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Post by dboonsghost on Aug 22, 2014 4:00:34 GMT -5
FXX Simpsons marathon. Kinda weak how they've shaved the picture to look like a widescreen ratio. Who are they fooling? Ugh, no they didn't! Why would they go to all the effort of remastering it in HD and then crop it like that? That sucks, that's at least 30% of the picture just thrown out the window.
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Post by Jean Luc de Lemur on Aug 24, 2014 4:32:24 GMT -5
Just finished Breaking Bad. With this season of Korra over now, this weekend was the last time I’ll be watching TV for a long while.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Aug 25, 2014 7:59:21 GMT -5
@ifwewait I'm sorry I couldn't keep up with recapping Falling Skies. In the end, the show asks a lot of me, to the point I'm not even sure if the show knows what it's trying to convey anymore. Falling Skies - past all the obfusctory and contradictory plot nonsense - is a deeply conflicted program; the part of it that is a body horror alien invasion series is constantly at war at the part of it that is a deeply schmaltzy Spielbergian family-first love fest where emotional bonds triumph over any superfluous plot mechanic or alien endeavour. I just watched the sixth episode a few days ago, in which a long, long argument is held about the potential threat Lexi clearly poses interspersed with BUT SHE'S THEIR DAUGHTER, and I no longer know what the hell the show wants to believe. Are they turning on her like they did Karen? (Ultimately, Tom Mason defends Lexi by just saying 'she is not Karen' - since she is not his blood, then he can't betray her, a thought that goes unexamined) and must everyone contextualize every choice they make in terms of family (Yes. Except for the Volm, apparently, who get to cite concerns about security and strategy and a past example of an event like this. The Volm are pragmatic and do not act with their hearts; therefore they must be certainly wrong.) On the other hand, Pope remains the one part of the show they refuse to schmaltz up, holding hard to his crutsy assholishness (even if he's far from being a real menace for years now) as if he is a lifesaving raft lost in a sea of good intentions. About the only decent thing this season has done is give him a love interest who tries to steal his car; they're make for each other and should just drive away from this nonsense and wander around the post-apocalyptic hellscape of Earth getting into scrapes and getting beaten up by punks as Pope gets rolled for all his crap, squints, takes a swig of some alcohol he hid, and runs after it with an exasperated look. Oh yeah he also had a big heroic moment that made no sense because sure, everyone has big heroic moments that make no sense now. Falling Skies - and to an extent Extant - feel like the worst tendencies of Spielberg's approach to science fiction calcified on television; they push the emotional quotient so hard and so relentlessly it never matters if the plot holds up to scrutiny or not. J.J. Abrams may perhaps fancy himself as Spielberg's heir - Super 8 something something - but he's a far more reliable Name-Stamped-Onto-Genre-TV Product than Spielberg is. But enough of that. RTE has a new trailer out advertising the 2014/5 season for their dramas - the fifth season of Love/Hate, the second season of The Fall, and the miniseries Charlie. Despite showing that someone in RTE's trailer editing room has a huge love for Woodkid's Iron (check RTE's trailer for Generation War as more proof) it's a pretty confident, Grim Drama Trailer. Whether they deliver remains to be seen, of course. The big showy bits are given to Aidan Gillen in Charlie Speechifying and telling us The Moral Of The Story, a role that is second nature to that guy who was in The Wire and Game of Thrones, and now is on an Important Miniseries playing the most notorious Prime Minister in Irish history (so is it going to be another edgy antihero series? Sure.) And that Aidan Gillen is joining his Love/Hate co-star Tom Vaughan-Lawlor on Charlie and the whole thing feels a bit like it's trying to capture lighting in a bottle and prove that RTE can use its recently won respect to do other Good Important TV stuff and it's Not Just Fair City We Swear. The BBC produced Northern Irish show The Fall feels like a natural fit for this lineup, anyway. On the other hand, Tom Vaughn-Lawlor as PJ Mara! ...just assume that means something and nod. I am watching the heck out of that thing for sure. Oh and update on stuff I link trailers about: Yes, I'm watching Gomorrah. It's... okay. It's another grim gritty European crime saga drama show. Frankly, it lacks the verve messy melodramatic humour of Romanzo Criminale, but hey, it's not terrible, but I am thinking there's a dryness to a lot of Serious European TV that's getting a trifle intolerable. Which links me back, circuitously, to the trailer I just linked. One of the many reasons Love/Hate is as surprisingly good as it is Nidge, the glad-handing goofily grinning cold-blooded gangster at the heart of the series, and one of the huge parts he works is that he really was a character that began as the show's comic relief.
