[amphibian]

Most comedians have a real problem with admitting that they fucked up with this thing they said. Chappelle seems to be pretty upfront about how he didn't handle various things well.

[Slow Ben]

Abyss, on 19 April 2017 - 01:37 PM, said:

THE OA. Three eps in. Fascinating. Am genuinely curious where this is going and whether/how all the individual 'now' threads tie together with the flashbacks.

PAW PATROL. ok, i get it.... the whole Adventure Bay thing is a bottle experiment where they train puppies to become cybernetic weapons of war, right? ...like sooner or later someone is going to extract Skye's brain and put it in a Predator drone... Also, Alex is actively trying to kill off all the adults.

Hopefully.

Thats why I watch.

[Slow Ben]

D D D Double Post!!!




HIMYM. I was really referring to just the overall drop in quality and gimmicks they went to for season 9. There are a handful of good episodes, but most of it has none of the charm of the preceeding seasons.

And im kinda with Salt-Man on the ending. I don't mind then ending, even Ted's kids called him out on it, its supposed to be about how he met their mother and she was hardly in it. It was just leading up to him discussing dating Robin with them.

But the way they handled Barney and Robin was rough. The whole season 9 was preparing for their wedding and how damn much they love each other. Then, oh, we got divorced in a 15 second scene. Meh.

[Vengeance]

QuickTidal, on 19 April 2017 - 12:36 PM, said:

Chapelle is an odd duck. He was once literally at the top of the heap of comedy. Then he disappeared and there were rumours of mental health issues, and a breakdown of some kind. His road to coming back into the spotlight has been fraught with live shows that are literally just him riffing stories off and venting for an hour and a half while he smokes a pack or more of cigarettes. His comedy now is like some sort of Comedy Breakdown survivor therapy. I can't really watch it.

It showcases just how present mental health issues can be amongst the comedy community, and none of us know about it. Robin Williams untimely death is one extreme...but look at even Russel Peters...the guy used to be one of the funniest Canadians EVER...but his recent shows have been really mean spirited (to his topics AND his audience), and he talks a lot about his failed marriage (and not in a funny way)...and you can literally FEEL the mental health issues coming out. Same is true of Mike Myers. The guy was supposedly this hilarious sweet-hearted Canadian from Scarborough...but all the stories that have come out in recent years paint a VERY different picture of a very disturbed man.

I disagree with your analysis of the Chapelle shows. His netflix specials were fucking brilliant. I haven't laughed like that at a stand up special in a long time. It was raw and he poked fun at himself. I wouldn't put it on the same level as eddy murphy's delirious or RAW, or even chapelles early killing them softly show. But it is definitely one of the best specials that I have seen since LC shameless. I would put it with Kevin Harts Laugh at my pain. I agree that some of his live shows have been kind of sucky but that is true for almost any comedian. The trick is to bounce back and to hit it on the next time out. His material is fresh and specials sizzle.

I don't think I would put his come back specials against Pryor's come back special. But Chapelle was brilliant and is definitely a top comic.

[worry]

I do think Chappelle's thing -- if you can say he has a thing -- is to build up this potential for self-awareness or poignancy and then deflating it at the end with a sideways punchline. And in that light, Louis CK isn't a bad comparison point. It has a lot to do with the fairly common comedian's trick of separating the 'real' you and the 'on-stage' character, and some of the best comedians weave between them, back and forth, and it's supposed to make the audience unsure what you're gonna say next. And Dave is one of them, but for some reason he seemed to get less benefit of the doubt this time around. I think the general tone of the specials was along the lines of "I'm kind of a throwback, I'm behind the times, I'm having trouble adjusting to the new paradigm, etc." and it's acknowledged/explored in the jokes. Which doesn't mean he doesn't make other people the butt of the jokes, but the devil on every comedian's shoulder is to just say whatever strikes you funny, right or wrong. So there's definitely an element of having your cake and eating it too. But again, I don't think Chappelle is particularly exceptional -- or even egregious -- in that regard either. And while Louis isn't a bad comparison, Bill Burr might be an even better one, because his act is half about the self-awareness that the comic is the one who's out of step with progress, and the other half is exorcising the id of those thoughts anyway.

[Morgoth]

Apt, on 19 April 2017 - 09:45 AM, said:

He just came off as being out of touch, bitter and just sort of a bigot. All wrapped up in a big scoop of "I'm Dave Chappelle! I used to be awesome and because I'm black I know better than the rest of you!" Which was the same schtick I remember from the 2000s but now it seemed a lot less fun.

He kept referencing shows he'd done where he'd bombed, blaming it on the audience or area, and all I could think was that he should have learned from that but I doubt he did.

Still that OJ Simpson and Bill Cosby build up was stellar.

I'm more on Apt's side of things here. I enjoyed the first episode, while the second made me feel much like how he describes it.

When it is brilliant though, it's incredibly funny. He's delivery is something special.

[Andorion]

So I have been watchings Agents of Shield and I really like this show. The quality has been pretty impressive Season 2 onwards.

Are any of the other superhero shows worth a watch?

[Aptorian]

Watched half of the second Chapelle show yesterday. I think it's better in some ways. Allthough that bit he did on Vacinnes again just makes me go "What the fuck have you been smoking, Chapelle?". Like mentioned above, you always have to take care to differentiate between the persona of the comedian and the persons real life views, but... I don't think he was joking about being anti-vacinne. I hope his wife got his kids vaccinated.

Andorion, on 20 April 2017 - 06:17 AM, said:

So I have been watchings Agents of Shield and I really like this show. The quality has been pretty impressive Season 2 onwards.

