Topic: The TV Show Thread

@LN78 I've not watched it since it was first one but think I read that it was almost one shot but there's a bit where it goes over a wall where they switched camera but it was still all done in one take.

Maybe playing the games alongside the Last of Us TV show was a mistake, I think episode 6 is probably a fine piece of television in a vacuum, but man I just watched this so confused by why they made so many changes that didn't really alter anything in any meaningful way. Like I'd rather a shot for shot remake than changes for the sake of changes.

I also think that that really powerful scene between Joel and Ellie, 'You are not my daughter...' is just wasted here. Firstly, they weirdly changed the dialogue which doesn't enhance anything it just makes it sound like someone is recounting the scene they saw ages ago from memory but also because of how the TV show is paced, so much of what Joel and Ellie had been through by that point in the game has never made it to the TV show, so this scene just feels sorta weird.

They've also made pretty massive alterations to Joel's characterisation too, maybe as some sort of pre-emptive brace for when they need to start adapting Part 2, but as a show I am watching right now, this version of Joel is a seriously lesser version of the one in the games.

It is a show as the performances are fine, I think Ramsey and Pascal have pretty good chemistry, but this is starting to feel more like a trailer for the game rather than a real show.

@LN78 It was the first time I really became aware of the idea of a continuous shot before and it is amazing to see it come off like that. It must also be great for the actors to be a part of too, so long as there aren’t too many takes!

I was trying to think of other examples last night and came up with Charlie Work from IASIP which has a fantastic sequence (I ended up watching the episode again last night after thinking about it).

And then the penultimate, and for me best, episode of The Bear is all one shot and must have taken some serious effort. If you’ve not seen it, the series is worth watching just for that episode in my opinion.

@Thrillho
Mr Robot had an entire episode edited to look like one take. And it was a wild one too, transitions to aerial shots, switching perspectives, etc. Plus it all served a serious story telling purpose as the events of that episode were pure chaos and that helped exemplify it. Theres cuts of course and some elements of it that could clearly only have been pulled off with CGI but it can be very difficult to determine where all the cuts are specifically. All in all I am baffled more people don't talk about Mr Robot. That show was a masterpiece from start to finish.

@PegasusActual93 Oh yes, that episode of Mr Robot was mind blowing. I know a few people that started it but didn't stick with it for various reasons.

@JohnnyShoulder
Shame for them, not only is it one of the most impressively shot and edited shows I have ever seen but it is one of the few pieces of recent media I have seen that actually has meaningful social commentary about modern society instead of pretending it's deep when it's not.

@PegasusActual93 I’d forgotten about Mr Robot. I’ve only seen the first episode as the wife wasn’t interested in it (like anything decent) but now I’m on a roll with programmes I’ll have to add that to the list.

Over the last month or so I’ve got through Sandman, Better Call Saul S1, What We Do in the Shadows S1, Good Omens, and just finished S2 of BCS last night!

Just finished watching season 8 of The Walking Dead. Can't believe that I've managed to pick the show up after so many years of not watching it. It definitely took a long time to find out where I stopped watching and then find it enjoyable again, which I did halfway through season 8.

But yeah, this was a fantastic season and it ended very well. Lots of stuff happened and a lot of it was really memorable. I remember now why I fell in love with this show years ago, it's just so good. So many great characters, excellent writing and in general just cool stuff happening all the time.

I also have to say that Negan has become one of my favourite villains of all time. He's honestly the most interesting one that I've seen since the Joker. And it's crazy that after six seasons, the show runners introduced a character like that that makes the show instantly more captivating to watch. Because after six seasons, most shows just become stale but not this one. I'm very impressed by that, major kudos to the show runners for pulling that off.

I also finished DC's Stargirl season 2 but I don't have much to say about it. Another good season but it's now become a show on the same level as other superhero shows that I've watched, i.e. nothing special. Great show to watch if you want something chill.

