TV Show Discussion

[deanb]

I've been passing my time making jigsaws and watching Arrested Development and it's great. One observation is that most of the various gifs n refrences you see around are from the first few episodes, which did make me a bit wary it'd go downhill quickly, but it's been great. Love all the internal referencing (I'm up to 3rd series and there's the "the fact you call it 'pop-pop' tells me you're not ready" line repeated from the previous series), and how it all sort of weaves together in a way many other shows struggle to do. It's a very different style and tone to Community, but it's in much the same category I'd say. Like if you like one, you'll like the other.

 

Also given it is over 10 years since it came out interesting to see folks "back then" and their progress since, though some cameos were already quite famous at the time.

[deanb]

 

New trailer out for the newer Top Gear.

 

Also on the 4th series of Arrested Development, a notable shift in style in its move to Netflix. Also watching Supergirl so I can watch the crossover episode. It's quite formulaic start so far, with setting up the universe and learning a lesson each episode kind of thing (oh, that's not "setting up the universe" in a "this is kryptonite and how it works". Like...there's a green blade and you know it's kryptonite. Just setting up this "Fort Ross and the escaped criminals" thing). Kinda bummed in double checking if it was definitely Dean Cain on IMDB a plot element was revealed in the cast list. Very similar to Flash's "introduce a familiar character but change it so it keeps even knowledgeable people guessing" trick.

[CorgiShinobi]

The new Powerpuff Girls series will be premiering soon. I haven't really kept up on it as I don't really have interest in it. In the last 24 hours, I've had fellow millennials "Powerpuff" themselves.

 

What did I do?

 

 

I jumped on the bandwagon, and if you want aboard, go here!

[Eleven]

Arrow

 

 

Wow... did they really just kill the Black Canary? Wow...

I haven't watched it yet, but I got curious when I saw an OutOfTheLoop thread about it.

 

 

[TCP]

Arrow:

 

Yes, yes they did. It's a little frustrating!

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by The Cowboy Poet

[Eleven]

This weekend I binged on Billions, a wall street drama starring Damien Lewis and some fat guy I don't know. Major Winters has pretty cool TV shows (Life, Homeland).

 

I honestly do not understand the financial aspect of the show, I only understand things "in general", like I know what they're doing might be illegal, or might be skirting the law things like that, but the drama is good. Also has some pretty interesting characters, or rather characters in interesting situations.

 

There's this one phrase one of the characters use, "I am not uncertain", used as some kind of code to basically say they're sure (of a decision) because they got some inside info, when they're doing financial thingies. I think I'm going to start using that phrase IRL.

 

 

Also WTF is with the CW schedule, is it 1 episode per 2 weeks on The Flash? C'mon now...

 

 

Oh and I also started watching Episodes. I like how the show is described: "Matt LeBlanc stars as Matt LeBlanc in a comedy about writing a comedy series". Matt LeBlanc is basically the same character again, but he's not too dumb in this one. He's like Joey from Season 1 of friends. Not like dumb cartoon Joey from the later seasons. It's ok...

 

I'm trying to watch all these Showtime shows before my Showtime on Hulu trial is up. I keep seeing this ad for Ray Donovan and all I can think of is Max Payne when I see it. Is this show good? Seems to have a cult following.

 

 

 

Oh oh and also, I seem to have completely lost interest in the last remaining episodes of Daredevil, season 2. Is it just me? I think Elektra just killed the show for me. She is a terrible person and honestly not really that interesting, which made me kinda hate Matt and now I'm uninterested in him too... Punisher got a bit boring as well...

Edited April 18, 2016 by Eleven

[Hot Heart]

I liked what Elektra introduced and the Punisher arc is alright but, yeah, the last 2-3 episodes really drop the ball.

[Mister Jack]

Well I gave that Powerpuff Girls reboot a chance and it's fucking awful.  It's like pure cancer in animated form.  The art is shit, the voice acting is shit, and the writers are actually using memes from ten years ago as jokes.  There are lolcats and rage faces in this thing, and god I wish I was making that up.  I wouldn't be surprised if Craig McCracken kills himself just so he can roll over in his grave.

