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Author Topic: I just watched (x television show here)  (Read 82231 times)

Thrillho

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I just watched (x television show here)
« on: 14 Dec 2020, 13:11 »

I figured that it might be worth having a thread like we have for movies, but for TV shows that don't warrant a thread of their own.

I've been watching Seinfeld lately, which I had never watched it before.

I find it quite astounding not just how much Friends lifted from it (the latter was called a ripoff by TV critics at the time), but that Seinfeld is ostensibly a show about four complete assholes, but I keep finding them behaving less objectionably than our favourite six cis-hets. I've already become quite invested in the 'Ross sucks, etc.' discourse for the past few years, but it's astounding to me how, for example, George Costanza is concerned about appearing openly homophobic, whereas Ross Geller has no such issue in the entire ten years of his own show.
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LeeC

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #1 on: 14 Dec 2020, 20:02 »


I've been watching Seinfeld lately, which I had never watched it before...

...Seinfeld is ostensibly a show about four complete assholes...

No spoiler but it gets addressed a few times in the show. Seinfeld was great. It used to come on after the Simpsons and I would watch it. Its been a decade since I've watched the show, but I remember liking it.  Its how my sister got her nick name.

Spoiler for season 9 episode 19:
(click to show/hide)

Quote
but it's astounding to me how, for example, George Costanza is concerned about appearing openly homophobic, whereas Ross Geller has no such issue in the entire ten years of his own show.
Seinfeld is very quotable.  I know people that have never seen the show quote that episode whether they realize it or not:


To be clear, I'm not saying Seinfeld paved the way for gay acceptance in the public eye in 1993, but I am sure it was a step in the right direction. Especially compared to some other sitcoms and shows of the time.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #2 on: 15 Dec 2020, 05:56 »

I made a list of TV shows I've been meaning to watch and dropped it into a random generator so it would mix them all up. I made it like a year ago and I've only gotten through like 20 shows so far on a list that's over 100 now.

I'm on Cloak and Dagger now and it's pretty great. I couldn't get into The Gifted even after a few episodes, but Cloak and Dagger hooked me right away. My only problem with it right now is it's kind of depressing and who needs to be more depressed right now?
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oddtail

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #3 on: 15 Dec 2020, 06:26 »

"Seinfeld" is one of those things that a lot of people rave about and I am completely befuddled as to why.

I tried watching it once, and was bored throughout. I don't think I laughed at a single joke. And I don't give up easily - I think I watched three seasons or so before I was certain it wouldn't get better.

When "Seinfeld" is praised, the same points are brought up - mainly that it was revolutionary and completely unlike anything on TV at the time. That it influenced pretty much *all* of TV comedy going forward.

I can believe that, but those shows that "Seinfeld" supposedly influenced? They're actually funny to me, at least some of the time. "Seinfeld" is a group of intensely unpleasant people that I'm supposed to watch for... reasons. It's almost like "they're assholes" is the entire joke, but I honestly can't tell.

I know I'm in the minority here, everyone and their grandma seems to like "Seinfeld". But I do wonder how much of that is nostalgia, because humor tends to age poorly. Or maybe it's that I'm not an American. But I dunno. The show is not just no funny to me. It's aggressively, almost proudly unfunny. It's not even a case of "I get why someone might be amused by this". I think I'm missing what jokes are in there. Maybe something gets lost in translation (culturally speaking, not literally. I obviously watched it in English).

Which is weird, because I've watched at least one standup by Jerry Seinfeld and while he wouldn't even be in my top 20 stand up comedians probably, some of his jokes did at least make me smile, and I gave a mild chuckle once or twice. So clearly, he can make an effective joke.
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dutchrvl

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #4 on: 15 Dec 2020, 08:21 »

I'm with you Oddtail, and I also wonder how much of it is culture-specific type of humor.
Similar to Seinfeld, which I only on occasion find amusing, I also never found David Letterman's talkshow funny. I appreciated his show for other reasons, but certainly not for the comedy in it. ALways wondered if it's a USA-specific comedystyle that just doesn't appeal to me.

 
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Thrillho

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #5 on: 15 Dec 2020, 09:54 »

I find this very interesting, because for me Seinfeld is one of the least funny comedians of his stature I have ever seen, while the show makes me scream with laughter.

