Last television show you watched

Dragonball Z was da sheet.

God knows why, considering 99% of that show was homoerotic constipation sounds.

I like that in a children's cartoon the wise old man wants nothing more than to shove his face in women's breasts. That's all we want in retirement, right?




He'd be a regular poster on the tits thread.

Doctor Who - Deep Breath

and before that, the season 4 finale of Suits.

I'm beginning to watch GAME OF THRONES. I've seen the first bunch of episodes years ago but never got around catching up, so I'm pretty much revisiting what I've seen to refresh myself.

The Best Show You're Not Watching on Television: THE LEFTOVERS on HBO

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of millions of people simply vanish....disappear. Babies inside the womb....babies in their car seat...Condoleeza Rice....The Pope....Gary Busey. One character says: "I get the pope being taken, but Gary Busey?????" Truth is, there's no ryhme or reason as to why anyone was taken. There are no known connections, and we don't even know where they were taken to. Many religious believers think it was the rapture, but not all are convinced, since a lot of very sinful people would've been taken to heaven, while good people were still left on earth.

This show is so intense I took  a break from it after 7 episodes; I'll pick it up again when it comes out on DVD. Every character on this show is in pain...a never ending grieving process for people who haven't been confirmed to be dead, and they all express their grief and overwhelming sadness in different ways (some by trying to turn themselves emotionless).

I've read a lot of comments from people saying they're going out as The Guilty Remnant for Halloween (Google it).

Damon Lindelof is behind that show, so that kinda turns me off right there.

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Cheers Gravity, after reading that post I'm now on the third episode. I dunno man, I think I'm hooked already. It's nothing groundbreaking but it's definitely entertaining.

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Indeed it would be. Like I would ever do such a thing.

Check your PM box, I bet it's empty.

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Toppers wrote:

Cheers Gravity, after reading that post I'm now on the third episode. I dunno man, I think I'm hooked already. It's nothing groundbreaking but it's definitely entertaining.

To me, the show is at its best when the scene involves someone of The Guilty Remnant. Which is why the fifth episode has been my favorite so far. One of The Guilty Remnant are murdered at the beginning of the episode, and right near the very end of the episode the town minister and some of his followers come to the house where The Guilty Remnant live and tries do to an impromptu memorial service as a sign of good faith. The minister (played by Christopher Eccelston) is attempting to bridge the divide between different religions (or believers vs. atheists) and cultures, and hopes that his well-meaning service will persuade The Guilty Remnant to take a kinder, gentler approach to the way they've been interacting with their community up to this point. What Amy Brennerman's character does at the very end is infuriating; people will either love this show or hate it, but it's hard to find people who are apathetic about it.

And Amy Brennerman deserves a lot of credit for this role: she delivers a heartfelt, emotionally draining performance without ever once saying even a syllable of dialogue (so far). Unlike the other actors, her character has taken a vow of silence, so Amy has to use her facial expressions and body language to communicate her performance rather than simply being allowed to just say what she's feeling.

I read a lot of feedback immediately from people who said that the show had no one to root for; that all the characters are unsympathetic. I agree that the show could use a character or two who is well-adjusted and has a hopeful outlook on life, but I can also take the show as it is.

Oddly enough, for a show with biblical undertones, this is not really a show about region, and it really has missed an opportunity to bring in Christian viewers by being on HBO and/or having more curse words and sex than is really necessary. You'd think Christian viewers would be keenly interested in such a show, but I guess HBO has chosen a different strategy. I don't think the vulgarity and occasional sex scene are really relevant to the show in the same way it might be for The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. But since it's HBO it gets thrown in there.

If you're worried about Damon Lindelof...well, this show IS based on source material (a book written by Tom Perrolta), so it can't stray too far, and I think there is definite plan on how to answer the questions that have been raised. It's got some of the hallmark quirks that LOST had, but I think (and hope) that lessons will have been learned from LOST moving forward.

Orange Is The New Black.

Rather entertaining. You should all watch it.

"True Detective"

I'd heard rave reviews when it was broadcast, but it was aired on pay-TV, so I didn't get to see it until I found a copy at my local JB HI-FI.

It's a nice mix of noir and philosophy, with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson leading the hunt for a ritualistic killer in the Louisiana bayou.

It's only eight episodes, but it's nice and tightly plotted. It critically examines both characters over the course of years (compared to, say, "NCIS" where the characters all fit a basic archetype every episode), and loves nothing more than to yank the carpet out from under them just as the audience begins supporting them. I quite liked the way the series explored what happened to the characters after they solved the case, but it did drag a bit, and then everything fell into place in an episode and a half.

I thought TD was ultimately disappointing. Much of the promise of the first half was never delivered upon.
Within the same genre, the "Red Riding" adaptation was significantly better.

Fae wrote:

Orange Is The New Black.

Rather entertaining. You should all watch it.

Allo allo Fae

and yes, this show...has Laura Prepon so I'm sold already.

Salomé wrote:

I thought TD was ultimately disappointing. Much of the promise of the first half was never delivered upon.
Within the same genre, the "Red Riding" adaptation was significantly better.

