[JPK]

Tsundoku, on 16 July 2023 - 11:38 AM, said:

Season 5 of What we do in the shadows - aw yeah!

I'm so happy it's back, and that they've

Spoiler

officially added Kristen Schall's Guide as a regular in the opening!

. I've been on a TV high note of late with this, It's Always Sunny, and The Righteous Gemstones all coming back.

[Slow Ben]

Hells yes. Also pumped for Season 2 of Good Omens. July 27.


Anybody tried either Silo or Foundation on AppleTv?

[QuickTidal]

First ep of FUTURAMA (Hulu; Season 8) is up and it's really solid! Less the meandering multi-part movie attempts of the last bash at the can and more like the early seasons on Fox. If they can keep this up all season, that will make for great TV

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 July 2023 - 04:16 PM

[Tsundoku]

Invincible Season 2

[Cause]

Tsundoku, on 25 July 2023 - 10:38 AM, said:

Invincible Season 2

Be sure to watch the 1 hour special episode about atom eves past that is already out.

[QuickTidal]

Been doing a "have it on in the background" rewatch of THE OFFICE, where I just let it pay while I'm doing other stuff...and I think I have solidified some opinions on the show overall.

- Phyllis is the worst person in the office. Like by a LONG stretch. She's petty and vindictive on a level that makes even Angela look sympathetic when they are at each other's throats. Her constant need to stand behind Bob Vance as a shield against anything that bothers her. The way she treats Karen. Her room-clearing farts. Her stinky perfume. At very few points do I feel sorry for her and the way Michael sometimes treats her.

- Dwight has the BEST character growth in the series that's not Michael (his character growth will always be tops), you watch him get the thing he wants so badly (being Regional Manager) 3 times, and they are a progression of failure until he finally nails that management role in the end. This comes with realizing that Pam is and maybe always has been his best friend at the office, and he and Jim becoming tight friends after realizing that their rivalry was silly and immature.

- Jim is portrayed as this level headed dude just lumped in with the crazies. Every time he looks at the camera you're meant to think "he's me, watching the cringe"....but he has MANY points where he's terrible to people. The ones I can recall are when he comes back to Scranton in the merge and Toby holds his fist out for a bump and Jim makes fun of him for it, or when Andy (post-anger management) asks him to refer to him as Drew and Jim just flatly refuses...like they are little things, but they come from a superiority that it takes him almost the whole show till Michael leaves to finally abandon.

- I am CONVINCED that Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak wrote Ryan and Kelly as horndogs who could not keep their hands off each other in the later seasons intentionally so they could make out...(not to mention I think he's the unrevealed father of her two kids IRL)...and on that same note, if you look up the episodes that Kaling wrote...every single episode in the Darryl & Kelly relationship arc is something she wrote....which again, has to be intentional. I'm not commenting on this for any other reason than the fact that the on/off Kelly/Ryan thing was insufferable the longer it went on...like we get it, Kelly obsesses over him and he treats her like garbage until he can't have her.

- Pam & Jim's story dovetailed when they got married, and everything after that feels like conflict for conflicts' sake and goes out of its way to make one or the other intentionally carry the idiot ball for the conflict to work. The worst of this is the camera guy plot line, Brian?....yeah that was terrible.

- Will Ferrel is TERRIBLE and shows you exactly that Will Ferrell's comedy is one-note SNL "rage" shit that simply doesn't work....but he's beyond insufferable here and I'm so glad they killed him off. Idris Elba's Charles is similarly insufferable, but at least Elba is a solid actor...I still skip those episodes as I feel that Wallace did Michael dirty by hiring Charles. I also HATE Nellie...and this comes from someone who really enjoys Cat Tate in her English comedy and her role on DOCTOR WHO....Nellie is a stupid character, and she only gets stupider. The concept that she could just "take" Andy's job by sitting in his chair and proclaiming it so...nonsense that takes me out of the show....nevermind that Andy gets a TONNE of growth, which all gets thrown out the window when he goes to do the boat thing and when he comes back he's Andy of the post-Stamford/Scranton merger al over again. It's like what they did to Barney on HIMYM final season. I understand that Ed Helm's career prompted some of that, but still....

- Episodes I intentionally skip because they annoy me or are too cringy: Scott's Totts, Did I stutter?, Benihana Christmas, The Banker (clip show), and the Mafia one. I also only watch the Robert California eps from S8, and I think like 3 from S9...but for there most part once Michael leaves, I jump back to the beginning of the show again and ignore that S8 and 9 even exist.

[Tiste Simeon]

Last time I watched the Office through, I skipped all of season 8 and all except the last 4 episodes of season 9. I didn't feel like I missed anything tbh. Also how they changed Andy's character really annoys me.