 

 

Edited April 18, 2016 by Mister Jack

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Wow, just watched the Angie TriBeCa pilot and it is the dumbest shit ever. It's got good reviews so I'm not sure what I'm missing as I genuinely didn't even crack a smile, never mind laugh.

[deanb]

 

This looks like it'll be quite neat. Quite a Korra-style of animation.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Hope all you Americans are taking advantage of the first live broadcast of Eurovision in your Country ever, and the fact we are already pandering to you by having Justin timber lake as a live act on it. Still excited though!

[deanb]

Australians singing, Americans watching? What the hell is going on with Eurovision? Quality of the acts is going to slide massively if they carry on watering it down like this.

[deanb]

Decided to watch Preacher n see how it works out. I knew from the cast list they'd not be following the story of the story that closely.

 

It's alright so far, and I think for myself a lot of interest in it is going to be seeing how they'll have the changes play out. So far

 

We're showing in nightmare flashbacks that Jesse's dad is a preacher too, rather than a marine which'll have a fair bit of impact in how Jesse's childhood plays out since it's sort of a "jesse becomes a preacher to be like his dad" rather than him being a preacher due to brainwashing by his maternal family that killed his dad.

 

Genesis so far actually seems pretty close to what Genesis is in the comic books, though rather than looking like a baby it's a sort of etheral form that makes a sort of "smoke monster" like mix of baby cries which is suitably creepy. However it's "Outer Space" rather than "Heaven" that it's originated from and I think they're gonna go with a "It's an alien being" angle than "it's a rival to God" angle. This'll also have some pretty broad implications given a lot of the drive for Jesse is trying to hunt down God and make him confess. So motivation will be different. They do have the two angels trying to track down Genesis though, or at least their characters, not that there was much to them. I wonder if the change'll mean we don't end up with The Grail in this either which'll also be weird given Herr Starr makes up a large chunk of the plot.

 

The church doesn't explode either, instead Genesis makes a few preachers (and even Tom Cruise) go "pop" instead. He does have the "Word of God" though, and his first use unfortunately is directly related with one of his earlier uses in the comic too. In the comic he tells Arseface's dad to "Go Fuck Yourself", which the dad does and Jesse does feel guilt over it and weans his use of the Word. In the show he tells one of his congregation in regards to his nagging mum to "Be brave. Tell her the truth. Open your heart to her". Though I guess this demonstrates to the audience the level of power he now has, it won't really affect Jesse quite yet since he's unaware he used the Word on the guy, and given the guy flew to Florida Jesse wasn't around to understand what has happened (though iirc in the comic it's not until later when Arseface hunts Jesse down that he finds out what happened).

 

 

 

 

Cassidy is pretty great though. But the pay off of sorts with him is when Jesse digs into his 100 year past and finds that when you're a drunken irish vampire with vague immortality you get quite fucked up in trying to find purpose in life while staying out the sun and I'm unsure if the show will delve into this. In the comic it's sort of dragged out and hinted at but comes to a head much later on. I think the comic did a much better job of the vampire reveal too.

 

I'm curious how it'll play out, cos it's not until much later when Jesse ends up as a sheriff for a while that he settles down, and mostly it's a sort of road trip across US and other far flung places. I feel it might stagnate a little if they're all hanging out in the one place.

[Hot Heart]

I finished Agent Carter. Kinda sad that it was cancelled, but S2 was a serious step down. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Peggy/Jarvis interplay, but the actual episode-to-episode stuff became quite boring. It started well as a show where she had to hide both her true job, plus embark on a mission she needed to keep secret from the rest of the agency, all the while fighting the institutionalised sexism and yet having a jolly good time. Then it became some weird thing with some lame "zero matter" nonsense and a disappointingly typical romance subplot.

