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Post by crowschmo on Sept 29, 2016 20:00:13 GMT -5
Two episodes in for each show, but so far I'm liking Lethal Weapon and This is Us. I really didn't think I'd like Lethal Weapon, but the chemistry is there and it looks like it's going to be a good buddy show. (If they don't run out of ideas).
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Post by crowschmo on Oct 31, 2016 22:19:14 GMT -5
Anyone watching Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on BBC America? (Dirk Gently? He any relation to Johnny Dangerously? Does he know his name's an adverb?).
Elijah Wood sure likes those off-beat shows. It's pretty out there. I'm enjoying it so far.
There was a line I liked in it (well, more than one, but this one I remember). Elijah's character of Tod is being questioned by police and they asked him if he saw anything unusual. And he says, "Yes. No. Maybe." And the cop says, "Do you realize you gave every possible answer to that question?"
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Post by timmy on Nov 1, 2016 16:35:46 GMT -5
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Post by crowschmo on Jan 20, 2017 18:47:27 GMT -5
Anyone else watching Lethal Weapon? I still like the two leads and their chemistry and the idea of the show, but the stuff they do is just ridiculous. They'd never be able to get away with what they get away with. Riggs would definitely be discharged, or at least suspended for psych evaluations. He wouldn't be being evaluated the way he is and STILL be going out on assignments. Nothing they presented would ever be admissible in court the way they go about getting evidence.
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Post by crowschmo on Jan 28, 2017 18:52:29 GMT -5
Black Sails returns tomorrow night. Yay! But - final season. Boo.
(Though, I guess they can't drag it out too much).
Wonder if they'll do Treasure Island next.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Feb 5, 2017 17:52:48 GMT -5
Watched the first episode of Powerless, DC's only rookie show this year.
I...just...don't know.
It's cute and it has a fun concept. But the laughs just aren't there. Even the usually dependable Alan Tudyk struggles really hard amidst a bunch of hams bellowing their punchlines.
Vanessa Hudgens is one of many in a long line of Disney Channel "stars" who is desperately trying to reinvent their adult image. After failing to start a film career it seems she's trying to direct herself into being Tina Fey on 30 Rock or Amy Pohler on Parks and Rec. Unfortunately she has too much Disney Channel in her blood, and delivers all of her humor with an earnest "gosh golly gee wiz!" attitude as if it's still cute and she's trying to make 10 year olds laugh. I don't blame her since she grew up on the High School Musical sets, but she's aiming for an entirely new demographic now and desperately needs a new approach.
I don't really hate it. Certain ideas made me smile, the execution left me cold. It could improve, but I have this gut feeling that it won't. It seems to be exactly what it wants to be, for better or worse. It's too bad though. In a post Deadpool world a show like this could have hit the spot.
So far this year DC's MVP has been Lucifer, surprisingly. I seem to be most eager to tune into that show every week. Granted, I can't watch the CW shows until they hit Netflix, but from what I hear I'm not really missing a lot.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Feb 6, 2017 3:25:10 GMT -5
Watched the first episode of Powerless, DC's only rookie show this year. I...just...don't know. It's cute and it has a fun concept. But the laughs just aren't there. Even the usually dependable Alan Tudyk struggles really hard amidst a bunch of hams bellowing their punchlines. Vanessa Hudgens is one of many in a long line of Disney Channel "stars" who is desperately trying to reinvent their adult image. After failing to start a film career it seems she's trying to direct herself into being Tina Fey on 30 Rock or Amy Pohler on Parks and Rec. Unfortunately she has too much Disney Channel in her blood, and delivers all of her humor with an earnest "gosh golly gee wiz!" attitude as if it's still cute and she's trying to make 10 year olds laugh. I don't blame her since she grew up on the High School Musical sets, but she's aiming for an entirely new demographic now and desperately needs a new approach. I don't really hate it. Certain ideas made me smile, the execution left me cold. It could improve, but I have this gut feeling that it won't. It seems to be exactly what it wants to be, for better or worse. It's too bad though. In a post Deadpool world a show like this could have hit the spot. So far this year DC's MVP has been Lucifer, surprisingly. I seem to be most eager to tune into that show every week. Granted, I can't watch the CW shows until they hit Netflix, but from what I hear I'm not really missing a lot. I also feel conflicted about Powerless. Apparently it was originally *very* different, and a pilot shown at Comic-Con was a sort of breathtaking, magical examination of the very human lives of people living in this world. Executive Meddling was strong here. Weirdly, I almost felt like Vanessa Hudgens wasn't the most Disney-ish of the cast, though her wide-eyed ever-hopeful demeanor