Like I said, there was no exploration of the vodou cult conspiracy. They spent four episodes chasing Reggie Ledoux, which was fine, but then they just did nothing for two episodes and then everything was resolved on the spot. Rust talked a lot about the powerful cult, but we never saw anything of them except for Childress despite the way they could stage the accidental death of one of the most influential people in the state. Instead, episodes 5 and 6 were more interested in why Woody Harrelson would want to sleep with anyone but Michelle Monaghan.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

I suppose after 39 years, criticizing the show for not being funny is a guaranteed rite of passage. Since complaining about it being awful is a cliche, I'll skip a critical analysis of the show and just say that Chris Pratt shows why he could be the next big Hollywood star. He rose above the material, was self-deprecating, and got laughs where there probably wouldn't have been with any other actor/actress. He can do action, he can do comedy...he doesn't take himself too seriously. He was the best part of the show; hard to say what was the worst thing, but the unintelligible Ariola Grande was about as close to it as you could get. Her lyrics should be subtitled; I couldn't understand a word that she was saying.

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Actually Ambler, I quite agree with you when it comes to "Girls".
That shows privileged, entitled POV turns me off like few other programs have before.
The fact that we have to pretend that Dunham is an important voice on TV only makes it more frustrating.
Frankly it's saddening that one of the few female showrunners delivered such a dire series.

Salomé wrote:

Actually Ambler, I quite agree with you when it comes to "Girls".
That shows privileged, entitled POV turns me off like few other programs have before.
The fact that we have to pretend that Dunham is an important voice on TV only makes it more frustrating.
Frankly it's saddening that one of the few female showrunners delivered such a dire series.

I came into this forum to say that I was watching SNL again, and yet again it is still awful. 23 minutes into the show and I haven't laughed once. And something I found really, really interesting: the "cold-opening" featured a bit about Kim Jung-Un and his staff, and yet not one person was made to look even slightly Korean. They were just actors and actresses going about the skit with their normal look. At least in DIE ANOTHER DAY, the make up department did a very convincing job, an AMAZING JOB, of making Toby Stephens look like a Korean in the pre-credits sequence; the resemblance to an Asian actor was uncanny; You'd have thought Colonel Moon was played by a different actor. But I digress. I get the feeling SNL didn't want to be accused of doing "yellow face", so they just skipped any attempt at authenticating the skit (including putting any jokes or funny bits in it).

This is Jan Hook as Diana Ross doing a 'We Are The World' benefit to save free-range chickens:


That was 25(?) years ago; I don't know if we'll ever see a white actor ever try and play a role of different color/ethnicity again; we're way too politically correct.

And after having just griped about SNL, they put on a skit about helping starving people in Africa "for just thirty-nine cents a day; the cost of a cup of coffee" that was actually pretty dang funny, but one that I suspect will be labeled "racist" by the writers of HuffPo and Mediaite tomorrow morning.


As for Lena Dunham.....the haters on this group needs to step back. Lena Dunham was raped, y'all. Didn't you hear the news? When she was 19 and in college one night, she was drunk on alcohol, and had been abusing xanax and cocaine, and was in "no condition to consent" to sexual relations. Oh, well, that solves everything then. I'm convinced. Move along folks. Nothing to see here. Despite the fact that there was no violence ever used on her, despite the fact that she never said "no", or that she talked dirty to him during sex (in her apartment), she thinks she was "raped".

Look, if a woman can't be held responsible for her own choice to drink excessively to the point of drunkeness, and abuse cocaine and xanax, how can a man be asked to be responsible for his actions either? In fact, you just HAD TO KNOW that her boyfriend must've been drunker than she was; no way could he, or would he, have tapped that without at least drink a few shots of Jack Daniels, Vodka, and a couple of snorts of Satan's Hairlip and some LSD. Why is he responsible for his actions but she is not? If she wasn't coherent, how'd she managed to talk filthy to him or have sex with him?

Fae wrote:

Orange Is The New Black.

Rather entertaining. You should all watch it.

Yeah. I really enjoyed season two; found it much more engaging than season one. I don't think it has quite the entertainment value House of Cards does, but the storytelling is great.

GOTHAM

Not sure whether I like this yet or not. I like that its Gotham City actually feels almost like Gotham should. I like that it doesn't take itself entirely too seriously. And I'm glad it didn't end up being "Teen Gotham" or some shit. But it's still trying to balance itself between gritty and campy and it just doesn't feel like it has an identity yet. Doesn't help that the lead is Ben McKenzie and he's dull as dishwater.

I like Donal Logue, though. I'll keep with it.

undecided on Gotham at the moment. I like cop shows and though I know it's not a 'proper' cop show and it's in the Batman universe I'll press on with it. Donal Logue, to think I first noted him in Grounded for Life. Like Sean Pertwee in this.

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the tenth series of our Apprentice started tonight. Usual overblown fluff. Bunch of hooray Harrys/Charlies/Harriets chancing their luck for some 'honour' of Lord Sugar. Ten years. A perk is that it's one of those things where London looks better than it often does, like something out of a Curtis movie.

Was glad to see Robert (the hipster twat marketing manager) go, Hilly. He was like something Charlie Brooker would've put in Nathan Barley.