General Television Thread

[Hellraiser]

J

9 hours ago, MDK said:

The most annoying character I have ever seen in a TV show or film. 

Okay, I just binge-watched Season 3 and I have to revise my statement. Zack is as bad as prequel Anikin. I'd even put him on the same level as Joffrey. Fucking hell. Can't wait to see that little shit kick the bucket.

 

[tristy]

4 hours ago, Ruki said:

Watching the series finale of The Leftovers. I'm about 20 minutes from the ending. Outside of the first 10-15 minutes, I'm not really enjoying this.

 

 

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The flash forward stuff really sucks. Basically skips anything about the 7 year anniversary or what happened with the departed.

 

Huh. Well...

 

 

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I guess they at least explained what happened to the departed. So that's a thing at least.

 

Spoiler

I didn't have a problem with anything in that finale. It started out, and I was wondering if Nora was in Purgatory/Heaven/whatever, especially when Kevin showed up and seemed very different and not mentioning their history together past their meeting at that high school dance. That was explained away towards the end, thankfully.

Them not mentioning the 7 year anniversary is fine with me. They went 6 anniversaries without anything happening, and we had no real reason to believe something would occur this time besides the ramblings of an old man who most likely is a schizophrenic.

I kind of think Nora is lying about going to the other side and seeing all of these departed people. I have a problem with the ending scene and her explination, mainly how people in the Departed world could also depart themselves. If they've already vanished from our reality, and into a realm that's presumably "Heaven"... where do they go when they disappear from there? They can't be in Purgatory, since if that was the world of the Departed, those are clean and pure souls who have the right to enter Heaven (Laurie's baby from S1 is a good example, the best example of someone pure departing).

Just a really messy ending to a great show, but I guess that's what Damon does best apparently (never watched Lost). Ultimately - I'm probably putting way too much thought into it and I'm just glad Kevin & Nora are probably together now.

In other news about TV shows that confuse the ever-loving shit out of me... Twin Peaks is on it's fifth episode and... your guess is as good as mine as to what the plot really is. Besides Cooper finding is way back to where he really belongs.. everything is out of place, nothing really makes sense upon first viewing, and there's seemingly plots within this show that take place at different points in time (past, present and future).

So confusing, but it'll be so worth it once we really get back into the thick of things. This is only #5 out of 18, so I'm sure things will become more clearer. Well, as clear as they get in a David Lynch project, anyway.

Edited June 5, 2017 by tristy

[MDK]

4 hours ago, Hellraiser said:

J

Okay, I just binge-watched Season 3 and I have to revise my statement. Zack is as bad as prequel Anikin. I'd even put him on the same level as Joffrey. Fucking hell. Can't wait to see that little shit kick the bucket.

 

Told you  

[Alex.]

I feel the same way about HoC tbh. I haven't liked it since S2 and stopped midway this season and i've fully given up.

 

Meanwhile Twin Peaks...what the fuck

[FLiam]

I have somehow only just discovered Rick and Morty.

It's brilliant.

[Skummy]

I'd fallen behind on American Gods, because the girl I've been watching it with has been working late shifts. Caught up on episodes 3 and 4 lately...I'm still optimistic moving forward, but I'm not keen on episode 4 at all;

Spoiler

I don't like Zombie Laura as a thing. I was prepared for the series to move in directions different to the book, but this one doesn't work with me. Laura, for me, should remain part of Shadow's past, not his present. And it moves too far from how I feel the American Gods mythology should work - Gods are real, and exist, even if they have only a fraction of the power they once had. That doesn't follow to someone with, presumably, no connection to the Gods being able to come back from the dead, inexplicably super strong.

Not only that, but all it took for her to be able to come back from the dead was to run away from Anubis/Death while his back was turned? No one else in hundreds of years just thought "run away"?

The things I liked about episode 4, though, were Audrey's response to Laura veering from horror and shock to bemusement and everything in-between, all played very well, and that on a few flashback scenes there were crows watching the house.

 

And then there's Twin Peaks Episode 5...

Spoiler

So, we now know that Evil Cooper is definitely still possessed by, or "travelling with" Bob, and still connected enough to the Black Lodge that he has power over electricity.