brings that kind of thing to mind. As much as I hate to say it, the Disney-vibe, for me, came from Dani Pudi. I think it's the nature of the lines that he's working with, so I blame the script and directing more than I blame him, but his character interrupted almost every bit of dialogue he was around with some sort of snide comment or sarcastic jab. (I loved his "Lemme just call a wizard. SHAZAM! Nope, didn't work..." line, but that's because I'm a huge Captain Marvel fan and love every reference to that guy that I can get.) It's possible that there's an effort to make him have an energy that's completely different than Abed's (because it's *really* hard not to look at him and think of him as Abed from Community), but one way or another the style of all of his jabs and one-liners feels like things that Disney Channel side characters might be saying. So... I think my problem with this episode is that they had to make a second pilot instead of going with the original premise (where they were working in an insurance company instead of a gadgeteering branch of Wayne Tech), and the writing and directing had to be rushed, and performances suffered because of it. That's just speculation, but it helps me to justify the various gems hiding in the plot. The other problem is that potentially-good-but-still-bad comedy is harder to sit through than potentially-good-but-still-bad drama, so it's hard for me to really gauge where something actually sits on a scale of badness. So, I turn to other shows for comparison. As much as I love Agent Coulson, I don't see myself ever going back to rewatch the first episode of Agents of Shield. It's just... not drawing me back and likely never will. However, I *can* see a universe where I rewatch this show's first episode. That doesn't mean it's good, but it *does* mean that it's earned my Three-Episodes trial. That's not saying much, it takes a *really* bad pilot to convince me to not even give a show three episodes, but I'm willing to see if the show improves that soon. It might not sell me entirely by then, but it could earn an Episode Six extension if I see more developing progress. Time will tell.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Feb 6, 2017 17:20:56 GMT -5
Personally I thought more worked in the Agents of SHIELD pilot than in Powerless, even though it was a flawed and uneven effort itself. It went on to have a mostly solid first season that I don't really regret watching, a sluggish chore of a second season that I have little desire to watch again, and catapulted with really freakin' good third and fourth seasons (in fact, SHIELD just might be the best comic book show on TV right now, at the very least while Daredevil is on hiatus).
I did hear of the production of Powerless had its share of woes, and Comic-Con feedback was REALLY positive (but then again Comic-Con feedback for that godawful new Blair Witch movie was positive too). I do wonder if the original version was a bit too nerdy and kept it's focus a bit too outside mainstream appeal. That might make a network nervous. Hopefully the original pilot sees release maybe as a bonus feature on a DVD set some day, like the original pilot to Dollhouse.
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Post by crowschmo on Mar 1, 2017 19:50:29 GMT -5
Anyone else watch Humans on AMC? It's pretty good, though it is going at a snail's pace. (And the gap between seasons was pretty ridiculous).
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Mar 18, 2017 2:54:28 GMT -5
Starting the third episode of Iron Fist right now, Marvel Studios' first project to be given a "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a worse-than-Batman-v-Superman-and-Suicide-Squad 17%. Bear in mind Marvel's previous projects include the barely exists as an actual movie Iron Man 2 and the rocky but have their moments early seasons of Agents of SHIELD.
Didn't quite know what to expect, but after the bad word of mouth my hype dwindled. I even kind of forgot the series came out today until yesterday. So I started watching it (on my new 65" 4K TV, bragging rights BOOM), and...it's not bad. Reviews I read say it's boring, but I'm not bored. To an extent the concept of the series might run a little close to Arrow, which also saw a billionaire thought long dead return to his city to fight crime. If anything Iron Fist somewhat benefits by comparison because Arrow crammed five episodes worth of story into its pilot and suffered while Iron Fist seems keen on letting it's story calmly progress.
That's not to say it's a great show; I'm having issues with it. Some of the action feels artificial while a bit of the drama is an epic fail (the flashback scene where Danny is playing Monopoly made me cringe hard). And the second episode plunge into a mental hospital reeked of filler way too early on in the series, and that's seriously not a good sign. So far, the antagonists are fairly weak too.
That said, I'm enjoying the characters if nothing else. I like the actress playing Colleen, and she has a great chemistry with Danny so far. In general I'm more inclined to continue this series than I was with Luke Cage at this point in its cycle, though I'm not desperate for the next episode like I was for Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Agent Carter, or even third and fourth season Agents of SHIELD.
