's crimefighting trio. Interesting that Bobby is now a cop and still apparently messed up about Laura Palmer. That was equally sad and kind funny.

Absolutely loved pretty much everything with Gordon and Albert. It was fun that Denise is apparently the head of the FBI or something. Apparently David Bowie's character from the movie is important to this!

Also, I'm sensing Audrey Horne is going to pop up soon.

Completely and utterly loving the fact the episodes all end with a musical number.

[Josh]

I haven't seen them. Is it just the 4 episodes, or are there more?

[MalaCloudy Black]

18 episodes. They made 3 & 4 available on Showtime's digital platforms right after episodes 1 & 2 premiered.

[Josh]

I'm curious - who here has access to Showtime's streaming service?

[Lint]

 

[Benjamin]

Man, that Brooklyn Nine-Nine finale was fun!

I really hope they don't end this arc in just the first few episodes like the beginning of this season, this has so much potential for a ton of original comedy.

 

[JasonM]

6 hours ago, Lint said:

 

Fucking take my entire bank account, Netflix!

[MalaCloudy Black]

Netflix canceled The Get Down. 

[Skummy]

On 2017-5-23 at 23:06, Hobo said:

I have watched all 4 episodes of Twin Peaks.

Episodes 1 & 2

 

  Hide contents

 

It's very Fire Walk With Me. I'm glad I watched that before watching this. There is so much going on in the first couple of episodes that it makes your head spin. I'm okay with it being a bit spread out. It feels to me like it's drawing a lot of threads together into that all lead back to Twin Peaks. It felt in the first couple of episodes that BOB possessing Cooper for the past 25 years has resulted in BOB has been moving around the country a lot and effecting a lot of places. Also, Sarah Palmer still lives in the family home and watches violent nature documentaries.

3  and 4

 

  Hide contents

 

I have so many questions about BOB/Cooper and Dougie and why there are two Coopers in our world. Also how? Dougie was wearing a ring so that implies someone else made him. Cooper's entire exit from the Black Lodge was great. It was incredibly dreamlike.

Some of the milling about in Dougie's house was a bit meh but Kyle MacLaughlin was killing it in every scene.

I love Andy/Lucy/Hawk's crimefighting trio. Interesting that Bobby is now a cop and still apparently messed up about Laura Palmer. That was equally sad and kind funny.

Absolutely loved pretty much everything with Gordon and Albert. It was fun that Denise is apparently the head of the FBI or something. Apparently David Bowie's character from the movie is important to this!

Also, I'm sensing Audrey Horne is going to pop up soon.

Completely and utterly loving the fact the episodes all end with a musical number.

 

 

 

On episodes 3 and 4;

Spoiler

I was really unsure about this series after episodes 2 and 3...not nearly enough of it seemed to be taking place in Twin Peaks, and it lacked the humour and goofiness that I loved about the original series. Episode 4 got things really, really back on track for me.

I'm not really sure about the Dougie thing - it all seems a bit much, and a waste of the Dale Cooper character. As for how there are multiple Coopers, I'm not sure the evil Coop is even technically Bob any more, he's just somehow an evil doppelganger created through the Black Lodge, released when the "real" Dale Cooper was trapped there. He knew that the real Cooper was about to be released from the Black Lodge, and that would draw him back in, and said that he had a plan to stop it - so somehow he has created "Dougie", the third Dale Cooper, and somehow tricked whatever forces operate the Black Lodge into taking that doppelganger and not him. Because there can only be one, either the evil Dale Cooper or the original Dale Cooper now must die.

Andy and Lucy were maybe pushed a little too far in just being comically inept, but it was just great to get back to Twin Peaks being a weird, weird small town full of weird people, so I'll allow it. Wally is possibly the best thing in the series so far - I never would have guessed that the highlight of an episode of Twin Peaks would be an interminably long, slightly deranged beatnik Brando impression by Michael Cera. It was extraordinary.

Gordon Cole is one of my favourite things in Twin Peaks, so I love the amount of time devoted to him in this episode. David Lynch has no chemistry with any living actor, and it's perfect. Him being given a picture of Mount Rushmore made me legitimately laugh out loud. Not too keen on Tammy being along for the ride, though, as she's mentioned routinely in the Secret History of Twin Peaks - a book I don't like very much at all, and I'm hoping has no bearing on this series.

I agree that Bobby getting teared up at Laura Palmer was actually pretty funny - and I think it was supposed to be. The original Twin Peaks was such a cheesy soap opera at times, and intentionally OTT, and Bobby's over-acted grief was such a big part of that, it felt like a conscious effort to poke fun at that, especially with Laura's Theme playing.

Cole saying it's a "Blue Rose" case is interesting, as "Blue Rose" is one of the weird mysteries left over from Fire Walk With Me, but it's always been assumed that it was FBI code for a supernatural case, so it seems that Cole is aware to some extent of the Black Lodge, and has connected Cooper and Jeffries to it.

I don't know how they're going to handle moving the plot forward without Jeffries, as he sounds like a major part of it, and Bowie was originally intended to return. I'm guessing that the Jeffries we're hearing about - bearing in mind that, like Cooper, he had travelled through the Black Lodge - may actually be an equivalent to the evil Cooper, a Black Lodge doppelganger rather than the real thing. 

 

As for what happens next...both the Cooper doppelgangers vomited something when the real Dale Cooper exited the Black Lodge. Evil Coop definitely knew it was coming and tried to stop it for as long as possible - Dougie vomited first, and he was the one sucked into the Black Lodge. So that seems significant. People who have been in close proximity to whatever it is that evil Coop vomited, and seemingly just in close proximity to him, have been getting sick. Back in Twin Peaks, there's apparently a spate of children overdosing, with the cops unable to track down where the drugs are coming from, and I wonder if the two things are related - these aren't overdoses, they're the same sickness being experienced by those who have been in contact with evil Cooper, and it's to do with the Black Lodge seeping into our reality.

Presumably Albert looking for "her" is Sarah Palmer? I can't think of another woman, aside from the Log Lady - for whom "I know where she drinks" wouldn't make a lot of sense - they would seek out for a Blue Rose case, assuming Blue Rose is the supernatural, and Sarah Palmer was able to see Bob, and perceive of the Black Lodge in some sense. But then, she clearly still lives in the same house, so you would assume the FBI would know where to find her without traipsing out to the Roadhouse.