It's a good show overall but the English original will forever be superior no matter how annoying I find Ricky Gervais as a person.

[Slow Ben]

Pretty accurate QT.

The only part of Will Ferrell character that’s funny is his first meeting with Michael where they don’t realize they’re meeting each other. Nosedives after that.

[Tsundoku]

28 Sep? Awwwww, but I don't wanna wait that long

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 29 July 2023 - 10:42 AM

[Abyss]

Tsundoku, on 29 July 2023 - 10:41 AM, said:

28 Sep? Awwwww, but I don't wanna wait that long

Surprised they only took 2 years to get out from under Ellis' shadow.

[Mentalist]

Episode 2 of nu-Futurama is a marked improvement.
Maybe this season won't suck.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tiste Simeon, on 02 July 2023 - 07:35 PM, said:

Yes... A lot of it doesn't age too well - I rewatched it recently and while I still laughed lots, there was more stuff there that made me wince then there was back when I first watched it. Though an argument could be said for the individual journeys of (especially) JD and Turk show them to become a lot more respectful towards women.

They actually bring it up a bit on the Scrubs rewatch podcast they started in COVID, and Bill Lawrence (show creator) comes on quite a bit. It seems they've all grown up a bit themselves and Bill seems to be a Hollywood good guy (if such a thing exists!)

I hope you make it to the end, there's some very funny stuff in S8, and it contains the best (in my admittedly very biased opinion) finale in a show ever.

Season 9 does not exist.

We made it to the end of series 8 I think taking a break from it was just the thing (it coincided with the definite slump in series 7 too).

Lovely ending, genuinely really enjoyed it. Love the corridor and projector bits.

I am reliably also informed that series 9 does not in fact exist!

[Tsundoku]

Abyss, on 01 August 2023 - 02:39 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 29 July 2023 - 10:41 AM, said:

28 Sep? Awwwww, but I don't wanna wait that long

Surprised they only took 2 years to get out from under Ellis' shadow.

Not sure what you mean there.

[Abyss]

Tsundoku, on 07 August 2023 - 09:13 AM, said:

Abyss, on 01 August 2023 - 02:39 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 29 July 2023 - 10:41 AM, said:

28 Sep? Awwwww, but I don't wanna wait that long

Surprised they only took 2 years to get out from under Ellis' shadow.

Not sure what you mean there.

Warren Ellis wrote or consulted on all of the original Castlevania series.

[Tsundoku]

Abyss, on 08 August 2023 - 04:54 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 07 August 2023 - 09:13 AM, said:

Abyss, on 01 August 2023 - 02:39 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 29 July 2023 - 10:41 AM, said:

28 Sep? Awwwww, but I don't wanna wait that long

Surprised they only took 2 years to get out from under Ellis' shadow.

Not sure what you mean there.

Warren Ellis wrote or consulted on all of the original Castlevania series.

Ah, ok. Must have overlooked that. So he has nothing to do with the new one?
Are you going with that being a good thing or a bad thing? Wasn't sure of the tone of your post.

Hey, didn't he do that Freakangels webcomic - the one that was totally awesome until it most definitely wasn't?
Or is that bringing up painful memories for you?
EDIT: huh, Crunchyroll did an "anime" version apparently, which gets not-quite-middling reviews. So there you go.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 08 August 2023 - 06:51 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 07 August 2023 - 08:11 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 02 July 2023 - 07:35 PM, said:

Yes... A lot of it doesn't age too well - I rewatched it recently and while I still laughed lots, there was more stuff there that made me wince then there was back when I first watched it. Though an argument could be said for the individual journeys of (especially) JD and Turk show them to become a lot more respectful towards women.

They actually bring it up a bit on the Scrubs rewatch podcast they started in COVID, and Bill Lawrence (show creator) comes on quite a bit. It seems they've all grown up a bit themselves and Bill seems to be a Hollywood good guy (if such a thing exists!)

I hope you make it to the end, there's some very funny stuff in S8, and it contains the best (in my admittedly very biased opinion) finale in a show ever.

Season 9 does not exist.

We made it to the end of series 8 I think taking a break from it was just the thing (it coincided with the definite slump in series 7 too).

Lovely ending, genuinely really enjoyed it. Love the corridor and projector bits.

I am reliably also informed that series 9 does not in fact exist!

Huzzah! Tidbit in case you didn't know, the janitor that pulls the sign down (the one that all the "future" was projected onto) is Bill Lawrence, creator of the show.