And for what it's worth yes, the one joke is they're assholea - it's the one joke in It's Always Sunny as well and that's literally my favourite show.
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dutchrvl

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #6 on: 15 Dec 2020, 10:43 »

Oh I meant the show btw, Seinfeld himself as a stand-up comedian is just meh for me. I'm more a Chris Rock, Bill Burr, Ronny Chieng (especially him) fan.

Little tangent: about 5-10 years ago they made a Dutch version of Everybody loves Raymond, using more or less the exact format and humor, and everybody pretty much hated the show, because that type of humor and delivery just does not work in NL.

Similarly, I'm certain making English versions of Dutch comedy shows would absolutely not work unless you adjust jokes and delivery to the culture.
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oddtail

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #7 on: 15 Dec 2020, 12:30 »

I don't particularly like It's Always Sunny either, but I've found it funny enough when I watched some of it. Or at least I see where the jokes are, even if I don't think they land *that* well. But there's a difference between "it's not that funny to me, personally" and "OK, where's the actual joke in this scene?", which is why "Seinfeld" puzzles me so much.

I'll also admit, I typically don't particularly enjoy comedy built around people being assholes. It can work (I found Eric Cartman to be hilarious back when, for some reason, I still thought South Park was worth watching), but I don't really find sociopathy inherently comedic. I need some kind of context to make it funny, and "Seinfeld" just reads to me low-key enough that there's no inherent humour in it for me.

I've met people like the cast of "Seinfeld" and nothing about what I see on screen is particularly absurd or out there. So it's possible I'm oblivious to some nuance, but their behaviour reads to me like "assholes exist; isn't it funny that people treat others like shit?". Watching people being thoughtless and awful (again, in a way that registers as fairly realistic) is a combination of annoying and depressing, not funny. They're not witty about it either, in a way I could understand. More like petty and self-absorbed. Which again, I don't find incongruous enough to be a joke.
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Thrillho

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #8 on: 15 Dec 2020, 12:35 »

I think I understand what you mean.

I've never lived in the US. I don't know people like the Seinfeld cast.

You know what show I do hate, though? The Inbetweeners. Those guys, I know plenty of.
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oddtail

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #9 on: 15 Dec 2020, 12:38 »

That's interesting, because "The Inbetweeners", while by no means among my favourite shows, I found to be north of the average in terms of being entertaining (and funny too, most of the time).

So maybe that's it, maybe "Seinfeld" just registers to me as too normal and therefore I miss what's supposed to be off about the situations.

EDIT: note that I've also never lived in, or even been to, the US. But I've met the general personality types of "Seinfeld" main cast, or at least close-ish approximations thereof.
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Farideh

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #10 on: 15 Dec 2020, 12:44 »

I'm with you oddtail. Could never get into Seinfeld, or Friends for that matter.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #11 on: 16 Dec 2020, 09:33 »

I'm with you oddtail. Could never get into Seinfeld, or Friends for that matter.
I often describe Steven Moffatt's show Coupling as "like Friends, but funny."  :-D
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oddtail

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #12 on: 16 Dec 2020, 11:32 »

I'm with you oddtail. Could never get into Seinfeld, or Friends for that matter.
I often describe Steven Moffatt's show Coupling as "like Friends, but funny."  :-D

That actually sounds pretty cool. I liked Friends alright, but it's not really nostalgic for me, so I happen to think it's aged pretty poorly. I rewatched it relatively recently and it's... alright. Not good enough to really recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it.

I've heard of "Coupling" and that it's good, but never had an opportunity to check it out. "Like Friends but better" is a good pitch ;)
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #13 on: 16 Dec 2020, 12:10 »

I tried getting into Seinfeld, because I loved Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it didn't stick. Something about it being too smooth. Larry David knows how to make someone simultaneously cringe at, and wish they were, a rich, old, white, petty-fogger. I loved the episode where he isn't careful with his takeout, and the soup spills, so he makes a scene about it next time, at which the restaurant makes a scene of securing the container.
I'm with you oddtail. Could never get into Seinfeld, or Friends for that matter.
I often describe Steven Moffatt's show Coupling as "like Friends, but funny."  :-D
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps (I've never seen Friends.)
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LeeC

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #14 on: 28 Dec 2020, 21:00 »

I've been mostly watching kids shows: Shaun the Sheep, Sarah and Duck, Sailor Moon, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Shaun the Sheep: Great stuff! Its made by the same guys that made Wallace and Gromit. In fact, Shaun the Sheep is a spin off of the W&G movie "A Close Shave." The premise is simple. Shaun and the flock get into misadventures around the farm. An interesting thing to note is that there is no dialogue. Sheep goes, Baa, dog goes woof, chicken goes cluck. The humans are welsh, so they just speak in incoherent grunts and moans. Seasons 1-5  and the first movie is on Amazon Prime. Netflix has picked it up and released season 6 late last year along with a sequel movie "Farmageddon." Its great!