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Post by dboonsghost on Aug 27, 2014 1:15:28 GMT -5
Despite the review on the AV Club, I've spent the last two or three nights watching Bojack Horseman. Surprisingly, it actually gets REALLY good after the first two or three episodes. I'd give it a B, but I'm only through the first six episodes right now.
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Post by rimjobflashmob on Aug 28, 2014 14:06:26 GMT -5
Oh my god you guys, Reign is the most batshit teen soap/period drama/possible supernatural ghost/pagan blood cult thriller I've ever seen.
If that doesn't convince you: hunky, bearded, husky-voiced Nostradamus.
I've watched 12 episodes in two days.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Aug 28, 2014 15:22:24 GMT -5
rimjobflashmob I know, right? Anyway. Falling Skies time. Oh, Lourdes. Lourdes, Lourdes, Lourdes.I liked Lourdes. Like... season one? Season two? In a show that could often devolve into the Mason and His Boys Hour, she was about the most prominent female character that wasn't a romance interest for any of them, and an apprentice for Doctor Anne, at that, a reasonably sensible and level headed kid who was also a practicing Catholic, which opened the question to how religion would function post-apocalypse (though, this being Falling Skies, it was never a question it would treat more seriously than throwing some schmaltz at it.) Of course somewhere down the line Lourdes got unloaded onto her a stridency that made her difficult to like and the fourth season role as cult acolyte and first apostle in the crazy religion of Lexi Mason made her the insufferable heel for most of the season. That her death kicks off an episode that provides a ton of character deaths (though it's mostly either ' oh yeah, this guy was a grizzled army sniper in addition to being a scuzzball who followed Pope around' - oh by the way Tom Mason tries to get himself to do the sniping instead of the sniper because HE IS HERO MAN my god Tom how did you become the last hope of humanity LET THE BLOODY SNIPER DO HIS BLOODY SNIPING JOB) seems not at all to mine what non-existent pathos the character has at this point and more just a sign that we should finally, at long last, consider Lexi nothing but a replacement for Karen in the show's scary enemy blonde category. So besides Lourdes and Tector (the sniper dude), Doctor 'I am not Brad Dourif DRC why do you even think that' Kadar also winds up dead. Kadar was pretty much the only decent human character the show added in season three, so obviously he's out for the count, because Anne - and whatever the fuck Anne is doing these days, which is probably trying to either save or doom her daughter - is the only doctor this show needs now. Oh and I guess Maggie is dead? Or she's in the rubble, so she'll probably get better, so she can come back and like have the romantic triangle that has totally become a thing between her and Ben and... what's his name. Hal. Right, that's his name. Hal. Why is that a thing? Whatever. But yeah, Mason continues to have no idea how to run a rebellion, the Espheni have no idea how to thwart it, and fuck me if I understand what Karen and the Espheni's endgame plan with Lexi was supposed to be anyway (and actually wait why are newborn Espheni super-violent what kind of biological sense DOES THAT MAKE, Cochise? Eh? Eh?) Sigh. This show has Duncan Jones in a full body suit. Why can't that be done on some good TV?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 21:32:50 GMT -5
Douay-Rheims-Challoner If anyone, even one person, on Falling Skies thought or acted like a human being, besides maybe Pope sometimes, it would be way more interesting. But very little anybody does makes any sense. Nice job on that paragraph about Maggie. Be prepared to fast forward through some scenes. It should really be on the CW with that plotline. I would say this is the dumbest show I watch, but I watch Under the Dome. What is wrong with me?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2014 5:29:28 GMT -5
Anyone watching Manhattan? Watched the pilot the other night and it was pretty darn good. Really a very pleasant surprise for the summer season, if they can sustain the quality of the pilot and or get better it might be the best summer show this year.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Aug 29, 2014 6:22:55 GMT -5
Anyone watching Manhattan? Watched the pilot the other night and it was pretty darn good. Really a very pleasant surprise for the summer season, if they can sustain the quality of the pilot and or get better it might be the best summer show this year. I haven't yet but was planning to start watching. Glad to hear you liked it as I trust your taste in TV!
