Last television show you watched

Salomé wrote:

Warrior

Done with season two. Love this show.

Unfortunately it seems as if this might also be its swan song, since HBO does not appear to be keen on another season.

And the good news is that HBO decided to pick this up for a third season after all.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Have FINALLY got around to my Firefly boxset.

Cool 'Western in space' vibe, attractive cast, good action and it's funny too ... why it wasn't a six-season hit, I don't know.  

Seriously. We absolutely loved FIREFLY, have rewatched it about a dozen times, and seen SERENITY six or seven times. Except for what I can only charitably call 'moron science,' I don't have any serious complaint about the show.

Part of that is because I have an affinity for 'working class space' stuff, with a whole file cabinet full of notes and outlines from the early 90s for a similar notion that grew out of what I felt was a serious need to show something seriously AntiTrek about the future in space. But also, I just loved Whedon's characters. And still do, even if at least one of the actors seems to have been revealed to be a dick on level with Whedon himself.

I've even read some comics that bridge the gap between the series and the movie, but really came a cropper with a novel continuation that seriously sucks.

As for my own recent viewing, we treated ourselves to another round of CARNIVALE, which is still an alltime fave. Only took two weeks to blow through both seasons, and that was with 'pacing' ourselves. The series was supposed to run 5 years or so, but at least it ends on a note than can kind of serve as a wrapup. Between that and DEADWOOD, HBO was cancelling some awesome stuff right in midstream fifteen years back. Amazed that THE WIRE survived so long.

Carnivale! I’ve been looking for something to watch, and I remember wanting to see Carnivale pretty much since I heard about it in the mid-00s. I was big into Lost at the time and I remember many other Lost fans suggested Carnivale, as I recall, for thematic similarities.

Think I’ll pull the trigger on getting those DVDs from the local library.

[quote="trevanian"]

Blunt Instrument wrote:

But also, I just loved Whedon's characters. And still do, even if at least one of the actors seems to have been revealed to be a dick on level with Whedon himself.

Well, yes. But on a purely level, can't knock the guy's casting instincts (Jewel Staite, Summer Glau, Morena Baccarin, Gina Torres and a recurring role for Christina Hendricks).

'I'll be in my bunk' indeed.

Somerset wrote:

Carnivale! I’ve been looking for something to watch, and I remember wanting to see Carnivale pretty much since I heard about it in the mid-00s. I was big into Lost at the time and I remember many other Lost fans suggested Carnivale, as I recall, for thematic similarities.

Think I’ll pull the trigger on getting those DVDs from the local library.

Some folks find the first few eps slow going (not me), but if you make it till BABYLON, which is about 5 eps in, I think you'll be hooked. The dwarf from TWIN PEAKS is just phenomenally expressive and surprisingly effective as one of the shows co-leads ... I remembered him from a PICKET FENCES where he was a romantic interest for Lauren Holly (the guy from STATION AGENT and GAME OF THRONES presumably wasn't around back then), but in this series he goes above and beyond.

The expenses on this show must have been astronomical. There are always wide shots showing the full carnival, either intact or being struck or erected, and geez, so many extras! Very few VFX shots, but the ones they have mostly work like gangbusters.

One other thing that you get from the opening voiceover in the first show of CARNIVALE is a sense of how history ended in a certain way with the start of the atomic era. That almost makes this show bridge into TWIN PEAKS, if you've ever seen the third season's 8th episode, which goes back in time to depict the Trinity nuclear detonation.

I just picked up the DVDs and plan to start over the long weekend coming up here. I will check back in after I have a few eps under my belt. I'll also keep an eye out for that in the first ep. I'm a massive fan of the latest TP season so that'll be an especially interesting to see that connection.

Interested in reading your response. I actually dug out my DVDs of PICKET FENCES to watch the episode that had the CARNIVALE / TWIN PEAKS little man Michael Anderson as guest star just now, and it was just as terrific as ever. Really wish they'd put more than just s1 out on homevid in a watchable and legit release, because I don't think FENCES streams anywhere. It used to be an F/X channel rerun staple, but that was 20 years ago.

Well, I've just finished Episode 6. Haunting piece of television. Been in my mind all day. Specifically that shot near the end with Michael Anderson catching a glimpse of Dora Mae through the window.

From your comments I was expecting to have to grit my teeth through the first few eps (kind of like The Wire, which I've never ended up continuing with beyond four or five episodes) but I was glad to find myself immersed almost immediately. What those first eps lack in story is made up for by loads in character and world-building. I felt truly immersed right from the start.

And you are right, Michael Anderson is great. Surprised. I've never heard him talking forwards.

Onto "The River."