[Abyss]

Tsundoku, on 08 August 2023 - 06:42 AM, said:

Abyss, on 08 August 2023 - 04:54 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 07 August 2023 - 09:13 AM, said:

Abyss, on 01 August 2023 - 02:39 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 29 July 2023 - 10:41 AM, said:

28 Sep? Awwwww, but I don't wanna wait that long

Surprised they only took 2 years to get out from under Ellis' shadow.

Not sure what you mean there.

Warren Ellis wrote or consulted on all of the original Castlevania series.

Ah, ok. Must have overlooked that. So he has nothing to do with the new one?
Are you going with that being a good thing or a bad thing? Wasn't sure of the tone of your post.

Hey, didn't he do that Freakangels webcomic - the one that was totally awesome until it most definitely wasn't?
Or is that bringing up painful memories for you?
EDIT: huh, Crunchyroll did an "anime" version apparently, which gets not-quite-middling reviews. So there you go.

He has nothing to do w the new one and it's interesting bcs - hearsay and conjecture and rumour tell me - he was supposed to, then his behaviour became public knowledge and suddenly the producer and him went quiet about it. I can't say whether it's a good thing or bad thing for the show, undoubtedly it's a bad thing for him since he apparently did very well on the money and promotion the first series gave him, but my sympathy is limited. I can separate the work i enjoyed before the revelations from the artist well enough. FREAKANGELS was his in all its good and bad glory. I've never watched the anime.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 10 August 2023 - 04:12 AM, said:

then his behaviour became public knowledge and suddenly the producer and him went quiet about it. I

Quiet about it perhaps initially, he then went on to work with the (I hazard to call them victims...what he did was more serial dating [in all but name], and used his (limited) power differential in the industry to achieve said serial dating...but none of that is a crime, just shitty player behaviour) women involved for like 6months I think? Then all of the sudden the olive branches and mea culpa's he was offering up started to be rejected by some amongst those women, and he pulled back from it as a result of what became a pretty untenable situation. A deep dive into it recently landed me on the side of "Some of the women involved don't want to heal and move on, they want him to suffer and let everything fester"....the people he seemingly had the longest relationships with have long since forgiven him as his contrition was high, and his payment in the industry deep. Katie West (probably his most well known "muse" in such a fashion had gone on record (in now deleted tweets) that SHE instigated their sexually charged relationship).

Was it right for these people to call him out on this? Sure if they were that upset over his serial dating and attentions to multiple women at once unbeknownst to them individually. No one was underage as far as I can tell, and nothing illegal occurred. I'm unsure why this had to happen publicly through as the stated intent of that website they created was "not to cancel him, but to work with him to get through this and have him understand their POV"...you don't use that as your callout websites' tagline if there's anything happening here that was not just "Asshole industry player, played women, and got caught being a serial dater/sex addict"...and frankly the whole thing stinks...serial dating is asshole behaviour, for sure...but the notion that someone not confessing to you that they are also talking to other women in the same way they are talking to you because "you felt you were the only one, and thus special"....is a tale as old as fucking time. This isn't new.

TL:DR: a deep dive into this has allowed me to forgive Ellis his cadish behaviour as he made inroads as much as he could to those he hurt, it's just that some of them refuse to work to move past it and seem to like the constant goal posts moving to keep the whole thing rolling along. I can see him as an asshole (possibly reformed) and still know that PLANETARY AND TRANSMET is some of the best fiction I've ever consumed.

Shrug. There are people called out by the MeToo movement that did criminal things, Ellis is not one of them as far as I can tell, he's just a pervy asshole.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 10 August 2023 - 01:05 PM, said:

attentions to multiple women at once unbeknownst to them individually

So parallel dating?

[Edit:

So both poles of Monstrosity....

]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 August 2023 - 06:41 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Finished watching Deadloch. Not one of the greatest tv shows ever, but I found it mildly interesting and moderately entertaining. While the plot meanders a bit, it was rarely a slog.

The most interesting thing about it is the sociology of the setting---a small town in Tasmania that a large number of lesbians have moved to in about the last five years (despite homophobic patriarchal townsfolk), that's now holding a 'Feastival'. There are also Indigenous people who feature prominently, though not among the main leads (one is Fijian-Indian, but that means 'person from Fiji of (India) Indian ethnicity').

The murder mystery is mildly interesting---poetically grisly description without excessively graphic depiction---and the plot is relatively original.

There's lots of obvious humor, but it's hackneyed, rarely witty, and generally not delivered well. With some actors making unrealistic silly faces and overdoing the body language while underdoing the vocal delivery (treating the obvious jokes like throw-away lines).

Overall I found it worth watching.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 August 2023 - 01:11 PM