Colossal TV Show thread

[meecrofilm]

Watched 4 episodes of True Detective and I don’t really understand the hate. It’s biggest sin is the pacing but from what I’ve read here and other places I was expecting something much much worse. I’m intrigued by the mystery, I was surprised just how overtly supernatural it is but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Tighten up the storytelling, hell make it a 2.5 hour movie, and I think you have a solid detective story. Maybe it helps that I’m able to binge it all at once.

Apparently it was pitched as "Night Country" and HBO pushed for the TrueD tie-in, which explains -some- of the clunkiness. I still don't thing the the writing is particularly great, especially from a dialogue perspective, but the overall mystery is alright, the acting was pretty great, and the atmosphere/cinematography did a lot of heavy lifting.

[count2infinity]

Top Chef came to Netflix... I believe it's only a couple seasons, starting with Colorado, but it's one of those shows that I would have on in the background if it was on when we were on cable.

Started started watching and I forgot how much I dig this show. I also forgot how much the show can suck with just one a-hole in the group. Looking at you Claudette.

[eddy]

Watched 4 episodes of True Detective and I don’t really understand the hate. It’s biggest sin is the pacing but from what I’ve read here and other places I was expecting something much much worse. I’m intrigued by the mystery, I was surprised just how overtly supernatural it is but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Tighten up the storytelling, hell make it a 2.5 hour movie, and I think you have a solid detective story. Maybe it helps that I’m able to binge it all at once.

Apparently it was pitched as "Night Country" and HBO pushed for the TrueD tie-in, which explains -some- of the clunkiness. I still don't thing the the writing is particularly great, especially from a dialogue perspective, but the overall mystery is alright, the acting was pretty great, and the atmosphere/cinematography did a lot of heavy lifting.

Holy hell, even atmosphere and cinematography (which were very cool this episode)can't help how much stupidity was overlooked to wrap up the story. They are literally the worst detectives in the history of detectives.

[tifosi77]

Re Top Chef

That had an early season with Marcel ('Wolverine') where they shaved his head against his will, and people thought that personality conflict was the secret sauce of the show. Then they had the season in Vegas with the Voltaggio brothers, Jen Carroll, Kevin Gillespie, Mike Isabella, etc, and they realized, "You know.... these cats are dang good at the cooking, let's maybe focus on that." And the a-hole quotient started going down each year after that. Then about six or seven seasons ago they were entirely free of contrived drama, and they've continued apace. The show has improved immeasurably for it, and I'm looking forward to the new season with Kristin Kish as the host/presenter.

[nocera]

Watched 4 episodes of True Detective and I don’t really understand the hate. It’s biggest sin is the pacing but from what I’ve read here and other places I was expecting something much much worse. I’m intrigued by the mystery, I was surprised just how overtly supernatural it is but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Tighten up the storytelling, hell make it a 2.5 hour movie, and I think you have a solid detective story. Maybe it helps that I’m able to binge it all at once.

Apparently it was pitched as "Night Country" and HBO pushed for the TrueD tie-in, which explains -some- of the clunkiness. I still don't thing the the writing is particularly great, especially from a dialogue perspective, but the overall mystery is alright, the acting was pretty great, and the atmosphere/cinematography did a lot of heavy lifting.

If it wasn’t called True Detective, it wouldn’t be hated as much. Which is weird because really only one season of True Detective is great and that’s the first one.

This definitely wasn’t great but it was entertaining enough. It was fine. I don’t think it deserves the amount of hate it’s getting. Finale had 3.2 millions viewers (season high) so I’m thinking this is another example of the internet hating something while the general public doesn’t care nearly as much.

[Troy Loney]

I thought the reveal was cool, and Navarro was an awesome character.

Didn’t achieve the same creepiness as the first season, but it was still plenty entertaining

[AuthorTony]

I finished Night Country up tonight. It wasn't terrible. I agree that it was "fine." With a few more rounds of rewriting it could have been pretty good as the bones of the story were solid enough, but it definitely felt clunky. Even in the finale episode, when Danvers and Navarro are chasing the guy and can't find him we have to hear Navarro say "Where the f is he" three times within about 90 seconds. Once was enough. The season one tie ins should have been completely removed, imo. They added nothing to the story and just led to (possibly unfair) raised expectations and did the show no favors.

