Topic: The TV Show Thread

@RogerRoger Buffy is one of the best. The only reason I watched AoS in the first place was because it was a Mutant Enemy production (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse). I've probably watched Buffy about 20-30 times. I don't know if that says more about me or the show though. I did grow up with it, which considering the show is a metaphor for growing up it was perfect timing for me.
@Tjuz I agree with you on most of what you've said. I still enjoyed every season, and thought they came up with something unique each time, but it was fairly obvious there was budget constraints in later seasons.
In regards to season 1, of the complaint that the show took too long to get interesting - I think it was set up reasonably well. Without spoiling, we needed to see the team for a good half a season before Turn, Turn, Turn. You can't have a big twist a few episodes in when no one cares yet. I adore Fitzsimmons but I didn't much care for them until FZZT, and that was the right amount of time for me to start to get invested in them and get over my initial annoyance.
While everyone was losing their mind over Game of Thrones, Agents of Shield was my Game of Thrones. Eagerly awaiting each week for a new episode to destroy me in all sorts of ways. I had no passion for GoT and all of it for a show most people had given up on.

@RogerRoger Cheers man! I am very jealous of you being able to watch Buffy and Agents of Shield for the first time. Looking forward to seeing what you think.

@RogerRoger I kinda love how incredibly hokey it is. Despite the fact that I’m a 00s kid, my mum had all of Buffy and Angel on VHS so we binged it growing up. We’ve never been one for age ratings, if it’s too violent or whatever then I’d be running out to my bed anyway. Buffy’s just a great character, I like that she isn’t your typical outsider trope but is more friends with Xander and Willow due to not being afraid to speak her mind around Cordelia. Angel’s acting does improve though, he’s like a big meaty cut-out in the first season 😂

@RogerRoger Ahh.. I watched the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer a while ago. I never managed to get myself to continue, though. I'll definitely say that the season gets better as it progresses and it honestly ends on quite the high note. A bit all over the place before that though, but if you're enjoying it already then I don't see why you would suddenly stop! I think episode 10 and 12 were my favourites. It's at least fairly consistent in its tone and humor, which seems to be what you're enjoying the most so far. The very worst part about season one for me was... Willow. I don't even hate her character necessarily, but the actress playing her (Alyson Hannigan) was genuinely terrible throughout. I heard she gets better, but watching her in the first season was like nails on a chalkboard! They're all quite uneven (and occasionally outright awful) with their acting, especially Xander, but she's the only one who really just started to annoy me by just being consistently the worst, haha. I do have quite a soft spot for Sarah Michelle Gellar, even if only because she was amazing in Cruel Intentions. Not Oscar-worthy amazing... just trashy amazing. I definitely should continue some time since I've heard great things about everything after the first season, but 132 episodes remains very intimidating and hard to dedicate yourself to! Props for getting yourself started on that! I'll keep an eye on your thoughts from whenever you get past this season!

@Tjuz Willow does my head in. I don’t know why she speaks in slow motion.

I’ve been binging Arrow. It’s pretty terrible but I’m actually enjoying it. I can even push through my John Barrowman distaste, which is mostly due to him as a person since I actually like him in Doctor Who and Torchwood. It’s not exactly peak TV but it’s serviceable and I’ve always been intrigued by the wider Arrowverse even though I bounced off Arrow back when it first aired. I think it’s better being able to binge it.

@nessisonett I hear Arrow gets better over time, but I bowed out somewhere in season 3. I remember a lot of the acting and dialogue being pretty cheesy, even for a superhero show and it just couldn’t hold my interest. Which is too bad, because the core origin story is a really cracking tale.

@nessisonett I found Arrow way too soapy, it felt like Dawson's Creek with superheroes. Think I gave up 3/4 through the first season and decided couldn't be arsed with the rest of the DC tv stuff either.

@JohnnyShoulder @RogerRoger @nessisonett My goal had been to make it to the point in which Flash is introduced in the Arrowverse and then make the transition over to watching the Flash series, which apparently is much better. However I wasn’t able to survive in Arrow long enough to see Flash integrate and so I never started his show; although I hear it is completely independent and does not rely of knowing the background from Arrow. Still, I’m just a little obsessive about watching things in order.

@JohnnyShoulder Same. I could never get into any of the Arrowverse shows at all. The soap opera-esque structure and production values felt like a really strange direction to take the series in given the source material. Much prefer watching stuff like the MCU-Netflix series or hell anything from the DCAU over the CW shows

Don't even get me started on Riverdale

I like how soapy Arrow is. I’ve binged loads of shows like Justified, Deadwood, Succession and The Borgias recently and just want some stupid fun. Plus I have great memories of the old CW shows from the 00s like The OC, One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl, that aren’t very good and are hugely dodgy now but were soapy af and great fun. Anybody who reads comics knows that 99% of heroes have at least some soapy melodrama in their back catalogue!

@TheFrenchiestFry Yeah much preferred the Marvel stuff on Netflix, although I did stop on the last seasons of each of the shows. I think i may have over indulged on them by watching them back to back. I do tend to finish them off one day. Maybe once I've finished the upcoming season of The Boys.

Arrow is my favourite tv series of all time. TBH I only watch comic book or literature based TV series but I really dig the series so much that I rewatched all of it after it ended! I know that it has flows (power rangers level of cheesiness, some episodes have way more soap opera than they should, writing is lazy, some characters are bland caricatures, the ending is a disservice to the character) but, come one, super hero comics have those aspects too.

As far as "Arrow gets better later", it always felt more of the same just some villains are not that interesting appear occasionally.

@belmont Your right most comic book shows and films have that, but Arrow seem to rely on it way too much rather than just have a sprinkling of melodrama. I don't mind a bit of it, but Arrow was to OTT with it for me.

I’ve got right into Arrow now. It’s just so hokey, I love it. The acting... varies but I do like Oliver and Diggle is great.

@nessisonett I loved arrow, it came to a suitable wacky end with this year's crossover. I mainly got through the early seasons because I knew they'd end up spinning it off and giving us a slightly better justice League than smallville did. I always thought it was the worse of the shows but I always missed it when I wasn't watching it. It just made me laugh a lot. I love barrowman in this show, though I think his character gets better the less he's in it. He's much better when he's put in the crazier situations later on in this and other series.

Diggle is my favourite character though, especially in the earlier seasons, the Ollie/John bromance is something to behold. The show does get a lot better when they add more characters later on. At least in my opinion. The writing gets marginally better, which isn't saying much but at least dialogue stops getting repeated every 12 minutes (after every advert break).

I think what I'm trying to say is, I see every flaw in this show but I still love it nonetheless.

One particular highlight I noticed in a recentish episode is a big fight scene in the police station. To make it more chaotic there's just paper flying everywhere. But there is no source to the paper. It looks like they just set up reams of paper in the ceiling of the set and let them pour down into the action.

@RogerRoger 😂 Sorry about that.

Thankfully, I don't remember spiders being a huge part of the show, so it's probably not something you'll have to worry about seeing too much.

That's probably another reason the remake of Resident Evil would never be for you. There's a section with gigantic tarantulas crawling around everywhere. I don't have a spider phobia, and I even I feel kind of squicked out during that section.

@RogerRoger I totally forgot about the spiders. I hate spiders too but not quite to your extent! @Ralizah is right, REmake made my skin crawl with the spiders.

@RogerRoger But if you skip the intro, you’ll miss the amazing theme song 😢

Can not wait for this! The Haunting of Hill House was terrifyingly excellent!