Are any of the other superhero shows worth a watch?

The fact that you like Agents of Shield suggests you'll probably also like Arrow or Flash. But they're all, including Agents of Shield, written so terribly that I think I'd prefer to just sit and stare at a wall for 45 minutes instead.

[Morgoth]

I still haven't finished season 2 of Flash. That thing got awful fast.

[Abyss]

ARROW - varies in quality at times but overall is pretty entertaining. Any episode that bores you you can usually skip and expect to be brought up to speed quickly in the next ep. Generally great fight choreo once you get over him using a compound bow as a staff.
FLASH - S1 is good, so is S2 mostly. S3 has made me want to throw things at the tv, but is generally more entertaining than not.I mean, c'mon... an alien invasion, Gorilla City...
LEGENDS - S1 - watch the first two eps, skip to the last two eps. Then enjoy the hell out of S2.... zombie Union soldiers, nazi spies, the Legion of Doom...
AGENT CARTER - some people swear by this show. I found it lacked enough Marvel superhero anything to hold my attention and left a mediocre spy show with a great lead but nothing else worth watching.
DAREDEVIL - good, not great. Worth watching.
JESSICA JONES / LUKE CAGE / IRON FIST - haven't watched. planning to.

[QuickTidal]

I support The FLASH even when it's not so good. Worth watching SOLELY for Cisco and Wells. Particularly the latter.

[worry]

I'd recommend just running through Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League, and JLU. Perfection!

[Abyss]

worry, on 20 April 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

I'd recommend just running through Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League, and JLU. Perfection!

This, then Young Justice.

[Primateus]

Abyss, on 21 April 2017 - 03:27 AM, said:

worry, on 20 April 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

I'd recommend just running through Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League, and JLU. Perfection!

This, then Young Justice.

And then Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes!

[Primateus]

Also, apparently there's this...

[Abyss]

Primateus, on 21 April 2017 - 06:41 AM, said:

Abyss, on 21 April 2017 - 03:27 AM, said:

worry, on 20 April 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

I'd recommend just running through Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League, and JLU. Perfection!

This, then Young Justice.

And then Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes!

Good call....but avoid Avengers Assemble.

[Aptorian]

Primateus, on 21 April 2017 - 07:03 AM, said:

Also, apparently there's this...

I don't know if I think this will even work in 2017.

I remember reading the Danish One-Shot of Cloak and Dagger. I think it might have been drawn or written by Frank Miller. Or somebody channeling the same attitude Miller brought to Daredevil. It was a dirty, dark and miserable story about Cloak and Dagger being abused people who murdered abusers. It focused on the pimps and drug dealers who prayed upon teenagers coming into the big city, off the bus, people who were innocent and didn't know better. It was sort of like the supernatural Ying/Yang version of Punisher.

This just looks like Young Adult Cloak and Dagger.

Is Cloak and Dagger popular in the current age? I don't think I've even read or seen anything about them since the 80s or 90s.

[Abyss]

They've been in and out of various teams and crossovers, separately and together. Cloak shows up whenever the Avengers need a mass teleporter and the usual other people aren't available/dead/evil/captured.

Safe bet the showrunners are going to ignore everything but the most general concepts from the comics in any event.

As a basic concept for a YA, CW-type show, it's perfect... she's a rich white girl running away from it all, he's a poor Black kid from the streets trying to overcome his circumstances, THEY FIGHT CRIME.
...easily suits a young attractive cast, plenty of room for romantic tension/unrequited love/love triangles/wrong-side-of-the-tracks stories, cheap to shoot because you can use basically any big city anywhere. Enemies are drug dealers, pimps, gangbangers, throw in a PI hired by her family to bring her back and a brother/cousin/best friend of his in a gang and you're set. Minimal fx, and then only some simple shiny and shadowy ones. Cue tv scripting 101. Cash paycheque.


They don't even need huge ratings because it will be so cheap to make, and Marvel shows come with a decent built in audience.




...all of which is to say it could be awful and fail, but it doesn't have to be great to succeed.

[paran falcon]

Briar King, on 24 April 2017 - 08:20 PM, said:

I wasn't to into The Arrangement at 1st but it started getting fairly ok around ep 4. It's not stellar but it has its entertaining moments.

Agreed. We've been watching it to see the female lead get some screen time off TWD. I'm mainly still in at this point to see how strongly they tie the Institute for the Higher Mind to Scientology. Pretty strongly so far, it seems. The show is a Hollywood soap for sure. It doesn't have the comedic charm of the Royals!

This post has been edited by paran falcon: 25 April 2017 - 12:05 AM

[paran falcon]

Briar King, on 24 April 2017 - 09:04 PM, said:

paran falcon, on 24 April 2017 - 08:54 PM, said:

Briar King, on 24 April 2017 - 08:20 PM, said:

I wasn't to into The Arrangement at 1st but it started getting fairly ok around ep 4. It's not stellar but it has its entertaining moments.

Agreed. We've been watching it to see the female lead get some screen time off TWD. I'm mainly still in at this point to see how strongly they tie the Institute for the Higher Mind to Scientology. Pretty strongly so far, it seems. The show is a Hollywood soap for sure. It doesn't have the comedic charm of the Royals!

It's never gonna touch a fraction of the level The Royals has in my heart. It has for sure gotten better since starting. I heard Katie Holmes was super pissed at this show for highlighting her life with Cruise but showrunners deny it's based on that.

S2 was given a go on 4/13.

I can't believe I didn't make the connection that she's supposed to be Katie Holmes. I made the other 2 connections easily enough.