Mike's expression is quite literally priceless there, it's like Anthony Hopkins face when he sees Merrick in THE ELEPHANT MAN times about eleven.

Actually went and found a DEEP SPACE NINE he appeared in last night, though it was a tiny part as a fantasy incarnation of Rumplestillskin (apparently he was a longtime Trek fan and was trying to get on the show for forever.)

Interesting what you say about THE WIRE. I found the first couple episodes in all of the first three seasons to be a very difficult go the first time through. However, I've watched the whole series through four times in 10 years (didn't start till well after the series ended), and I've watched season 4 twice more. If it's not the best TV show I've ever seen, it's only because some other extraordinary series is fresher in mind (and that's taking into account that season 5 is less than glorious, while also being infuriating.) Wish I could tell you to skip a couple shows to get going, but I don't think that works with THE WIRE. Still, I'm in the same boat with Mann's HEAT ... have tried multiple times and never made it past the first hour. But maybe one of these years!

EDIT ADD-ON:
Our cable service had one of those add this station for 99c/mth things, so we put Britbox, AMC, Par+, Showtime (for DEXTER) and Starz on the roster. This'll give me a chance to rewatch BLAKE'S 7 for the first time in 35 years. Maybe I'll be more tolerant of the budget limitations this time out, though I do remember finding the Avon character fascinating, sort of a LostInSpace Dr. Smith meets Dirty Harry, almost a proto-Garak if you know DEEP SPACE 9.

Saw Heat in a 20th anniversary digitally-remastered cut 6 years ago ... it impressed me even more than the first time around. But hey, different strokes for different folks.

Trev, if rewatching Blake's 7 gives you a taste for restricted-budget BBC sci-fi I believe all currently available classic-era Doctor Who is on Britbox.

Except for one Davidson-era WHO, and the ill-fated American TV movie (which I saw when I was home recovering from surgery and couldn't reach the remote), I haven't ever gotten through a WHO episode all the way through. Remember anxiously awaiting it on PBS, and then suffering through 20minutes of a show that used a toy tank in the foreground, I guess one of the early ones of Tom Baker, and was just, 'enough already.' I think I've got to be sold on the characters in a big way to overlook the production values.

Think that was his debut story 'Robot'. It's fair to say the production values are far more up to scratch since its mid-00s revival.

I had a book on the history of BBC's effects work for awhile, but it fell apart from use. The images in it certainly seemed to reflect a massive improvement as it covered up through the early 2000s, I guess when they restarted WHO.

My wife actually watched some of those newer eps and faulted them for production values, but then again she can be a bit snooty about that end of things. She is as hard a sell as I am on a lot of effects-related stuff, especially when it comes to objects in space. It isn't just with TV -- I remember she was as shocked as I was with some of the cuts included in the movie CONTACT, especially the ship-at-sea stuff, which we dubbed jokingly 'SeaQuest DOA.'

About the only TV show that fooled us with 'out there' VFX was FIREFLY, where the CGI ship exteriors really looked like a physical miniature in at least half the shots. Always thought it was weird that the ship looked less real in close shots in the SERENITY feature than it did on the TV series, but I guess that was an example of how when you push a process, the seams start to show (sort of like how the second MATRIX destroyed all the incredible suspension of disbelief I had built up with that 'Neo fights a ton of Smiths' scene, or how matting light-colored objects over light-colored skies was a startling fail in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK -- at least until they recomped the shots digitally many years later.)

I shouldn't complain, for SERENITY they at least did get to build a physical model for the crash scene. I just can't see why, having done that, they didn't use that for the opening close shot of the exterior, which just screamed 'computer graphic illustration' rather than 'computer generated imagery' -- for over a quarter century now, I privately slap the work I don't buy in the former category, even if it is just a made-up one.

Succession is still the best show on TV for me.
But more by default. I like it a lot but I find that more broadly speaking, it has been quite a while since there were this few worthwhile shows, across all platforms.
We were already past the Golden Age of television. I feel like now we are reaching the end of the Silver age as well. Used to be the small screen was where the writers could flee to for profundity.
Now it's filled with 15 million Marvel shows as well.

Salomé wrote:

We were already past the Golden Age of television. I feel like now we are reaching the end of the Silver age as well.

Given the level of praise heaped upon Squid Game I'm inclined to agree.

(CJB hating something popular, example #9765...)

I recently finished The Sopranos for the first time. Now that truly was the Golden Age of the big, black box.

I feel like we reached the end of the silver or platinum or whatever age with Mad Men or Breaking Bad. TV has really gone in a different direction since. I think after those two shows the idea of “writing to the episode” went out of fashion. Until then tv episodes were typically clearly delineated even if the show was highly “bingeable” (best example might be Lost, which was binge-tv par excellence and demanded viewers watch most every episode yet each episode was written to a six act structure and written around episode-specific themes, etc.)