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 29, 2014 6:49:04 GMT -5
rimjobflashmob I know, right? Anyway. Falling Skies time. . Lourdes, Lourdes, Lourdes.... a reasonably sensible and level headed kid I'm sorry - are we talking about the same Lourdes who started playing Christmas carols on a piano in a deserted house while she and everyone she cared about were hiding?
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Aug 29, 2014 7:59:55 GMT -5
Post-Lupin Wasn't that season three? I don't even remember anymore man, but I definitely remember her being okay in the first couple of appearances. (Hilariously, I recently learned from the Falling Skies wiki that the actress who played Lourdes also voices Asami on Legend of Korra - an underused part of the ensemble certainly but not one quite as thoroughly torched as Lourdes.)
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Aug 29, 2014 9:09:16 GMT -5
Post-Lupin Wasn't that season three? I don't even remember anymore man, but I definitely remember her being okay in the first couple of appearances. (Hilariously, I recently learned from the Falling Skies wiki that the actress who played Lourdes also voices Asami on Legend of Korra - an underused part of the ensemble certainly but not one quite as thoroughly torched as Lourdes.) Might have been all the way back in S1. Buggered if I'm going to look, though.
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Post by ComradePig on Aug 29, 2014 15:56:54 GMT -5
Only a few days after wishing Party Down was available for streaming in the old shoutbox, it has arrived on Hulu. A most fortuitous event.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 3:34:28 GMT -5
I was kinda excited about Marry Me, but then I watched the 2014 NBC Primetime Preview, and now I'll never see Casey Wilson and Ken Marino the same ever again... 8 fucking central!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 11:27:39 GMT -5
I was kinda excited about Marry Me, but then I watched the 2014 NBC Primetime Preview, and now I'll never see Casey Wilson and Ken Marino the same ever again... 8 fucking central! Ah dammit. I love both of them. Oh well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 11:33:43 GMT -5
MrsLangdonAlger and I just finished Lost Season 3, her for the first time. It was pretty awesome seeing her reaction when she realized it was Kate that Jack was meeting at the end and that it took place after the island. Good times! Now is when we see how much she has tolerance for what comes after.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 12:07:13 GMT -5
I was kinda excited about Marry Me, but then I watched the 2014 NBC Primetime Preview, and now I'll never see Casey Wilson and Ken Marino the same ever again... 8 fucking central! Ah dammit. I love both of them. Oh well. Did you watch it? Maybe it won't be that bad for you. But for me every single joke about how they're contractually obligated to do it and totally not interested in this shit, you guys made it worse and more pathetic.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Aug 31, 2014 13:41:22 GMT -5
MrsLangdonAlger and I just finished Lost Season 3, her for the first time. It was pretty awesome seeing her reaction when she realized it was Kate that Jack was meeting at the end and that it took place after the island. Good times! Now is when we see how much she has tolerance for what comes after. I believe I just yelled "holy shit!!!".
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Post by Arthur Dent on Aug 31, 2014 13:58:47 GMT -5
I watched the first three episodes of Justified in the week I had before classes started. I'm going to try to get more in this weekend and the coming week. It's definitely solid so far, and yes, I loved the pilot.
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Ice Cream Planet
AV Clubber
I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy.