Sarah and Duck: Sarah and Duck is an enchanting show about a girl named Sarah and her pet Duck. Its hard to describe, but its just really chill and surprisingly quiet for a kid's show. Each episode is about 5-8 minutes long and it feels so much longer than that, and in a good way. We ended up buying the whole series on Amazon, but its free to watch in 20 minute to as long as an hour long compilations on youtube. Moon is by far the greatest character.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F87fpmUgPUA

Sailor Moon: I largely avoided this show as a teenager. My wife however loved it when she was younger and we started watching it with my daughters. Its surprisingly good. The best way I can describe it: Its like the original Power Rangers. In the original Power Rangers the episode formula is 1) Teenage slice of life, 2) interrupted by Evil person sending a monster to attack innocent people and the rangers fight them, 3) giant robot fights a giant monster. The Sailor Moon formula is 1) Teenage slice of life, 2) investigate why strange shit is happening, 3) Transform and fight monster. Each season appears to have an overarching story, and although monster of the week is prevalent, it is leading to something. Surprisingly compelling story and well developed characters that far surpasses anything I expected.

MLP:FiM: So I had no interest in this show...until Q from TNG shows up. Now when I say Q from TNG, I don't just mean the actor. It is Q from TNG in all but name and appearance. I put it on for my kids so I can do stuff around the house and pretty much ignored it. Until I heard John de Lancie's voice. I sat down and watch and was surprised that it was Q! Same sassy mannerisms, reality bending powrs at a snap of his fingers, being sly and an annoyance to the main cast that are just ready to be rid of him. Since then I started taking an interest in the show and its surprisingly well done. I can see why it has 9 seasons and a theatrical movie. The songs in the show are Broadway quality and a few are real ear worms.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #15 on: 30 Dec 2020, 18:38 »

I finished all 99 episodes of Animaniacs after watching the new season. My take away:
-The best segments are the Warners, Pinky and the Brain, and Slappy Squirrel
-The worst are Randy Beaman, Goodfeathers, and Hip Hippoes

But it still holds up really well, even making my wife laugh out loud at times. The new one is kind of missing that charm, especially since there aren't many segments outside of the Warners and Pinky and the Brain
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Theta9

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #16 on: 30 Dec 2020, 20:17 »

I finished all 99 episodes of Animaniacs after watching the new season. My take away:
-The best segments are the Warners, Pinky and the Brain, and Slappy Squirrel
-The worst are Randy Beaman, Goodfeathers, and Hip Hippoes

But it still holds up really well, even making my wife laugh out loud at times. The new one is kind of missing that charm, especially since there aren't many segments outside of the Warners and Pinky and the Brain
Fuck me, I HATE the Hip Hippos. Everything that happens to Jane Embryo, I wish was happening to them instead.
Also weak: Good Idea, Bad Idea.

No love for Rita and Runt, or Buttons and Mindy?
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #17 on: 01 Jan 2021, 04:24 »

I actually like Good Idea, Bad Idea cause they're generally quick and weird. Rita and Runt and Buttons and Mindy are both neutral compared to those 6, I'd watch them over the worst but they aren't the best to me

I watched all of Love Death and Robots and I really enjoyed it, especially the one that looked so much like Into the Spider-Verse
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Case

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #18 on: 01 Jan 2021, 06:36 »

Expanse Season 5 is out!  :parrot: I'm still on Ep1.

OddDetailsOnlyCaseNotices:

So Bobby and Alex are both Martians, right? And the books make a point of mentioning Alex' "Mariner Valley Drawl" quite a few times, which is allegedly typical for Hindi-Martians-by-way-of-Texas. And I guess Cas Anwar isn't doing too bad of a job about the whole drawly-thing, but I'm no good judge of US-dialects.

So far, so good. Enter Frankie Adam's glorious Bobby Draper ... and her very noticable Kiwi-accent.