I'm still not sold on Cooper-as-Dougie - it feels like padding for when, hopefully, he eventually becomes Dale Cooper again. If all the fluff surrounding it - Dougie's job, the casino, Dougie's debts to shady characters - doesn't end up tying into the main story, it feels like a self-indulgent waste of time that could have been done away with quicker, no matter how good MacLachlan is in it.

There are so many teases that something will eventually snap him back into his real self; twice now I've thought it would be a cup of coffee, this week it was the words "Agent" and "case file", but nothing's been enough. I wonder what will eventually do it - I get the impression it's returning to the town of Twin Peaks. I was convinced, a couple of episodes back, that after winning an absurd amount of money at the casino and being bundled into a taxi to send him "home" that, with no memory of who he was or where he lived, it would be the Twin Peaks hotel room key that he gave to the driver, and that the amount of money he'd ended up with would be enough to carry him the length of the country. Now the key seems to have been disposed of, and Dougie left lost outside his work, what's going to take him there? Are the FBI going to have to come find him? I assume the closing scene of Tammy looking at Cooper's prints was her realising that the prints on file don't exactly match those of the man they have in prison? Perhaps mirror images?

Speaking of mirrors, every single time any version of Cooper looks in a mirror I'm on edge - so Lynch is doing something right there.

The whole thing with Dougie feels like classic Lynchian satire; nobody notices, or cares enough to notice, that someone they know is behaving in such an unusual fashion, because they're all wrapped up in their own lives. It just feels overdone. It's like the extreme end of every character in Twin Peaks acting not quite believably human. That said, his wife suggested he was having one of his "episodes", so perhaps the real Dougie was - as well as being a gambling, philandering, presumed criminal, in debt to very dodgy people - never quite there anyway, perhaps through being used by Bob/Evil Coop for whatever ends.

So, we have a pretty young blonde girl show up to the diner (the diner, yay!) asking for money, running around with a drug addict waster of a boyfriend. A pretty young blonde girl in trouble, in a David Lynch project? Can't see that ending badly, surely? Particularly when presumed drug dealer potential rapist shows up in the Roadhouse at the end - the seedy underbelly of Twin Peaks that got to Laura Palmer appears to still be in full effect here, which doesn't bode well for New Blonde Girl.

I'm calling it now - her death will re-open the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks, either giving Cooper back his full personality, or doing something to Bob.

 

[MDK]

Is Twin Peaks any good? Not the old one, I've seen that, I mean the new one. I'm half way through the first episode and its just annoying me.

[Skummy]

On ‎10‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 19:58, MDK said:

Is Twin Peaks any good? Not the old one, I've seen that, I mean the new one. I'm half way through the first episode and its just annoying me.

Episode 4 is where it really kicked in for me. It depends what you liked about Twin Peaks - for me, I like the supernatural element, but I mostly love that it's an offbeat goofy soap opera through a David Lynch lens, and there's definitely a lot less of that thus far. It's got far more in common with Fire Walk With Me, and Lynch's wider oeuvre, than it does with the first season of Twin Peaks so far.

 

American Gods episodes 5 & 6;

Spoiler

I'm still not sold on Dead Laura. I don't think the mythology of American Gods, as I understand it, really carries to Laura being able to come back from the dead despite having no connection to the Gods - unless, of course, there's a twist coming. I also don't get, again unless it's explained later, why having come back from the dead has inexplicably made her super strong. It feels like something the writers thought would be fun, rather than something that's been giving any thought.

Her scenes with Mad Sweeney have been fun, I just don't like that character being Laura.

Laura, to me, serves more of a purpose as a concept, as a symbol of Shadow's past, than as a character taking part in the story herself. As a concept, she's the wife that Shadow left behind, corrupted by the affair she had while Shadow was in prison, and that's the beginning of Shadow being forced to question what he thought was true/real. Having her in the story as a character that's quite combative, almost wholly unrepentant and shameless, and, frankly, not particularly likeable, I think undermines her role in the story prior to this point, and makes me question Shadow's judgement - at the moment, Shadow doesn't seem like someone who's been chosen for their part in a mystical quest, he feels like someone who has made a series of bad decisions.

