Fall/Winter/Spring TV 2016-17

Clumber wrote:

Looks like Syfy has started up new seasons on Dark Matter & Wynona Earp.

And Killjoys starts up June 30th

Cragmyre wrote:
Clumber wrote:

Looks like Syfy has started up new seasons on Dark Matter & Wynona Earp.

And Killjoys starts up June 30th

Last week one of their new shows, Blood Drive, started.

It's pretty nuts.

Yeah Blood drive looks really dumb. Might be fun. The first episode was pretty meh, but I am going to give it a few more episodes before I pass final judgement.

I'm just not a fan of the grindhouse style over the top "Sam Peckinpah Salad Days" style violence.

Izombie had a good season final.

Anne with a E. I got to the part about the pet mouse, wow.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Izombie had a good season final.

That was merely part 1 of 2.

So I watched about 25 minutes of the Preacher season premiere last night before sh*tting it off. I mean, I loved the first season, but this just seemed really, really bad. Violent without reason, mean, and playing to the lowest common denominator.

I mean, I hate Texas as much or more than anyone, and even I thought Preacher went far too gratuitous in mocking the state.

I'm gonna give it another go, hoping maybe I was just not in the mood or tired. Maybe coming off a weak of three finales of shows featuring outstanding writing, acting, and production raised the bar above what they are doing with Preacher. Because Fargo, Better Call Saul, and American Gods are all violent stories told with a certain amount of style, too.

Preacher just seemed to offer nothing. Was it just me?

Jayhawker wrote:

So I watched about 25 minutes of the Preacher season premiere last night before sh*tting it off. I mean, I loved the first season, but this just seemed really, really bad. Violent without reason, mean, and playing to the lowest common denominator.

I mean, I hate Texas as much or more than anyone, and even I thought Preacher went far too gratuitous in mocking the state.

I'm gonna give it another go, hoping maybe I was just not in the mood or tired. Maybe coming off a weak of three finales of shows featuring outstanding writing, acting, and production raised the bar above what they are doing with Preacher. Because Fargo, Better Call Saul, and American Gods are all violent stories told with a certain amount of style, too.

Preacher just seemed to offer nothing. Was it just me?

Maybe it's because you've not watched any of last season again? I just rewatched last season again last week to get amped up for the new season. I felt like the opening for this season was lockstep in what was happening with the last one. So much so that i was considering to wait so i could binge all in one go.

I know i don't have the patience for that though...

Only thing that bothered me was the cat.

But I've read the comics. They're really violent.

I think this bit from the Vulture recap summed up my thoughts. I went back and watched the episode with my wife, and will be probably be in for the rest. The idea of them heading New Orleans seems like a hella good setting.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/preac...

And this is where Preacher lost me a little bit. As heads explode, blood spatters everywhere, and bodies pile up, our heroes are basically just goofing around, cracking jokes and grousing about how gross it is to be surrounded by so much death. After they finally do escape, they basically shrug the whole thing off as a weird little blip.

Preacher has always taken place in a heightened reality, and I’m all for a good, gory time, but it also needs to feel like there are actual stakes to all this carnage. This is a particularly tricky needle to thread — just ask the dozens of directors who tried and failed to cop Tarantino’s style in the late ’90s — and Preacher doesn’t thread it here. The show presents this trio as charming assholes, but their quippy indifference to the bloody deaths of a bunch of innocent people makes them seem like … well, just assholes. If the gang is on a quest to find God and make Him answer for the state of the world, they could at least express a modicum of concern for the half-dozen dudes who ended up as collateral damage.

I don't mind violence. I got through Legion, Fargo, and American Gods just fine. But violence means something. It's supposed to have impact. If it's just there to look cool, I'm far less interested.

Ha, wow, the Amazing Ganesh was pretty horrifying.

I really enjoyed the premier of Preacher. Pretty much what I expected after all the crap that went down last season.

I just watched the most recent Dark Matter episode. They had probably one of the funniest moment of the series.

Spoiler:

The jump cut to the android and three singing a french folk song, made me literally laugh out loud. So good.

Gaald wrote:

I just watched the most recent Dark Matter episode. They had probably one of the funniest moment of the series.

Spoiler:

The jump cut to the android and three singing a french folk song, made me literally laugh out loud. So good.

Spoiler:

I hope they keep Three speaking French for the rest of the series.

Anybody watched any episodes of Cleverman? Brief blurb I read about it sounds interesting, curious what it's like (although, I'm not sure I have any way to view it)

Finally caught up on Fargo.

I feel like I had bunch of allegories thrown at me and most of them went over my head.

Spoiler:

When Emit woke with the stamp on his forehead: allusion to the mark of Cain?

I have no idea how Ray Wise's character fits in to all of this. The last time we see him, he's carrying around a kitten he says is the reincarnation of Ray Stussy, then he greets Yuri by name and that's the last we see of Yuri. Or the kitty.

In the end, trying to recall and repeat Mysterious Stranger's speech may have been what led Nikki to her final fate. If she had just done it, she might have been able to get away.

Emit, instead of dying at his lowest when he has nothing to live for, instead dies at what may be his highest point. I'm not sure which is more cruel.

I knew the show would end before we know Vargas' fate.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Finally caught up on Fargo.

I feel like I had bunch of allegories thrown at me and most of them went over my head.

Spoiler:

When Emit woke with the stamp on his forehead: allusion to the mark of Cain?

I have no idea how Ray Wise's character fits in to all of this. The last time we see him, he's carrying around a kitten he says is the reincarnation of Ray Stussy, then he greets Yuri by name and that's the last we see of Yuri. Or the kitty.