I mean, sure - they come from completely different settler-demographics, buuuuuuuuut Mars ain't exactly suffering an over-abundance of habitable surface-area, right? How long does it take to acquire an accent? Akima said she went from Mandarin to being able to pull off a credible Bogan-accent in ... (However old Akima is minus however old she was when her family moved to Oz, which I'm guessing is about 30-ish minus about 10-ish, so ... ) ... twenty years, give or take?

TL;DR - Given that space is precisely what Mars doesn't have too much off, shouldn't Bobby's and Alex's accents be a little bit closer, no matter how different their families' original terran backgrounds?
« Last Edit: 01 Jan 2021, 06:46 by Case »
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #19 on: 01 Jan 2021, 06:45 »

The character is of Polynesian descent and, as far as I can recall, the books don't specify her accent, and she is not from the same settlement as Alex, it still works for me.

Plus, Frankie Adams could use a Dickensian cockney accent and I would still be okay with it, cos... damn. :)
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #20 on: 01 Jan 2021, 06:46 »

The character is of Polynesian descent and, as far as I can recall, the books don't specify her accent, and she is not from the same settlement as Alex, it still works for me.

IDK how accents work, Spin - I notice that immigrants seem to learn really fast, so, on the one hand, I'd guess that whatever Alex' and Bobbies' Terran ethnic backgrounds are, they wouldn't matter much after a about generation, but ... otoh, Germany is barely the size of California, and we have a "dialect continuum" that has linguists arguing whether it's correct to say that we all speak the same language. It's really that far apart, even for native speakers.

 :oops:

Plus, Frankie Adams could use a Dickensian cockney accent and I would still be okay with it, cos... damn. :)

Word.  :-D


And I immensely enjoy Adams' and Dominique Tippers' accents mixing up the default sort-of-AmerEnglish, it's just that I'm fascinated by the attention to all the little details that J.S. Corey put into especially themes of migration and ethnic differentiation in a space-faring society.
« Last Edit: 01 Jan 2021, 07:11 by Case »
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #21 on: 01 Jan 2021, 07:10 »

For all I know, the region of Mars that Bobby is from has a strong Polynesian presence, in which case the accent could easily have persisted generationally, just as the Texan accent did where Alex grew up. Accents are weird and can fade or persist due to a wide range of influences. My point being that I have no idea what the cultural conditions of the intervening centuries has been, so really any accent combination is believable.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #22 on: 01 Jan 2021, 07:12 »

For all I know, the region of Mars that Bobby is from has a strong Polynesian presence, in which case the accent could easily have persisted generationally, just as the Texan accent did where Alex grew up. Accents are weird and can fade or persist due to a wide range of influences. My point being that I have no idea what the cultural conditions of the intervening centuries has been, so really any accent combination is believable.

It is, it's just fascinating to speculate about it, is what I guess I'm saying?

EDIT: And the series really makes a point of pointing it out, too - I'm just at the point where Bobby walks into a Texas-themed Martian bar, complete with Stetsons everywhere and barstools made up as saddles, and not one single caucasian face in sight ...  :laugh:


P.S.: And I guess it gets double fascinating when you mix all the ethnic backgrounds that 'we' tend to take to be so meaningfull - I loved how Corey let Alex speak with a Texan accent.
« Last Edit: 01 Jan 2021, 07:36 by Case »
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #23 on: 01 Jan 2021, 07:52 »

My speculation is that given how the Martian settlement was a collection of separate habitation domes, each with their own individual communities and of differing cultural origins, no matter how many decades or centuries back, there would likely be quite a bit of dialect variation.

 
There was some quite noticeable variation in accent and dialect even within the same town I grew up in, which had less than 9K people in it.

And I agree that the way that ethnicity has different connotations off Earth than it does on the homeworld and the way cultures have deviated and evolved was a very clever creative choice.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #24 on: 01 Jan 2021, 12:07 »

Speaking of attention to detail:

There's a scene where Bobby has a look at a tree-diagram of possible connections between people she suspects of making up a criminal enterprise, and she marks one of the entries as 'no longer accessible to me' by changing its colour (the weapons-dealer in question has become suspicious of her and wants no further contact).

Thing is that she changes the nodes' colour from red to blue - I actually had to rewind the scene to get it bcs it was so weird to me: Bobby associates red with 'positive' and blue with 'negative'.