Now episodes seem to bleed into one another. (House of Cards was around the time I started feeling this.) Stuff happens but I can never remember exactly in what episode. The unit of structure is no longer the episode but, if anything, the season. I suppose shows are more akin to old miniseries.

Throw in the technology change of streaming and I wouldn’t argue with someone who claimed it is a whole different medium.

True that, Somerset. Not sure the advent of binging has done any wonders for quality. House of Cards is another Netflix series I thought was fine but overrated.

What was once art is now "content."

Somerset wrote:

I feel like we reached the end of the silver or platinum or whatever age with Mad Men or Breaking Bad. TV has really gone in a different direction since. I think after those two shows the idea of “writing to the episode” went out of fashion. Until then tv episodes were typically clearly delineated even if the show was highly “bingeable” (best example might be Lost, which was binge-tv par excellence and demanded viewers watch most every episode yet each episode was written to a six act structure and written around episode-specific themes, etc.)

Now episodes seem to bleed into one another. (House of Cards was around the time I started feeling this.) Stuff happens but I can never remember exactly in what episode. The unit of structure is no longer the episode but, if anything, the season. I suppose shows are more akin to old miniseries.

Throw in the technology change of streaming and I wouldn’t argue with someone who claimed it is a whole different medium.

Speaking generally, I'd say it is to the great detriment of drama, as often the amount of padding makes it seem like you're getting a one- or two-episode season out of 10 hours. Occasionally it works somewhat (the later seasons of BOSCH are I believe each based on a pair of novels instead of just one), but there's a lethargy to the storytelling and I feel more obliged to keep watching than compelled, which also means I'm not inclined to rewatch in nearly all cases now.

Exceptions for me would include the charming UPLOAD, which I think we've rewatched four times since it first aired about three years back (would love to find out if there is going to be a second season now that folks are somehow adjusting to pandemic shooting), and ... and I can't think of any more, except the UK series THE GAME. Wow, most of the shows I rave about must have wrapped by the early teens or before that.

Just finished Season 3 of DS9. I took the Trek plunge a few years ago and started at the beginning of TOS. I'm slowly making my way through as I hate binging things. I've loved every series so far (the films are at best a mixed bag for TOS though I liked all 6 and downright appalling for TNG) but DS9 seems to hit a sweet spot between the philosophy of TNG and the more two fisted TOS.

You're going to get more two-fisted stuff in season 4 plus some really warm and heartfelt stuff, as well as a couple of flat-out comedies, including the Bond-oriented one (which isn't that good to be honest.) S4 is probably my favorite post-TOS season, though DS9 seasons 5 and 6 have a lot of winners as well.

Man, I wish that series could get remastered properly. It's a great show but I find it hard to watch unless it is on a very small screen, like sitting WAY back from my computer, which has a DVD accessory port.

CJB wrote:

Salomé wrote:

We were already past the Golden Age of television. I feel like now we are reaching the end of the Silver age as well.

Given the level of praise heaped upon Squid Game I'm inclined to agree.

(CJB hating something popular, example #9765...)

I recently finished The Sopranos for the first time. Now that truly was the Golden Age of the big, black box.

All of the HBO shows of that era were varying degrees of brilliant.
Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood, The Wire, ...
As well as other terrific cable shows outside of HBO like say The Shield, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, ...

Salomé wrote:

All of the HBO shows of that era were varying degrees of brilliant.
Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood, The Wire, ...
As well as other terrific cable shows outside of HBO like say The Shield, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, ...

Even the network stuff was a cut above in quality and/or in simply doing interesting stuff — 24, The Office, Lost, House, Veronica Mars, original few seasons of CSI, bunch of failed experiments like Pushing Daisies, Firefly, Journeyman, Arrested Development. It was a great time to be a tv fanatic.

I had to get rid of some mushrooms that were in the freezer so still coming down a bit a tripped but this is dark, dark, creepy stuff man
so they actually implanted into children's minds false memories of them being molested by a man who is innocent?
it's so twisted but at the same time seems more realistic of any entity calling itself a Federation

Is that Discovery, Sarai? Kinda glad I don't bother with it if so.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Is that Discovery, Sarai? Kinda glad I don't bother with it if so.  

the Blake 7 show everyone was talking about
got me curious so I checked out the pilot and yeah some really dark themes in a show I assume must be pretty old
the basic premise is quite cool though in that they are the rebels, the ones wanting to smash the Empire/Federation in contrast with Star Trek type shows