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Post by Ice Cream Planet on Aug 31, 2014 14:24:40 GMT -5
So much TV to watch and so little time! Watched The Mark of Cain, a C4 single drama about the Iraq War. Splendidly acted and filmed with a nice kinetic energy and some truly horrifying set pieces. And yet, I couldn't help but feel that it fell just sort of greatness. Maybe I would have liked it more had I seen it back in 2007? On the miniseries front, plan to watch Carlos, The Monocled Mutineer (all credit goes to Dellarigg on that one), and The Great Train Robbery within the next two weeks. Also need to binge-watch Penny Dreadful, Married, and You're The Worst. Also considering starting Friday Night Lights.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 14:40:43 GMT -5
Ah dammit. I love both of them. Oh well. Did you watch it? Maybe it won't be that bad for you. But for me every single joke about how they're contractually obligated to do it and totally not interested in this shit, you guys made it worse and more pathetic. I have not. I trust your taste in comedy though, so I assume I won't like it. I guess I'll give it a shot though, just to see.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 14:49:31 GMT -5
I watched the first three episodes of Justified in the week I had before classes started. I'm going to try to get more in this weekend and the coming week. It's definitely solid so far, and yes, I loved the pilot. First of all, Justified is totally awesome. Second, sorry I never contributed to the Deadwood thread when I said I would. I ended up working much more than I thought I was going to and didn't have much time. Also, Continuum.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Aug 31, 2014 15:36:07 GMT -5
Arthur DentTwo points. 1. "Honestly, you're the angriest man I've ever known." 2. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Boyd Crowder was actually supposed to die in the pilot - hence the whole bit at the end with Raylan sombrely flashing back to digging coal with him as he bleeds on a floor. But he tested so well with audiences they decided to keep him around and the rest is history. History of awesome. @ifwewait Continuum's always a good excuse. Ice Cream Planet Friday Night Lights! Friday Night Lights? Friday Night Lights.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2014 7:01:24 GMT -5
I binged the next 4 episodes of Manhattan tonight/morning, there was actually 5 but since the 5th one is a start of a two parter(remember when shows would actually label episodes part 1 and 2?) I'm delaying that till I can get next weeks episode as well. Anyway, this has easily become my favorite new series of the year, if not my favorite series of the year. I can't really explain it, it's just that good. Seriously people, watch it. If this was on a bigger channel I feel like people would actually care about it.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Sept 4, 2014 16:05:30 GMT -5
Oh my god you guys, Reign is the most batshit teen soap/period drama/possible supernatural ghost/pagan blood cult thriller I've ever seen. If that doesn't convince you: hunky, bearded, husky-voiced Nostradamus. I've watched 12 episodes in two days. I was telling you all that the whole season and no one listened!
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Post by rimjobflashmob on Sept 4, 2014 17:48:37 GMT -5
Oh my god you guys, Reign is the most batshit teen soap/period drama/possible supernatural ghost/pagan blood cult thriller I've ever seen. If that doesn't convince you: hunky, bearded, husky-voiced Nostradamus. I've watched 12 episodes in two days. I was telling you all that the whole season and no one listened! I swore I saw a still from season 2 that showed no-beard Nostradamus, and I almost flipped over my desk in wroth.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Sept 4, 2014 17:50:39 GMT -5
I was telling you all that the whole season and no one listened! I swore I saw a still from season 2 that showed no-beard Nostradamus, and I almost flipped over my desk in wroth. The king would have to hump so many women out of open windows to make up for that travesty.
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Post-Lupin
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Post by Post-Lupin on Sept 5, 2014 13:38:32 GMT -5
A comment at The Old Country just reminded me how much fun Spooks/MI5 was. Might acquire some of that for rewatch.
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Post by dboonsghost on Sept 5, 2014 14:00:10 GMT -5
At my job we just got the assets for the complete series of Pee Wee's Playhouse, the next MST3K set, and... Hemlock Grove season 1. That last one... Well, you can just assume my level of excitement about that.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Sept 5, 2014 15:12:23 GMT -5
At my job we just got the assets for the complete series of Pee Wee's Playhouse, the next MST3K set, and... Hemlock Grove season 1. That last one... Well, you can just assume my level of excitement about that. You know I saw them for House of Cards too and I can't help but wonder who the hell makes up the market for DVDs of Netflix Original Series. Wouldn't anybody who gave a damn about the show already be a subscriber, and thus have instant access to the show? And it seems absurd to worry about the shows Netflix actually owns getting pulled from streaming, unlike the things it has to buy the rights for.
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