I thought that was a really nice, subtly idea to emphasize that she didn't grow up under a blue sky and has never seen an ocean ...
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #25 on: 01 Jan 2021, 20:45 »

It also shows the cultural influence of generations of antagonism between "The Blue Planet" and "The Red Planet".
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #26 on: 02 Jan 2021, 03:40 »

It also shows the cultural influence of generations of antagonism between "The Blue Planet" and "The Red Planet".

There was a picture in one of my history books at school that showed German grunts in WW-I. They were gathered around the port of a freight-waggon, smiling into the camera, and had 'decorated' the sides of the waggon with slogans - or soldiers' graffitti, I guess you could call it - bit like US-Navy munitions crews scrawling imprecations at Saddam onto bombs about to go on a hardpoint under the wing of an F/A-18.

Only that one of the German grunts had written "Auf nach Paris, mich juckt die Säbelspitze!" - "Onwards to Paris, my Saber's tip is itching" - an obvious, open expression of his hope to rape himself some terrified French girls in the wake of the sack of Paris (that thankfully didn't happen, least not in that war). That didn't seem to be controversial notion amongst them, to put it mildly. That was a time when the idea that Germans and French were 'hereditary enemies' was fashionable - that you had be ready to kill the other not because their power, proximity and divergent interests made them a potential threat (which they arguably were to each other), but because you were born to the one side, and they to the other, and a fight to the death was simply inevitable. I didn't get the impression that that was meant-, or taken, as a joke, a jingoistic slight, or a threat - simply as an acknowledgement of a fact of life.

Today, Paris and Berlin habitually use their media to send each other miffed little passive-aggressive missives of their discontent when the other side has been slow to coordinate public announcements about minor policy initiative with the other. Bit like when your Mom refers to her husband breakfasting not six feet away from her as 'Your Father' when she wants him to know she's pissed, but that patching stuff up is an option if he backs down from escalating.

Quit a bit of a change in little over a century, I daresay - I can report that my 'German genes' appear insufficiently offended by all things French, and that the French I've met appeared equally lax to obey their hereditary imperatives to murder me a little bit. In fact, I thought they were, almost all of them, quite a lovely bunch.

I've never forgotten that picture. What insanity. What a crime.
« Last Edit: 02 Jan 2021, 04:24 by Case »
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Thrillho

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #27 on: 18 Jan 2021, 11:57 »

So we have taken to watching Taskmaster, a weird game show we have over here (evidently with versions made in the US and New Zealand) where five contestants (famous people, broadly comedians but not always) compete in absurd tasks for the amusement of Greg Davies, an established comedian who is a retired teacher as well as being 6'8 and generally projecting an air of major authority.

The tasks are some kind of weird combination of Whose Line is it Anyway?, Jackass and The Crystal Maze. The latter is a big influence on Alex Horne, the creator of the show and tasks and the other main recurring onscreen figure.

There are ten seasons of it to watch plus specials, and we just started watching the tenth season. The preceding nine have featured a fun combination of people the three of us had heard of and new faces. A couple of things struck us about this.

Firstly, for the first six or seven seasons, there appeared to be a depressingly stringent formula to how they selected the lineups - one old, male, white comedian; one young, male, white comedian; one man of colour; one woman; another white male who is not a comedian but is probably weird. However the show did seem to have quite progressive ideals and the anarchic nature of it meant that Greg Davies, who generally I think is fairly progressive, gets challenged on actual prejudices and actually acknowledges them in the show. He also calls them out in other people if the way they complete the tasks or their gags are off-colour, albeit gently and without wrecking the atmosphere.

Spoilered for sexual content.
(click to show/hide)

It's generally a lovely, nice, warm space for us to be, one that seems to share many of our ethics, is generally just good fun, is low-stakes, and features a lot of people we like. But it's that last part that can be a problem.

Even the comedians participating in this show are generally quite out of their element, as it is not a joke-centric show, but task-centric; being funny while doing the tasks is obviously the primary goal and often people are trying to funny rather than anything else, but none of them are doing their material, even if they are quite gimmick-heavy comedians doing shtick. A lot of the real people seems to come out in these tasks sometimes, and in the vast majority of cases this has been delightful, but a few people that we had previously liked quite a lot showed unpleasant aspects to their character in the making of these shows.