But so far Marvel's rookie shows this year have mostly been underwhelming, now that both Luke Cage and Iron Fist failed to reach the bar of their Defenders prequels. At least they've faired better than DC's Powerless, which started out sucking and has stayed consistent in its persistence to suck. I haven't watched Legion yet, as I don't have FX, but I hear that's the new show to watch. I'm interested to see if finally one of these new shows gives me some enthusiasm for it.
Oh well, I won't be cancelling my Netflix membership anyway. There's a show coming on next month that I kind of want to see. Doubt you'd have heard of it though.
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Post by crowschmo on Mar 19, 2017 16:30:06 GMT -5
This is Us, which has Mandy Moore in it, gave a shout out to the movie Tangled (Mandy Moore voiced Rapunzel). Her character said to one of her kids, "I love you", to which he replied, "I love you more", to which she replied, "I love you most." That's what Rapunzel and her "mother" (read kidnapper) Mother Gothel (sp?) always said to each other in the movie.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Mar 19, 2017 18:52:49 GMT -5
Done with Iron Fist. First five episodes are mostly decent, middle four suck (they replicated the Cottonmouth twist from Luke Cage then backtracked it in a way that was half neat half frustrating) , before delivering a mostly epic final four episodes that display a gusto the show probably should have had since the beginning. I'm not against slow burn shows. Jessica Jones pulled it off well, Luke Cage less so but had some greatness in it, but Iron Fist seems to have a misconception as to what makes slow burn satisfying. You need to progress your story just enough for each episode to feel worthwhile, but Iron Fist has very little progression for half a season. Danny's return to civilization and fitting in is an interesting arc for three episodes, but it shouldn't take him half a season before he starts Iron Fisting some Hand ninjas on a regular basis. But I mostly concluded that the slow progression isn't what really kills Iron Fist, what kills it is that it's a corporate thriller that has a martial artist with a magic hand as its main character. Danny Rand seems like he wandered into the wrong series by mistake. The business politics might have made a decent subplot, like on Arrow, but it has no business being this shop's primary concern. When the Hand start getting more involved it's jarring. Not only does it become an entirely different show, it feels that this is the revelation of what an Iron Fist series could have been. Probably what sucks most of all is that it's a superhero show that seems ashamed of its superheroics. Even a show like Jessica Jones that features a main character who doesn't believe in being a hero doesn't deny the genre its pulse. Iron Fist never even wears his costume. Unlike Jessica and Luke, Iron Fist has a costume that's a part of his comic book identity, and yet even Jessica and Luke had winks to their former comic book looks way back in the day. Iron Fist has footage of a "former Iron Fist" that wears a similar mask, but that's all the nod we get. And it's weak as he'll. Maybe they should have made a show about Colleen Wing. She was by far the best character on the show. But I guess maybe now I can be "thankful" that Iron Man 2 isn't the weakest component in the Marvel Cinematic Universe anymore. That film was just as pointless, but its lows never hit Iron Fist's lows. Since Defenders has creative talents behind Daredevil and Jessica Jones behind it, I'm pretty sure it's in safe hands, so I won't worry about it. Though this fall's Inhumans series featuring the same show runner as this series...THAT I'm worried about.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2017 4:58:55 GMT -5
Just saw the first, and last, episode of Netflix Live. I'm a bit upset that it got cancelled too soon and that it won't be available the next day. Where will I get my fix of epic appliance and workspace commentary from Will Arnett now? I was looking forward to the Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament!
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Post by crowschmo on Apr 4, 2017 13:07:53 GMT -5
If anyone has Comcast, they're having a "Watchathon" this week, yesterday until the 9th. Some channels that you might not normally get are free, and they're showing Netflix for free. Too bad it wasn't the week that MST3K starts, but of course they wouldn't let people binge on a new show for nothing. I don't think HBO is part of that deal, but Starz is, so if you've never seen Black Sails, Outlander and Ash vs. the Evil Dead, now is a good time to catch some episodes.
I was watching Netflix all night last night, watching all the eps of Stranger Things. It's really good, I liked it. Those kids are good actors.
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Post by crowschmo on Jun 1, 2017 19:09:56 GMT -5
Well, we caved and are now paying for Netflix. Of course. I had to watch MST3K, after all. I've been binge watching Travelers. People in the future are trying to prevent the extinction of mankind, so they go back in time to try to prevent the cause. Those in the future can send their consciousnesses back into people who are about to die anyway in the present. I was up to episode 5; I'm liking it. It's pretty good.
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