General Television Thread

[K]

Watching Wild Bill, the ITV British police drama which inexplicably has Rob Lowe in it. It's really good. Gutted to find out it's not getting a season 2

[Moses Julep]

4 hours ago, Benjamin said:

This is after the first episode, right? Curious to know what you didn't like about it.

The acting, the depth, the pacing and the dialogue. Basically everything, but I know this type of thing isn’t for me. If you’re a comic book movie  fan or you liked the new Star Wars movies it should be right up your alley. 

[Benjamin]

I think only @Jimmy and I will be excited by this: Season 3 of the Crown is out  

[Bobfoc]

On 16/11/2019 at 12:11, K said:

Watching Wild Bill, the ITV British police drama which inexplicably has Rob Lowe in it. It's really good. Gutted to find out it's not getting a season 2

Wild Bill was interesting to me because it's set in my home town. Spotting some of the locations I see on a daily basis was a lot of fun. Some of the accents were way off, though.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

5 hours ago, Benjamin said:

I think only @Jimmy and I will be excited by this: Season 3 of the Crown is out  

Me too! Already half way through.

[Benjamin]

Knew MCD always has good taste!

The Crown is probably the only prestige drama right now that still fires on all cylinders. I only managed halfway through the first episode of season 3, because dumb work, but hoping to power through a bunch later! 

[Moses Julep]

I like the Crown too, but I like going through the episodes because there's so much to take in. 

[Jimmy]

13 hours ago, Benjamin said:

I think only @Jimmy and I will be excited by this: Season 3 of the Crown is out  

I love being included, but I've never watched it. 

[Benjamin]

Really? I could have sworn we used to be the only ones who used to vote for that shit for GoGo's lists.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

@GoGo Yubari are you gonna do a TV Show or Movie List of the Decade?

[GoGo Yubari]

I still haven't even done the movie list for last year so no promises

(for anyone wondering what happened there, I had tallied up like 2/3rds of it and then accidentally lost all of it and threw my hands in the air out of sheer frustration and just never went back. I'll try to get it all on a slow day in the coming week)

[GhostMachine]

ABC can go ahead and cancel Dancing With The Stars now. 

[Benji]

Supergirl has never really been a good show, but I've enjoyed it as a bit of mindless background fun, so I'm a bit sad that this season really seems to be going full ham with the bad acting and awful writing.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I could have sworn we had a Silicon Valley thread. 
 

One artichoke, extra rare, cup of mayonnaise. 

[K]

they've just taken Man Down off of Netflix while I was halfway through an episode

[probablyoliver]

Anyone else been watching Mr. Robot? We watched s4e7 over the weekend and holy fuck, that was some acting.

I can't wait for five years time when everyone finds out just how excellent this show has been and I can be smug about it like how I imagine people who watched The Wire at the time felt.

[JasonM]

25 minutes ago, Ollie said:

Anyone else been watching Mr. Robot? We watched s4e7 over the weekend and holy fuck, that was some acting.

I can't wait for five years time when everyone finds out just how excellent this show has been and I can be smug about it like how I imagine people who watched The Wire at the time felt.

I finished off season 3 through binge on Friday, and whilst the show definitely has strayed a bit towards the outrageous, they make it all work extremely well on the backs of phenomenal performances from Slater and Malek.

Also the show feels a lot more... idk... Breaking Bad-y, in terms of characters that ended up show up. In season 1 it was very straight laced with crazy-ish characters but still very grounded in reality despite Elliot's inherent insanity. Season 2 started to slip a bit, but still tried its best to keep it very 'real'.

Season 3 though, in the best way it kinda went off the rails. Bobby Cannavale's fixer character looks like he's straight out of the 70s with oversized glasses and a slicked back quiff, Leon dropping constant TV references and smoking trees whilst going around murdering people for the Dark Army. It all becomes a bit... out there. But they make it work so well because whilst some of the characters are weird, the stakes feel very real and focused.

They also managed to ramp up the stakes from small timing first world anarchy to world changing politics where the protagonists are thrown into, conspiracies galore whereas it all started with a few people wanting to fuck up one company. They couldn't have done that without the legwork though, and whilst it feels crazy, you keep watching because they've engrossed you in this idea that one messed up but gifted guy can take down an Illuminti-esque group.

I am holding off on season 4, mostly because I am afraid of being done with the show. I won't put on the same list as The Wire, because I feel that series' eternal power is its depth of characters and 'worldbuilding'.

Like there's not a show i've seen that compares to The Wire to me. Then again, I've not yet seen the Soprano's or Boardwalk, so those might compare.

But Mr. Robot has definitely placed itself in my all-time favourites list.

EDIT: As someone who works in IT, I am most impressed at how the show has managed to mix Hollywood hacking with legit hacking in a way that I can recognize methods used, and whilst there's naturally creative liberties being taken for dramatic purpose, it's genuinely impressive the level of authenticity Esmail has gone for in building realistic portrayals of how hacking is really done.

It's not just thrown in, it's not just 'slapping the keyboard until the Pentagon implodes under the might of hacking prowess. It's people writing scripts and trying to hack things in ways that it happens in real life, by getting into buildings and networks through physical legwork and phishing rather than just 'computer magic'. Like Elliot needing to be in the actual physical building and needing to find a data port to be able to do anything, needing to know root passwords and brute force passwords with some knowhow of what the password might be.

Edited December 2, 2019 by Jasonmufc

[Jimmy]

Really looking forward to the finale of Silicon Valley. I absolutely love the cast, and while RussFest was an outstanding episode, it feels like the right time to call this show. It's been treading water for a little bit - and even if it feels like there's plenty more story to tell in some way - it feels like they haven't quite figured out how to do it. So, very much looking forward to seeing it all wrapped up while it's still got a lot going for it. 

[MalaCloudy Black]

 

[K]

just discovered Derry Girls. it's very good.