 

Beyond that, I'm enjoying it. It's odd, it's felt like the story has been moving at a very leisurely pace, in its own esoteric way, yet it still feels like they've rushed into the Old Gods vs. New Gods story, because both elements have been gradually introduced in their own ways, with so little crossover, and with other stuff going on, that bringing them together now has felt a little abrupt.

Mr Wednesday continues to be fantastic, though, Gillian Anderson is phenomenal (the scene with her as ersatz Ziggy Stardust was even better than I had hoped), and Crispin Glover as Mr. World was amazing, even in the brief scene that he's had.

The positive of Laura is that getting her on the road with Mad Sweeney and Salim has created a bit of an excuse to follow those two characters, who I like, and introduced a bit more of a road trip narrative, which has been lacking so far, so that's fun.

 

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Luther is coming back for a fifth series! 

[MDK]

9 hours ago, Skummy said:

Episode 4 is where it really kicked in for me. It depends what you liked about Twin Peaks - for me, I like the supernatural element, but I mostly love that it's an offbeat goofy soap opera through a David Lynch lens, and there's definitely a lot less of that thus far. It's got far more in common with Fire Walk With Me, and Lynch's wider oeuvre, than it does with the first season of Twin Peaks so far.

 

I liked the original Twin Peaks. But David Lynch films normally just piss me off. I'm not sure if I can be bothered with this show. 

[GA!]

1 hour ago, MDK said:

I liked the original Twin Peaks. But David Lynch films normally just piss me off. I'm not sure if I can be bothered with this show. 

If that's the case, I wouldn't bother. This series is basically an 18 episode arthouse film.

Just finished episode 6 and I'm really enjoying it. I've no idea what's going on but it's such an easy watch. As I said before, strangely relaxing, considering this episode was a bit more violent too. Every episode feels way too short as well.

[MDK]

14 minutes ago, GA! said:

If that's the case, I wouldn't bother. This series is basically an 18 episode arthouse film.

 

You are probably right.

[Alex.]

The pieces are beginning to come together. I am just waiting for Cooper's reawakening!

[Skummy]

Loved the last episode. I'll post extended thoughts when I've got more time, but it might be my favourite yet. It was the first time it felt like a hinterland between the original series and Fire Walk With Me, while still pointing to something new. And more of it was set in Twin Peaks! It felt like a step in a few very good directions.

Didn't like the last American Gods. It had a plot twist that could go either way, depending what happens next, but 90% of the episode seemed completely superfluous. Odd choice for so close to the end of the series.

[Hobo]

Also enjoying Twin Peaks. Very much enjoyed Albert in this weeks episode. Possibly the best Albert moment ever.

 

[Benji]

Bates Motel S5 finale...

Spoiler

That was probably the most underwhelming finale I've ever seen. I don't know what I expected but it certainly wasn't that guff.

Not the worst finale, but definitely felt like it lacked drama or stakes.

 

[C-MIL]

Hearing about it made me glad I gave up on it long before.

[Benji]

31 minutes ago, 8 Maids-C-MILking said:

Hearing about it made me glad I gave up on it long before.

I loved the ending of season four, and I think up until mid-season I quite liked this one. I honestly feel like they should have ended with...

Spoiler

Psycho, rather than trying to get clever by flipping it on it's head, and then attempting to go past it. Knowing the ending isn't the bad thing if the journey was fun, in fact I was really excited to see the ending I know and love, and they fucked that up.

Who honestly thought Dylan and Emma were the people viewers cared about and were rooting for in a series surrounding the origins of Norman Bates?

 

[C-MIL]

The farther they got from the source material, the less I liked it.

I think if they had changed nothing else but to make it a completely original character and story, it would've worked a lot better. Then again, without the Hitchcock hook, I don't think it's the kind of show I would've taken a chance on in the first place.

[Benjamin]

Oh dear fucking Lord that finale of the Handmaid's Tale. Hands down, without a shadow a doubt the best show on TV this year. We're only halfway through the year but it's going to take a miracle to beat this show. Elizabeth Moss is a fucking boss.