 

Still, Jarvis was brilliant.

[Eleven]

Anyone here watched Heroes Reborn?

 

Something confuses me. Why is Molly Walker so old? Well, not old, but looks like she's 20 something but in the previous series she was a kid. The time jump wasn't that long...

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[deanb]

I started watching it but didn't get very far, it kinda dragged out a fair bit or something like that, didn't quite catch me.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I didn't remember her from the old series, the one that shocked me was the guy who manipulates computers. But to be honest I didn't even think about it because as soon as I try and work stuff like that out it just pickles my head, so... This is the guess I just came up with. Molly's age in reborn should be her age in the old series plus the time from then until Claire had the twins, plus the twins current age (15-17 maybe?) shouldn't it? That would fit anyway, so is good enough to satisfy me, though it certainly may be wrong.

[deanb]

Time wise it's 10 years since Heroes first aired, which I think Molly showed up in like the first or second episode. But yeah if Claire has 15 year old twins you'd assume there's a wider gap than that. If X-men can age 20 film years in the space of 5 real years then I'm sure Molly and co can age 20 tv years in the space of 10 real years.

 

One fun thing if you go back n watch it is it's so obvious that the first appearance of Sylar isn't Zachary Quinto. Especially now he's all over Star Trek (shame he's not really in much else).

[Eleven]

So time jump is 10 years? I thought it was 5 years, maybe that's why it never made sense to me. Anyway I looked it up and according to Tim Kring, Heroes continued in "real time", which means 10 years is from the first episode (and the first 4 years are the 4 seasons of Heroes), which makes this "Season 10". Plus 1 year jump after the incident maybe, or is the incident at Odessa at the 9th year? Doesn't matter I guess.

 

So let's see, I thought Molly could not have been more than 8 years old when she first appeared. So that makes her 18. Still looks too old IMO. New actress is 22, so I assumed correctly that she's 20 something, but I guess TV-wise that means she's around 18. Though for some reason I'm not buying it. Maybe because of how she's initially introduced (working the casino), I thought she would have been older than 18.

 

But looked up the actress for younger Molly as well, she was 11 when she first appeared, and she has no official age in the series. Which could make new Molly 21, 22 after Odessa. So it matches up. I don't buy that she's 11 originally though.

 

Claire's twins are zero years old during the incident, they're only 15 because of Hiro so their age is out of whack with the timeline.

Edited June 2, 2016 by Eleven

[deanb]

I'll be honest I stopped like 4 or so episodes into Reborn, so I'm only vaguely aware of who is who.

 

 

Anyone else watch The Flash? Been thinking how cos of the way they've done things with the 52 multiverses they can easily have the original 1990 Flash (where Henry Allen's actor plays The Flash, Mark Hamill plays the Trickster n Prof McGees actress plays Prof McGee), as well it lay alongside the current Justice League films.

Some of the ending I'm hoping they tone down for Season 3 cos this started to get a bit meme-ey with Wells literally using "The speedforce" as a legitimate response to a question on why something happened how it did, and I think Barry used much the same at how he took out Zoom. The other ending on the man in the mask was Chekhov Rifle'd like many episodes ago (though not everyone believed it was the case but obviously unfamiliar with chekhovs gun).

 

I'm talking about Barry reviving Jessie Quick with a touch, and the dad being Jay Garrick when he outright said "My mothers maiden name is Garrick".

 

Him going all Flashpoint despite being told not too by mentors, enemies and the Speedforce itself was like....dude.

 

[Eleven]

The Flash.

 

They did the same thing with Henry Allen like they did with Wells. I don't like that bit much. Seems to undo the damage done by killing Barry's father when we can still see him right there. And we all know how this is going to go, Barry will look to him for advice and see his father in him, only now with superpowers.

I think it's a twist for twists' sake. It's kind of a CW thing to do. They kind of do this all the time.