In the first season, Frank Skinner despite being an old, cis, white man showed himself to be fairly down-to-Earth and not a depressing, racist relic. The only woman in the cast this time, Roison Conaty, has a gimmick that is largely making fun of herself. She's also best mates with Davies, and so he makes a lot of jokes at her expense that she finds funny, but it occasionally leaves a bit of a sour taste to see four male contestants and the two male hosts, plus a whole studio audience laughing at the one woman on the show.

The second season was what made us decide to watch pretty much the entire run. It featured Joe Wilkinson, a guy who I've generally found dismally unfunny, but he was actually quite sweet and ridiculous in this show. The highlight, though, was Katherine Ryan, who called out the sexism in the show at every single opportunity, won almost any physical task despite mostly wearing glorious evening gowns and heels and won the show overall. Like a badass.

The third season was the most disappointing. Rob Beckett, a guy I knew primarily as someone who publicly mocked a venue one of my ex-students worked in when they pissed him off, which is just bad form really, actually turned out to not be so bad. However, there was Al Murray - known mainly in the UK for a parodic right-wing character called the Pub Landlord, whose gag was that he said outrageously stupid, right-wing things and we should laugh at him. Murray retired this character at one point, publicly stating that he knew half of his audience wasn't in on the joke and he was literally afrai of them, but then brought the character back when he needed the money, erm, felt the time was right for it. He's out of character for the show, and mainly pays his way towards winning tasks, which just felt a bit grim. The bigger disappointment, however, was Dave Gorman, a guy with a sense for the absurd minutae of life and someone I thought quite warmly of. He turned out to be an aggressively competitive cheat, with a ridiculous macho streak that he couldn't live up to. And the thing is, this is still a TV show - that could still just be part of his comedy. But it wasn't funny, it was kind of unpleasant.

Series four made me realise that the reason I hated Noel Fielding when I was a teenager was primarily jealousy of the fact that he was completely comfortable with his weird self and able to express it and I wasn't.

Series five featured Bob Mortimer, one half of my beloved childhood favourites Reeves and Mortimer, who turned out to be ableist as fuck and just not especially funny.

Anyway there's five more series and I've ranted for hundreds of words about this bollocks already but uh... yeah we've been watching that!
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #28 on: 18 Jan 2021, 12:22 »

We finally, finally got around to watching The Mandalorian. We're seven episodes into season 1 so far, and the general consensus seems to be "uncommonly well-made for a TV show."
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #29 on: 18 Jan 2021, 13:19 »

Uncommonly good for a Star Wars property.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #30 on: 19 Jan 2021, 06:48 »

Uncommonly good for a Star Wars property.

That's a pretty low bar.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #31 on: 19 Jan 2021, 13:14 »

Thanks for saying it so that I didn't!
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #32 on: 19 Jan 2021, 14:22 »

That is rather what I had intended.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #33 on: 20 Jan 2021, 00:01 »

Are we counting pilots or webseries for this thread, or is it exclusively T.V. T.V.?

If so, Long Gone Gulch is a fun weird west cartoon with plenty of VAs folks watching cartoons in the 90s and early 00s will recognize.

Then, there's Zelda Hero High which is a modern LoZ high school AU which looks to be getting monthly releases. Being an unofficial series, enough changes have been made to ensure that this counts as Fair Use (transformative work).
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #34 on: 28 Jan 2021, 16:43 »

Just done watching "Cobra Kai" Season 3.

I'll admit to bias. I watched "Karate Kid" as a kindergartener and it was THE reason I was fascinated with martial arts for years, and (finally) took up martial arts training when I was 20-ish. So the movie is very nostalgic for me and kinda influenced my life in a big way, indirectly.

But I can recommend "Cobra Kai" (all three seasons, really) not just on the basis of nostalgia, I don't think. It works incredibly well as a reflection and a continuation of (the first two) "Karate Kid" movies, but it works on its own. And Season 3 keeps things interesting, fun and tense.

The series is incredibly cheesy and sometimes can't decide if it wants to follow real life logic or karate film logic. But this blend is nothing if not unique, and there's nothing out there QUITE like the series. Sometimes it strikes the same notes as the films, sometimes it does its own thing, but it's kinda amazing even in its schizophrenic weirdness.

So if you can occasionally turn off your critical thinking, it's near-perfect actually.

Plus, it has really well choreographed and shot fights, which I'm always a sucker for.