In the end, trying to recall and repeat Mysterious Stranger's speech may have been what led Nikki to her final fate. If she had just done it, she might have been able to get away.

Emit, instead of dying at his lowest when he has nothing to live for, instead dies at what may be his highest point. I'm not sure which is more cruel.

I knew the show would end before we know Vargas' fate.

On Ray Wise's character:

And yeah, Fargo is allegories and metaphors piling up all over the place. I thought the season was brilliant.

I think you can make a strong case that the story is almost exactly the con

Spoiler:

Russians pulled on Trump, and then, by extension, ion the United States. There are a ton of parallels.

Jayhawker wrote:

On Ray Wise's character:

And yeah, Fargo is allegories and metaphors piling up all over the place. I thought the season was brilliant.

Interesting, I wouldn't have gotten that.

I'm also wondering about...

Spoiler:

Gloria's finally able to register on motion sensors. "She's a real boy now," quipped my wife, and there's definitely something to that, I'm just not sure why or what it means.

Also the robot from the "Planet Wyh" story. Is that meant to represent Gloria? She goes around thinking she can help solve the mysterious goings-on but doesn't actually contribute anything until the end?

I think this season overdid it on the allusions, allegories, and symbolism. Then again, this kind of thing was always my stumbling block in English/literature classes.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I think this season overdid it on the allusions, allegories, and symbolism. Then again, this kind of thing was always my stumbling block in English/literature classes.

I can see that. I went back to get my college degree just a few years ago, and finally decided on English as a major. For me, that kind of stuff is fun, and taking the classes as a 40+ year old probably made it a lot easier to pick up on a lot of that kind of stuff. The problem is often, you really need to watch something two or three times, at least, to really get it. And If I were writing a paper, more than that.

Spoiler:

My read on Gloria, which happened to match what Noah Hawley had to say, so I was pretty excited to get it "right" was that her inability to register on sensors was symbolic of her being, essentially, invisible to society. She was a woman in power, yet modern society had grown accustomed to just looking paster her. This mimicked the way many of her conversations went, how her capabilities were overlooked by Vargas, and my favorite, the way she was continually called "Chief, not Chief," to which her response was it didn't matter. So yeah, when she cracks the case and makes a name for herself, "She became a real boy," would be a good way to put it.

And yes, I think she was the robot from that story, continually walking into situations in which she was just there to help, but no one was listening.

I feel like my initial take on the first few episodes held up, that this was a take that explored the nature of power, and how those with it created "truth." Emmit was rich, so his version of how he acquired the stamp counted, so everyone discounted his brother. Gloria was the big fat exception. The new Chief had the power, and constantly dictated was was really going on, but Gloria ignored him at every step, always moving forward to solve the case. Even when she was told to stand down, end the case, and wait for him, she immediately sent her buddy out to get more information and continue the case.

But power is a fluid thing. Ray had power over Nikki, as he was her parole officer. But she soon gained power over him. And really, I think you could make a case that the women in the story were able to to take advantage of the men, primarily because they constantly used their power to spin false tales, which eventually undermined them. Even Ruby Goldfarb was able to buy out Stussy Lots for pennies on the dollar because they tried to unload their bad situation onto her.

It's why I think that at the end, my take is that Vargas is taken to prison. Gloria came about her power honestly, and now gets to have her version of truth accepted. I would say they left the ending ambiguous, though, to allow for the viewer to contemplate the ending, which allows for them to back up their belief based on their interpretation of what transpired over the course of the season.

What I like about shows like this is that I keep coming back to them. I was listening to an NPR interview where to guy being interviewed compared the worldview of Trump supporters as like the "Upside Down" of Stranger Things. It looks like our world, but it darker, and more twisted. I think Fargo was an entire metaphor for the rise of populists like Trump, down to Vargas representing the Russian mob that turned a sketchy businessman into a pawn. The interview reminded me of this scene, in which Emmit's BFF breaks down at the end:

Been watching Australian Survivor which is now more diverse which wasn't hard because last season they only had one non white person.

The cast is still way to big. I can't keep track who is who at the moment. However, this season is better than the last one. Some of the challenges seem a bit dangerous so far. I'm betting someone is going home hurt.

Yes, I was surprised also at the apparent risk the contestants were placed in, those big heavy blocks and balls for example. I'm keeping track of the contestants better than last time, I think 2 tribes of 12 is helping. Jumping around between 3 tribes in season 1 just made it too much.

Five episodes in, and Ozark on Netflix is good.

Have we discussed the upcoming Netflix series Mindhunter? It's a David Fincher produced show based on a book about the FBI agents who developed profiling of serial killers. Looks amazing, and I believe it launches in October.

MannishBoy wrote:

Five episodes in, and Ozark on Netflix is good.

Yeh, it's a bit like The Counsellor and Ray Donovan bumping uglies. I loved it.

A nice reaction to Black Sails: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/arti...

It sums up a lot of my thoughts about the show's problems but extremely redeeming qualities, especially that fantastic ending.

Ducktales:

Woo-oo!

Most wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

Five episodes in, and Ozark on Netflix is good.

Yeh, it's a bit like The Counsellor and Ray Donovan bumping uglies. I loved it.

I also compared it to Breaking Bad except the family learns what you're doing.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

A nice reaction to Black Sails: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/arti...

It sums up a lot of my thoughts about the show's problems but extremely redeeming qualities, especially that fantastic ending.

The thing is this HAD to end this way or just be completely unfaithful to Treasure Island.