That said, I'm actually quite unsure what to watch next on HBO. I think I want to take a break from The Walking Dead (not a long one this time!) and explore other shows on the service. I'll probably continue with season 3 of Stargirl since, like I said, it's a chill show to watch. Maybe I'll finally start up Chernobyl or Band of Brothers this time alongside Stargirl.

@LtSarge
Chernobyl or Band of Brothers would be wise choices as a miniseries would be a welcome pallet cleanser. If remember correctly you were the one I gave that recommended list to so it's all up to you.

@Thrillho @LN78 yeah, I recommend Russian Ark for an example of a fairly cool continuous shot film. I have to admit I've only seen it because of a Russian history class I was taking but even still it's an engaging watch from a technical standpoint, and historical if you're into that as it guides you through the different eras of modern Russian history.

Bubblegum Crisis (Blu-Ray)

80's anime OVA (original video animation) that follows the Knight Sabers, a group of women with power armor, who combat Genom, a corrupt robotics company illegally manufacturing military grade androids called "Boomers", by night in a cyberpunk flavored Tokyo.

Animation is kinda rough in the first part, but it gets better & better with each one & I'd say by part 4 it's really at the top of it's game (plus the whole aesthetic is just awesome & much superior to what the anime industry turns out these days IMO). Definitely some "Terminator" & "Blade Runner" influences, but again as it goes on I think it definitely makes a mark of it's own.

In terms of narrative it ultimately doesn't reach a stark conclusion, with parts 1-3 & 5-6 being the only ones that really act as connected little arcs (with parts 4, 7, & 8 kinda being the most independent stories), but honestly I found the latter parts to be more enjoyable overall even if they're more standalone (maybe save part 6 for last if you want a sense of completion. Without getting too spoilery, it seems like it leaves Genom in the worst spot out of all of them). I watched it dubbed in English, which while technically bad due to age, gave it a certain charm.

Fun Easter Egg: Near the start of I think part 3, a character brings up a map of the city on a computer screen, and all the points listed on it are "Top Gun" references, such as Hollywood, Tom Cruise, Kelly McGinnis, Maverick, & Goose.

Kandagawa Jet Girls (Blu-Ray)

Hoping to follow in her mother's footsteps as a professional in the sport, Rin Namiki decides to move from her small home town to attend high school in Tokyo in the hopes that it'll have a Jet (Ski) Racing Club. Problem is the school shuttered the program years ago & to have any hopes of reviving it she'll have to win the support of fellow classmate Misa Aoi, a former prodigy who gave up the sport after mysterious circumstances.

Honestly the story is pretty much fluff about the power of friendship (& all the girls introduced are walking tropes, with the rich girls, the delinquents, the American weebs, the idols, the shrine maidens, etc). That's okay though as it's really just an excuse to have a bunch of anime girls in wetsuits, bikinis, or nothing at all (expect to see at least one scene in every episode, usually a bathing one, dedicated to detailed breast shots). It's far from high art, but it's not trying to be & delivers on what it IS trying to do, so it's hard to find much fault in it unless the idea itself is off-putting to you (which is understandable).

That said, credit where credit is due, the actual racing can be fun & it nails that summertime fun in the sun vibe aesthetically (you get a real sense that the studio has an appreciation of nature, especially the episodes spent at Rin's small seaside town).

I decided to check it out after playing the game tie in (available on Steam & PS4), which was actually pretty fun if easy.

Interesting spin on the Left Behind DLC for last week's episode of The Last of Us (that I only just got around to watching). I think I preferred the performances in game, but I actually think the story was helped somewhat by the remixes and tweaks this episode makes. I think some of the other faithful episodes just feel like worse versions of the levels in the game, especially as the show feels really rushed when you have the context of the games in mind. This is one of the examples where I think they did a good job between staying faithful and making improvements, and it was paced well enough that it didn't feel like I was just watching cliff notes.

So with Alex Murdaugh getting sent down for the murder of both his wife & son I watched the Netflix documentary- Murdaugh Murders.

That whole family is just rotten to the core.
5 ‘deaths’ in the span of 6 years. It’s insane how rich & powerful people can believe they’re above the law.

