Topic: The TV Show Thread

@PegasusActual93 Funnily enough it’s the first thing I look for when someone is playing a game on a show. The light bar being off is a dead a give away & you can tell by inputs if the actors are actually playing the game or exaggerating (The Big Bang Theory). I still think that the South Park episode ‘Make Love not Warcraft’ is the most accurate representation of video games on TV😂.

@LN78 I’m about halfway through the second season & it’s still got me to be fair. It can’t be worse than Lucifer I watched that show for 6 seasons straight religiously (no pun intended) & then dropped the last couple of episodes.

@LN78
Regarding Velma the whole "offend everyone equally" thing only works if you have the quality writing to back it up. South Park for example doesn't always stick the landing but their writing in general even at their weakest is still miles above this trash fire. I haven't bothered watching Velma and never will as the random clips I've seen tell me everything I need to know but what really irks me is that I can't figure out who the target audience of this thing is. It purposefully alienates Scooby Doo fans, it annoys conservatives, annoys liberals, annoys moderates, it's like they purposefully formulated this show in a lab with the express scientific purpose to see if it's possible to make a series that appeals to exactly no one. Who greenlit this?

@PegasusActual93 @LN78 it seems the Great Dane himself has dodged a bullet by not being in this show. Everywhere online this thing is being ripped apart.

So I was not expecting this…

Show imitates Game. *Insert Spider Man meme.
It’s actually gone up since then to a 98.

I was going to wait until all the episodes are out, but the hype is getting to me.

Anyone there Day 1?

@LN78 I’m still confused by Craig Mazin suddenly being described as a talent. Chernobyl is the one good thing he’s been involved in, the guy’s responsible for writing and directing Superhero Movie and he wrote the Hangover sequels as well as Scary Movie 3 and 4. It seems more like he’s someone utterly talentless who was surrounded by a great team at HBO. Absolutely nothing else he’s been involved in has shown even a modicum of talent.

Cowboy Bebop (Blu-Ray)

Wow... just wow.

This was one of those series that holds a nostalgic quality for me because it used to be on Adult Swim in the early 00's when I started watching the block, but it seemed to be one of those shows they aired so often that I kinda got bored with it eventually.

That being, it's been over a decade since I gave it a watch (especially one where I was really paying attention) so I decided to plop down for the Blu-Ray release (Like I've been doing for a lot of anime I grew up with like Evangelion, InuYasha, Outlaw Star, etc.), and it absolutely blew me away.

It's thematically a very beautiful show, and maybe there was a bit of nostalgia amplifying things, but the episodes that delved into Spike & Faye's back stories often had me in tears (don't think anything hit me as hard as when Ed left the group though), but that said I had forgotten just how fun the show could be as well (Heavy Metal Queen, Toys in the Attic, Cowboy Funk, & Pirrou le Fou are just some of the most fun, & sometimes creepy episodes).

Still has a cool sense of style as well, at times still being very anime (like the cool ship designs & space battles), while at other times being unlike any other anime at all (it feels very western throughout, in a good way).

@RR529
I will always prefer the convenience of modern day streaming for obvious reasons but those experiences of watching things on late night cable from the 2000's into the early 2010's like anime on Adult Swim or just odd movies I would otherwise have never heard of is an experience I will always look back on fondly.

I was optimistic going in but damn that first episode of The Last of Us was everything I could have wished for. It hit every mark from the opening to that use of Depeche Mode at the very end. Good stuff.

Probably won’t bother watching the rest of The Last of Us after the first episode. It’s competent for sure, but not really for me.

@nessisonett as @LN78 mentioned, the fact that all other reactions to the show have been so overwhelmingly positive… your reaction is interesting. How did you feel about the game itself?

Well done to them for doing a good job with the adaption. I don't mind revisiting a great story in a different form of media but Naughty Dog's games feel like interactive films already. Considering how spoilt for choice we are these days, it's an easy pass from me.