EDIT: Plus, it's satisfying to watch Johnny as the main protagonist and Daniel as a good guy, but also kind of an asshole. It's a fun perspective flip, while keeping characterization true to the original story.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #35 on: 29 Jan 2021, 04:05 »


Currently TEARING through Superstore.
And whereas I liked it on normal TV, I am LOVING it on Netflix -
I had always thought the show had some really strange edits in it, and I am now finding out that there is a TON of VERY adult material that has been snipped out of a great many broadcast episodes!

I am now wondering if even the beeping and pixelation (for the most part) is deliberate or added in post?

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #36 on: 19 Feb 2021, 19:48 »

My wife and I started watching The Good Place. I've seen gifs of it on imgur and decided to give it a try. It has an interesting premise. Eleanor (Kristen Bell) wakes up in a waiting room. She is greeted by a man named Michael (Ted Danson) Who then explains to her that she has died and she is now in the afterlife. He goes on to explain to her that there is a good place and a bad place. If you are an exceptionally good person, you go to the good place. Because she was a death-row lawyer and saved numerous innocent lives she gets to go to the good place. He shows her around and shows her to her new home which is tailored to her personality complete with clown paintings. In the afterlife you also get paired up with your soul mate. Chidi (William Jackson Harper), an ethics and philosophy professor from Senagal, shows up revealing that he is her soulmate. Michael also shows her a TV so she can relive her memories from her PoV when she was alive and showed his favorite of when she went to deliver toys to refugee children in the Ukraine. Michael then leaves to give Eleanor and Chidi a chance to get to know each other. Eleanor confides in Chidi that she 1) she was never a lawyer, 2) hates clowns, 3) those memories are not her and 4) someone made a mistake and she isn't suppose to be in the good place.

Comedy ensues.

We're 3 episodes in and so far its great!
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #37 on: 20 Feb 2021, 01:10 »

One of the best shows I have ever seen.  Cannot speak highly enough about it.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #38 on: 20 Feb 2021, 02:10 »

The Good Place is great, I recommend it to many people.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #39 on: 28 Feb 2021, 04:56 »

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Super-feminist, super-queer, super-inclusive, tightly written, glorious, heart-wrenching, hilarious in equal measure. We watched the whole five seasons quite recently all the way through, and it is just a truly magnifient show. Watch the shit out of it, friends. If nothing else, the animation is glorious.

Special

A show written by and starring a gay man with cerebral palsy. It's only fifteen minutes per episode, and only eight made (we have watched four) but it's a show I am just delighted that it exists. I recommend it because it's moving, interesting and shows important things that I think are not represented often and that people need to see - for some in order to see themselves onscreen, for some in order that they know some people's lives are different to theirs.

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #40 on: 28 Feb 2021, 10:29 »

Spoiler for WandaVision
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #41 on: 28 Feb 2021, 12:10 »

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Super-feminist, super-queer, super-inclusive, tightly written, glorious, heart-wrenching, hilarious in equal measure. We watched the whole five seasons quite recently all the way through, and it is just a truly magnificent show. Watch the shit out of it, friends. If nothing else, the animation is glorious.

I concur. She-Ra is absolutely amazing. One of the best explorations of trauma, abuse, grief, and recovery I have ever watched. With complex, fully realised characters with real, tangible character growth.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #42 on: 07 Apr 2021, 21:09 »

My wife and I started watching Babylon 5. It was recently "remastered" on HBO max. I remember watching some of it 20 years ago (mostly the movie "In the Beginning") when it was syndicated on TNT and that I liked it. I have been warned that season 1 is a lot like season 1 of TNG where its really rough and episodes can be hit or miss, but that it picks up in season 2 and onward. So far we're about 5 episodes in and there were maybe 2 episodes that didn't jive well with us, but the rest have been great. Londo and G'Kar centric episodes especially! We just finished episode 5 "The Parliament of Dreams" and it had us laughing and really engaged. Also, the two new Narn characters in the episode just seemed so familiar to us. When we checked IMDB we discovered that they were in episodes of TNG, DS9, and Voyager and that's where we knew them from (even under all that make up). The male Narn especially since he has that (in)famous scene from DS9 where he played a Romulan that tells Sisko the data he gave him was a fake. Its been a fun "who is that" situation when watching because we come across a few one off characters where we just know we've seen them before. Like the mortician from NCIS playing a shifty archeologist or Alotta Fagina from Austin Powers playing a Centari girl that has a tragic story wrapped up with Londo.