The docu-series is an insightful watch into the case, but episode 1 is definitely a hard one to watch (in the worst possible way). I think it hits even harder with how recent everything is. It seems like the guy is broke but I hope the families do get a payout at the end of this.

Caught an ad for Ted Lasso season 3. Looks like I might have to get Apple TV for a month when it launches. It looks like they might have upped the budget for the football scenes.

@Fight_Teza_Fight I mean they kinda are above the law up to a point. Like it took this guy full on murdering his wife and son to see any consequences. Learning, like pretty much everyone else, that all these other deaths are tied to that family and no one was really looking into it is fairly disturbing. Or maybe they were but what were we waiting on the body count to reach exactly? 7 apparently. And just goes to show what money and power (same thing I guess) can buy you unfortunately.

@zupertramp If someone had told me that this was this was the plot for the latest Dark Pictures Anthology game I’d believe them.
The whole thing is just so unbelievable, that you have to suspend your disbelief like in a movie or a game.
To think that something like this can happen in this day & age is insane. Just makes you wonder what else is going on.

Finished watching Chernobyl on HBO Max. Fantastic mini-series! As a person who didn't know much about the incident, I feel like I learned so much about it from this show. Not to mention that they managed to mix history with drama and mystery, which made the show much more interesting to watch. Instead of just a retelling of the events, it felt like its own story. And I'm glad that they showed what happened before, during and after the incident. It was very interesting to see the aftermath and after watching the show, you get a good picture of what an absolute nightmare it must've been to handle this situation. Moreover, they gave very detailed and informative explanations of how the disaster occurred and I appreciate that, even if I had a bit of a hard time to keep up with all the information lol.

In short, it's an absolutely phenomenal show and I highly recommend watching it.

Currently watching season 1 of Babylon 5 on Tubi and little bit of Eureka Season 3 this coming week for blu ray.

also anyone by the way still remember the old Alien Nation show? i remember trying to watch the show when it was on WGN or TBS back then but then Sci Fi Channel stole it lol.

I only remember the movie anyway

@XandertheWise I only remember Alien Nation vaguely, both the series and film, as I remember my father watching it back in the day.

Another week, another episode of The Last of Us where I think the pacing really hurts this show. I rarely think things are too fast, honestly, most things could do with hurrying up a bit, but this just always feels so rushed. I really thought playing the games would enhance my experience, but all it does is make you realise how much this show is missing.

When playing the game, you may not appreciate just how important the combat encounters are as pacing mechanisms and story drivers/context providers. You may think some have just been tossed in there to offset any predicted complaints about all the walking and talking sections, rather than them having some grander purpose. It took an adaptation of this story with basically none of the combat encounters, to truly appreciate how important they are.

I now realise in Part 2 how much is lost when the combat encounters and the wider narrative exist in two isolated vacuums from one another. Part 1 so expertly created combat encounters where each one was vital to the wider narrative, feeding directly into it, with each encounter providing another ember to the fire that forges so much of the meaning and power behind the way in which characters and bonds develop throughout the story. Without these encounters, the journey has almost no weight, or meaning. When characters talk about all they have been through, we can relate because of all the stuff we have overcome as a player, when bonds between characters become forged in iron, we believe in this because we know all they have survived together.

The TV show is a version of the same story where almost all of the combat encounters have for some reason been removed, but little of the story or the dialogue has been altered to reflect this change. This makes many developments in the story feel meaningless.

Characters in the show remark about how much has happened, exactly as their game counterparts have. But those game counterparts are reflecting upon long combat or environmental puzzle encounters the player has helped them overcome. This has given us time with these characters, and also shared experiences we have grown through together. When none of that is present, we have characters that feel like they have been on the screen for mere moments, reminiscing about things the audience has never experienced in this version of the story, so the comments feel hollow and weightless. So much of the TV version of the story feels unearned, cheap and out of left field because of this odd way of adapting and pacing this series.

At least in my opinion, anyway.