[Nuge]

I watched the first 3 episodes of the new curbed season. I could watch this show forever. Even episodes that aren’t great are still hilarious.I thought the 3rd ep was the best of the three.

[eddy]

I finished Night Country up tonight. It wasn't terrible. I agree that it was "fine." With a few more rounds of rewriting it could have been pretty good as the bones of the story were solid enough, but it definitely felt clunky. Even in the finale episode, when Danvers and Navarro are chasing the guy and can't find him we have to hear Navarro say "Where the f is he" three times within about 90 seconds. Once was enough. The season one tie ins should have been completely removed, imo. They added nothing to the story and just led to (possibly unfair) raised expectations and did the show no favors.

Writing was very terrible at times. The thing about this season is you could have removed two or three episodes and nothing would have changed. You are definitely right about the tie ins (I laughed out loud at time is a flat circle and then we just don't go back to this again). The resolution for the creepy stuff was basically whoever was out there did what they had to and all the other weird stuff that we showed you throughout the season was just misguidance so we could reveal something else. And again, they did very little detective work (that was reserved for other characters off screen) and the stuff they did do was illegal or only fitting to get the story moving again. With that all said, it was probably the next best season after the first.

[eddy]

True detective

I still don't understand the timing of the video with Annie and then the flashback we saw. I don't think they lineup correctly. The lab needing the pollution to help take the samples was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on tv. Navarro letting the witness go but recording it was equally stupid. Basically felt like we **** around for 2 episodes and only have 20 minutes left, let's get some resolutions crammed in


Also, who and why was Annie's tongue cutout?

[nocera]

The first two episodes of Masters of the Air are out, and to no surprise, are very good. Nice to watch them in 4K, too, as Apple TV+ doesn't upcharge for 4K (yet).

I've only watched episode 1 so far but I thought it was solid. not a fan of Austin Butler but I get that he has a good look for those 40s and 50s period pieces.

Thought first episode was decent, but definitely feels like we are missing out on some character development with them jumping right in. I liked how Currahee setup BoB

Agreed. Im caught up and still trying to figure out the characters. It also took me a few watches of the other 2 shows to really know each character so I expect the same here.

I've been thinking about Masters of the Air more and something I learned recently puts the character development critiques into perspective. I guess I'll spoiler it but there's nothing specific in here:

Bomber crews had the highest casualty rate in the war. Most of these characters that we're watching not only don't make it out of the war alive, but don't last particularly long either. This is a very different dynamic from BOB or Pacific. From a storytelling perspective, it does create an issue with character development. I'm not sure I really want to get into backstories and flashbacks of a bunch of "secondary" characters only for them to die in the same episode. The other issue is the missions are all fairly similar. Fly out, try to bomb a target, a bunch of people die, few return, repeat. I think this week's episode will try to remedy that a bit but for the most part that IS the story of bomber crews in WW2. Fly out in broad daylight and get absolutely smoked. I'm hoping we get into the higher ups/whoever is strategizing this and see their reaction to the massive loss of life they're causing.

[AuthorTony]

Yeah, reusing the "time is a flat circle" made me groan out loud. So, so corny.

Thinking about it more last night, I probably dislike it more. Some of the plot holes are just inexcusable.

Tsalal has several vehicles (Danvers and Navarro take one after the storm passes) so why didn't they sit in a vehicle and crank the heat on instead of building a fire and nearly freezing to death in an enormous garage? Even aside from the vehicles, they should have huddled together (naked, teehee) in a small room to share and conserve body heat instead of sitting a football stadium sized garage. I learned that crap in Boy Scouts at age 12, so you'd think anyone living in Alaska (where dying of hypothermia would be a common danger) would know what to do.

I'm not in any way disparaging cleaning ladies, but this show had the smartest cleaning ladies in the history of mankind. One uncovered the pollution, while the others solved the murder. They should fire the entire police force and hire those women. They were the true detectives of this season, but the show didn't give them any personality besides "Group of strong native women."

I know the police interview at the end was supposed to be another corny homage to season 1, but it was so, so bad. Just pure exposition to try to talk their way out of some of the nonsense they'd created.