The actors playing Londo and G'Kar are amazing. TNG characters seem stiff and monotone compared to them. Especially Londo. He is so animated and will throw and smash stuff or jump on a table and crawl over to someone. G'Kar did probably the best spit take in television when his new diplomatic aid caught him at a strip club.  Its just hard to describe! It feels lively. The actor that plays Garibaldi is also refreshing as he seems to be comfortable in his own skin where as all the other human characters seem too stiff and are finding their stride. So far, its fun.

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #43 on: 08 Apr 2021, 06:34 »

It's funny you should mention - I'm currently rewatching DS9 from the start for the first time since I was a kid, as my household has a big stack of shows to get through and we're still in season 1 of Next Gen (we started with OS, years ago, including the movies up to but not including Generations). It's got me in the mood to watch Babylon 5, but I'm not sure I have access to a service with it on. My brother-in-law does have all of it on-disc, however...

As for the acting, I'd like to observe that that is not on the crew of the Trek shows - the producers explicitly instructed the actors to emote less.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #44 on: 08 Apr 2021, 18:01 »

Recently watched The Good Place and I concur that it is fantastic. Eleanor is the best bi-disaster character I've seen in a long time.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #45 on: 22 May 2021, 00:26 »

Help! I stumbled into the mid-80s, early-90s anime series with questionable subtitles hole on YT!

Currently watching Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos, and it's MUCH more dramatic and serious than the original series that got released as GoBots.
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #46 on: 22 May 2021, 02:44 »

I'm finally getting into Doom Patrol and I'm loving it. All the emotional stuff I loved about WandaVision Doom Patrol has in spades. It almost feels like they ripped off Doom Patrol to make WandaVision a little
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #47 on: 22 May 2021, 14:48 »

It's got me in the mood to watch Babylon 5, but I'm not sure I have access to a service with it on. My brother-in-law does have all of it on-disc, however...

Its on Amazon Prime (I think for free) but its the same quality as the ones from the DVD. HBO Max recently remastered it and it looks better but is fullscreen only and not wide screen (the original cut was widescreen but was damaged).

We're into season 3 now and my stars its so fucking good! And extremely relevant! Like the plague episode and the aliens that are susceptible to it making dumb decisions in handling quarantine. Also the rise of the Night Watch (MAGA) and their influence being very close to modern US politics. You really feel for the characters, especially G'Kar. Although hes an enjoyable character, especially when teamed up with Londo, but we didn't have much sympathy for him until near the end of Season 2, and especially going forward. Poor dude. There is a bit of 90s sci-fi schlock here and there but every episode feels like it helps develop the characters, the universe, or furthers 1 2 or even all 3 of the main plots that unfolds over the course of the show. Even one off characters become relevant long after their episode. The continuity is near perfect as I can tell. I was really caught off guard when two of the female characters hooked up. I mean it wasn't really out of left field it had been slowly (like extremely slowly) building up, but I was not expecting a mid 90s sci-fi show to go that route. I read that the creator wanted to do more before their relationship\story hit their climax but the network batted it down several times. It is a shame that

(click to show/hide)

Just a great show so far and amazing that no one really talks about it. At times it feels like Game of Thrones, nearly 20 years before it was put to television. It was also refreshing to see Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa playing a role that wasn't the villain. Even if it was a one off. Such an underrated gem of the 90s so far!

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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #48 on: 26 May 2021, 05:12 »

I was recommended Ertugrul by my friend, and I really seem to like it! :roll:
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Re: I just watched (x television show here)
« Reply #49 on: 31 May 2021, 20:03 »

Got my Gen:Lock season 1 blu-ray this weekend. Definitely recommend. Good sci-fi, plenty of unobtrusive references, and a few bits that hit close to home. The only reference that really sticks out to me is ESU. There seems to be a handful of regional references, too. Experimental Science Unit, Emporia State University. I'll have to rewatch to catch more.

Dr. Weller's speech in episode 3 is one of them:
“Needless aggression, unscrupulous greed, unchecked hate. To have the images, the headlines, incessantly thrust at you, hour after hour, years at a time, you normalize to it. They want you to go numb, become indifferent, or lose your self in distractions, for it to feel like the evil in this world and all its machinations are too big to challenge. That loss of control leads to despair. To re-engage, to claw back even the tiniest sense of control, you don’t have to save the world. You just have to make a difference where you can, with the opportunities you are given. That’s all I’m asking.”

'The truth in the fiction' as it were.
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