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with how the 2nd season went. But regarding Barry's character development, they kind of put him on the same spot I feel, next season he'll be feeling guilty about the death of his father, instead of his mother, and still not be able to reach his full potential / accept his fate like the speedforce wanted.

 

 

Heroes Reborn:

Well, I don't blame NBC for cancelling this show, again, seems like this show has trouble keeping viewers interested. I tuned out while watching some of the episodes since it just got boring, but I thought it got pretty interesting once they started time hopping. Maybe it would have been better to be a 6 episode mini-series. I think they really need better writers to flesh out the episodes though. I dig the overarching plot, reminds me of Hope Summers, and I just naturally like the show anyway because I like X-Men type stories. Wish it was better.

 

One thing I'd like to mention is that while I found Ren's storyline a little cheesy(?), he is basically living out his (and probably others') gamer fantasies, and I'm happy for him for that.

 

 

Flash Edit:

 

 

Oh crap wait! I forgot he went back and saved his mother! Ok I guess that changes things. I wonder if Henry will be alive in the new present. I wonder if any of the things that happened would have still happened... I mean, that changes a lot of things no? Hmm...

 

 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Eleven

[deanb]

I think with Heroes and Heroes Reborn in that 10 year gap between shows they've ended up with the MCU springing up and likes of AoS, Daredevil n Jessica Jones on TV too they had to do a bit to update the show.

 

And yeah the Flash edit is the big thing that makes me wonder where they're wanting to go with the show. Introducing the multi-verse was a good way of fleshing out the rogues gallery (which we've been a bit short on Captain Cold this series apart from the Micheal Ironside episode)

[deanb]

I've been watching Preacher of late, though a bit behind cos it has the annoying issue of being on the same day as Game of Thrones. Having read the comic run it's clearly immediate from the get go it is not using that as a storyboard, which is kinda cool I guess and keeps everyone mostly in the dark, with the odd easter egg of sorts for comic book readers (e.g building a scale model of the Alamo). On the other hand some of the changes aren't always for the best and episode 3 had me drifting from it a bit as it was like "okay you're setting up way too many threads without resolving others" but episode 5 (the latest) has gotten me back on board. One thing I'm liking is the expansion of character for some of the bit players. For example Arseface was pretty much only in the book for the sake of making a joke that his face looks like an arse, but he's quite a compelling and empathetic character in the show.

 

I'm not super sure if I'd recommend it, it's...well it's produced by Seth Rogen, has a character called Arseface and is based on a Garth Ennis comic series so yeah might give a clue of the kind of show that it is.

 

Or this from the first episode.

https://youtu.be/K7Vi_Epr4bs

 

In other news my Agents of Shield viewing has massively dwindled, though largely from external forces (I used to watch it while doing jigsaws, but not been doing jigsaws of late).

[Mister Jack]

I binged the whole third season of Bojack Horseman last night.  I had intended to spread it out but it sucked me in and I couldn't stop.  This might be the best sitcom on television right now (well, when you include Netflix).  It was pretty funny, but the thing about this show is that it gets pretty fucking real sometimes in some really depressing ways, but you still want to see where this character's trainwreck of a life is leading him.

 

 

Bojack was always a selfish jerk, but season 3 is when the show really makes a point of showing you that saying he's damaged goods is really just an excuse. He might have a lot of demons and self-loathing, but when you get right down to it that doesn't change the fact that he's still a shitty person who would rather whine about how shitty he is than actually try to change for the better. This is the season where people in his life are finally getting tired of putting up with his bullshit all the time and are starting to understand just how pathetic he really is.

A lot of bad stuff happens in this season, but the one ray of hope I chose to cling onto was Princess Carolyn's relationship with Ralph. She's my favorite character in the show and god damn it, I just want her to be happy. It broke my heart to see her agency go under after she worked so hard to pursue her dream. I really hope her new management firm works out. God knows she deserves it.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Just watched Stranger Things with the wife over the last two days. I highly recommend it. The best way I can describe it is like Super 8 (but good) + Twin Peaks (but not as weird).