I don't know if it's better than 2 or 3. I think 3 was much better written, but I remember being bored by most of it. Season 2 was a train wreck, but had some entertaining moments. I still love the stuff with Farrell and his kid, and there was a dream sequence with his dad that is one of my favorite scenes in the entire franchise, but the season as a whole was a hot mess. Aside from 1, this was probably the most even season from beginning to end. That's a very low bar though.

I see a lot of chatter online saying the extreme hate is because it had female leads and is driven by misogyny. I'd imagine that's true for some, but not most. Mare of Easttown and Sharp Obects were female-driven crime shows, and I found both much, much better than Night Country.

[dodint]

Misogyny never even crossed my mind. Women are detectives too.

[nocera]

Yeah that's silly. I didn't think Foster was particularly good, though. She didn't have a ton to work with but I never bought her as that character, especially during the shouty bits.

[AuthorTony]

Yeah that's silly. I didn't think Foster was particularly good, though. She didn't have a ton to work with but I never bought her as that character, especially during the shouty bits.

Agreed, and I love Jodie Foster. Maybe this was too far outside her wheelhouse or something. There was a moment in the last episode where Navarro came up behind Danvers and startled her. Foster's reaction was almost a full second too late. I actually made me laugh. I don't know how that made it through in editing.

[eddy]

Yeah that's silly. I didn't think Foster was particularly good, though. She didn't have a ton to work with but I never bought her as that character, especially during the shouty bits.

Agreed, and I love Jodie Foster. Maybe this was too far outside her wheelhouse or something. There was a moment in the last episode where Navarro came up behind Danvers and startled her. Foster's reaction was almost a full second too late. I actually made me laugh. I don't know how that made it through in editing.

Haha, that was weird. True detective: where the killers do the detective work and the detectives kill and torture people.

[count2infinity]

Re Top Chef

That had an early season with Marcel ('Wolverine') where they shaved his head against his will, and people thought that personality conflict was the secret sauce of the show. Then they had the season in Vegas with the Voltaggio brothers, Jen Carroll, Kevin Gillespie, Mike Isabella, etc, and they realized, "You know.... these cats are dang good at the cooking, let's maybe focus on that." And the a-hole quotient started going down each year after that. Then about six or seven seasons ago they were entirely free of contrived drama, and they've continued apace. The show has improved immeasurably for it, and I'm looking forward to the new season with Kristin Kish as the host/presenter.

It's the Great British Bake Off recipe of success. Focus on the food and have people be uplifting and happy rather than complete drama queens and you'll have a better show.

[NTP66]

Finished Planet Earth III this past weekend. As you would expect, it was terrific. Sir David Attenborough is an intergalactic treasure.

[nocera]

I watched the first 3 episodes of the new curbed season. I could watch this show forever. Even episodes that aren’t great are still hilarious.I thought the 3rd ep was the best of the three.

Agreed. This season has been solid. I have a weird hunch that the finale is heading toward a Seinfeld-esque finale with a trial and Larry getting sentenced to jail. If that happens, after how much hate the Seinfeld finale still gets, I’ll love Larry David even more.

[genoscoif]

Ironically, my wife and I just started Curb. Think we're on S1E8. Needed a show with lots of season to binge after getting the puppy and realizing we're home bound for a bit. Neither of us have ever watched it, and I gotta say, it's pretty good. Pretty, pretty good

[AuthorTony]

Everyone raves about Curb, but the clips I've seen don't do it for me. I loved Seinfeld, so I feel like I should give it a try though.

[dodint]

The humor comes from tension created from bending societal norms so you can't really get the experience from clips.

[meecrofilm]

Ironically, my wife and I just started Curb. Think we're on S1E8. Needed a show with lots of season to binge after getting the puppy and realizing we're home bound for a bit. Neither of us have ever watched it, and I gotta say, it's pretty good. Pretty, pretty good

I did the same thing a couple years ago (after seeing many, but not all eps). You're in for a treat -- like most comedies, season 1 is for finding its footing, then it really starts to take off.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Jeff Garlin and Susie Essman are doing a history of Curb podcast. It's got lots of inside baseball in it, even if they talk over each other a lot. They did get Bob Odenkirk on to talk about Porno Gil from the first season.

[nocera]

I thought Jeff Garlin got cancelled because he was mean on the set of the Goldbergs or something.