@LN78 @colonelkilgore I think Ness has mentioned in the past that they don’t like the world & themes of the last of us. I mean we know where it’s going & I can imagine Neil & Craig really doubling down & showcasing the absolute worst in humanity by the time we get to the end of season 2.
I’ve not seen it yet though, so it might just be crap!

So the runtime is over 80min for the first episode. Is that common with HBO shows? I was expecting 45, 55-60 max.

If every episode is that long that would put season 1 at 12 hours. That is pretty much the time to beat the game.
We know that TLOU2 will be split into 2 seasons especially as they want to flesh out the Seraphites (& the other new faction that was introduced in 2).
They’re going to run out of source material well before TLOU3 release (2026/7 at the earliest?).
Factions will supposedly have story elements so that’s something & I guess they could do a prequel season.

Would Neil spoil TLOU3 via the show? He probably has an outline of the story already.

@LN78 Hope that’s the case. As much as I love TLOU that’s a tough 1 sitting commitment per episode.

@LN78 @colonelkilgore I enjoyed the gameplay of the game but I just felt like the story was a bit bog standard separated from the gameplay. Like, the whole section with Sarah didn’t hit anywhere near as hard without having you as a player controlling her and experiencing it through her eyes. It’s the problem with a lot of video game adaptations, the story might be good in the context of video games but when you take it to Hollywood, it doesn’t stand out in any conceivable way. Like I said, it’s well made, but it didn’t grab me at all. I guess that was my feelings on Chernobyl too but I lasted to the end with that.

@Fight_Teza_Fight The first episode is longer than the rest. They kind of mashed two episodes together for the first one as they felt it worked better that way.

@nessisonett fair enough… makes sense that if you weren’t a massive fan of the games narrative that it wouldn’t hit for you in a TV show also (as long as it’s faithful). I get it though, I actually think the first game’s narrative quality is overstated (imho anyway) and much prefer the sequel’s story for what it’s worth.

@PegasusActual93, yeah, I don't think I've ever really made an attempt to follow Adult Swim (& other linear TV) in years, but man when late spring/early summer comes around & the nights are thick & humid & the fans are slowly whirring it immediately brings me back to that first summer as a young teen staying up late to watch anime on AS (I think the lineup at the time was InuYasha, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, & Lupin III part 2. Oh, and something called Witch Hunter Robin which I don't think we ever watched for whatever reason. Odd too, as now that I think of it I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned in any anime circles, despite all the old AS anime usually being nostalgic for at least a few people).

I’m trying to hold out on The Last of Us so I can binge a few episodes at a time. They worked really well for Andor. But all this hype has me itching to just watch week to week with the rest of the world. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, as an idle time filler I tried that new National Treasure show on D+. Worst TV that I’ve seen in recent memory. Crossing that off the list to ever watch again. Just horrible. Disney has botched a few shows based on beloved IP here lately (Willow also getting panned, although I haven’t watched it yet). I am excited about some of the 2023 output though with Loki, Mando 3, and Secret Invasion. Also curious about the Black Panther spinoff, but I need to watch Wakanda Forever first (waiting for it to drop onto D+)

@LN78 I’ve actually enjoyed a lot of the Marvel shows (chiefly Loki, WandaVision, and Moon Knight), and I did like Mandalorian. Andor has set a new standard though and here’s hoping it’s a sign of things to come.

They say this show Secret Invasion is akin to the Winter Soldier movie with the whole espionage angle, and that was probably in my top 5 Marvel movies, if not top 3. It might be a swing back toward a more complex drama and away from the whole focus on levity like She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel and the recent movies like Love and Thunder.

So regarding TLoU, is my distaste for its ultra sharp, hyper clean look a generational thing? Because I can find very few complaints about this. And so I'm wondering, am I just old and used to movies with a softer picture, more shadows, less light? Like it has the look of a documentary or something, even down to the shaky camera work. Does this not distract anyone else? Just curious.